Aboitiz mulls more tower sale, leaseback deals

MANILA, Philippines — Aboitiz InfraCapital Inc. intends to actively pursue tower sale and leaseback opportunities, as well as construction of new common towers this year to expand its portfolio of tower assets.

The infrastructure arm of the Aboitiz Group is awaiting further sale and leaseback opportunities that may be made available from the telco’s current towers.

In addition, the company said telcos would still issue request for proposals to construct new towers this year to narrow the tower density to 0.55 to 0.60 tower per 1,000 subscribers, at par with Vietnam in 2019 and in line with the government’s target.

“We intend to build build-to-suit towers under our common tower business,” Aboitiz InfraCapital president and CEO Cosette Canilao said.

“I think there will be an available 5,000 towers that will be bid out to tower companies this year, so we are going to actively participate in that one,” she said.

Canilao has said Unity, a joint digital infrastructure business between Aboitiz Infracapital and global private markets firm Partners Group, participated in the process on the sale of PLDT’s tower assets.

PLDT’s nearly 6,000 towers, however, were sold to ISOC edotco Towers Inc. and Comworks Infratech Corp. in a P77 billion sale and leaseback towers deal announced last month.

S&P Global Ratings, however, believes that the tower sale will not be the last of such deals in the Philippines.

The country’s common tower program, which allows telcos to share towers built by independent tower companies, was initiated to accelerate the construction of 50,000 new cellular towers needed to improve telco services in the country.

Aboitiz InfraCapital has formed a joint venture with Partners Group to build and operate telecommunication towers and support infrastructure across the country through Unity.

The company said Unity is set to emerge as a prime choice for telecommunication companies because of its value-added services.

Unity, which aims to be a one-stop service provider for mobile network operators fixed infrastructure needs, is on track to complete 1,000 operating cell sites by year-end.

Aboitiz InfraCapital has previously ventured into the small cell sites business to help mobile network operators accelerate the expansion of their network capacity and coverage using Aboitiz group assets.

Small cells are expected to play a key role in the deployment of 5G, which requires antenna density to deliver larger quantities of data at higher speeds.