Hong Kong telecommunications firm PCCW eyeing ambitious global expansion

PCCW, the flagship conglomerate of billionaire Richard Li Tzar-kai, is sharpening its global ambitions with plans to pursue strategic investments and acquisitions that will build up its businesses across the United States and Europe.

“Our aspirations do not stop in Hong Kong,” the group’s managing director Bangalore Gangaiah Srinivas said yesterday.

PCCW controls HKT, which operates the biggest mobile and fixed-line telecommunication networks in Hong Kong, and runs Now TV, the city’s largest pay-television provider.

The company’s PCCW Solutions subsidiary is also the city’s leading supplier of information technology services.

Srinivas said PCCW was gearing up to further expand its information-technology services business in mainland China, while “looking at investments in companies with significant presence in the US, Europe or both” to broaden its corporate- and consumer-focused operations.

He said the company preferred to take a majority shareholding in new corporate investments, but was also open to partnership deals.