Globe Telecom Inc. said it expects to complete the P96-billon tower sale and leaseback deal by the end of the year.
The telecom arm of the Ayala Group said 88 percent of the towers in its portfolio were transferred to the tower companies, generating P85.2 billion in gross proceeds.
The financial inflow is expected to support Globe’s strategic initiatives and further strengthen its financial position.
The company slowed down its capital expenditures (capex) investment by 25 percent in the first six months of 2024 as part of Globe’s strategy to optimize capital deployment, aligned with its goal to achieve positive cash flow by 2025.
Globe chief finance officer Rizza Maniego-Eala is optimistic to achieve the completion of the sale.
“We are aiming to complete 100 percent of our tower sale by this year. However, even if we only reach about 92 percent by December, we will still be on track, considering that the fourth tranche of our tower sale came six months after the first three transactions,” she said.
The tower sale, which started in 2022, saw a significant progress throughout 2024. Globe successfully transferred an additional 48 towers to Phil-Tower Consortium, Inc. (PhilTower) on June 21, for about P710 million.
Globe handed over 140 towers to Miescor Infrastructure Development Corp. (MIDC) on June 28 for P1.68 billion. Simultaneously, 187 towers were transferred to Frontier Towers for about P2.38 billion.
Globe completed the transfer of the last batch of 1,037 sites to Frontier Towers for P13.17 billion on July 23, marking the full completion of its tower sale and leaseback deal with the company.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. emphasized the importance of common towers for national connectivity in his recent State of the Nation Address, a strategy that Globe president and chief executive Ernest Cu fully supports.
“This [referring to the President’s statement] reinforced Globe’s strategy of using common towers,” Cu said.
“We believe in the concept that shared tower cost and shared tower build reduces the capex requirements for the telcos. We hope that with the reduced Capex requirement, we’ll be able to collectively put up more towers between the towercos and us,” he said.
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