• China Mobile has been keen to acquire Hong Kong Broadband Network (HKBN) for a few years 
• Now the giant Chinese telco owns an almost 71% stake and has control of the Hong Kong operator

The tussle to acquire control of Hong Kong Broadband Network (HKBN) is over, with China Mobile emerging with a controlling stake following an offer to shareholders that ultimately proved too good to turn down. 

China Mobile has been keen on buying HKBN for a few years and in December last year made a formal takeover offer worth about US$880m. Then, during the course of this year, it acquired blocks of shares from existing investors and, by early August, had accumulated a 29.9% stake in HKBN. 

It has now had its share purchase offer accepted by stakeholders that accounts for a further 40.8% of the stock, giving China Mobile a 70.7% stake in HKBN, the telco revealed in this filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Its offer for the remaining 29.3% of HKBN shares it doesn't currently own is, under stock exchange laws, still valid for a further two weeks.

I Squared Capital, the US-based investment firm that already owns Hong Kong’s HGC Global Communications, had also engaged with HKBN about a potential rival bid valued at up to US$1bn, but that never materialised. 

As a result, China Mobile can assume control of HKBN and move to combine it in some way with its local subsidiary, China Mobile Hong Kong, the largest mobile operator in the special administrative region with more than 8 million customers in what is a highly competitive and fractured market (with five service providers competing for about 28 million users).  

HKBN, meanwhile, has a fibre access network passing almost 2.6 million residential households (of Hong Kong’s 2.67 million total) and more than 8 million commercial premises. With more than 900,000 customers, it has a 30% share of the Hong Kong residential broadband services market, plus about 110,000 enterprise broadband users. 

In the six months to 28 February 2025, HKBN generated revenues of HK$5.73bn (US$735m), down by 1% year on year, and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of HK$1.2bn (US$155m), up by 5%. 

- Ray Le Maistre, Editorial Director, TelecomTV