Villar group pulls out of race for 3rd telco

Streamtech Systems Technologies of the Villar group has pulled out of the race for the country’s third telecommunication player slot.

Streamtech was among the 10 companies that bought bid documents for the third telco slot.

“After extensive discussions by management, Streamtech has decided not to proceed with the current bidding for the third telco and focus on our internal expansion programs and strategies,” said Manuel Paolo Villar, chair of Streamtech’s parent company, Prime Asset Ventures Inc.

Villar did not elaborate on why Streamtech was dropping out of the race a few days before reckoning date.

In October, Streamtech obtained a 25-year franchise to operate a nationwide telecommunication system.

Foreign, local groups

As of end-October, other parties that had bought bid documents for the third telco slot included foreign telcos like Norway’s Telenor, China Telecom and Austria’s Mobiltel Holding GMBH.

Among the local contenders are Telecommunication Technology Solutions Inc. of Converge ICT’s Dennis Anthony Uy, Philippine Telegraph and Telephone Corp., Udenna Corp. of Davao-based Dennis Uy, a venture between Ilocos politician Luis “Chavit” Singson’s LCS Group of Companies and TierOne Consortium, NOW Telecom and AMA Telecommunication Corp.

Telecommunication Technology is expected to team up with Korean Telecommunications, while China Telecom is expected to partner with Udenna Corp.

Streamtech has had discussions with foreign technical partners for a potential bid for the third telco slot.

But whether the group gets the much-coveted slot, Villar earlier said plans were under way to provide broadband services to its “communi-cities,” the large-scale mixed-use estates of the group, such as those under Vista Land & Lifescapes.

Paolo’s brother, Mark, is the public works secretary while their mother, Cynthia, is a reelectionist senator, an ally of the Duterte administration.

Villar fortune

Patriarch Manuel Villar, a former Senate President and presidential aspirant, tripled his wealth over the past year to $5 billion from $1.65 billion, making him the country’s second richest after SM patriarch Henry Sy, according to Forbes magazines’ latest ranking of the Philippines’ wealthiest.

The increase in Villar’s fortune was due to the skyrocketing of shares of publicly listed unit Golden Bria, which fine-tuned its business model from one that served only the dead to that which also serves the living through mass housing.

Golden Bria—now valued by the stock market at over P200 billion, or more than double the valuation of flagship property business Vista Land—had been among the companies speculated by stock market pundits to be the prospective vehicle for the Villars’ third telco play.

Announcement on Nov. 7

The Department of Information and Communications Technology is expected to announce the winning third telco bidder on Nov. 7.

The winner, however, will still undergo a postqualification process.

President Duterte wants a third telco player to break the duopoly of PDLT Inc. and Globe Telecom to improve internet speed in the country and reduce the price of the service.

A House of Representatives leader is counting on “shared wireless communications towers” to help boost internet connectivity all over the country.

“The immediate beneficiary of new common towers will of course be the third telecommunications player that the government is bringing in precisely to drive competition in the supply of superior internet services,” Deputy Minority Leader and Makati Rep. Luis Campos Jr. said in a statement.