Hutchison Whampoa has made an offer to buy out the minority shareholders in Hong Kong listed subsidiary Hutchison Telecommunications International (HTI) for US$545m, taking the firm private.
Goldman Sachs is acting as financial adviser on the…
Hutchison Whampoa has made an offer to buy out the minority shareholders in Hong Kong listed subsidiary Hutchison Telecommunications International (HTI) for US$545m, taking the firm private.
Goldman Sachs is acting as financial adviser on the transaction.
Whampoa will pay HK$2.20 a share in cash for 1.9bn shares, a 33% premium on its closing share price on Monday, the day the firm suspended its shares.
Whampoa and its affiliates jointly control 67% of HTI, which has operations in Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka.
However, all of these operations are loss making, and HTI is in negotiations to offload its Thai operations. The rationale behind the privatisation is to provide HTI with financial backing from the parent firm which will continue to invest in the other three units.
Whampoa said: “While [Hutchison] remains confident in the future prospects for the HTIL group’s remaining businesses, [Hutchison] is of the view that such short- and medium-term volatility and potential uncertain financial performance for the HTIL group make it less suited to remain a publicly listed entity.”
