Primanex unveils high isolation isolators
6/23/2006,QINGDAO, CHINA �CPrimanex Corporation today announced specifications upgrade of one of its volume products �Coptical in-line isolators. To meet market demand and customers' needs, development engineers at Primanex have been working to improve Isolator's quality and to enhance their reliability. The most notable improvements in new SPECS are higher isolations over wider operating wavelength and temperature ranges.
The new volume-produced optical in-line isolators can achieve isolation of >50dB for dual-stage and >24dB for single-stage over +/-20nm wavelength window and -5~700C temperature range; and for -20~700C temperature range within +/-15nm wavelength window, the isolators can guarantee isolation of >45dB for dual-stage and >23dB for single-stage. Please refer to Http://www.primanex.com for details.
Primanex can provide its customers with low cost and superior performance for various types of isolators, CWDMs, DWDMs and optical switches. Primanex proprietary optical devices, such as Ultra-fast magneto-optical switches, Etalon-based Athermal wavelength reference filters and Faraday-Rotating-Mirrors will add-in tremendous values for customers when more and more applications are discovered. Primanex owns more than 15,000 square feet clean-room for volume manufacturing and has hundreds of experienced skill workers. Primanex can produce ten thousands pieces of devices per month. Through its innovations and manufacturing capacities built-up, Primanex is becoming a major supplier of optical components in the world.
Equity Firms Bid for PCCW, but China Netcom Opposes
6/23/2006��HONG KONG -- Texas Pacific Group and Newbridge Capital Group (''TPG-Newbridge") confirm that they have submitted a proposal to acquire the telecommunications and media assets of PCCW Limited (''PCCW'') in a letter submitted to PCCW's Board of Directors earlier this week.
TPG-Newbridge initiated its formal expression of interest in PCCW earlier this year by entering into a scheme implementation agreement on January 26, 2006 to acquire 25% of the shares of Pacific Century Regional Developments Limited (''PCRD''), a Singapore-listed company which owns 23% of PCCW (equivalent to approximately 6% indirect ownership in PCCW). This scheme of arrangement was initiated after appropriate discussions with the Singapore regulatory authorities. The shareholder vote to consider the scheme of arrangement was scheduled for June 19, 2006, but was postponed in view of developments relating to PCCW. Subsequent to the postponement, PCCW received what was believed to be an offer from another party to acquire PCCW's telecommunications and media assets. In light of such events, TPG-Newbridge has submitted its letter to PCCW with the objective of providing the Board with a constructive alternative to consider.
TPG-Newbridge's proposal is conditional on the support of the Board of Directors and the shareholders of PCCW. As stated in the letter, ''We recognize the responsibility and sensitivity that come with the ownership of such a significant and strategic asset and are prepared to work cooperatively with regulators and other shareholders to create a transaction that benefits and is acceptable to all parties.'' Furthermore, we note the public statement made earlier this week by China Network Communications Group Corporation, which is consistent with our desire to pursue a transaction in accordance with the interests of all parties.
In accordance with the requirements of the Singapore Code on Takeovers and Mergers, the directors of Newbridge Century Ltd., which is the special purpose vehicle formed by Newbridge for the purpose of acquiring shares in PCRD, have taken care to ensure that the facts stated and opinions expressed in this document are fair and accurate and that no material facts have been omitted from this document, and they jointly and severally accept responsibility accordingly. As of the date of this release, the meeting of the scheme shareholders of PCRD has yet to be reconvened.
Above came from news releases from PCCW. But according to Hongkong media, China Netcom, who is the 2nd largest share holder of PCCW, has published announcement to oppose this bid. China netcom warned PCCW that telecommunication industry relate with national security, foreign companies shouldnot control PCCW, which is the no.1 fixed line carriers in Hongkong.
SK Telecom invests $1b in China Unicom
6/20/2006, (Associated Press via NewsEdge) SK Telecom, South Korea's biggest wireless carrier by revenue, has agreed to buy $1 billion worth of convertible bonds issued by China Unicom, the listed arm of China's second most popular cell phone provider, as part of a strategic alliance, China Unicom said in a statement.
The two companies also have agreed to work together on their CDMA mobile phone businesses.
The bonds are convertible to 899.75 million shares, which represent about 7.15% of the issued and outstanding shares of China Unicom as of June 20 and about 6.67% of the enlarged issued and outstanding share capital of China Unicom, according to the statement.
Hong Kong-listed China Unicom expects the net proceeds of the bond issue to reach $997 million, which will be used for general corporate and working-capital purpose.
China Unicom said its alliance with SK Telecom will cover CDMA businesses including handsets, network, and value-added services for mobile phones.
China Unicom, which also operates a global system for mobile communications services, or GSM network, has seen its earnings hurt by a much weaker CDMA operation.
China Unicom's CDMA operation posted a pretax loss of 200 million Chinese yuan ($25 million) in 2005, down from 563 million yuan in 2004.
By contrast, its GSM operation's pretax profit rose 6.5 % to 7.28 billion yuan ($910 million) in 2005 from 6.83 billion yuan in 2004.
Merrill Lynch analyst Wendy Liu said in a research report that the deal is good for China Unicom.
"The Unicom management is keen to turn around Unicom ... Finding the right CDMA strategy has been a challenge. We think SK Telecom could be very helpful in this regard," Liu said.
Huawei Predicts 55% Regional Sales Growth For 2006
6/20/2006, Chinese supplier Huawei announced today that it expects contract sales in the Asia-Pacific region �C excluding China, Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong �C to reach US$2B during 2006. That's a 55 percent jump on last year's US$1.29B of contract sales in Asia (which was itself an 180 percent advance on the 2004 performance.)
Price still remains one of the key reasons why Huawei is expanding so fast outside China," says one financial analyst who wished to remain anonymous but works with the Chinese vendor. "Typically, it undercuts its western counterparts by as much as 20 percent. This is not as high as it used to be as Western vendors themselves are lowering their production costs by manufacturing in China as well."
Huawei says it now has a sales presence in 13 countries across the Asian region with actual products deployed in 20 countries. Its product focus in Asia is next-generation networks for fixed and wireless carriers. Among its customers are TT&T in Thailand, TM & TIME in Malaysia, PTCL & Telips in Pakistan and JTB in Brunei. Huawei has already won four 3G contracts in the region: B-Mobile in Brunei, Celecom in Malaysia, NTS in Indonesia and Econet in Indonesia.
Also from Communication Asia, Mr. Liu,jiangfeng from Huawei told state press that Huawei's revenue growth will be 30%, reach 10.7billion USD this year. In year 2005, Huawei got a revenue growth of 42%.
