Philippines-based service provider PLDT is widely reported to be in talks to sell just under 50% of its data centre business to Japanese telecommunications company NTT.
PLDT is the Philippines' largest telecommunications group, so this deal, if it goes through, won’t be a small one.
PLDT Chairman Manuel Pangilinan has confirmed to news agency Reuters that the talks – to sell 49% of PLDT’s data centre business – are in progress. The deal could value the data centre business at US$750 million, though that valuation has not been officially confirmed.
NTT, Japan's largest phone company with a market value (depending on your source) said to be nudging US$100 billion, can no doubt afford to make this purchase. Reuters explains that such a deal would underscore increasing interest in Southeast Asian data centres as an expanding digital population and the rise of artificial intelligence fuel growth prospects. A deal could be reached in the second half of this year, reports suggest.
As for how it will spend the money, PLDT is likely to use the proceeds to cut debt and fund ongoing and new data centre projects.
PLDT owns and operates 11 data centres through subsidiary ePLDT, which recently announced that a planned 50MW hyperscale data centre being built by its data centre unit Vitro is on track to go live as early as this July.
