Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel) will not seek large acquisition targets in Hong Kong, according to chief executive Lee Hsien Yang.
'Hong Kong is a relatively small market, and I don't understand why people think it is necessary to acquire a Hong Kong company,' he said.
SingTel bid for former monopoly Hong Kong Telecom (HKT) but lost to PCCW two years ago. Mr Lee said the local dominant operator had changed.
'If you look at the nature of the company, balance sheet, revenue mix . . . what is left there after Reach and CSL have been sold, it is a different company than two years ago. 'We have focused on what we wanted to do and we got on with it, and we continue to look at other opportunities. We don't necessarily have to come back to Hong Kong to invest in a large company.'
He said SingTel and HKT had similar market capitalisation in 2000, but the former was now worth US$12.88 billion against US$4.26 billion for PCCW.
In the past two years, SingTel has embarked on a spending spree, taking over Australia's Optus from Cable & Wireless, and other regional mobile carriers.
