China Telecom

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China Telecom, formerly a wholly state-owned company which had a monopoly over the fixed line market in China, was split into two companies in May 2002. China Telecom split into China Telecom-South and China Telecom-North. China Telecommunications Corporation (the new China Telecom) took the 21 southern and western provincial telecom corporations that were run under the former China Telecom, while the remaining 10 northern provincial telecom corporations, together with China Netcom and China Jitong, were merged to form a new China Netcom. Both companies provided basic and long distance telephone services to residential consumers. China Telecom became publicly listed in October 2002. The IPO was listed at 13 cents/share (HK$1.48) on both the New York and Hong Kong stock exchanges for a total listing of 8.69 billion H-shares. Telecom's initial public offering was originally expected to raise US$3.68 billion but was postponed on lack of investor demand. The state-owned company's IPO was launched at a lower price and with half as many shares offered raised US$1.43 billion. Public investors then held 5% of the company while the wholly state-owned China Telecommunications Corporation owned 70.89% and various other state-owned enterprises owned 12%. China Telecom was the largest fixed-line operator in the country. By the end of 2005, China Telecom had 210 million fixed line customers and 21 million broadband customers. None In October 2005, China Telecom issued 6-month, RMB10 billion or USD1.153 billion, denominated short term commercial paper with an annual interest rate of 2.54%.