Globe closes P1.5-B tower deal

MANILA  -Globe Telecom Inc. booked P1.5 billion from another closing of tower deal with Phil-Tower Consortium Inc., beefing up the telco giant’s coffers for expansion and debt repayments.

On Thursday, the Ayala-led company reported that additional 100 towers acquired by the independent tower company were turned over.

It has transferred 810 out of 1,350 towers acquired by Philtower to date.

The parties entered into a P20-billion sale and leaseback deal for 1,350 towers in September last year.

The first batch of 578 towers were transferred to Philtower in February. Additional 132 assets were closed in April.

In July, Globe announced that Philtower was already operating 250 towers that the latter purchased, establishing two regional operational centers.

The sale and lease back agreement was in line with the government’s common tower policy, which supports colocation services. This means independent tower companies can build up their shared telco tower assets that can be tapped by any local player to expand wireless network coverage across the country.

In total, the telco giant sold 7,506 tower assets for P96.4 billion.

“This transaction will allow Globe to efficiently raise capital, redeploy capital from passive infrastructure to active equipment, improve balance sheet health and leverage expertise of tower companies,” the Ayala-led company said.

Globe spent P54 billion in capital expenditures in January to September to fund infrastructure expansion amid the growing data requirements. It built 833 new cell sites and upgraded 5,395 mobile sites and deployed around 175,000 fiber-to-the-home lines during the period.

On the debt side, Globe has been securing credit lines from several banks as well, recently signing term loan facilities with Bank of the Philippine Islands, China Banking Corp. and Robinsons Banking Corp. for a total of P12 billion. Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co. also extended a P15-billion borrowing to Globe in September.

Nine-month net income dropped by 27 percent to P19.29 billion in the first three quarters from P26.46 billion a year ago due to absence of one-time gain from asset sale.

Topline figures, however, climbed by 3 percent to P121.1 billion because of revenue growth from mobile, corporate data and non-telco services.