Islamabad November 8 2022: Wireless operator Veon Ltd. is in advanced talks to sell its tower assets in Pakistan, reported by Bloomberg.
Veon has 10,000 to 12,000 towers in Pakistan and the sale process “is very close to conclusion,” Chief Executive Officer Kaan Terzioglu said in an interview. “The value of a tower is somewhere between $60,000 to $80,000 depending on interest rates,” Terzioglu said, implying a valuation range between $600 million and $960 million.
A Saudi Telecom Co. unit, a consortium between Pakistan’s TPL Corp. and UAE-based TASC Towers, and Pakistani conglomerate Engro are among the bidders for the assets, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity as the tender is private.
Spokespeople for Saudi Telecom and Veon declined to comment. The TPL-TASC consortium and Engro didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
In September, Pakistan’s TPL said it formed a strategic partnership with TASC to bid for an unidentified telecom tower company.
Veon was founded in Moscow in 1992 as VimpelCom, one of Russia’s first cellular-phone providers. It has grown into a Dutch-domiciled telecommunications giant with more than 217 million customers in nine countries, although Russia still accounts for about half of its revenue.
The firm said this month it has started the process of selling its Russian unit in an attempt to limit the fallout from the war in Ukraine, where it is the country’s biggest mobile operator.
Last year, Veon sold more than 15,000 towers in Russia for around $970 million to Service-Telecom LLC. It has about 30,000 more towers to sell, Chief Executive Officer Kaan Terzioglu told Bloomberg News in August.
Veon’s share price has fallen by two-thirds this year as the invasion and subsequent sanctions on Russia by the US, European Union and UK undermined the company.
LetterOne Investment Holdings, founded by Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman, owns 48% of Veon, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Fridman was sanctioned by both the EU and the UK earlier this year, and stepped down from the boards of Veon and LetterOne.
