China Unicom is to buy back HK$10 billion $1.3 billion worth of its own shares from Korea's SK Telecom, according to an announcement this week. The deal comes weeks after the Chinese telecom operator arranged a share swap of a similar size with Spain's Telefonica SA.
A total of 899 million shares are to be repurchased -- equal to 3.79% of the company and SK Telecom's entire stake. Under an agreement between the two companies, Unicom will pay HK$11.105 per share, which represents a 1.3% discount to the last trading price before the deal was announced, HK$11.26.
The completion of the deal is conditional on the approval of at least...