Are we to prepare ourselves for
the next episode of ''Shin Corp
Debacle 2'' with the new offer to buy ShinSat for S$306
Million' ?
This time SHIN Satellite (ShinSat) Thailand is offering to sell a
satellite that serves Laos and Cambodia to Singapore's Asia Mobile
Holdings for US$200 Million (S$306 M).
Asia Mobile is 75 per cent owned by Singapore Technologies
Telemedia (STT), with the remaining 25 per cent held by Qatar
Telecom QSC.
This matter seems to be a done deal as can be seen from the
statement that is left to be printed at the bottom of a rosily
painted preamble.
Following is an extract from the Singapore Straits Times, Monday, 4
June 2007 edition:
ShinSat to sell stake for $306m to
S'pore firm
Bangkok
SHIN Satellite (ShinSat), Thailand's only commercial satellite
operator, plans to sell part of its telecommunications investments
in Laos and Cambodia to Singapore's Asia Mobile Holdings for US$200
million (S$306 million).
The proceeds from the stake sale would be used to repay its
long-term debt and improves its financial status, ShinSat
said.
ShinSat plans to sell 7.18 million shares, or 49 per cent stake, in
its Shenington Investment unit to Asia Mobile for US$27.85 a share,
the company said in a filing to the Stock Exchange of Thailand
yesterday.
ShinSat, 41.3 per cent-owned by Shin Corp, was founded by exiled
former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra before his relatives
sold their controlling stake in Shin Corp to Singaproe investment
company Temasek Holdings last year.
Asia Mobile is 75 per cent owned by Singapore Technologies (ST)
Telemedia, with the remaining 25 per cent held by Qatar Telecom
QSC, according to a March 9 statement on ST Telemedia's website. ST
Telemedia is a unit of Temasek.
Shenington is a holding company with 100 per cent stake in Cambodia
Shinawatra, which operates mobile and fixed-line phone networks in
Cambodia.
It also owns 49 per cent of Lao Telecommunications, which operates
telecoms services in the landlocked South-east Asian nation.
ShinSat needs cash to help pay more than US$500 million in debt
from building and launching its last two satellites.
The Company is counting on rising sales of its satellite Internet
services in China and India, the world's two most populous nations,
to return to profit this year. It incurred a loss of 45.6 million
Baht (S$2.1 million) last year, its first since 1997.
"We expect the deal to be completed early next week," Dr Dumrong
Kasemset, ShinSat's executive chairman, said during a conference
call yesterday. "This will help reduce our debt burden and improve
our financial status."
BLOOMBERG NEWS, REUTERS
It seems that before the last wounds
from the last Shin Corp disaster are healed completely,
She remains with a big
appetite for Temasek to swallow more satellites that are available
and offered for sale.
It is ironical that for a Government that prevent its own Citizens
from accessing Satellite TV programmes, it has the audacity to buy
up every available satellite in space above this 'little red dot', and that the
Citizens of other countries can freely access.
