Can telcos do more than sit on their assets?

THE Covid-19 pandemic has turned watchers and investors sunny on "infracos" - dedicated infrastructure owner-operators. Here in the Singapore market, an infrastructure asset spin-off or sale makes most sense for Keppel Corp's telco unit M1.

Australia's Telstra made headlines last November with news of its planned split into three units: an infraco for fixed assets such as ducts, fibre and data centres; an infraco for mobile towers; and a customer-facing service company or "serveco". The move is expected to help Telstra monetise the increasing value of its infrastructure assets while supporting investments in new infrastructure.

Closer to home, in Indonesia, Singtel associate Telkomsel sold more than 6,000 towers for 10.3 trillion rupiah (S$977 million) in October last year.