Malaysia-based Tower company, edotco Malaysia Sdn Bhd has entered into a conditional Share Sale Agreement (“SSA”) with Touch Group Holdings Sdn Bhd (“TGHSB”) to acquire 100% of its subsidiary, Touch Mindscape Sdn Bhd (“Touch Mindscape”), and its subsidiary companies (collectively, “TMs Group”). The SSA for the entire shares of Touch Mindscape is for a total purchase consideration of RM1.7 billion.
According to edotco Malaysia, the transaction enables edotco to increase its tower market share from approximately 21% to 25%. The acquisition also adds a portfolio of approximately 1,000 tenanted towers to edotco’s operations in Malaysia.
edotco Malaysia Managing Director Wan Zainal Adileen said, “The proposed acquisition strategically adds a portfolio of approximately 1,000 tenanted towers to edotco’s operations in Malaysia, where we are already providing co-location to major mobile network operators in the country. This opportunity expands edotco’s existing presence by significantly scaling up our tower portfolio in the three states of Pahang, Negeri Sembilan and Melaka with very limited overlap.”
“The towers in these states come at very high co-location ratios of 3x (Melaka), 3.6x (Negeri Sembilan), and 2.4x (Pahang). The Touch Mindscape tower portfolio also includes towers in key strategic locations of Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya, Perak and Kedah. More importantly, this proposed acquisition enhances edotco’s capability and capacity to support the wider provision and improvement of connectivity to the public for the development of the socio-economy of Malaysia.” he added.
The proposed acquisition also allows edotco to secure a strategic fibre network, which is crucial to further future-proofing the telecommunication infrastructure portfolio, it said.
edotco Malaysia Sdn Bhd is part of edotco Group Sdn Bhd, a 63%-owned subsidiary of Axiata Group Bhd.
edotco Group CEO Adlan Tajudin said, “I am pleased with the rare opportunity to be able to acquire a towerco in Malaysia, and one with such a sizeable and high-quality telecommunication infrastructure portfolio. The proposed acquisition is in line with edotco’s growth strategy and plans to scale up and future-proof our operations to support national digital ambitions in the countries of our operations. This opportunity also further strengthens edotco’s position as a leading independent telecommunications infrastructure provider in Malaysia and Asia. When combined with edotco’s existing tower portfolio in these states, it will help create significant synergies and upsides for edotco, including through Capex and Operation & Maintenance optimization to better serve service providers to support Malaysia’s digital agenda.”
The acquisition is scheduled to be completed by the end of this year upon the conditions precedents in the SSA being fulfilled. Upon completion, it will grow edotco’s owned and managed portfolio of towers to over 43,000 towers across core markets of Malaysia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Myanmar, Philippines and Laos.
