BT set to cash in on Singapore sale

TELECOM company BT Group will get an injection of cash next month with the long-awaited sale of its 11.7% stake in Singapore mobile and cable company, StarHub, writes William Marshall.

The loss-making Asian operator has lodged a listing prospectus with regulators in the city-state, where it is the number three mobile company and the sole provider of cable television services.

The company could be valued at up to S$2.5 billion (Pounds 809 million), with the partial listing raising S$700 million, analysts and Press reports suggest.

This puts a value on BT's entire stake of about Pounds 95 million.

No new shares will be issued in the listing, allowing StarHub's founding shareholders to cash in some of their holdings.

It is unclear, however, whether shareholders will have to sell down their stakes in proportion to the size of their existing holdings, or whether some of the smaller players, including BT, will be allowed to exit completely.

As well as BT Group, StarHub's backers include Japan's NTT Communications, which has a 14.3% stake, and a trio of Singaporean corporate shareholders that between them control 72.7%. Employees hold 1.3%.

BT has been looking to get out of StarHub for some time, preferring to concentrate its efforts in Asia on commercial networks business for bigger corporate clients. Most of StarHub's telecoms business is retail.

"At some point, if appropriate, we will be selling our shareholding in StarHub," BT South-East Asia general manager Richard Bagley told reporters last month.

A date for StarHub's market debut is expected to fall next month.

Competition for mobile services in the tech-savvy country in intense. StarHub battles larger rivals Singapore Telecoms and MobileOne.

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