Spain's heavily indebted Telefonica said today it had sold a 1.51% stake in China Unicom, China's second-biggest telecommunications provider, for 322 million euros ($356 million).
The former state monopoly, which has been selling stakes in non-core assets, sold 361.8 million shares in China Unicom at 7.80 Hong Kong dollars per share, Telefonica said in a statement. The operation leaves it in possession of about 1% of China Unicom, it added.
"This operation is part of measures to manage the asset portfolio, and the goal of medium-term deleveraging of the company," Telefonica said.
The Spanish company said it remained committed to its strategic alliance with China Unicom, with which it recently set up a joint-venture to sell big data services.
The sale comes after the European Commission in May shot down Telefonica's blockbuster sale of British telecom giant O2 to Hong Kong group Hutchison.
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The Spanish carrier has been counting on the 10.3-billion-pound (12.1 billion euro) sale of the O2 unit to reduce its debt pile of 49.9 billion euros.
Telefonica reported net profits in 2015 of 2.75 billion euros, a drop of 8.5% over the year partly down to costs associated with voluntary redundancies in Spain.
It is rated two notches above junk by both Moody's Investors Service and Standard & Poor's.