PCCW

PCCW Ltd.
Public
Traded as
Industry Telecommunications
Founded 24 April 1979 (1979-04-24)
Headquarters Hong Kong
Key people
 Richard Li, Chairman,
B.G. Srinivas Group Managing Director [1]
Products Fixed-line, Broadband Internet access, IPTV, Mobile, IT Solutions, Data Centers, Contact Centers, Integrated Global Communications, Infrastructure, Advertising and Interactive Services
Number of employees
 24,000 (2018)
Parent Pacific Century Group Holdings Limited
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese 電訊盈科有限公司
Alternative Chinese name
Traditional Chinese 電訊盈科
Second alternative Chinese name
Traditional Chinese 電盈
Website www.pccw.com
Primary ASN 3491
Traffic Levels 1Tbps+[2]

PCCW Limited (formerly known as Pacific Century CyberWorks Limited) is a Hong Kong-based information and communications technology (ICT) company which most notably as the majority owner of HKT Limited.

PCCW also holds a majority interest in Pacific Century Premium Developments Limited. PCCW is headquartered in Hong Kong and operates in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Americas, mainland China, and other parts of Asia.[3]

Main Business

PCCW Shop in Sha Tin, Hong Kong

Commercial and international business

The PCCW Commercial Group provides ICT services to small, medium and large enterprises. The group managed the installation of Asia's largest IP-enabled network for securities and derivatives markets, built for Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited and known as SDNet. It includes an electronic passport system, known as e-PASS, and the Smart Identity Card system for the Hong Kong SAR Government.[4]

HKT Teleservices, a subsidiary of PCCW, operates a contact centre outsourcing business along with an operation in the U.S. It handles inbound and outbound calls, emails and other transactions for customers.[5][6]

Brands and services

Emergency telephone along a mountain trail

HKT (Hong Kong Telecom)

HKT Group Holdings Limited (HKT) was formed in 2008 to hold the telecommunications services, media and IT businesses of the PCCW Group in a reorganization designed to improve the Group's operational efficiencies. PCCW-HKT was the first quadruple play provider in Hong Kong, and offers media content and services for fixed-line, broadband Internet, TV and mobile. The group sells to local and international business customers, as technical services and project outsourcing to network operators and public and private sector organization.[7][8][9]

Netvigator

Netvigator is a residential and commercial Internet service provider in Hong Kong, a HKT subsidiary. It is Hong Kong's largest Internet service provider (ISP).[10][11]

csl, 1O1O, Club SIM

CSL Mobile is a HKT subsidiary, which operates mobile network brands of "csl", "1O1O" and "Club SIM" in Hong Kong.[12]

SUN Mobile

SUN Mobile is a joint venture of HKT and Telecom Digital

PCCW Engineering

PCCW announced the formation of wholly owned subsidiary CASCADE Limited in January 2003, and transferred almost a quarter of its workforce to Cascade. Cascade employed more than 3,000 staff as of June 2003. Cascade provides PCCW's telecommunications network operations with support and maintenance services. It provides also network infrastructure design, build-out and maintenance services, consulting solutions, customer installation and maintenance services, project management, operating systems development and maintenance and technical support to clients other than PCCW. Started from December 2008, Cascade became a Subsidiary of PCCW-HKT Limited, which PCCW-HKT is still 100% owned by PCCW. The name of Cascade is removed from now on, become a part of HKT and named as "Engineering", a business unit of PCCW-HKT, simply like Commercial group of PCCW. All staff in Cascade had transferred to PCCW-HKT without changing.[13][14][15]

PCCW Media

now TV

now TV is an IPTV and pay-TV provider in Hong Kong delivered by PCCW Media. now TV serves Hong Kong with more than 190 channels of local, Asian and international programming, including premium content such as the English Premier League, Spanish La Liga, Italian Serie A, French Ligue 1, J-League, French Open, ATP World Tour, and World Snooker Tour. In addition, now TV is a producer of news, sports and infotainment programming and a provider of interactive services. nowTV can be viewed on its nowTV app, and select now TV content and interactive applications can also be accessed via the group's 4G mobile network and broadband service.[16]

Viu

Viu is an Over-the-top (OTT) video service operated by PCCW Media providing popular Korean dramas and variety shows.

