Bloomberg
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The Carlyle Group’s cable television operator Kbro Co. will be bought by Taiwan’s second-largest phone carrier, Taiwan Mobile co. for $1B in stock and cash, Bloomberg reports. Carlyle will get 589M shares in Taiwan Mobile and NT$440 million cash. Harvey Chang, president of the Taipei-based operator, seeks to use Taiwan Mobile’s cable television business, its fastest-growing division, to boost revenue from so-called convergence services that combine phone, Internet and television. The transaction will raise its share of the cable television market from 6.6% to 32%, with almost 1.6M customers, making it the industry’s largest provider. Vivek Couto, executive director of Hong Kong-based Media Partners Asia Ltd. said, “The deal makes strategic sense as it gives them better economies of scale.”