Hutchison confirms rumors to sell its stake in Israel’s Partner
By Dusan Belic on Thursday, July 9th, 2009 at 3:14 AM PST In General
Hong Kong-based Hutchison which is the owner of Israel-based mobile operator – Partner, confirmed that it has been approached by potential buyers.
In the statement to the stock exchange, the company said that it “has been approached by various interested parties regarding a possible sale of such indirect equity interests and has requested such parties to provide non-binding indication of interest. No agreement has been entered into up to the date of this announcement in respect of any such possible sale. There is no assurance that a sale may result from these approaches.”
The reports of a potential sale originally surfaced last month, saying that Hutchison Telecom — which owns 51% of the mobile network — has given bidders a week to submit their offers.
The mobile network recently reported that its Q1 revenues dropped by nearly 11% to reach NIS 1.4 billion (about $337 million), although the net income was steady at NIS 296 million (about $71 million). The subscriber base gained 5,000 net new customers to reach 2.903 million, including 1.021 million 3G subscribers, and the total market share at the end of the quarter is estimated to be approximately 31.4%.
[Via: CellularNews]
