Firms secure role in telecoms acquisition

FRESHFIELDS Bruckhaus Deringer, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher and King & Wood Mallesons have secured roles on Hong Kong Telecommunications’ (HKT) USD2.4 billion acquisition of CSL from Telstra. 

HKT instructed Gibson Dunn’s Hong Kong corporate partner Graham Winter for the transaction. Telstra has turned to its longstanding adviser King & Wood Mallesons for the deal. HKT is a listed subsidiary of Hong Kong tycoon Richard Li’s PCCW. It sold Hong Kong mobile operator CSL to Australia’s Telstra over a decade ago. HKT will now buy back CSL for USD2.4 billion in a deal that will increase its share of Hong Kong’s mobile telecoms market to 31 per cent. 

The deal will also reduce the number of mobile operators in the city from five to four. Telstra owns 76.4 per cent of the stake in CSL. HKT will acquire the remaining 23.6 per cent in CSL from New World Development.