Kamthon Waithayakul, senior executive vice president of TOT, said yesterday that PTT was looking for sites to develop budget hotels, petrol stations and its other retail businesses.
Two models are under consideration – leasing and joint ventures.
TOT recently revealed its plan to develop commercially 10 of its many sites nationwide. This attracted PTT to approach TOT for talks on possible collaboration.
The 10 sites are in provinces such as Khon Kaen, Mae Hong Son, Chiang Mai, Phuket, Prachin Buri and Chanthaburi.
Another of TOT’s plans to seek new sources of revenue – the launch of a Bt10-billion telecom infrastructure fund at the end of this year – will be postponed to mid-2017, since it just finished selecting a financial adviser, Bualuang Securities, for the initial public offering, TOT president Montchai Noosong said.
TOT is also waiting for the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission to issue pricing regulations for leasing underground viaducts to telecom operators and broadcasters to lay their transmission networks.
The NBTC plans to hold a public hearing on the draft regulations soon. Currently TOT sets its own rental rates.
TOT is expected to raise Bt6 billion to Bt7 billion from the fund, in which it will retain a 33.3-per-cent stake.
It says it needs more time to submit the fund proposal to the Cabinet for consideration.
The fund is based on TOT’s current renting of its underground viaducts nationwide to telecom operators.
Kamthon said the fund’s assets would include the underground-viaduct project of TOT and the Metropolitan Electricity Authority (MEA). They are burying 127.3 kilometres of telecommunication and broadcasting lines in Greater Bangkok.
In September last year, the Cabinet approved a Bt48.72-billion budget for the MEA to bury such lines for 10 years to 2025 as part of the plan to make Bangkok an “Asean city”.
This project should give the city a cleaner look and safer environment. However, the government asked the MEA to shorten the plan from 10 to five years.
TOT targets total revenue of about Bt500 million a year from the project with the MEA. TOT now earns about Bt400 million a year from leasing viaducts.