CWC enters new age with $750m Macau sell-off
THE BOSS of Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC) hailed a “landmark day” for his company yesterday as the telecoms firm said it had sold its last asset in Asia.
CWC said it had reached a deal with the Chinese state-owned operator Citic to sell its 51 per cent stake in CTM, its business in Macau, for $750m (£464.9m).
It will be the final disposal of CWC’s businesses outside of Central America and the Caribbean, following the recently announced sale of the firm’s interests in Monaco and a number of island nations.
Chief executive Tony Rice outlined plans to focus on the fast-growing markets in the Americas when CWC demerged from Cable & Wireless Worldwide in 2010.
Rice said that the deal moved CWC from an “unfocused collection of telcos” to a company with a clear growth strategy. The combined $1.75bn from the Macau and Monaco deals will give Rice the freedom to fuel CWC’s growth in the Caribbean and Central America via acquisitions.
“I’m really pleased that we have done this in such a quick way and now we move on to phase two,” Rice said.
ADVISERS CWC’S MACAU SALE
DWAYNE LYSAGHT RUPERT SADLER
JP MORGAN CAZENOVE
LONGTIME partners JP Morgan Cazenove advised Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC) on its $750m deal to sell its interests in Macau to Citic, the Chinese conglomerate owned by the country’s government.
JP Morgan Cazenove had also advised CWC on the $1bn sale of its Monaco & Islands business, which was announced in December.
The investment bank’s key men working on the Macau deal were managing directors Dwayne Lysaght and Rupert Sadler.
Lysaght, JP Morgan Cazenove’s head of UK mergers and acquisitions, has worked on a number of high-profile deals in recent years. These include Cambridge microchip firm CSR’s $310m sale of its mobile technology division to Korean giants Samsung, and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp’s aborted bid for BSkyB in 2010. Last year he helped complete a deal to sell Dairy Crest’s French spreads business to a private equity firm for around £350m. Sadler, the bank’s head of technology, media and telecoms, has worked with Cable & Wireless for seven years – long before it demerged in 2010. The Cambridge graduate also advised cinema giant Cineworld on its £47.3m purchase of boutique movie theatre owner Picture House, which was announced last month.