Hutchison Confirms Talking to Bidders for Israeli Operator Stake

Following a further spate of reports that Hong Kong based Hutchison Telecom is looking to sell its stake in the Israeli operator, Partner, the firm has confirmed that it has been approached by potential buyers.

In the statement to the stock exchange, the company said that it "has been approached by various interested parties regarding a possible sale of such indirect equity interests and has requested such parties to provide non-binding indication of interest. No agreement has been entered into up to the date of this announcement in respect of any such possible sale. There is no assurance that a sale may result from these approaches."

The reports of a potential sale originally surfaced last month, but were picked up again by various news organisations this morning. It was reported that Hutchison Telecom, which owns 51% of the mobile network, has given bidders a week to submit their offers.

The mobile network, which trades under the Orange brand, recently reported that its first quarter revenues dropped by nearly 11% to reach NIS 1.4 billion (US$337 million), although the net income was steady at NIS 296 million (US$71 million). The subscriber base gained 5,000 net new customers to reach 2.903 million, including 1.021 million 3G subscribers. Total market share at the end of the quarter is estimated to be approximately 31.4% (unchanged from Q4 2008).

Posted to the site on 7th July 2009