UK-listed Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC) is in talks with Chinese telco Citic Telecom to sell its 51% stake in Macau operator CTM, both companies said in statements.
Hong Kong-listed Citic, majority owned by a Chinese state-owned investment…
UK-listed Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC) is in talks with Chinese telco Citic Telecom to sell its 51% stake in Macau operator CTM, both companies said in statements.
Hong Kong-listed Citic, majority owned by a Chinese state-owned investment vehicle, currently owns a 20% stake in CTM and could buy CWC’s stake for as much as US$800m.
The rest of CTM is owned 28% by Portugal Telecom (PT) and 1% by the Macau government.
CWC and Citic have had a working relationship since 1981 when they established the business together, along with PT and the local postal service.
The news comes a month after CWC confirmed it was in talks to sell its Monaco & Islands business to Batelco, for a figure thought to be in the region of US$1bn.
CWC’s centre of gravity is in the Caribbean and Panama – which produced EBITDA of US$540m in the last financial year – and the company’s strategy is to focus on that region.
CTM had EBITDA of US$165m last year and is the leading mobile operator in the territory.
CTM has a monopoly on fixed-line and broadband services in Macau and serves the special administrative region’s many casinos. Macau is China’s gambling Mecca and is the only place where gaming is legal in the country. It overtook Las Vegas in terms of revenues in 2007 and had 28 million visitors last year.
