PLDT Inc. has shifted the strategy for its data center business, opting to explore a real estate investment trust listing rather than selling a majority stake to a foreign investor.
PLDT chief financial officer Danny Yu said the move aims to generate fresh capital and aggressively pay down the company’s debt. Giving up majority control is a “non-negotiable” deal-breaker for the company at this time, according to Yu.
Yu, however, said no final decision has been made on the matter.
PLDT previously sought to divest a 49 percent minority stake in its $1 billion data center business. Those efforts, including talks with Japan’s NTT, fell through in 2024 because NTT demanded a 51 percent controlling interest in the subsidiary, Vitro Inc.
Victor Genuino, president and chief executive of ePLDT and Vitro Inc., said the company is evaluating how new Securities and Exchange Commission regulations classify data centers as real estate investment trusts, or REITs.
“We are studying the rules to understand how to properly execute this option,” Genuino said.
Under current REIT guidelines, which are similar to traditional real estate, Genuino added that the company can list mature assets.
“This means that of our current data centers, those operational for more than three years are eligible for listing,” Genuino said. “We have to make a decision whether that’s a path that we want to take. It’s clear for us that if we want to take this route of monetizing our asset, selling it to an interested third party for a majority is not going to happen.”
Genuino said the company wants to keep control of its assets as a “catalyst for growth.”
“We have to fill up our Sta. Rosa first. We’ve sold 6 MW and we have 30 MW to go,” he added.
Last year, PLDT expanded its portfolio to 11 sites with the launch of the 50 MW Vitro Sta. Rosa in Laguna, the largest data center campus in the Philippines. The addition pushed the company’s total network capacity toward the 100 MW mark.
Growth is expected to accelerate with a 12th facility planned for Cavite. At 100 MW, the new site will match the combined capacity of all current Vitro data centers.
