In a long-awaited move, SmarTone Telecommunications Holdings is buying the personal communications service (PCS) mobile network, P Plus Communications, for $736 million.
The company is taking on the network's debts of $533 million owed to existing shareholders.
Under the deal, SmarTone will take full ownership of the network, buying 88.6 per cent from Star Telecom International, a subsidiary of China Strategic Holdings, and the rest from TSL, owned by two paging companies.
'SmarTone believes it can gain significant synergies and cost savings by integrating the operations of the networks,' the company said.
SmarTone has said for many months it would like to buy a PCS network. However, the search intensified over the past few weeks as prices were said to have fallen closer to what the company was prepared to pay.
SmarTone is thought to have bid for the Pacific Link PCS and D-Amps networks but was outdone by Hongkong Telecom's offer of $4.83 billion in December.
Though it has nothing like the amount of cash that Hongkong Telecom has at its disposal, SmarTone can well afford the price tag for P Plus. It has about $2.3 billion in cash.