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Hutchison Whampoa Teams Up with Tiscali in 3G Mobile Alliance
Hong Kong's conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa said Monday it had become the dominant partner in a consortium bidding for a third-generation Italian mobile phone licence.
The company said it had bought 51 percent of Italian group Andala SpA to team up with Italian Internet access provider Tiscali SpA, which will hold 25.5 percent of Andala.
The announcement confirms earlier reports that Tiscali was dropping Deutsche Telekom in favour of the Hong Kong group as its partner in bidding for third-generation mobile phone licences.
Hutchison Whampoa, which has a market capitalisation of US$53 billion, 80,000 employees and is led by tycoon Li Ka-shing, has interests in ports, telecommunications, real estate, manufacturing and energy.
Canning Fok, Hutchison Whampoa group managing director, said in a statement: "We are very happy to team up with a leading company like Tiscali and other members in the Andala consortium.
"Italy holds great potential for us and with such strong established partners in this consortium, we are confident that we can successfully obtain a licence."
Renato Soru, Tiscali president, added: "This alliance is that which best enables us to win one of the five licences and to maximise the Tiscali contribution."
Andala's other shareholders are Italian holding company CIR (15 percent), San Paolo-IMI (5.0 percent), Franco Bernabe (2.0 percent), HdP (1.0 percent), and Gemina (0.5 percent).
Tiscali offers free access to the Internet in France, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland and has 2.3 million customers across Europe.
Last week Dutch Internet service provider (ISP) World Online International said it was in "exploratory" talks with Tiscali aimed at creating a large European Internet group.
Third generation (3G) mobiles telephones offer users access to the Internet.
Hutchison is, through various agreements and alliances, involved in 3G operations in Japan, Germany, France, Belgium, and Britain.
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