June 2 (Bloomberg) -- China Telecommunications Group may announce the acquisition of mobile-phone assets from China Unicom Ltd. and its parent today for more than 100 billion yuan ($14.4 billion), South China Morning Post reported, citing people it didn't identify.

China Telecom Corp., the Hong Kong-listed unit of China Telecommunications, will probably pay more than 40 billion yuan for China Unicom's code-division multiple access, or CDMA, business, the Hong Kong-based newspaper said. The parent company will pay more than 60 billion yuan to buy the network infrastructure, the English-language newspaper said.

The transactions may be announced after the close of market trading today, the Morning Post said. China Unicom may also say it will merge with China Netcom Group Corp. as early as today, according to the report.

China Telecom's spokesman Jacky Yung and Sophia Tso, a spokeswoman for China Unicom, declined to comment on the report.

China Telecommunications will buy the CDMA assets from China United Telecommunications Corp., parent of China Unicom, as part of the country's reorganization of its phone industry, the Ministry of Industry and Information said in a statement on May 24. After the sale, China United will merge China Netcom's parent, the ministry said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Lee in Hong Kong at wlee37@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: June 1, 2008 21:31 EDT