Pac Century Moves for Bigger Stake in Outblaze

Pacific Century CyberWorks aims to increase its stake in Outblaze Ltd by purchasing China Rich Holdings’ 3,500 shares in the HK-based portal technology provider for US$26.7 million.

China Rich Holdings Ltd. (CRH) has announced that, through its subsidiary China Rich Technology Ltd (CRT), it is ready to sell its 26.19 percent stake in Outblaze to Asianet System Group Ltd, a subsidiary of Richard Li’s Pacific Century
CyberWorks Ltd.

Asianet currently holds 20% of Outblaze’s total issued shares.
The 20%
shareholding in Outblaze was acquired by Asianet in August 1999 from
Outblaze by subscription.

A source at Outblaze said that the deal means that China Rich is selling
their
entire stake to all the shareholders and that Asianet has already offered
to
buy all of them. However, the source added that the pre-emptive rights
allow other shareholders to buy these shares as well.

The announcement also said that Asianet and Hikari Tsushin, Inc., a 10
percent shareholder of Outblaze, have exercised options to subscribe for further shares in Outblaze and these shares will be issued once the required corporate formalities have been completed.

The China Rich announcement also said that the price offered by Asianet
for the
shares and an accompanying shareholder’s loan is well above the total
HK$6.22 million cost to CRT and the sale would enable the company to
realize
a substantial capital gain on its investment, “in the region of HK$180
million.”

Outblaze provides multilingual Internet community solutions for Web sites
that wish to offer their own private label portal services.