China Mobile Ltd. said it doesn’t plan to buy a stake in Tencent Holdings Ltd. after a newspaper report cited the carrier’s Chairman Wang Jianzhou as saying he hadn’t ruled out an investment in the future.

“The company has no intention to buy Tencent, either in whole, or in part,” Rainie Lei, a spokeswoman for the carrier, said in an e-mail today.

Tencent, China’s biggest Internet company by value, gained 6.2 percent to HK$150.7 as of the midday break in Hong Kong, the stock’s steepest jump in almost two months. China Mobile added 0.7 percent to HK$76, while the benchmark Hang Seng Index climbed 1.3 percent.

Hong Kong’s Ming Pao newspaper reported that China Mobile’s Wang said he cannot rule out the possibility of an equity partnership with Tencent. Catherine Chan, spokeswoman for the Internet company, said the report may have “misquoted” the executive while adding she wasn’t present at the interview and was seeking more information from China Mobile.

China’s DoNews.com reported Jan. 1 that Wang visited Tencent’s headquarters in Shenzhen to discuss a possible takeover, citing people it didn’t identify.

Wang met Tencent executives during the trip in late December in “a normal exchange visit,” Lei said Jan. 2. Wang also met executives at other companies during the visit, she said.

Source:Bloomberg