CITIC 1616 seeks acquisitions by year-end
HONG KONG (Reuters) - CITIC 1616 Holdings Ltd (1883.HK) is seeking to buy international direct dialing (IDD) and mobile value-added service assets in the Asia-Pacific region by the end of 2009, a senior executive said on Wednesday.
However, the company, the telecoms service unit of Beijing backed CITIC Pacific (0267.HK), has no intention of introducing Chinese telecoms operators as strategic investors, said chief financial officer David Chan.
"We have been approached by private equity funds about the possibility of asset reorganizations, but we are very selective and will only consider those proposals that create synergy," he told Reuters in an interview.
He added that CITIC 1616 was interested in buying or consolidating IDD, mobile value-added services and integrated virtual private network businesses and was open to investment opportunities in Southeast Asia, and in particular Taiwan.
MAINTAINS GROWTH
The company, which provides international roaming voice, short messaging, mobile value-added services and virtual private network services to telecoms operators around the world, posted net profit growth of 26 percent in 2008.
Revenue surged by 67 percent last year, boosted by high demand during the Beijing Olympics and the inclusion of a newly purchased IDD business from China Motion (0989.HK).
Chan said CITIC 1616 was confident of maintaining double-digit revenue growth this year.
The company will focus on developing higher profit-margin non-voice services, hoping the non-voice business will contribute to half of its revenue by 2011 from 35 percent in 2008, Chan added.
Its three major Chinese customers, China Mobile (0941.HK), China Telecom (0728.HK) and China Unicom (0762.HK), contributed about 40 percent of its revenue last year. Its clients also include Singapore Telecommunications (STEL.SI) and Japan's NTT DoCoMo (9437.T).
The stock, which has soared 76 percent so far this year, rose 4.6 percent to close at HK$1.84 in late trade on Wednesday.
(Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Chris Lewis)
