Paris: France`s Orange plans to take more time to review options for selling a stake in video sharing site Dailymotion, denying media reports that it was to enter exclusive talks with Asia`s PCCW.
"We did not sign an exclusivity with PCCW," said Orange Chief Executive Stephane Richard at a presentation on the group`s 2020 strategy. "We want to take a bit of time to evaluate other options."
Orange has been looking for a partner for over a year to help Dailymotion expand internationally to try to compete with much larger rival Google`s Youtube. PCCW is an internet and telecoms giant based in Hong Kong and controlled by tycoon Richard Li, the son of businessman Li Ka-Shing.
In 2013 Orange was in talks to sell all or part of the site to Yahoo but the French government scuppered the deal over concerns that a promising start-up getting snapped up by a US giant.
This time around Orange has said it would sell only a minority stake. In early 2014 Microsoft was said to be interested but nothing came of those reports.
