Telecom giant set to list
( 2002-08-08 11:28 ) (1 )

China Telecom is determined to go ahead with its overseas listing although the international capital market has kept descending.

"For China Telecom, the listing is more strategically oriented rather than financially driven as is usually expected," Thursday's China Daily quoted a senior manager of the telecommunications giant as saying.

But neither China Telecom nor its underwriters Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Merrill Lynch and the China International Capital Corporation, have revealed specific details about its listing plan.

The initial public offering will include China Telecom's branches in Guangdong, Jiangsu, Shanghai and Zhejiang, the paper said.

It is estimated that the China Telecom's IPO will attract between 2.5 billion US dollars and 3 billion US dollars.

Many people have expressed concern that China Telecom has chosen a bad time to go public, but the company's managers do not seem troubled since they believe capital demand is not the priority target.

After years of capital accumulation, China Telecom has constructed a fixed-line telecom network using the most up-to-date equipment and does not urgently need funding for any large-scale projects as the moment.

Jonathan Zhu, managing director and head of Morgan Stanley's telecom team, also described China Telecom's listing as "more strategy-driven rather than the pure pursuit of money".

China Mobile and China Unicom - the two overseas-listed telecom carriers - reported significant improvements in management and became more transparent after their listings on the New York and Hong Kong stock exchanges, according to Zhu.