PCCW will hold 55 per cent of the joint venture and ERA, GigaMedia and its parent Koos Group 45 per cent, PCCW said in a statement.

The joint venture will produce Chinese Internet content to be branded `ERA.com' which will be available to PCCW and GigaMedia for distribution on their Network of the World (NOW) and GigaNet services respectively.

The new joint venture company will seek an initial public offering (IPO) at an appropriate time, the statement said.

``When the valuation is right, we will go for an IPO,'' PCCW chairman Richard Li later told a news conference. A separate joint venture will be created by ERA, GigaMedia and Koos Group for the global distribution of the content produced by the PCCW joint venture, the statement said.

As part of the joint venture agreement, PCCW and GigaMedia may acquire shares in ERA from ERA President Chiu Fu Sheng with a value of up to $50 million for each company. The deal will still leave Chiu with a stake of over 50 per cent in ERA. ERA claims to be Taiwan's largest multi-media conglomerate. GigaMedia is a Taiwanese broadband Internet access services and content provider. Koos Group, a major business group in Taiwan, is owned by the wealthy Koo family which includes Koo Chen-fu, Taiwan's top envoy to China under outgoing President Lee Teng-hui. PCCW is a Hong Kong-based Internet firm, expected to offer the world's first fully converged service providing interactive digital video viewing.

-- (Reuters)