True seeks talks with CAT over telecom towers
TRUE CORP has requested CAT Telecom to enter into renegotiations with it to seek ways to settle the arbitration dispute on the unclear ownership of TrueMove's telecom towers as part of its move to set up the telecom infrastructure fund within this year.
CAT chief executive officer Kitisak Sriprasert said True Corp had recently asked the state agency for talks but he declined to elaborate.
A telecom industry source said that True Corp, TrueMove’s holding company, wants to sort out this problem as soon as possible to smoothen its plan to set up the infrastructure fund for raising money in the stock market to repay debt and for the expansion of its 3G and 4G network coverage in the future.
True Corp’s chief finance officer, Noppadol Dej-udom, said the fund must be completely established within this year. The company is finalising which of its asset would be put in the fund. However, he declined to elaborate.
True’s wholly owned subsidiary, Telecom Holding Co, will establish a new subsidiary, Telecom Asset Management (TAM), within this month to provide outsourcing service for asset management. Noppadol said TAM is part of True Corp’s plan to set up a telecom infrastructure fund but declined to elaborate. True has Bt6.5 billion in debt to service this year, Bt13 billion next year, and Bt16 billion in 2015, according to a telecom analyst.
TrueMove has yet to transfer 6,500 telecom towers to CAT, which owns its concession, citing that it was still unclear whether CAT or TrueMove owns these assets. This prompted CAT to take the case to the arbitration panel.
TrueMove’s concession will end on September 15. By the concession contract, telecom concession holders are required to transfer their telecom infrastructure assets to the state concession owners under the Build-Transfer-Operate basis after the concession ends.
Jesada Sivaraks, secretary to the NBTC vice chairman Settapong Malisuwan, said that Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) had inquired with NBTC if an NBTC licence is required for establishing a telecom infrastructure fund. He said such a fund does not need to apply for a licence, as it is not the network operator.
He added that one concept of the telecom infrastructure fund is that the network owner sells its telecom infrastructure assets to the fund in return for a huge amount of money. The fund will lease the asset to any firms to provide service. He added that this would pave the way for small telecom operators to access networks to provide services.
Last week SCB said it has four fund-raising deals in the pipeline, amounting to Bt100 billion.
