"We welcome Sapura if they want to come in, either on their own or with Khazanah... whatever it is, Time or Renong will not give up control," Time managing director Halim Saad said today.
As reported this week, if Time were to agree to the Khazanah-Sapura joint offer, it would retain 53.5 percent of the company.
Khazanah would fork out RM1.55 billion in cash for a 22.5 percent equity stake with Sapura taking the rest through a debt-equity deal with Khazanah where it will transfer its RM495 million loan in the Time group to state agency.
The 7.5 percent stake in Time dotCom for Sapura--one of Time's main creditors--is an upgrade from the 2.5 percent it was supposed to get under Time's debt restructuring plan announced early this year.
Time, however, has yet to receive any proposal from Sapura or from Khazanah regarding a joint move, Halim said today, after launching Time dotCom's latest service called Time GOLD.
New VoIP service
Time GOLD--a VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) service--enables customers to make international and outstation calls from all mobile and fixed line telephones in Malaysia at lower rates compared to existing call charges.
Customers stand to gain up to 50 percent discount on such calls, said Time dotCom.
For instance, the normal charge for a call to Australia at peak rate is RM2.30 per minute while to the US, it is RM3 per minute. Under Time GOLD, the charges will be slashed to RM1.15 per minute and RM1.50 per minute respectively.
TT dotCom--a Time dotCom subsidiary--chief operating officer Mek Yam Jusoh said the post-paid Time GOLD service is targeted to anyone who holds a credit card and makes many international and outstation calls.
"The customer must have a credit card as all call charges under Time GOLD are debited directly to his or her account."
MasterCard International meanwhile has teamed up with Time dotCom to offer RM20 worth of free trial calls per Time GOLD customer. Under the marketing partnership, MasterCard brings to the table its 1.5 million customer base in Malaysia.
Time GOLD is a follow up to Time dotCom's other VoIP pre-paid service Time IDD Ekonomi which is targeted to locals and immigrants in the country.
Time dotCom expects RM20 million in revenue from its VoIP services by year-end. The company had invested the same amount to upgrade its network infrastructure to support such pre- and post-paid VoIP services.
As of yesterday, Time dotCom had garnered 750,000 customers comprising fixed and mobile users.
Mek Yam also said the company plans to roll out its Internet services for home users next month. Declining to give details, she said the ISP package would be better than any offered to date.
"It'll be a treat that's never been seen before."
Time Online--a subsidiary of Time dotCom--currently offers ISP services to businesses only.
Play video
There are currently no comments for this post.