PLDT Inc. is nearing a deal to sell a 49-percent stake in its data center business to a foreign firm for over $1 billion.

"[W]e're talking to the final bidder at this stage," PLDT Chairman and President Manuel Pangilinan told reporters on Tuesday at the sidelines of the company's stockholders' meeting.

"We've agreed the valuation with them," he added. "There are a few issues, and there are still a number of open points to be negotiated and agreed with them."

"But hopefully in the next few weeks, we should be able to finalize and convert those discussions. So hopefully by July, we should have a binding term sheet with this particular investor."

Pangilinan said the company would retain a controlling 51-percent ownership of VITRO Inc., a fully owned subsidiary of ePLDT, the ICT holding company of the PLDT Group.

He did not disclose the identity of the prospective buyer for its data center business.

Pangilinan, however, had earlier said that PLDT was in talks with Japan's Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, and other prospective investors for the sale of its stake in the data center business.

He added that the data center sale aims to reduce PLDT's debt, which amounted to P242.2 billion as of end-March 2024.

At present, VITRO operates 10 facilities with a combined capacity of 50 megawatts (MW) and is building its 11th data center in Santa Rosa, Laguna.

The activation of its data center in Santa Rosa will increase its capacity to 99.5 MW.

PLDT earlier reported a net income of P9.8 billion for the first quarter of the year, up 9 percent from P9.04 billion in the same period last year.

The telco's core income, excluding the impact of asset sales and Maya Innovations Holdings, reached P9.3 billion, up 8 percent from the same period last year.

PLDT's consolidated service revenues grew by 3 percent to P48.7 billion in the first quarter of 2024.

The telco's shares on Monday fell 2.42 percent to P1,410 apiece amid a 0.75-percent decline for the benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange index. TMT

Read The Rest at :