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CAT
CAT will ask superboard about converting DTAC assets into capital for joint venture
Usanee Mongkolporn
The Nation

BANGKOK: -- CAT Telecom's board will ask the State Enterprise Policy Commission, better known as the superboard, to consider whether it is possible to convert the concession assets of Total Access Communication (DTAC) into capital for the state agency to form a joint venture with the company.

The joint venture would act as an infrastructure holding company, in which DTAC would hold some of the shares.

The model forms part of an agreement between CAT and DTAC to create a partnership and clear their dispute on the ownership of telecom towers under the concession.

If CAT can convert the DTAC concession assets into the joint venture, the company will withdraw its network dispute from an arbitration panel.

"The CAT board convened on this partnership model on Monday and resolved to ask the superboard to consider it," a source at the state agency said yesterday.

Under the model, CAT would convert all DTAC concession assets into the joint venture, while the private telecom operator would still pay annual concession revenue to CAT until the end of the concession period in 2018.

DTAC would also be expected to transfer its new telecom assets under a National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission licence to the joint venture as part of its shareholding.

DTAC also proposed to CAT that it would have an exclusive right to lease all telecom network assets under the joint venture to provide telecom services, while CAT and DTAC would share revenue and dividends from the partnership.

The company's assets under the concession comprise telecommunications towers, a fibre-optic network, a transmission network, and cellular base stations.

While most of these have already been transferred to CAT over the years under the build-transfer-operate arrangement between the two parties, DTAC has yet to transfer 10,000 disputed telecom towers to the state agency.

The CAT-DTAC move is also part of the memorandum of understanding they signed in December, aiming to establish a collaborative relationship and constructive discussion in order to promote their infrastructure, network-sharing and network-access business.

DTAC interim chief executive officer Sigve Brekke said on Monday before the CAT board meeting that he hoped the state agency's board would agree with the joint-venture model.

In a separate development, CAT's board on Monday also acknowledged the superboard's resolution to merge the telecom infrastructure of CAT and TOT into a new entity, National Infrastructure Co, and to merge their telecom towers into a second entity, Neutral Tower Co.

The next stage in the merger plan is for the Information and Communications Technology Ministry to seek a consultant to evaluate the assets of both TOT and CAT in their six core businesses.

The core businesses are telecom infrastructure, telecom towers, international Internet gateway and submarine cable, mobile-phone business, fixed-line business, and Internet broadband and information-technology services.

The ministry has set aside Bt60 million for hiring a consultant to conduct due diligence on the assets.

Meanwhile, CAT has also reported a profit of Bt1.997 billion for last year, more than double the earlier forecast of Bt991 million, because of cost reductions of around Bt3 billion.

Revenue last year was Bt57.6 billion, of which the wholesale of third-generation mobile service came in at Bt24 billion, data communication services contributed Bt7 billion, and international calls accounted for Bt3.6 billion.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/business/CAT-will-ask-superboard-about-converting-DTAC-asse-30253795.html


-- The Nation 2015-02-11