Australia's Telstra announced that negotiations with Philippine conglomerate San Miguel Corp over entering a wireless joint venture have ended after the companies were unable to reach an agreement.
The companies mutually agreed to bring negotiations to an end after being unable to reach commercial arrangements, Telstra said in a statement.
Telstra and San Miguel had intended to jointly invest in a venture in the Philippines to target the nation's growing mobile market. Telstra was prepared to invest up to $1 billion in the venture.
But Telstra CEO Andrew Penn said the companies had not managed to come up with terms that were mutually agreeable.
“Despite an enormous amount of effort and goodwill on all sides, we were simply unable to come to commercial arrangements that would have enabled us all to proceed,” he said.
“While this opportunity is strategically attractive, and we have great respect for San Miguel Corporation and its President Mr Ang, it was obviously crucial that the commercial arrangements achieved the right risk-reward balance for all involved.”
He said Telstra has offered to continue to provide technical network design and construction consultancy support to San Miguel, and will keep on pursuing growth activities in Asia to build on its acquisition of Pacnet in April last year.
San Miguel has been targeting the telecom sector since 2009, but has so far had little mass-market success with its forays into the market.