DENIS O’BRIEN’S Digicel mobile phone group appears to have had a change of heart about buying the monopoly mobile provider on the Cook Islands in the south Pacific.
O’Brien seemed poised to spend about $20 million (€14.7 million) buying Telecom Cook Islands (TCI), which is 60 per cent owned by Telecom New Zealand, with the balance held by the government.
This would have added to his businesses in Samoa, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Fiji and Tonga.
TCI reportedly makes annual profits of about $4 million, a tidy sum given that the population of the 15 Cook Islands is just 19,000. “It seems that Digicel had second thoughts about the agreed price,” Mac Mokoroa, chief of staff at the prime minister’s office, told the Cook Islands News.
He added that the new price offered by Digicel was unacceptable to Telecom New Zealand, which is a listed company.
The deal was unusual for Digicel, which prefers to launch greenfield operations in markets backed by development finance.
TCI enjoys a monopoly, although the government has signalled it will open up the market to competition.
Neither Digicel nor Telecom New Zealand responded by deadline time to my requests for a comment.
