Telefonica is reportedly looking to raise $875 million by selling around half of its stake in China Unicom.

According to Bloomberg, the company is looking to offload 597.8 million shares, at a discount of 1.2 per cent to 3 per cent over the last closing price.

Spain-based Telefonica sold half of its Unicom stake in 2012, raising $1.4 billion in the process, with the shares purchased by Unicom itself.

In its last annual report, Telefonica said it had a 5 per cent holding in China’s second largest operator. The terms of the latest transaction means it will not be able to sell any more shares in the Chinese operator for 90 days.

While for a long time Telefonica’s focus was on debt-management, in recent months it has been an active player on the global merger and acquisition stage.

The company has acquired E-Plus in Germany in order to boost its own operation through in-market consolidation, while selling its business in Ireland to Hutchison Whampoa/3 Ireland.

Operations in the Czech Republic and Slovakia have also been on the block.

It has also inked a deal to buy Vivendi’s broadband operation in Brazil, GVT, in order to merge it with its Vivo mobile business in this country.