PCCW-NEWS!!!

CyberWorks Pays HK$200 Mln for 26% Outblaze Stake, STD Reports

 Hong Kong, Feb. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Pacific Century Cyberworks Ltd., Asia' biggest
 Internet company outside Japan, will pay about HK$200 million ($25.7 million) to buy a
 26 percent stake in Outblaze Ltd., an Internet firm, from China Rich Holdings Ltd., an
 engineering, real estate and information technology company, Sing Tao Daily reported,
 citing unidentified people. The purchase would increase
 Cyberworks's holding in Outblaze to 46.6 percent, the paper said. China Rich plans to
 use the money to develop other hi- tech businesses, the paper said.

 CyberWorks Ltd. yesterday raised as much as $1 billion in a share sale to help fund a
 proposed merger with Cable & Wireless HKT Ltd., Hong Kong's dominant phone
 company.

 (Sing Tao Daily, 2/15/2000, Business p. 20)

 Feb/14/2000 19:55

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 (C) Copyright 2000 Bloomberg L.P.  

2000-02-15

Pacific Century Group placed 250 million new shares at $23.5 per share to raise $5.75 billion. The net proceeds will be used for the possible merger between PCC and HK Telecom (8). If the transaction is unsuccessful, the proceeds will be used to acquire other information technology and internet related investments, and other related investments in broadband connectivity services.

BNP Prime Peregrine and BOCI had been granted an option to acquire additional 85 million shares. Should the option be exercised, the proceeds to be raised will be expanded to $7.7 billion.

The 250 million new shares represent 2.48% of the enlarged share capital of PCC. The 85 million exercisable new shares amount to 0.9% of the enlarged capital, which would become 10.18 billion shares.

After the transaction, the largest shareholder Pacific Century Regional Developments will hold a 48.2% stake in PCC.

However, at yesterday's closing price of $26.4 per share, HKT was capitalized at about $330 billion. Though the company intends to offer a mixture of cash and shares to HKT, the raised proceeds of $7.7 billion and the $10 billion cash in hand are far from enough.

While HK Economic Times reported that Bank of China may offer further proceeds of $55 billion to PCC, South China Morning Post said SHKP (16) and Hongkong Tobacco also interested in joining the consortium.

On the other hand, HK Standard reported that Singapore Telecom is pairing with Deutsche Telekom and even AT&T. But the latter had already refuted the suggestion.

The game is getting more interesting. PCC and SingTel are bringing more big players to the game. A hostile bidding war will certainly bid up the price, perhaps a co-operation between SingTel and PCC would be a better alternative.

Trading of PCC will resume today.


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