CWC completes $750m Macau stake sale Cable & Wireless Communications has completed the $750m sale of a controlling stake in Macau's largest telecoms group to Citic Telecom International, part of the Chinese state-controlled industrial group. Citic will take almost full ownership of the Macau group having also agreed to acquire the 28 per cent stake held by Portugal Telecom. It already owned a 20 per cent stake in CTM, Macau's only fixed-line provider and leading mobile phone group. Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC) said that the deal marked the end of a corporate restructuring that has focused its business on the Caribbean and Central America. The group, which once owned telecoms operators spread across many former European colonies, last month completed the sale of its Monaco & Islands division for $680m to Batelco, the Bahrain telecoms group. Tony Rice, chief executive, said that this was a "landmark day" for CWC given the end of the repositioning work that has been under way since the demerger from the Cable & Wireless Group in 2010. The company will initially use the proceeds from the two sales almost entirely to pay back its debts - leaving it with a net debt multiple of 0.2 times earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation - although it will use its strong balance sheet in future to pursue new acquisitions in its core markets. Mr Rice said that phase two of the company's strategy would be increasing its investment in the Caribbean and Central American regions, although he declined to specify which assets the company would be targeting. The company is also expected to sell off the remaining controlling stake in Monaco Telecom for an additional $345m to Batelco, which has a one-year option on the deal. This would leave the company with net cash, said Mr Rice. He said that there were no plans to move the company's headquarters to its core markets in the Caribbean, although the company would bring together its operations in a "more unified way." Cable & Wireless was a founding shareholder in CTM in 1981. The Macau sale is still dependent on regulatory approval, although the company said that completion was expected to take place within nine months. The sale price of $749.7m represents a multiple of 8.9 times the Macau unit's earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation based on results for the 12 months to March 31. CTM had a net cash balance of $70m as at December 31, 2012, with reported revenue of $524m, ebitda of $165m and pre-tax profit of $133m in the 12 months to March 31, 2012. The company has benefited from the boom in gambling-led tourism in the former Portuguese enclave, with 460,000 mobile, 173,000 fixed-line and 142,000 broadband customers.