HONG KONG, March 16 (Reuters) - A Pacific
Century CyberWorks Ltd (PCCW) executive said
on Thursday the company's relationship with Japan's
Softbank Corp <9984.T> remained strong despite
disparaging comments from a Softbank official last week. Referring to Softbank's president
Masayoshi Son, PCCW managing director Alex Arena said: "His relationship with us is as
good as ever. He rang Mr (Richard) Li up personally." Arena was speaking to reporters
before a speech.
He said PCCW did not understand the comments by Softbank's chief financial officer,
Yoshitaka Kitao, "but it doesn't reflect the underlying strength in the relationship between
the companies concerned, so we're very confident about doing good business with them in
the future." "We co-invested in many things with Softbank, we'll continue to co-invest in
many things with Softbank." Kitao caused a stir last Friday when he told a news
conference in Hong Kong that Softbank and PCCW had differing philosophies and ruled
out doing any business with PCCW Executive Chairman Richard Li. Arena said News
Corp's decision to form an alliance with renren.com Holdings Ltd would not change any
plans for the joint venture between News Corp and Cable & Wireless HKT <0008.HK>,
which PCCW is merging with. News Corp and renren.com announced on Wednesday a
joint plan to develop Internet content in Chinese.
News Corp's unit Star TV, meanwhile, is in a joint venture with C&W HKT to provide
consumer broadband Internet and pay television services in Hong Kong. Arena said
Internet players were constantly forming alliances with various partners and trying new
initiatives.
"In some markets you compete, in some markets you cooperate, that's just the Internet,"
Arena said. PCCW won the battle to buy C&W HKT, which is 54 percent owned by
Britain's Cable & Wireless Plc , with a US$35.9 billion cash-and-share deal, clinching
Asia's biggest ever takeover.
((Hong Kong Newsroom +852 2843-6934, Fax +852 2845-0636
hongkong.newsroom@reuters.com)) .