Last week, Globe revealed it had signed two major tower sales deal which is set to raise around US$1.28 billion, most of which will be put toward its network expansion.
Investment firm Stonepeak will buy 2,180 towers for US$472 million while Frontier Tower Associates Philippines, a unit of the KKR-backed Pinnacle Towers will purchase 3,529.
Darren Keogh, senior managing director at Stonepeak said: “As Stonepeak continues to expand its presence in the Asia Pacific region, we remain deeply committed to sourcing attractive digital infrastructure investment opportunities for our limited partners.
“We believe the growth prospects in the Philippines mobile tower industry are robust and as such are excited to acquire this substantial portfolio of tower assets with Globe as a long-term anchor tenant and the opportunity to build additional towers over the next four years.”
Stonepeak has been involved in several deals around telecoms as it recently bought a US2.5 billion stake in American Tower’s US data centre business and bought Lumen’s Latin American operations for US2.7 billion earlier this month.
As for its latest deal with Globe, the operator confirmed that the towers will be leased back for 15 years, and the deal is expected to be concluded by the end of this quarter.
The sale will reportedly fund Globe’s network expansion as it looks to pay off some of its debts.
Globe is also in talks with another unnamed tower company over the sale and leaseback of an additional 1,350 towers.
"We also believe that through these monetization efforts, Globe will be able to further improve overall operational efficiency, allowing us to serve our customers better," said Globe Telecom chief executive Ernest Cu.
