Hutchison Whampoa will retain its 65 per cent stake in a licence to operate a British third-generation (3G) service after Canada-based Telesystem International Wireless (TIW) opted not to exercise an option to buy shares.
A spokesman for Hutchison confirmed yesterday that TIW had exercised only GBP50,000 (about HK$554,000) worth of shares, or 0.01 per cent in Hutchison 3G UK Holdings Limited, which owned the 3G licences in Britain.
TIW, which represented Hutchison in its bid for a 3G licence in Britain, had a 9.9 per cent stake in the licence, which it won for GBP4.38 billion in April.
TIW's stake was further diluted to 6.5 per cent after Japanese NTT DoCoMo and the Netherlands' KPN Telecom agreed to buy a 35 per cent stake in the licence for GBP2.1 billion.
TIW, based in Montreal, booked an exceptional gain of US$75.4 million in the quarter ended September 30 after diluting its stake in Hutchison 3G UK.
TIW said that it could not 'justify the going-in cost of the investment in light of recent European licence-auction results'.