ViuTV

ViuTV and ViuTVsix is a general entertainment television channel in Hong Kong operated by HK Television Entertainment (HKTVE), whose parent company is PCCW Media. The channel serves as a free-to-air outlet of television programmes shown on the channels operated by Now TV. In 2015, HK Television Entertainment was granted a 12-year free-to-air television broadcast license by the Hong Kong Government.[17] The Cantonese station (channel 99) and English station (channel 96) began broadcasting on 2 April 2016 and 31 March 2017 respectively.

MOOV

MOOV is a lossless music digital streaming service based in Hong Kong. It provides music content, including songs, concert videos, MVs and other music shows under a monthly fee.

PCCW Global

PCCW Global (formerly Beyond The Network America[18]) is the international operating division of HKT, Hong Kong's premier telecommunications service provider, which is majority-owned by PCCW Limited.[19]

Incident with YouTube

On 24 February 2008, Pakistan Telecom caused a major interruption of access to the video-sharing website YouTube.[20][21][22][23] Pakistani Government authorities directed Pakistan Telecom (PTCL) to "block" the YouTube site, to prevent access within Pakistan. PTCL engineers accidentally leaked a "black hole"[Inappropriate slang] announcement to PCCW. PCCW had recently provided temporary access to PTCL in order to restore the nation's loss of internet access due to a previous major submarine cable break event. PTCL began leaking the "black hole" BGP announcement to PCCW prior to PCCW's completion of the BGP validation and filtering policies process on the newly activated link. This allowed the announcement to propagate to other networks.[24]

Once detected, PCCW immediately blocked the leaked announcement from PTCL and access was restored to YouTube within 2 hours. [25][26]

PCCW Solutions (Unihub, Business eSolutions)

PCCW Solutions

PCCW Solutions is the information technology services and business process outsourcing (BPO) division of PCCW. Press releases prior to February 2006 refer to it by the name Unihub.[27] It is owned by Wen Yunsong, son of China's former prime minister Wen Jiabao. Unihub was a re-branding of PCCW's Business eSolutions division, from 1 September 2003.[28]

Business eSolutions division formed a venture with China Telecom to provide IT solutions to major business organizations in 2002. This was in addition to PCCW's PCITC alliance with Sinopec, formed to serve Sinopec plus other players in China's petrochemical sector. The division also contributed to the new Hong Kong Identity Card system in 2003.[27]

In early 2003, Business eSolutions entered a contract to provide services for Bank of China's credit-card back office processing system in China.[29] It also extended a 2002 enterprise resource planning (ERP) project into more provinces for China Mobile and completed the flight information display system (FIDS) for Xiamen Airport, and a human resource management and financial management system for the Hong Kong Council of Social Service.[30]

PCPD (Pacific Century Premium Developments Limited)

Majority-owned by PCCW, Pacific Century Premium Developments Limited ("PCPD", SEHK: 432) develops and manages property and infrastructure projects, as well as investment in buildings in the Asia-Pacific region. PCCW acquired a majority stake in Dong Fang Gas Co. Ltd through a back door listing in 2004, injecting the development rights to the Cyberport project, which includes the Bel-Air residential development, and renamed it Pacific Century Premium Developments.[31][32]

Apart from the Bel-Air residential development, PCPD holds the right of first refusal to redevelop 60 PCCW-owned telephone exchange buildings into residential and / or commercial properties.[31]

Past subsidiary

UK Broadband

The UK Broadband Group (shortened to UKBG for marketing) is a wholly owned subsidiary and is an upstream service provider. Its UK business has been a failure. In June 2014 UKBG launched a 4G service in central London. In February 2017, PCCW agreed to sell UKBG to related company CK Hutchison Holdings.[33][34][35]

Corporate history

The legal person of PCCW Limited was incorporated as "Ring Holdings Limited" (Chinese: 群山企業有限公司) on 24 April 1979. It was renamed several time and known as Tricom Holdings Limited (Chinese: 得信佳集團有限公司) in 1992. In October 1994 Tricom Holdings became a listed company.[36][37] In May 1999 Richard Li acquired the company,[38][39] and as a backdoor listing, the listed company was renamed to Pacific Century Cyberworks Limited (Chinese: 盈科數碼動力有限公司; abb. PCCW) in the same year.

In March the same year Richard Li's private company Pacific Century Group won a controversial land deal, acquiring valuable waterfront real estate from the government without any public auction bids. The Hong Kong government, under chief executive Tung Chee Hwa, gave away the land to his new high-tech residential and commercial venture called Cyberport.[40] The development of Cyberport was later injected to PCCW.

