Wireless operator Veon Ltd. is close to selling its tower assets in Pakistan to a consortium comprised of Pakistan’s TPL Corp. and UAE-based TASC Towers Holding Ltd. in what could be the country’s largest deal in more than a decade, according to people familiar with the matter.
(Bloomberg) — Wireless operator Veon Ltd. is close to selling its tower assets in Pakistan to a consortium comprised of Pakistan’s TPL Corp. and UAE-based TASC Towers Holding Ltd. in what could be the country’s largest deal in more than a decade, according to people familiar with the matter.
Discussions are at an advanced stage and a transaction, which involves Veon’s 10,000 to 12,000 towers in Pakistan, could be announced in the coming weeks, the people said. A deal could value the assets at more than $600 million, one of the people said. The TPL-TASC group has emerged as the likeliest buyer after beating out rival bidders including other telecom companies, the people said, who asked not to be identified as the information is private.
A sale of the towers, if successful, could mark Pakistan’s largest deal since 2011, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Deliberations are ongoing and the companies could still decide against a deal, the people said. A representative for Veon declined to comment, while representatives for TPL and TASC didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
The process of divesting the towers in Pakistan “is very close to conclusion,” Veon Chief Executive Officer Kaan Terzioglu said in an interview last month, without identifying any bidder. A Saudi Telecom Co. unit and Pakistani conglomerate Engro were among the suitors for the assets, the people have said.
Pakistan’s TPL in September said it has formed a strategic partnership with TASC to bid for an unidentified telecom tower company. TPL’s businesses span across GPS tracking services, insurance, venture capital and security services. Its real estate arm TPL Properties Ltd. raised about $697 million rupees ($3 million) in an initial public offering in Karachi in 2016. TPL REIT Management Co. is seeking to raise as much as $500 million through a private real estate investment trust, which could be one of the largest fundraisings in the country’s history.
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 200 million customers in seven countries. Veon agreed in November to sell its Russian unit for $2.1 billion to senior members of the country’s management team.
The company is the largest telecom operator in Pakistan. Separately, the second largest operator Telenor ASA is pushing ahead with plans to sell its operations in Pakistan, which could be valued at about $1 billion, Bloomberg News reported last month.
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 and holding talks with potential buyers in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine, Terzioglu told Bloomberg News in August. Shares of Veon have fallen about 67% this year in Amsterdam, giving the company a market value of about $932 million.
(Adds Veon’s share price in last paragraph. An earlier version corrected the sixth paragraph to give the accurate number of customers and countries where Veon operates.)
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