SKT to grab 25% stake in P1 for USD100 million

South Korea’s SK Telecom (SKT) has announced that it is spending USD100 million in order to acquire a 25% stake in Malaysian WiMAX operator Packet One (P1), Reuters reports. The deal is expected to be finalised in June 2010, and the move by SKT, which was originally rumoured in April 2010, comes as part of an overarching strategy to expand overseas in order to enhance growth. Previous efforts by the South Korean firm overseas have arguably met with little success, most notably ventures in the US and China, and as a result it has said that it is shifting its focus to business-to-business network services while looking to alliances with other Asian operators in order to reach corporate clients in the region. P1, which according to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database had 199,000 subscribers at end-March 2010, is currently majority owned by Kuala Lumpur-based Green Packet.