The stock of Pacific Century CyberWorks rose from HK$6.00 to HK$19.50 between 1 and 28 December 1999. 23 Dec is a Heritage of Pacific Century CyberWorks, break record of single company in Hong Kong history with a HK$5 billion transaction. Pacific Century CyberWorks become the seventh (value over HK$170 billion) listing company in Hong Kong Exchange on 28 December 1999.

PCCW acquired Hong Kong Telecom (HKT) in August 2000, which was formerly known as the "Hong Kong Telephone Company" (founded in 1925). Initially, HKT owner Cable & Wireless entertained a bid from Singapore Telecommunications, but there was Beijing concern about a Singapore company owning the largest Hong Kong telephone system. PCCW entered the scene and offered Cable and Wireless PCCW stock and US$11 billion in bank loans by HSBC, Bank of China, BNP Paribas & Barclays.[41] The acquisition vaulted PCCW from a dot-com holdings company to one of the largest universal corporations in Hong Kong. PCCW is now also the leading Internet service provider in Hong Kong, using the Netvigator brand for dialup modem and DSL service. PCCW has been the object of much scorn in Hong Kong as a result of the HKT purchase. In 2003 the company's stock price was down 96 percent from its 2000 peak. In the face of challenges due to debt, intense local telecoms competition and a struggling international joint venture Reach (50/50 owned by PCCW and Telstra), PCCW was the worst-performing blue chip on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKSE) in 2002 and 2003. Stock price came down from HK$129.25 to HK$4.7 in less than 3 years.[42]

In 2003, Cable and Wireless finished cashing in all the stock from the 14.7 percent stake it had in PCCW. Worth US$5 billion at the time of the 2000 acquisition of HKT, the stock sales yielded only $1.9 billion in the end.

Richard Li gave up his spot as PCCW's chief executive officer in July 2003 but remained as chairman and executive director. Jack So, who left his chairman position at Hong Kong subway operator MTR Corporation Limited, took up the job of group managing director at PCCW on 25 July 2003.

The incumbent Managing Director is George Chan. Former Infosys President B.G. Srinivas has been announced to be the Group's Managing Director effective July 2014.[1]

After several years as a wholly owned subsidiary, PCCW floated HKT again in 2011.

USA Sponsorship

According to the leaked document, undersea cabling company Reach – a joint venture of Telstra (then 50.1 percent-owned by the Australian Government) and PCCW, a Hong Kong corporation – had to send all communications to or from US to a storage facility “physically located in the United States, from which Electronic Surveillance can be conducted pursuant to Lawful US Process.” The document also specifies the facility should be run exclusively by US FBI staff. [43][44][45]

Attempted privatization

Although PCCW's substantial shareholder China Netcom had earlier expressed objection to any disposal of key assets to foreign groups, it also refused to increase its stake; Richard Li attempted to exit from the business in 2006. Li received competing offers by two consortia led by Australia's Macquarie Bank and private equity firm Texas Pacific Group/Newbridge submitted expressions of interest last month to acquire PCCW's core telecom and media assets.[46]

PCCW chairman Richard Li has agreed to sell his indirectly held 22.66 percent stake in PCCW on 11 July 2006 to Fiorlatte Ltd, a new startup company wholly owned by Francis Leung Pak-to, for a total consideration of HK$9.16 billion. In turn, Francis Leung Pak-to has agreed to sell an 8% stake in PCCW to Telefónica for 323 million euros. Leung, former Peregrine investment banker, is closely associated with Li Ka-shing. PCCW's stock, which had joined Hang Seng Index (HSI) index on 9 August 2000,[47] ceased to be a HSI constituent, effective 10 June 2008.[48]

Purported Cable & Wireless takeover bid

News report from the Sunday Times on 6 February 2003 revealed that PCCW made a preliminary takeover approach to Cable & Wireless on December 2002 as the British company's share languished near record lows.[49]

Li told the Sunday Times newspaper that PCCW would not launch a hostile bid for C&W but that the two companies could work together to enhance shareholders' value.

The Times quoted Li as saying that he was planning to try again that week with a two billion pound (US$3.27 billion) bid for C&W. Following the news report, PCCW issued a statement through the Hong Kong stock exchange on 6 February 2003 morning saying it had not made a formal offer for C&W and was not in takeover talks with the company. Later in the day, in London and Hong Kong, PCCW issued statements saying it had made a preliminary takeover approach to C&W in a letter at the end of 2002.

PCCW apologised on 10 February 2003 for making what were seen by some in the market as contradictory statements. The Hong Kong Stock Exchange demanded an explanation from PCCW after noting discrepancies between the two statements regarding its approach to C&W about a possible bid.

