Shares in mainland mobile-phone operator China Unicom rose 7.46 per cent yesterday after company chairman Chang Xiaobing said the long-awaited industry restructuring could start in the first half of this year.
The stock gained HK$1.18 to end at HK$17.
Shares of other telecommunications operators also rose. China Netcom Group Corp closed up 6.18 per cent at HK$24.05, China Telecom Corp rose 2.52 per cent to HK$5.70 and China Mobile edged up 0.53 per cent to HK$114.40.
Mr Chang and Information Industry Minister Wang Xudong said on Tuesday that restructuring of the industry was under way.
Unicom's CDMA network is widely expected to be sold to China Telecom and its GSM network will be merged with fixed-line operator Netcom. China Mobile's parent firm is likely to acquire fixed-line provider China Tietong.
'We believe the listed companies [Unicom, Netcom and China Telecom], their financial advisers and the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, are working to finalise the transaction structure at the listed company level, which we estimate will be announced in the second or third quarter this year and completed by the end of the year,' Goldman Sachs wrote in a March 4 research report. Goldman Sachs said minority shareholders of Unicom and Netcom could benefit more than those of China Telecom from the overhaul.