China Unicom will buy back a stake held by SK Telecom, South Korea’s biggest mobile carrier, for $1.3bn, followingUnicom’s move to boost its alliance with Spain’s Telefonica, reports Reuters. Telefonica and SKT became uusual bedfellows in China Unicom after reforms reduced China’s four main telecoms carriers to three earlier this year. Telefonica reached a deal with Unicom in early September for each to buy $1bn worth of the other’s shares. Unicom has said it will buy back a 3.8% stake from SKT for a total of about HK$10bn ($1.29bn), unravelling their strategic alliance.

This entry was posted by Gwen Robinson on Monday, September 28th, 2009 at 4:55 and is filed under Capital markets. Tagged with China Unicom, SK Telecom, telefonica. Edit this entry.