CEO denies Syed Mokhtar takeover of XOX

KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 20): XOX Bhd chief executive officer Ng Kok Heng has denied a news report that Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary may be taking over the loss-making mobile virtual network operator.

A local newspaper this morning said that the ACE Market-listed XOX may be the target of a takeover by Syed Mokhtar.

"I have no knowledge of this. We have not been approached," said Ng, when responding to a question by theedgemalaysia.com whether XOX was being taken over.

"But of course if they approach us, we will look into it. We owe that to the company and its shareholders to do what's best for them.

"We are very happy to hear this news and we hope it is true, but for now they are just rumours," he said.

Ng is the largest shareholder of XOX, with 15.72% stake in the company.

According to senior remisier at SJ Securities Goh Kay Chong, the takeover, if materialises, will be good for XOX.

"The takeover would be a good thing [for XOX] as there will be new funds and new ideas coming into the company," Goh said, adding that the influential businessman may be able to take XOX far.

XOX is seen as an interesting proposition to Syed Mokhtar's group because of its involvement in the telco business and its current strategic partnership with Celcom (M) Bhd.

XOX currently has a commercial agreement with Celcom to ride its mobile network infrastructure and also exclusively uses the 010 mobile number prefix which had been used by Celcom previously.

It has been reported that Syed Mokhtar's Puncak Semangat TECHNOLOGY [] Sdn Bhd may be riding Celcom's network to run its 4G service now that it has been awarded the 2600MHz spectrum by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC).

At 11.26am today, XOX shares rose 2 sen or 12.5% to 18 sen on volumes of 7.93 million shares.

Written by Janice Melissa Thean by the theedgemalaysia.com