OCK to build more telco towers

by **Cals** Tue 24 Sep 2013, 12:50

OCK to build more telco towers
Business & Markets 2013
Written by Levina Lim of theedgemalaysia.com
Tuesday, 24 September 2013 11:05

Kuala Lumpur: OCK Group Bhd, a telecommunications network services firm which owns over 60 telecommunication towers nationwide, plans to build and acquire more sites with the RM150 million to be raised from its sukuk programme.

Group CEO and managing director Sam Ooi said the launch of the LTE 4G service in December last year has put the company in a good position to supply more telecommunications towers to the seven operators including Celcom Axiata Bhd, Maxis Bhd and DIGI.COM BHD [].

“With this sukuk in place, instead of being contractors building stations for operators, we have the option of building and leasing the stations back to them,” Ooi said at the launch of the sukuk programme yesterday.

The principal adviser/lead arranger and syariah adviser for the sukuk issuance is BNP Paribas Malaysia Bhd, and its joint lead manager is Bank Muamalat Malaysia Bhd. The tenure for the sukuk is 20 years.

When asked on the number of towers OCK is planning to build, Ooi said: “That depends on the demand from the operators. We don’t build redundant towers or stations and wait for the operator to occupy them. We only build when we have orders.”

According to Ooi, eight companies have been awarded LTE licences. In order for them to maintain the LTE 4G licence, they need to roll out the requests for telecommunications towers. The LTE 4G deployment so far has been minimal.

Ooi said that it will take about two to three years to fully utilise the RM150 million sukuk. OCK has already received approval from the authorities to issue the sukuk with a murabahah structure.

Bank Muamalat CEO Datuk Mohd Reza Shah Abdul Wahid said the sukuk programme marks the company’s entry into Islamic capital markets in the form of Islamic medium-term notes with a tenure of up to 20 years.

“We believe that the flexibility to tap the sukuk programme would enable [subsidiary] OCK Setia to tap its growing capital requirements and realise their long-term and business objectives,” he said.

For the 2012 financial year ended Dec 31, OCK recorded a net profit of RM13.95 million, significantly higher than the RM9.2 million registered in 2011. Its network services segment contributed the bulk of the revenue and profit.

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on September 24, 2013.