PLDT eyes sale of some towers as new finance strategy

TELCO titan PLDT Inc. is now reviewing its tower assets to pinpoint which ones are “not strategic” to maintain its position as the dominant telco in the country, with the sale of these towers maybe on the horizon.

Manuel V. Pangilinan, the company’s chairman, said his group has met with financial institutions that “persuaded” the management to be open to selling “part” of its towers, as this may provide the company with a financially-sound strategy moving forward.

“We are at the start of the process of considering with what to do with the towers and we’ve spoken to a number of international banks and they have enlightened us on the advantages of selling part of our towers. We’re open to the idea,” he said during a news briefing.

Pangilinan explained that given this, the group’s “job now is to identify the towers that are not strategic to what we want to achieve.”

“In our discussion with the banks, they managed to persuade us if we were to let go of some of our number of towers that are not strategic to maintaining our position as the dominant network in the country —that led us to think that maybe we should be open to it as long as the financial case is beneficial to PLDT,” he said.

To recall, Bloomberg, citing anonymous sources, reported the PLDT is mulling over the idea of selling its tower assets for $800 million. After the sale, PLDT will just rent out the assets to reduce costs. “Purely from a financial perspective, the transaction could also probably translate to a financial gain,” Pangilinan said.

He noted that the group is still at the early stages of the possible sale exercise, and has yet to reach a final decision for the valuation of the assets.