China United Communications

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China United Telecommunications Co., Ltd. (China Unicom Ltd.) was established in 1994 and was the only Chinese operator that had a license to provide a full range of services, including cellphone, toll, international, VoIP, data, Internet and broadband. China Unicom was listed on the New York Stock Exchange and the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong on 21 June 2000 and 22 June 2000, respectively. Shares were issued at a price of US$1.98(HK$15.42) per share for retail investors and HK$15.58 for institutional investors and raised a total of US$5.653 billion. Hutchison Whampoa of Hong Kong also invested US$400 million in the company. On 1 June 2001, the company was included as a constituent stock of Hang Seng Index. As of end 2005, the state-owned Unicom Group indirectly and effectively held 57.87% of shares in the Company through China Unicom (BVI) Limited and China United Telecommunications Corporation Limited. The public investors of the A Share market in Shanghai indirectly and effectively held 19.47% of shares in the Company. The remaining 22.66% of shares in the Company were held by public investors in Hong Kong and New York. The company provided cellular services as well as nationwide long distance telephony network, data network and Internet services. Its GSM cellular network spanned twelve provinces, as well as the municipalities of Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Liaoning, Shandong, Anhui, Hebei and Hubei by 2002. In 2002, the compnay had completed the construction of a broadband optical fiber transmission network spanning 486,000 kilometers and an optical fiber backbone network reaching 110,000 km. By the end of 2005, Unicom had 127.794 million mobile customers (34.5% of the market), of which 95 million used GSM and 32.7 million used CDMA. In July 2006, Unicom successfully issued an aggregate principal amount of USD1 billion convertible bond to SK Telecom Co. Ltd. of Korea and both parties entered into a strategic alliance framework agreement to cooperate in the mobile communications business areas. As of December 2006, the public investors of the A Share market in Shanghai indirectly and effectively hold 24.09% of shares in Unicom, while the other 23.31% of shares are held by public investors in Hong Kong and New York. http://www.chinaunicom.com.hk/main/eng/index.php Need to check. SK Telecom Co. Ltd. purchased US$ 1 billion convertible bonds from China Unicom in July 2006. In August 2007, SK Telecom has notified about full conversion of the convertible bonds into the conversion shares at HK$8.63 per Share. Following this conversion, China Unicom (BVI) Ltd. holds 71.43% of enlarged issued share capital, SK Telecom holds 6.61% stake, and public have 21.96% stake.