CANBERRA - The lower house of Australia's Parliament yesterday rubber-stamped laws to approve the full privatisation of Telstra, allowing the Government to offload its 51.8 per cent stake in the giant telco.
The upper house Senate passed five bills on Wednesday to approve the sale of the Government's A$28 billion ($30.8 billion) stake, but two bills had to be signed off by the lower House of Representatives, where the Government has a clear majority.
These two pieces of legislation were easily passed yesterday with a vote of 75 to 58.
The Liberal/National coalition can now make a final decision early next year on whether to proceed with the long-planned sale of its Telstra stake before the end of 2006.
If the Government sells its stake in one tranche it would rank as the biggest share sale in the world since the sale of Japan's NTT DoCoMo in 1987 (Nippon Telegraph & Telephone), which raised around US$37 billion ($53 billion).
Telstra shares jumped 1.6 per cent yesterday to A$4.44. The Government has pencilled in a sale share price of around A$5, but insists this is not a target price.
- REUTERS
Telstra sale gets final tick
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