As reported by Thura Swiss previously in this article, the sale of Myanmar’s
largest independent operator of telecom towers Irrawaddy Green Towers (IGT) has been confirmed by reports from online financial magazine The Asset as well as by Reuters.

3 companies have been shortlisted and the winner is expected to be announced as soon as early next month. The 3 bidders are Guodong Group, a Shanghainese wireless infrastructure company which operates tower assets and data centers and manufactures parts for wireless towers; CVC Capital Partners, a global venture capital, private equity and credit strategies firm currently managing over USD 54 billion in assets through its private equity platform; and finally Malaysia-based Axiata Group, a telecom operator (Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Cambodia) as well as a tower operator through its subsidiary edotco Group.

Axiata’s deputy chief executive Mohd Izzaddin Idris confirmed at a Kuala Lumpur press conference on Thursday: “All we can say is we are one of the shortlisted bidders. This is in line with our trajectory for edotco Group Sdn. Bhd. to grow from its current base of over 20,000 towers to 50,000 towers, and there are many opportunities in the region, not just Myanmar; we are looking at other opportunities as well.”

The reports estimated that IGT could be worth USD 800 million and that the acquisition could lead to Myanmar’s largest-ever syndicated loan of USD 300m-400m, and only second Leverage Buy-Out. Reuters details further that IGT’s annualised Ebitda was USD 70m over the last quarter and expected to be around USD 75m at the closing of the proposed acquisition