Indonesian digital infrastructure platform Bersama Digital Infrastructure has partnered with a Philippine investment firm to acquire independent tower company Alliance Towers Corporation for an undisclosed amount.
Bersama Digital teamed up with Opti-Teknology Philippines Inc to acquire 51% of Alliance Towers. Opti-Teknology will hold 49% of the tower company once the transaction is completed in September.
Alliance Towers, which was founded by Opti-Tek’s equity owners, has built over 40 towers at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and plans to build 500 towers a year moving forward.
In an earlier statement, Alliance Towers said the additional towers would help improve digital connectivity since the Philippines needs to build 50,000 towers to meet its current shortfall.
“The shareholders will actively support Alliance Towers in its objective of providing high-quality telecom infrastructure to enhance the lives of Filipino mobile users,” Sherwin Hing, chairman of Alliance Towers and director of Opti-Tek, said in a press release.
Bersama Digital holds a 62.4% stake in PT Tower Bersama Infrastructure, an independent towers business in Indonesia with over 20,500 towers and 39,000 tenancies as of 31 December 2021.
In May this year, a consortium led by Macquarie Asset Management, via Macquarie Asia-Pacific Infrastructure Fund 3, acquired a significant minority stake in Bersama Digital for about $610 million.
The investment comes as the Philippines need at least 50,000 more communications towers to improve the delivery of telecommunication services in the country, according to the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT).
Early this month, Bloomberg reported that Philippines telecom giant Globe was in advanced talks with potential buyers for its tower assets in the country, in a deal that could fetch as much as $1.5 billion.
Globe’s rival, PLDT, also signed a deal in March to sell thousands of its telecom towers for about $1.47 billion. PLDT put about half of its more than 11,000 telecom towers up for sale last year to slash operating costs and focus on growing its broadband and mobile internet businesses.
