Hutchison scraps Indian unit's listing

London, Nov 16: Hutchison Whampoa, the Hong Kong-based conglomerate, said on Thursday it no longer sees a need to list its Indian mobile phone venture, or any of its 3G mobile businesses.

''The time has gone now,'' Group Managing Director Canning Fok told Reuters on the sidelines of a product launch in London when asked about the possible listing of Hutchison's Indian business.

''After we listed HTIL (Hutchison Telecommunications International Ltd) I don't need a listing in India,'' he said.

Hutchison had originally planned to list Hutchison Essar, India's third-biggest mobile operator, sometime this year, but Fok said disagreements with its Indian partner meant that the planned flotation had been abandoned.

''When you have disagreements you don't go listing,'' Fok said, adding that even the original plan to list the business was principally to honour a promise made by Hutchison to its partner.

Hutchison and India's Essar group are locked in a dispute over the proposed merger of another mobile operator purchased by Essar with Hutchison Essar.

Hutchison's emerging markets telecoms arm, HTIL, owns a majority stake in Hutchison Essar, which is the biggest mobile operator in India's financial capital of Mumbai and whose market value has been estimated by analysts to be well over billion.

No 3G Floats either

Fok also ruled out listing any of the group's 3G mobile phone businesses, saying the time for a flotation had passed.

''The need for flotation is not there anymore. We are concentrating on taking the business into making money,'' he said.

Contrary to market speculation he said the group also had no plans to sell any of its 3G mobile assets, on which it has spent billion over the past few years.

The chief executive of larger rival Vodafone , Arun Sarin, was quoted in many UK newspapers as saying on Wednesday that the British mobile market was ripe for consolidation and that he would look at Hutchison's 3 UK if it came on the market.

''If 3 were to put their assets up for sale I think we would look at them,'' Sarin was quoted as saying.

The firm is the smallest network operator in the UK and industry officials have said that Hutchison could look to sell the business rather than pump more money into the operation which faces an increasingly tough mobile market.

''It's not for sale for sure ... This is a very valuable business. I'm not sure how much money he (Sarin) has,'' Fok said, adding that Hutchison had plenty of cash and that in any case the businesses were past the stage of requiring more investments.

''We are at EBIDTA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) breakeven in several countries now and we are approaching EBIT breakeven,'' he said.

The group expects its 3G businesses, which between them have around 14 million customers in nine countries, to reach breakeven at an operating level in 2008.

Reuters