Taiwan Mobile Co (台灣大哥大), the nation's third-largest telecom operator, plans to sell its holdings in bigger rival Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) by the end of this year to increase its non-operating profits, a company executive said yesterday.
"We plan to sell another 500 million shares ... on the local stock market by the end of this year," Taiwan Mobile chairman Daniel Tsai (
Taiwan Mobile said last month that it would sell 100 million shares of state-run Chunghwa in the form of American Depositary Receipts, joining the government's latest sale of 800 million shares in Chunghwa Telecom scheduled for this quarter.
Taiwan Mobile currently owns a total of 150 million shares.
Separately, Chunghwa Telecom is set to open 44 "popular" mobile phone numbers for bidding today, with minimum prices ranging from NT$480 to NT$3,000. A total of 22 numbers for second-generation (2G) mobile phone services and 22 numbers for the 3G system will be auctioned at 10am at the company's flagship store in Taipei.
Proceeds will be donated to the Taiwan Fund for Children and Families. Winners of the 3G numbers will be required to sign a contract with the company, but the 2G number winners will not.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
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