In any case, C&W had rebuffed PCCW's takeover approach by February 2003.[50]

Privatization plan

In a heated shareholders meeting held on 4 February 2009 which lasted seven and a half hours, the shareholders approved the PCCW plan allowing its majority shareholders to force out all minority shareholders of the company amidst allegations of vote-buying.[51] Privatisation would allow PCCW to be delisted from Hong Kong Stock Exchange,[52] while its parent would remain listed in Singapore.

Governance activist David Webb alerted the authorities to allegations that hundreds of agents at Fortis Insurance Co. (Asia), once part of PCCW, may have been given board lots of 1,000 PCCW shares.[53] The Securities and Futures Commission found that Francis Yuen, a Li associate and member of the buyout group, had instructed a senior executive at Fortis to distribute PCCW shares to about 500 Fortis agents. Yuen and Fortis Asia regional director, Inneo Lam, had exchanged telephone calls shortly before Lam ordered half a million PCCW shares that were later split into board lots and given away to his staff;[54] Lam's secretary had asked for, and received, share transfer forms from Yuen's secretary. Majority shareholders gained approval from the High Court to proceed in their US$2.2 billion privatisation, but the Appeals Court unanimously overturned the ruling.[55]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "Ex-Infosys president B.G. Srinivas to join Hong Kong based PCCW". IANS. news.biharprabha.com. Retrieved 30 May 2014.
  2. ↑ "PeeringDB".
  3. ↑ "PCCW Around the World". PCCW. Retrieved 2018-04-08.
  4. ↑ "PCCW wins ID card contract".
  5. ↑ "Global Footprint | HKT Teleservices". www.hktteleservices.com. Retrieved 2018-04-07.
  6. ↑ "Customer Care | HKT Teleservices". www.hktteleservices.com. Retrieved 2018-04-07.
  7. ↑ "HKT - Milestones". HKT. Retrieved 2018-04-07.
  8. ↑ "HKT Trust, HKT Limited and PCCW Limited Joint Announcement - Major Transaction In Relation To The Acquisition Of The Entire Issued Share Capital Of CSL New World Mobility Limited and Major Transaction For PCCW Limited" (PDF). HKEX. Retrieved 8 April 2018.
  9. ↑ "PCCW Limited - Annual Report 2010" (PDF). HKEX. Retrieved 8 April 2018.
  10. ↑ "More wireless hotspots open for Netvigator". South China Morning Post. Retrieved 2018-01-26.
  11. ↑ "HKT unleashes more ultra-fast broadband connections in Hong Kong". South China Morning Post. Retrieved 2018-01-26.
  12. ↑ "CSL Mobile Limited: Private Company Information - Bloomberg". www.bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2018-01-26.
  13. ↑ "Cascade Limited: About Us". Cascade. 2003. Archived from the original on 18 February 2008. Retrieved 2008-03-18.
  14. ↑ "Cascade Limited: Private Company Information - Bloomberg". www.bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2018-04-07.
  15. ↑ "電盈重組網絡管理搶攻亞洲可能涉及裁員減薪" [Restructuring of PCCW leading to cutting down on staff number]. the-sun.on.cc. Retrieved 2018-04-07.
  16. ↑ "TV Everywhere Comes To Asia". Media Business Asia. 5 August 2013. Retrieved 7 July 2014.
  17. ↑ "PCCW, I-Cable Win Broadcast Television Licenses in Hong Kong". 16 October 2013.
  18. ↑ DMCA PCCW Global
  19. ↑ Ip, Janice. "PCCW Global to link Rodrigues with high speed undersea cable for Mauritius Telecom | PCCW Global". www.pccwglobal.com. Retrieved 2018-04-07.
  20. ↑ McCullagh, Declan, "How Pakistan knocked YouTube offline (and how to make sure it never happens again) ", CNET News, 25 February 2008.
  21. ↑ YouTube/Pakistan incident: Could something similar whack your site? Archived 24 December 2013 at the Wayback Machine.. Networkworld.com (2008-03-10). Retrieved on 2013-12-23.
  22. ↑ "Pakistan Hijacks YouTube: A Closer Look", Circleid.com (2008-02-25). Retrieved on 2013-12-23.
