By Kane Wu and Julie Zhu
HONG KONG (Reuters) – State-owned China Mobile Ltd is exploring a potential buyout of Hong Kong’s leading telecoms company HKBN Ltd, which is currently valued at $1 billion, four people with knowledge of the matter said.
China Mobile in recent weeks sent a request for proposal (RFP) to a small group of banks to advise on acquiring and taking-private the Hong Kong telecom provider, which offers services including broadband and Wi-Fi management, said the people.
The Beijing-based company is still receiving pitches from investment banks and has yet to decide on making a formal offer, said the people, declining to be identified as the information is confidential.
HKBN had a market value of HK$7.94 billion ($1.01 billion) as of Tuesday morning’s market close.
Bidders are generally expected to offer a premium to the company’s current trading share price.
China Mobile and HKBN did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
($1 = 7.8498 Hong Kong dollars)
(Reporting by Kane Wu and Julie Zhu in Hong Kong; addiitonal reporting by Donny Kwok; Editing by Sumeet Chatterjee and Sonali Paul)