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Wireless company ridicules report of PRC buyout plan

Asia Pacific Broadband Wireless Communications Inc (亞太行動寬頻) yesterday denied reports China Unicom Ltd (中國聯通) is planning an NT$6 billion (US$181.9 million) buyout through foreign private equity funds.

"The buyout price was too far fetched, considering that we have NT$16 billion in capital, an investment of NT$10.5 billion spent on the CDMA [code-division multiple access] license, and our subscriber base of more than 1 million users," a public relations official at the local mobile operator said on condition of anonymity.

He said the company is open to discussions and has been approached by foreign equity funds, but he refused to comment on the reported China Unicom deal.

According to reports in yesterday's Chinese-language Economic Daily News and Commercial Times, China Unicom has commissioned foreign equity funds to buy Asia Pacific Broadband for NT$6 billion.

As Chinese investment in Taiwan is banned, China Unicom would have to seek a third party's help with the acquisition to bypass the rule. If the investment rules are relaxed within the next two years, it could pave the way for China Unicom to take full control of Asia Pacific Broadband, the newspapers said.

Equity funds that have reportedly expressed interest in the deal include Merrill Lynch, Macquarie Bank, Deutsche Bank and Pinetree Capital Ltd.

Both China Unicom and Asia Pacific Broadband use the CDMA standard, which enables high-speed transmission similar to the third-generation (3G) technology adopted by Taiwan's major telecoms players.

China Unicom said last month that the number of subscribers to its GSM mobile service had risen to 105.87 million as of the end of December, from 104.97 million at the end of November.

Subscribers to its CDMA service totaled 36.49 million at the end of December, compared with 36.13 million at the end of November, it said. Of this, billed CDMA subscribers increased by 3.44 million last year, with prepaid users up by 327,000.

Asia Pacific Broadband expects its subscriber base to expand by more than 30 percent to 1.38 million users this year, its chairman Wang Lin-tai (王令台) said in December.
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