Telkom to settle 1,000 tower deal this year

JAKARTA, INDONESIA: PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia, Indonesia's biggest phone firm, said on Wednesday it aims to reach a deal with Singapore Telecommunication for 1,000 out of 9,000 telephone towers.

Telkom is shifting its focus to data services to earn higher profits as subscriber growth in Southeast Asia's biggest economy slows. It also needs to invest heavily in telecoms infrastructure including towers.

"Negotiation with Singtel is still ongoing and we hope it will be finalised in stages," said Rinaldi Firmansyah, Telkom's president director.

"I expect we could settle at least 1,000 towers this year."

Earlier this year, Telkom said it would borrow nearly $400 million to buy out SingTel's interests in about 9,000 telecoms towers and put it into its wholly-owned PT Dayamitra Telekomunikasi (Mitratel).

The 9,000 towers are estimated to be worth about $1.2 billion.

The towers are owned by PT Telekomunikasi Selular (Telkomsel), Indonesia's biggest mobile phone operator. Telkom owns 65 percent of Telkomsel and SingTel owns the remaining 35 percent.

Firmansyah said on Wednesday that Telkom aims to list Dayamitra if it operates 3,000 to 5,000 towers in total.