Summit Towers, a unit of Summit Communications Group, the Dhaka, Bangladesh-based communications service provider, is buying 2,000 towers from mobile network operator Banglalink for roughly $100 million, The Daily Star reported.
Banglalink will use the proceeds from the sale to service the company’s financial commitments and free up resources for the company’s digital expansion, VEON, its Amsterdam-based parent company, said in a statement.
Banglalink will transfer a third of its 6,034 towers to Summit Towers as part of the deal, raising Summit’s owned and managed sites to over 4,000 and making it the third largest tower company in Bangladesh. The Summit acquisition will accelerate competition in the country’s tower business, The Daily Star reported.
edotco Bangladesh is the market leader with 15,955 towers that it owns and more than 2,000 sites that it manages for other MNOs, according to Inside Towers Intelligence. Grameenphone, the Bangladeshi MNO subsidiary of Norway’s Telenor Group, is the second largest operator with about 12,500 towers. Two smaller tower companies, Kirtonkhola and Frontier, have 564 and 275 towers, respectively.
“With towers, fiber and submarine cable, we will build an integrated communication infrastructure and provide one-stop service,” Md Arif Al Islam, managing director and CEO of Summit Communications, told The Daily Star. “With the new towers, we will provide services to other operators alongside Banglalink.”
The tower business in Bangladesh has been growing. In 2015, Robi, the wholly-owned subsidiary of mobile network operator Robi Axiata, sold 5,258 towers to edotco Bangladesh for $250 million. edotco has been the leading tower company since 2018, when the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission awarded the tower-sharing license to four firms to build and operate tower infrastructure, according to The Daily Star.
Muhammad Farid Khan, chairman of Summit Communications and Summit Towers, said the strategic deal is a prelude to greater cooperation between Banglalink and Summit. “With support from VEON, we believe that our collaboration will go beyond the boundaries of Bangladesh into the global arena, setting an example in the region.”
Erik Aas, Banglalink CEO, said: “Our partnership with Summit Towers enables us to focus our resources on our digital offerings, bridging the digital divide for all and providing an outstanding customer experience to the people of Bangladesh.”
In the past year and a half, Banglalink has reported double-digit revenue and customer growth, serving 43 million subscribers at the end of September.
“It is a good move and we have introduced this license so that tower resources can be shared and used properly,” commented Telecom Minister Mustafa Jabbar. “As we have limited land resources, telecom tower-sharing among operators fosters cost efficiency, enabling faster network expansion and improved service quality.”
The closing of the transaction is subject to regulatory approvals.
By John Celentano, Inside Towers Business Editor
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