AXIATA TO FOCUS ON EXPANSION
Telco targeting 3.5 to 4.5 per cent revenue growth this year, says Vivek
AXIATA Group Bhd has announced a capital expenditure (capex) of RM6.6 billion for the year ending Dec 31, 2020.
This is higher than last year’s capex of RM6.2 billion.
Axiata group chief financial officer Vivek Sood said the company would focus on network expansion, especially in Indonesia and Bangladesh.
“We will continue to put more capex in Indonesia as expansion there continues to give significant returns and profit to the group.
“There is also more requirement in Bangladesh for 4G expansion,” he said at Axiata’s financial year 2019 performance briefing, here, yesterday.
The company has set a 3.5 to 4.5 per cent revenue growth target, and 4.0 to 5.5 per cent increase in earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation.
Vivek said the group would also allocate RM600 million for its tower company edotco Group Sdn Bhd for tower acquisition.
Meanwhile, Axiata president and group chief executive officer Tan Sri Jamaludin Ibrahim said the group was “in no rush to list edotco”.
It was earlier reported that Axiata was reviving preparations for an initial public offering (IPO) for edotco.
The report quoted sources as saying that Axiata’s advisers had recently resumed work on the deal that was shelved last year.
Axiata had aimed to list the unit on Bursa Malaysia as soon as this year and might seek a valuation of around US$2.5 billion for the company, they added.
Jamaluddin said the group was sitting on a RM4 billion cash pile and still could fund edotco’s operations and expansion.
“We are evaluating the state of readiness for edotco to go for an IPO.
“Operationally, we are ready but it has to come with the right value. We are not in a rush,” he said.