CVC acquires Myanmar telecom towers business

The private equity firm is transacting via its fifth Asia fund, which closed earlier this year at the hard cap of $4.5 billion. Financial details were not disclosed, although Reuters has reported the deal values the company at $700 million.

The sellers include Blu Stone Management, a Dubai-based firm that makes direct investments in private companies, and M1 Group, a Lebanese holding company with interests in various industrial and consumer sectors, as well as asset management.

IGT has expanded its network to about 4,000 towers across Myanmar since its establishment in 2014, which is said to be sufficient for enabling mobile services through the country. This expansion was supported by significant lending from global development banks and at least two direct investments from UK development financier CDC Group totalling about $50 million.

The company now serves all four local network operators – Telenor, MPT, Ooredoo, and Mytel – with both tower and power distribution services. It claims the “tower + power” service is unique locally and provides efficiencies that reduce user costs. Customers also include Japan’s KDDI Corporation and Sumitomo Corporation.

"This has been a great journey for us cementing IGT's position as the leading telecom infrastructure provider in Myanmar and contributing to the country's economic development,” Marwan Khoueiry, a managing director of Blu Stone, said in a statement.

Despite recent growth in Myanmar’s mobile broadband penetration, access to digital services is poor and presents a challenge for business development. Data usage remains unaffordable and even inaccessible in rural and low-income areas.

However, the government has made e-commerce a priority in its COVID-19 economic relief plan, encouraging traditional retailers to move online and pledging to develop a central e-commerce platform for local businesses.

Previous infrastructure investment targeting this space includes Overseas Private Investment Corporation, a development finance institution backed by the US government, committing to a $250 million loan for private equity-backed Apollo Towers Myanmar in 2016.

Apollo, a joint venture between TPG Capital's growth unit, Tillman Global Holdings and London-listed investment group Myanmar Investments International, had only 1,800 as of September 2018, although plans have been laid to add another 2,000.

• Tweet  
• Facebook  
• LinkedIn  
• Google plus  
• Save this article  
• Send to  

• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Infrastructure
• Support services
• Buyouts
• Myanmar
• CVC Capital Partners
• energy