PLDT selling majority stake in digital solutions arm to foreign investors

PLDT Inc. is selling a majority stake in its digital solutions arm Voyager Innovations Inc. to a group of foreign investors, chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan said Thursday.

“This week, we signed a non-binding fairly-formed and detailed term sheet with certain foreign investors, who will take an investment position and management participation in Voyager,” Pangilinan said in a press conference in Makati City.

The term sheet stipulates that the parties have four weeks to enter into a more definitive phase of the transaction.

“Once the definitive documents are signed, two things will happen: One, we will make a disclosure to the stock exchange and, secondly, we will notify the Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) with this particular investment to be approved by the PCC,” Pangilinan said.

Selling Voyager will free PLDT from further spending on its digital innovations arm and incurring losses.

Financial technology services offered by Voyager attracted foreign investors to take a look at the possibility of investing in the company, Pangilinan noted.

During the first half 2018, Voyager posted a net loss of P1.3 billion.

“It will have significant gains to the accounts of PLDT ... It could fund the operations of Voyager for expanding in the next three to four years,” Pangilinan said.

Even if foreign investors acquire “majority stakes ... PLDT will remain single largest investor.”

The transaction is estimated to cost more than a billion pesos. —VDS, GMA News