Li’s firm to buy Telstra unit in HK for US$2.4b
Print Edition
Australia’s Telstra said yesterday that it was selling its Hong Kong mobile phone business to Hong Kong billionaire Richard Li’s telecom company in a deal worth US$2.4 billion.
Telstra Corp said it would earn about A$2 billion (US$1.8 billion) from selling its 76.4 percent stake in CSL to Li’s HKT Ltd, which is also buying the other 23.6 percent from another company, New World Development.
The deal allows Li’s company, which already owns a separate mobile operator, to beef up its presence in the city’s saturated mobile market. It also lets Telstra make a profitable exit ahead of a shakeup by the city’s telecommunications regulator aimed at boosting competition.
Telstra CEO David Thodey said in a statement: “There are a number of dynamics in the Hong Kong mobiles market that means this is the right opportunity for Telstra to maximize our return on this successful asset.”
The city’s telecommunications regulator plans to take back a third of the spectrum from four current license holders after they expire and auction it off, a move that will allow China Mobile to acquire its own spectrum. Beijing-based China Mobile, which is the world’s largest mobile phone firm with more than 750 million subscribers, currently leases bandwidth from rivals.
The sale will help HKT compete for business in Hong Kong, which had 16.7 million mobile accounts as of June, more than double the population of 7.1 million.
HKT said after the deal the company would have 31 percent of Hong Kong’s market.
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