London / Singapore / Dubai: Ooredoo QSC, the Qatari-owned phone carrier, is considering selling its indirect stake in Singapore’s StarHub Ltd., according to people with knowledge of the matter.
The company is working with HSBC Holdings Plc to gauge potential interest in its stake in Asia Mobile Holdings Pte, the people said, asking not to be identified as the process is private. Ooredoo owns about 25 per cent of Asia Mobile Holdings, which in turn holds 55.8 per cent of StarHub, according to the Singapore-based company’s annual report.
Ooredoo, with operations in Southeast Asia spanning Indonesia to Myanmar, wants to sell the asset to focus on its core Middle East market and on faster-growing markets, two of the people said. Singapore is planning an auction of additional frequencies this year to enable the entry of a fourth mobile carrier, with the introduction of competition aimed at boosting innovation in the city-state.
“Telcos are cash-cow businesses in Singapore, that’s the main attraction,” Carey Wong, a Singapore-based analyst at Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. said by phone Tuesday. “Those people looking to enter Singapore, instead of going on their own, can get a stake in StarHub. It has mobile, broadband and TV, the question is how effective their bundling strategy is.”
A representative for StarHub said in an email it is unable to comment on its shareholder’s behalf, while confirming Ooredoo has about a 14 per cent stake via its 25 per cent ownership of Asia Mobile Holdings.
StarHub shares closed down 1 per cent in Singapore trading Tuesday. Ooredoo fell 0.1 per cent on the Doha exchange.
Officials from Singapore Technologies Telemedia Pte, which owns 75 per cent of Asia Mobile Holdings, and HSBC declined to comment. Ooredoo didn’t immediately respond to queries. ST Telemedia is a unit of Temasek Holdings Pte, Singapore’s state-owned investment company.
Shares of StarHub, which has a $5 billion market value, have risen 5.7 per cent this year, compared with a 1.8 per cent gain in the Singapore benchmark Straits Times Index. Led by Chief Executive Officer Tan Tong Hai, the company competes with local rivals Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. and M1 Ltd. to provide mobile, internet and entertainment services to consumers and businesses.
Japan’s Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp. owns 9.9 per cent of StarHub, according to the annual report.
Ooredoo invested in Asia Mobile Holdings in 2007. Ooredoo also owns 65 per cent of PT Indosat in Indonesia, Bloomberg-compiled data show, and started mobile phone service in Myanmar in 2014.
