The Asia-Pacific tower-selling trend may be about to continue with widely reported news that PT Indosat (aka Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison), one of Indonesia's largest telecommunication networks and services providers with around 63 million cellular subscribers, is planning to sell some of its passive infrastructure.
More precisely it is, according to Bloomberg, considering selling some of its telecommunications towers portfolio. This is likely not only to be a way to monetise assets and focus on core services but a response to rising demand for digital infrastructure.
The number of sites involved has been reported as somewhere in the region of 1,800. There will be no shortage of potential buyers for these if PT Indosat goes ahead, though they will need to have reasonably deep pockets as current estimates suggest the towers could attract an outlay of about US$$250 million.
This would, however, not be the biggest tower deal that Indosat has been involved in. As we reported at the time, in March last year Indosat Ooredoo signed a sale and leaseback agreement with Digital Colony subsidiary EdgePoint Indonesia for more than 4,200 telecom towers. The transaction was valued at US$750 million, including a supplementary offer, making it one of the largest deals of its kind in Asia.
