Information Center

China Tower Acquires 231.4 Billion Assets from Three Major Operators

  

On October 19, China Tower signed a transaction agreement with three basic telecom enterprises, China Telecom, China Mobile, and China Unicom, as well as China Guoxin Holding Co., Ltd. China Tower will purchase relevant assets of existing towers from three telecom enterprises and simultaneously introduce a new shareholder, China Guoxin.

After completion, it will improve the facility sharing rate and reduce the cost

Previously, three telecom enterprises and China Tower jointly carried out inventory and evaluation of stock assets, and the total evaluation value of the three telecom enterprises' tower related assets was about 231.4 billion yuan. China Tower will acquire the above assets by issuing shares and paying cash.

In addition, China Tower will issue new shares to China Guoxin at the same time. Founded on December 22, 2010, China Reform is an asset management and management company under the direct supervision of the State owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council. One of its main tasks is to participate in the listed and unlisted shareholding reform of central enterprises.

According to the agreement, after the completion of the transaction, China Tower will be 38% owned by China Mobile, 28.1% by China Unicom, 27.9% by China Telecom, and 6% by China Guoxin.

The signing of this transaction agreement marks that China's iron towers are about to complete the second strategic goal of injecting stock assets, and will comprehensively carry out the operation and management of stock tower related assets. After the transaction is completed, China Tower will play a role of scale, improve the facility sharing rate, reduce the operation and maintenance costs of a single tower, and meet the communication infrastructure construction needs of three telecom enterprises, such as 4G.

For the three telecom enterprises, they can fully share China's iron tower resources in the future, save capital expenditure, focus on core business operations, improve market competitiveness, and accelerate enterprise transformation and upgrading. For the society, it will reduce resource occupation, promote environmental protection and enjoy more universal services.

It is said by analysis that it is conducive to "separation of network industry"

China Tower is a comprehensive service enterprise of communication infrastructure jointly funded by China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom. It was officially launched on July 18, 2014. It is mainly engaged in the construction, maintenance and operation of towers, as well as the construction, maintenance and operation of base station machine rooms, power supplies, air conditioners and other supporting facilities and indoor distribution systems, as well as the maintenance of base station equipment.

The establishment of China's iron tower is under the background of deepening the reform of state-owned enterprises and telecommunications system, and promoting the joint construction and sharing of communication facilities. After its establishment, the "three-step" strategy was determined: the first step is to quickly form the capacity to build incremental towers, station site resources and ancillary facilities. The second step is to complete the injection and delivery of relevant stock assets of three telecom enterprises in 2015. The third step is to choose the opportunity to go public and realize the development of mixed ownership.

In order to achieve the second strategic goal, since October 2014, three telecom enterprises and China Tower have jointly carried out the inventory and evaluation of the relevant assets of the existing tower. After nearly a year of efforts, the inventory and evaluation of the relevant assets of the existing iron towers has been completed.

In this transaction, some insiders commented that the three major operators handed over their base station resources, taking a substantive step towards "network industry separation", which is a great benefit for virtual operators. In the future, the base station resources may be opened to more subjects. In addition, the tower company may also purchase broadband resources in the future.