The HK-based Hutchison Telecom, which is the owner of Kasapa Telecom, has sold its interest in the company to the British Virgin Islands-based holding EGH International Limited, owned by Expresso Telecom Group in Dubai. Hutchison already indicated his intention to sell its shares to EGH Limited, when on January 7, 2008 it entered into an agreement with this BVI company. It is known that the cash price of the stake in Kasapa Telecom made HKD584 mln (USD75 million).
The sale has the form of the sale of Kuwata Limited, which holds the Hutchison's group indirect interests in the Ghana Business. In the annual report of the Hutchison group for the year 2007, it is said that with the conversion to a GSM business in Vietnam, reorganization of the group's operations in Thailand and the impending sale of the operations in Ghana it “has taken positive action to address the most pressing challenges facing the Hutchison Group”.
In 2008 Hutchison plans to invest HK$7 billion in the existing businesses, and seek opportunities to deploy $35 billion cash resources to expand the Group's footprint. The company currently has about 50% of its total assets in cash, and it plans to add 412,000 subscribers to its base in the last quarter taking it to 2,039,000.
The deal with the BVI company is part of a wider move by Hutchison to divest (sell) certain CDMA-based businesses, and concentrate fully on its subsidiaries that are globally operating GSM networks.
