edotco Group Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of Malaysia based Axiata Group Berhad, has terminated the acquisition process of acquiring tower assets from PMCL in Pakistan.
In an announcement today, edotco PK has said that they will not be moving forward with the acquisition of 13,000 towers from Pakistan Mobile Communications Limited (“PMCL”) in Pakistan.
It’s an unexpected development after that SBP has already approved the process while the final regulatory approvals were in process of being granted by PTA on the change of shareholding structure in Deodar.
The transaction was subject to a number of conditions and terminated due to the non-fulfilment of the conditions precedent to the SPA within the stipulated time frame, in particular regulatory approval for the resulting change of control contemplated under the SPA.
edotco remains committed to Pakistan and will continue to grow its existing business under edotco Pakistan, comprising today of the towers acquired by Tanzanite Towers carried out earlier this year. The group operates and manages a regional portfolio of over 28,000 towers across core markets of Malaysia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Pakistan with 17,000 towers directly operated by edotco and a further 11,000 towers managed through a range of services provided.
Suresh Sidhu, Chief Executive Office of edotco Group, said
“We do not foresee this affecting our business goals and aspirations. We are confident in the potential of the growing market in Pakistan and are committed to the existing operations there. We continue to develop our pipeline of opportunities into Pakistan as well as into other markets in South and South East Asia and are confident we will be able to meet our goals for business growth”
Arif Hussain, Country Managing Director for edotco Pakistan, added
“We have seen strong progress in Pakistan since our first acquisition here and business continues to grow with new orders for sites as well as high demand for adjacent opportunities such as energy solutions. We remain focused on building the business in Pakistan.”
