CK Hutchison will consider a stock market listing for O2 UK after its merger with 3 UK is completed, chairman Canning Fok told the Financial Times. The company already agreed to sell a third of the merged company for GBP 3.1 billion to the investors Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, GIC of Singapore, Limpart Holdings (a subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority), CDPQ of Quebec and BTG Pactual of Brazil. Fok said the new investors had a "liquidity requirement" and an IPO would be considered to offer them an eventual exit. He declined to give a timeframe for when an IPO could take place.
The chairman noted as well that 3's CEO David Dyson would be become the CEO of the new group, while O2's Ronan Dunne would step down. Both the O2 and 3 brands would still be used for a time after the merger, bit Fok hinted that the final name would be something different, 3 "with a twist". Fok said he was confident Hutchison could reach a deal with regulators to approve both the O2 transaction as well as the planned merger of its company 3 Italia with Vimpelcom's Wind. "We have done this exercise in Austria and Ireland and we will come up with a solution in which everyone is comfortable," he said.
