Carlyle Group is in talks to sell Taiwan’s biggest cable television operator to the Tsai family, one of the island’s wealthiest, in a deal that could be worth up to T$70bn ($2.2bn).
The deal, which would restructure an earlier agreement by the US private equity firm to sell Kbro to Taiwan Mobile, which is controlled by the Tsai family, highlights the extent to which bankers and investors have to go to try and complete mergers and acquisitions in Taiwan’s tough regulatory environment.
Taiwan Mobile had agreed to buy Kbro from Carlyle last September in a transaction that would have given the US private equity firm a 15.5 per cent stake in the mobile operator and $12m in cash.