Publicly listed PLDT Inc. is “seriously considering” an initial public offering (IPO) for its data center arm, VITRO Inc., and has dropped any plan to sell stakes—for now.
“Most of them (interested parties) want majority. We don’t want to sell majority of our data center,” said Senior Vice President, CFO, and CRO Danny Yu on Thursday.
He stressed that giving up their stakes in VITRO Inc. “is non-negotiable for now.”
Earlier, Chairman and CEO Manuel Pangilinan floated selling a minority stake in VITRO Inc. or forming a real estate investment trust (REIT) to cut debt. A REIT owns, operates, or finances income-generating properties listed on the Philippine Stock Exchange.
Yu refused to provide details on the IPO, saying nothing is final.
In a separate interview, ePLDT and VITRO Inc. CEO Victor Genuino noted REIT rules allow only mature assets to be listed—meaning VITRO’s data centers must be at least three years old.
Genuino said they are “just trying to understand what applies, what doesn’t apply, and then we have to make a decision whether it’s a path that we want to take.”
“But, it’s clear for us that if we want to go this route of monetizing our asset, selling it to an interested third party, for a majority, is not going to happen. We want to keep control of our assets because we still think it’s going to be a catalyst for growth,” he said.
On Thursday, PLDT reported a 2 percent increase in gross service revenues to P212.2 billion and a 1 percent rise in net service revenues to P196.2 billion.
“Growth in data and broadband continued to offset declines in legacy services, supporting stable earnings and margins,” the company said in a statement to the local bourse.
Broadband and data revenues made up 85 percent of net service revenues at P166.5 billion.
Capital expenditures fell to P60.3 billion from P78.2 billion due to “continued capex (capital expenditure) discipline and successful vendor negotiations.” This year, Yu pegged capex at around P50 billion.
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