Herbert Smith Freehills has advised Globe Telecom on the sale of 1,350 mobile towers.
Firms: Herbert Smith Freehills (Globe Telecom); Undisclosed (Phil-Tower Consortium)
Deal: Globe Telecom has sold 1,350 mobile towers to Phil-Tower Consortium.
Value: US$340 million
Area: Corporate; technology, media and telecommunications (TMT)
Key players: The team advising Globe Telecom was led by Singapore corporate partners Mark Robinson and Jamie McLaren and senior associate Theodore Heng, with assistance from Kuala Lumpur associates Audrey Siew and Prakash Selvam and Singapore associate Pamela Wong.
Deal significance: Globe Telecom is a pre-eminent Philippine digital platform company.
It is described as a leading digital platform in the Philippines, with major interests in telecommunications, financial technology, digital marketing solutions, venture capital funding for start-ups, entertainment, and virtual healthcare. Its principal shareholders are Ayala Corporation and Singtel.
Meanwhile, PhilTower is an independent tower company in the Philippines backed by Macquarie Capital, the advisory, capital markets and principal investment arm of Macquarie Group.
According to a statement from Herbert Smith Freehills, the sale of Globe’s mobile towers follows two earlier transactions signed by Globe last month — on which Herbert Smith Freehills also advised the company — for the sale of 5,709 mobile towers for an anticipated PHP71 billion (US$1.28 trillion).
“Taken together, these three transactions represent a deal total of US$1.62 billion — the Philippines’ largest ever mobile towers deal series,” HSF said.
Commenting further, joint sector lead partner for TMT Mark Robinson said:South-east Asia’s towers market has been extremely active this year, as mobile operators continue to monetise assets for 5G and other investments.
“The market has been heating up as more infrastructure and financial investors and their platforms focus on digital infrastructure.”
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