After a few heated weeks of controversy over the competing acquisition bids from U.S.-based Texas Pacific Group and Australia's Macquarie Bank for PCCW's telecom assets, PCCW's chairman in a stunning move sold the assets to a banker from Hong Kong for $1.18 billion. Banker Francis Leung will receive less than one quarter of the company for the sizable price-tag, which is far less than the $7-billion bid Macquarie had in place for a larger stake of the company. The move comes in the wake of political pressure from Beijing not to sell the assets to foreign entities, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. The purchase leaves Leung as PCCW's largest single shareholder.
For more on the PCCW assets deal:
- check out this WSJ article (sub. req.)