en.Wedoany.com Reported - Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) plans to list its data center business Vitro through a real estate investment trust (REIT), targeting a fundraising of $300 million to $400 million. The telecom operator's board has approved the proposal, and Chairman and CEO Manny Pangilinan stated at the shareholders' meeting that the company believes the value of its data centers is not fully reflected, and the proceeds from the listing will be used to repay debt.
PLDT had previously attempted to sell a minority stake in Vitro to external investors, including NTT Group, which holds about a 20% stake, but the deal fell through as the other party insisted on gaining control. Under recently revised listing rules in the Philippines, digital infrastructure assets such as data centers have been included in the REIT category. PLDT said the launch of the Vitro REIT aims to unlock the value of digital infrastructure assets and build a long-term capital recycling tool to support business growth.
Vitro operates 11 data centers in the Philippines, with the largest having a design capacity of 50MW. The initial REIT listing will include eight of these data centers, with a total capacity of 27MW, and may add more based on demand. If approved, this would be the first data center REIT in the Philippines. The concept is already well-established in Singapore, where three pure-play data center REITs have been listed in the past 18 months, two of which are linked to telecom companies. The latest example is NTT DC REIT, backed by its Japanese telecom parent, which listed six data centers on the Singapore Exchange last July, raising $773 million, making it the largest IPO on the exchange in six years. Other pure-play data center REITs include Keppel DC (whose parent company owns mobile operator M1) and Digital Core. Another REIT in the region is Australia's Digi Infraco REIT, listed at the end of 2024, holding assets worth A$4.3 billion (approximately $3 billion) in Australia and the United States.
Despite strong market enthusiasm for REITs and healthy revenue growth in data centers, trading performance has been lackluster. NTT DC REIT has fallen 6% since its listing, and Digi Infraco has dropped 11% this year. Singapore analysts said that last year, data center REITs performed broadly in line with the wider REIT sector, with valuations impacted by higher interest rates and closely correlated with yield spreads over bonds and fixed-income assets.
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