Singapore’s SingTel has confirmed it is in talks aimed at acquiring a strategic stake in a Chinese mobile operator. “It’s a market we have been monitoring. We have been in discussions with various operators in the China market,” CEO Chua Sock Koong told reporters this week, reports Reuters. Koong did not specify which companies she was referring to but the company has been linked to China Telecom, the operator that acquired China Unicom’s CDMA business last month as part of the restructuring in the Chinese telecoms market. Koong stressed that SingTel is looking to become a strategic – rather than financial – investor and is looking at a stake “that would give us the necessary governance rights and involvement at the board and management level.”
SingTel’s push into China could be linked to the aborted attempt by its part-owned Indian subsidiary Bharti to acquire South Africa’s MTN. According to Reuters, SingTel derives about two thirds of its pretax earnings from operations outside Singapore, its home market, and is seeking acquisitions in growth markets to expand its earnings by double-digits over the medium term.
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