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Technology Stocks : PCW - Pacific Century CyberWorks Limited -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ms.smartest.person who wrote (1038)	4/10/2001 3:52:07 PM
From: ms.smartest.person	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2248

HK SmarTone Prefers Open Auction For HK 3G Licenses Updated: Monday, April 9, 2001 10:49 PM ET HONG KONG (Dow Jones)--Hong Kong's SmarTone Telecommunications Holdings Ltd. (H.SMR, news, msgs) said Tuesday it would prefer an open auction for the city's third generation mobile phone licenses - a model that has been rejected by the Office of the Telecommunications Authority. "The company is concerned that there has never been an auction that conceals from bidders all information about the bidders' identities, bid levels and bid volume," Smartone said in a statement. "By contrast, open auctions can produce efficient and fair outcomes because bidders can test their business case assumptions against the price views of other bidders and adjust their views on value as the auction progresses," it said. Under the rules for the 3G auction, which haven't yet been fully disclosed, qualified bidders who participate in the auction will make secret bids known only to the regulator. As the bids increase, each company will be told how high they need to raise their stake in order to remain in the auction, leaving four eventual license holders. Smartone also said the government's suggestion to close the bidding process when the fourth remaining bidder leaves would allow the royalty rate to be pushed to an extremely high level. The four licenses were originally scheduled to be auctioned in June. However, an Ofta spokeswoman confirmed Tuesday weekend press reports that the auction has been delayed to September because the government needs more time to pass the relevant legislation. Full auction details will then be released. Frontrunners for the 3G licenses besides SmarTone include Hutchison Telecom, the joint venture between Australia's Telstra (TLS, news, msgs) and Hong Kong's Pacific Century CyberWorks (PCW, news, msgs), New World Telephone and Sunday Communications Ltd. (H.SDY, news, msgs) -By Sonia Tsang, Dow Jones Newswires; 852-2802-7002; sonia.tsang@dowjones.com quicken.com