By Kirsty Needham
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Jamaica-based mobile phone carrier Digicel Group denied an Australian newspaper report on Thursday and said there is "no basis whatsoever" that it would sell its Pacific unit to state-owned China Mobile Ltd (HK:0941).
Earlier in the day, the Australian Financial Review had reported that the Chinese company has been conducting due diligence on Digicel's Pacific unit since the beginning of the year, in a deal that could be worth as much as $900 million.
"We can categorically state there is no basis to this whatsoever and that no approach has been made to us," Antonia Graham (NYSE:GHM), head of communications for Digicel Group, said in an emailed statement.
In the Pacific, Digicel operates in Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Samoa, Vanuatu and Tahiti.
A sale of the Pacific's largest mobile phone carrier to a Chinese state-owned company would be a cause of concern for the Australian government amid strategic competition between U.S. allies and China in the Pacific region.
Digicel, founded by Irish billionaire Denis O'Brien, has a dominant market share in PNG and will use the new Coral Sea (NYSE:SE) submarine cable from Sydney that was constructed with funding from the Australian government to expand data services there.
Australia funded the 4,700-km (2,900-mile) Coral Sea cable to head off plans by Chinese telecoms company Huawei Technologies Co Ltd to lay the cable.