how low will we go? any predictions?
look at this
and remember that
brazil and japan are deregulating their
telephone systems
china is desperate to also upgrade
where will they get the equipment?
that is right--LU
Monday September 7, 7:22 am Eastern Time
NTT could float Docomo shares in October--source
By Yuko Inoue
TOKYO, Sept 7 (Reuters) - Japanese telephone giant Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp (NTT) could float shares in its cellular phone subsidiary NTT Docomo as early as in October, an NTT source said on Monday.
The Ministry of Finance (MOF) was also likely to sell off government-owned NTT shares in the near future, the source told Reuters.
''We are running after two hares,'' he said. ''It all depends on the market situation, but the most likely scenario at present is that Docomo's share offering comes ahead of MOF's NTT share sell-off,'' he said.
He said it was conceivable that Docomo's initial public offering (IPO) would come as early as October.
Last week, market talk that Goldman Sachs had placed a large buy-order for NTT shares triggered speculation that a Docomo IPO was imminent, briefly boosting NTT's share price to 1.3 million yen ($9,900) last Thursday.
Goldman Sachs is a lead manager of the Docomo IPO along with Nikko Securities Co . NTT shares ended down 10,000 yen at 1.1 million yen on Monday.
There has been speculation in the industry that Docomo made an IPO application to the Tokyo Stock Exchange on August 28 and that the listing is scheduled for October 22.
Neither the TSE nor NTT Docomo have confirmed such speculation.
The NTT source said Docomo planned to issue new shares when it went public so that it could allocate part of the funds for investment in a W-CDMA telephone system.
NTT, which currently owns 95 percent of NTT Docomo, would also sell part of its holdings.
In total, Docomo was expected to float 30 percent of its shares in accordance with a TSE rule that says certain big shareholders should not hold stakes of more than 70 percent in a listed company.
If Docomo floated 30 percent of its shares, industry sources said the NTT group would be able to raise about 1.2 trillion yen, roughly equal to the value of all IPOs in Japan in a typical year.
The float would be the largest offering ever by a cellular phone operator and would make NTT Docomo the most highly capitalised publicly listed mobile phone company in the world.
A Finance Ministry official said on Monday the ministry hoped to name by early October three lead managers for the sale of NTT shares owned by the ministry.
MOF would appoint one lead manager for the sale of NTT shares in the Japanese market, another for the U.S. market and a third for the rest of the world, the official, who declined to be identified, told reporters.
He declined to comment on possible impact of NTT Docomo's IPO on its share sell-off plan.
|
