Singapore Telecommunications Ltd (Singtel) agreed to pay S$2.47 billion (US$1.8 billion) for stakes in Thailand’s Intouch Holdings PLC and India’s Bharti Telecom Ltd to broaden access to fast-growing wireless markets in Asia and Africa.
Singtel is to pay 60.83 baht (US$1.76) per share for a 21 percent holding in Intouch and 235.62 rupees (US$3.53) a share for 7.39 percent of Bharti Telecom in cash to Temasek Holdings Pte, Singapore’s state-owned investment firm, the carrier said in a statement yesterday.
The transaction is to be funded through short-term debt and a S$1.605 billion placement of shares to Temasek, according to the announcement.
The deal deepens Singtel’s footholds in Thailand and India, where the shift in users to smartphones is driving up demand for data services. Intouch is the biggest shareholder in Advanced Info Service PLC, Thailand’s largest wireless carrier, while Bharti is the largest stake owner of Bharti Airtel Ltd, India’s No. 1 mobile phone operator.
The transaction is unlikely to result in a big shift in control of the market because Singtel is buying the stakes from its majority owner, Temasek, while raising the money to pay for it mostly from the owner. The placement of new shares with Temasek is to raise its stake in Singtel from about 51 percent to about 52.27 percent.
Advanced Info and Bharti Airtel Ltd, the wireless affiliate, have operations in 18 countries across South Asia and Africa and a combined customer base of 380 million, Singtel said in the statement.
The Singaporean carrier began investing in those businesses in 1999, it said.
“We have confidence in the long-term performance of India and Thailand,” Singtel chief executive officer Chua Sock Koong (蔡淑君) said at a media briefing in Singapore.
The agreement offers about 1.9 percent less than Wednesday’s closing price for Intouch shares. Bharti Telecom is closely held. The share placement to Temasek is set at about 1.2 percent below Wednesday’s closing price.
“We rebalance our portfolio from time to time,” Temasek telecommunications, media and technology head Ravi Lambah said yesterday in a statement on the company’s Web site. “We are pleased to have the opportunity to further invest in Singtel.”
TECH PARTNERSHIP: The deal with Arizona-based Amkor would provide TSMC with advanced packing and test capacities, a requirement to serve US customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is collaborating with Amkor Technology Inc to provide local advanced packaging and test capacities in Arizona to address customer requirements for geographical flexibility in chip manufacturing. As part of the agreement, TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, would contract turnkey advanced packaging and test services from Amkor at their planned facility in Peoria, Arizona, a joint statement released yesterday said. TSMC would leverage these services to support its customers, particularly those using TSMC’s advanced wafer fabrication facilities in Phoenix, Arizona, it said. The companies would jointly define the specific packaging technologies, such as TSMC’s Integrated
An Indian factory producing iPhone components resumed work yesterday after a fire that halted production — the third blaze to disrupt Apple Inc’s local supply chain since the start of last year. Local industrial behemoth Tata Group’s plant in Tamil Nadu, which was shut down by the unexplained fire on Saturday, is a key linchpin of Apple’s nascent supply chain in the country. A spokesperson for subsidiary Tata Electronics Pvt yesterday said that the company would restart work in “many areas of the facility today.” “We’ve been working diligently since Saturday to support our team and to identify the cause of the fire,”
China’s economic planning agency yesterday outlined details of measures aimed at boosting the economy, but refrained from major spending initiatives. The piecemeal nature of the plans announced yesterday appeared to disappoint investors who were hoping for bolder moves, and the Shanghai Composite Index gave up a 10 percent initial gain as markets reopened after a weeklong holiday to end 4.59 percent higher, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dived 9.41 percent. Chinese National Development and Reform Commission Chairman Zheng Shanjie (鄭珊潔) said the government would frontload 100 billion yuan (US$14.2 billion) in spending from the government’s budget for next year in addition
Sales RecORD: Hon Hai’s consolidated sales rose by about 20 percent last quarter, while Largan, another Apple supplier, saw quarterly sales increase by 17 percent IPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) on Saturday reported its highest-ever quarterly sales for the third quarter on the back of solid global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) globally, said it posted NT$1.85 trillion (US$57.93 billion) in consolidated sales in the July-to-September quarter, up 19.46 percent from the previous quarter and up 20.15 percent from a year earlier. The figure beat the previous third-quarter high of NT$1.74 trillion recorded in 2022, company data showed. Due to rising demand for AI, Hon Hai said its cloud and networking division enjoyed strong sales
RSS