Chinese mobile telecom companies are extremely cheap, and China Unicom (CHU) is no exception. Using reasonable assumptions, it trades for around 2.4x 2019 EV/EBITDA. This is basically below any distressed stock trading in the U.S. markets, since it’s hard for a stock to even be distressed at 2.4x Debt/EBITDA, never mind EV/EBITDA.
China Unicom, of course, is not distressed. Still, the market Gods fear it like they fear most other international mobile telephony companies. Valuation-wise, you can find several companies trading at multiples similar to China Unicom’s. The thesis goes that 5G is