China's three mobile operators announced a final agreement for the structure of their planned towers joint venture. China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom will each transfer their tower assets to their joint venture company China Tower, established last year. In exchange they will receive a combination of shares in China Tower and cash. The cash will come from China Reform Corp, a company owned by the SASAC, the Chinese government's body for supervising state-owned enterprises. China Reform will pay cash for new shares in China Tower, which will then use the cash to pay for the tower assets.
After the introduction of the new shareholder and subsequent shares issues, China Mobile will own 28.0 percent in China Tower, China Unicom 28.1 percent, China Telecom 27.9 percent and China Reform 6.0 percent. China Tower will operate, manage and maintain the collective towers assets of the three operators, who will lease back access rights for the towers. Subject to a final agreement on the lease terms, the transaction is expected to close by the end of October.
