Globe Telecom’s board approved a move to sell more than 7,000 towers to three specialist groups around two months after management reportedly began exploring options, with 75 per cent of the proceeds to fund capex and the remainder to pay down debt.

The operator signed sale and leaseback agreements with Miescor Infrastructure Development, which will purchase 2,180 towers for PHP26 billion ($467.5 million), while Frontier Tower Associates Philippines will acquire 3,529 sites for PHP45 billion.

Both deals have 15-year leaseback periods and are expected to close in the current quarter.

Globe Telecom is also in advanced discussions with another tower company for 1,350 towers located in Visayas and Mindanao.

President and CEO Ernest Cu stated “we believe through these monetisation effort, Globe will be able to further improve overall operational efficiency”.

H1 results
Net profit improved 51 per cent year-on-year to PHP19.7 billion due mainly to a one-time gain of PHP8.5 billion on the partial sale of its data centre business, with operating revenue increasing 3 per cent to PHP87.3 billion.

Mobile service revenue rose 3 per cent to PHP54 billion.

An 8 per cent gain in data sales was partially offset by declines in voice and SMS revenue, down 15 per cent to PHP7.8 billion and 8 per cent to PHP4.4 billion, respectively.

Post-paid ARPU was steady at PHP853 and prepaid dropped 6 per cent to PHP97.

Globe Telecom stated it had 2.7 million devices running on its 5G network.

Prepaid subscribers grew 7 per cent to 84.9 million and post-paid 2 per cent to 2.5 million.

Capex rose 17 per cent to PHP50.5 billion, 57 per cent of the PHP89 billion earmarked for the full year. Globe Telecom upgraded 6,800 mobile sites and installed 933 5G sites.