Manila, Aug 11: Deutsche Telekom AG has failed to offload a $445 million stake in the Philippines' Globe Telecom Inc, stalling the German company's strategy of selling Asian assets to pay down debt. The other owners of Globe, Ayala Corp and Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel), said they had failed to reach a deal to buy Deutsche Telekom's 24.8 per cent stake in the phone company, the Philippines' second largest.
The offer to purchase the stake had expired on Friday without agreement, Ayala Corp said in a brief media release. SingTel issued a separate statement saying it, too, had come to no agreement to buy.
Deutsche, which has been selling Asian assets to pare down debt of close to $65 billion, offered its stake in Globe to Ayala and SingTel in June.
Neither Ayala nor SingTel gave a reason for the deal not being reached by the time the 45-day offer period expired.
Deutsche sold its six per cent holding in cellular operator Celcom (Malaysia) Bhd for $114 million in June and a 25 per cent stake in Indonesia's second-largest mobile firm, Satelindo, in May 2002 for $325 million.
Bureau Report