  23. ↑ "Pakistan YouTube incident adds to international outage", Betanews.com (2008-02-25). Retrieved on 2013-12-23.
  24. ↑ "Insecure routing redirects YouTube to Pakistan". Ars Technica. Retrieved 2018-04-07.
  25. ↑ "YouTube outage blamed on Pakistan". BBC News. 2008-02-24. Retrieved 2008-02-25.
  26. ↑ Stiennon, Richard (2008-02-24). "Pakistan removed from the Internet". Threat Chaos. ZDNet. Retrieved 2008-02-25.
  27. 1 2 "News & Events" (Press release). PCCW Solutions. Archived from the original on 14 February 2008. Retrieved 2008-04-13.
  28. ↑ "PCCW attains BS 7799" (Press release). PCCW Solutions. 2003-11-17. Retrieved 2008-04-13.
  29. ↑ "PCCW Solutions - Who we are". www.pccwsolutions.com. Retrieved 2018-04-07.
  30. ↑ "PCCW Solutions - Enterprise Resources Planning". www.pccwsolutions.com. Retrieved 2018-04-07.
  31. 1 2 "After Selling PCCW, in which industry will RICHARD LI find his future?". Asia Sentinel.
  32. ↑ Andrew Coffey. "Cyberport tech park still has doubters". The Age.
  33. ↑ "PCCW shares surge after sale of UK broadband unit". South China Morning Post. Retrieved 2018-01-26.
  34. ↑ Editorial, Reuters. "HK's PCCW agrees to sell British broadband unit to CK Hutchison". U.K. Retrieved 2018-01-26.
  35. ↑ "Three UK agrees to buy PCCW-owned UK Broadband Limited in £250m deal". www.capacitymedia.com. Retrieved 2018-01-26.
  36. ↑ "HONG KONG - Tricom oversubscribed". International Financing Review. 15 October 1994. Retrieved 21 May 2018. (Subscription required (help)). This month's Tricom Holdings IPO officially closed 12% oversubscribed on October 5. The 63m share sale at HK$1.20 per share will be listed this Monday.......
  37. ↑ "PCCW LTD. (8)". Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing. Retrieved 21 May 2018.
  38. ↑ "A Property Play? Pacific Century To Use Tricom as Listed Vehicle". Wall Street Journal. 5 May 1999. Retrieved 21 May 2018. (Subscription required (help)).
  39. ↑ "Tricom rockets on Cyberport interest". South China Morning Post. Hong Kong. 5 May 1999. Retrieved 21 May 2018.
  40. ↑ "Cyberport Critics Get Stake Hint". AFP. Hong Kong Standard. 21 March 1999. Archived from the original on 22 November 2007. Retrieved 2007-01-11.
  41. ↑ Y. C. Jao, The Asian Financial Crisis and the Ordeal of Hong Kong, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001, p. 214.
  42. ↑ "0008 - Google Search". www.google.com.hk.
  43. ↑ http://media.crikey.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/US-NSAs-Telstra.pdf%5Bpermanent+dead+link%5D
  44. ↑ "Telstra's deal with the devil: FBI access to its undersea cables". crikey.com.au. 12 July 2013.
  45. ↑ http://rt.com/news/telstra-australia-us-surveillance-004/
  46. ↑ Hong Kong PCCW's Li sees decision on any asset disposals by mth-end, AFX News Limited, Forbes Magazine, 3 July 2006
  47. ↑ "Changes in HSI Constituent Stocks" (Excel/XLS). Hang Seng Indexes. Retrieved 2008-05-09.
  48. ↑ "Hang Seng Indexes Announces Index Review Results" (PDF) (Press release). Hang Seng Indexes. 9 May 2008. Archived from the original (PDF) on 31 October 2008. Retrieved 9 May 2008.
  49. ↑ "Hong Kong tech firm mulls C&W bid". BBC News. 2003-02-10. Retrieved 2008-03-18.
  50. ↑ "Cable & Wireless shuns PCCW". The Asian World Street Journal. 2003-02-10. Retrieved 2008-03-18.
  51. ↑ Benjamin Scent, "It's outrageous Archived 4 January 2016 at the Wayback Machine.", The Standard, 21 April 2009
  52. ↑ Mark Lee, "PCCW Investors Approve Li's $2.05 Billion Buyout Bid", Bloomberg, 4 February 2009
  53. ↑ Frederick Yeung, "PCCW move to go private approved", Page A1, South China Morning Post, 5 February 2009
  54. ↑ Jonathan Cheng, "Regulators Detail PCCW Allegations", Wall Street Journal, 30 April 2009.
  55. ↑ "HK court hears call for PCCW privatisation revote", Reuters, 17 April 2009.
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