Shareholders in PCCW last night voted in favour of a deal to privatise the company. PCCW's chairman, Richard Li, is finally able to realise his ambition to take the company off the market, after nine years of continually poor share performance.
The voters will have been won over in part by new terms introduced at the end of December. The revised offer of HK$4.50 a share made by the major investors, Pacific Century Regional Developments PCRD and China Network Communications CNC, was a 7.1% increase on the original HK$4.20 offering. It values the 52% interest, which is the portion owned by minority shareholders, at HK$15.93 billion $2.06 billion, and...