Provides enhanced fiber optic network services to village house residents
HONG KONG SAR - Media OutReach - 15 November 2023 - Village Telephone Limited ("VTL") announced that it has been acquired by the Everbright Overseas Investment Infrastructure Fund (the "Fund") and become its wholly-owned subsidiary. The transaction will help to VTL's strength, improve its service and management quality and achieve steady progress in its overall operations, enabling it to provide better and more stable services to customers.
Since its establishment in 2017, VTL has been dedicated to laying a fiber optic network for village houses across Hong Kong. At that time, majority of village house residents could only use the low-speed 8Mbps to 30Mbps broadband service provided by the only copper cable network supplier in their village. However, with the development of the Internet and AI, copper cable Internet access simply could not meet the needs of residents. Recognizing the potential for business development, VTL applied to the Communications Authority and was granted the local fixed-line telecommunications service license in January 2017. At the same time, it has partnered with major telecommunications providers to lay a fiber optic network, providing village house residents with a "fiber-to-the-home" service of up to 1000M of fiber optic broadband.
Ms. Clio IP, Chief Executive Officer of VTL, said, "We are pleased to join the Everbright Overseas Infrastructure Investment Fund. We hope to continuously improve the Company's service and management quality, optimize the quality of equipment and network, and expand the construction of the fiber optic network, so as to provide more village house residents with better quality, stable and barrier-free Internet services. With the upcoming rapid development of the Northern Metropolitan Area, the convenience of transportation within the region will significantly be improved. It is expected that the number of residents in the village will increase substantially, bringing forth new opportunities for VTL."
At present, there are around 900 villages in Hong Kong, with nearly 90,000 village houses and around 200,000 residents. Over the past six years, VTL has installed fiber optic networks in more than 500 villages, benefiting a large number of people. In addition, the Company also provides fiber optic networks to mobile network operators, connecting base transceiver stations located in villages to their backbone network so that villagers can enjoy better mobile communication services. Going forward, VTL will continue to dedicate itself to building fiber optic network infrastructure in other villages, maintaining stable operation of its telecom network platform and uninterrupted services, so that customers can enjoy the smoothest online experience and the Company's market competitiveness can be further enhanced.
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About Village Telephone Limited
Village Telephone Limited (VTL), was granted a local fixed-line telecommunications service license by the Communications Authority in January 2017. It is committed to laying fibre optic networks in the rural areas across Hong Kong. With fibre network infrastructure ready in the villages, VTL partners with major telecommunications providers to provide villagers with up to 1000M fibre-to-the-home broadband services, enabling the villagers to enjoy the convenience of ultra-fast Internet access. So far, VTL's optical fibre networks have reached more than 500 villages and the village residents can enjoy up to 1000M fibre broadband service. In the past, there was just copper telecommunications network in these villages, which supported only 8Mbps to 100Mbps broadband service. In addition, mobile network operators can connect their mobile base stations to their backbone network via our fibre optics networks built inside the villages.
About Everbright Overseas Infrastructure Investment Fund
Everbright Overseas Infrastructure Investment Fund (the "Fund") is a fund targeting infrastructure investment opportunities globally. The Fund achieved its final close in 2019, securing USD460 million of commitment. The Fund is managed by indirect wholly owned subsidiaries of China Everbright Limited. The Fund primarily invests in equity and equity-linked securities of companies or projects located in Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific areas. Investment opportunities in other areas such as South America and Middle-East areas may also be considered. The Fund targets to invest between USD50 million and USD200 million for a single investment. Investment targets should have excellent management team, good operating track record and strong recurrent cash flows so that investors in the Fund can enjoy both a satisfactory cash yield and long-term capital appreciation. The target industries include, without limitation, roads (including toll roads, bridges and tunnels), transport terminals (including airport terminals and related facilities), railway stations and similar, sea and shipping ports, communication towers, water distribution networks, wastewater networks, water and wastewater treatment facilities, power generation facilities, power transmission and distribution networks, oil and gas storage facilities, oil and gas distribution networks, etc.
