Globe raises P39 B from tower sale

Mobile giant Globe Telecom Inc. has raised roughly P39 billion from the sale of its tower assets, building up its war chest against a challenging economy pressured by spiking inflation.

Globe received P8.6 billion from PhilTower Consortium Inc. for the turnover of 578 towers out of the 1,350 included in the asset deal.

Globe said the telco towers are located in Visayas and Mindanao, 92 percent of which are ground-based, the remainder are rooftop-based.

As such, Globe has completed the handover of 2,988 towers or 42 percent of the 7,059 that it sold to tower operators in 2022. From this, the Ayala-led telco has secured P39 billion to bolster its financials against economic risks, particularly inflation.

Globe chief finance officer Rizza Maniego-Eala said the firm is working on improving its financial position to combat the difficulties posed by surging inflation and monetary tightening. As part of this, Globe plans to monetize passive assets by turning them over to tower operators within the year.

“This new milestone of transferring nearly half of the towers we sold to PhilTower in September 2022 provides us the much needed financial flexibility, especially in the current macroeconomic backdrop of high inflation and increasing interest rate environment,” Eala said.

Further, Eala said that Globe hopes to liquidate the telco assets packaged in the tower deals to strengthen its budget with the goal of stabilizing its capital expenditures to $1 billion in 2024.

“We will continue efforts and seek to turn over more sites in the next few months, as we believe these partnerships with tower companies will help us become more efficient in deploying capital and allow us to reach our goal of bringing down our capex spending to $1 billion by 2024,” Eala said.

PhilTower president Devid Gubiani vowed that the tower operator would work with Globe in closing the remaining assets for the turnover.

PhilTower, for its part, will embark on an expansion push this year, promising to build new towers in Visayas and Mindanao to broaden connectivity there.

Inflation jumped to a 14year high of 8.7 percent in January, surprising economic managers who thought it already peaked at 8.1 percent in December 2022.

The surge puts the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas to a test on whether it will pursue another rate hike in its policy meeting on Feb. 16.

Last year Globe signed a P91-billion deal for the sale of over 7,000 towers to PhilTower, Manila Electric Co.’s unit MIESCOR Infrastructure Corp. and tower operator Frontier Tower Associates Philippines Inc.

After the turnover of the telco assets, Globe is expected to keep in its portfolio about 5,000 units that it deems strategic to its present operations and future expansions.