China Tower Corp, which manages telecommunication towers valued at 270 billion yuan ($41.4 billion) from the country's telecom carriers, plans an initial public offering next year to grow its business.
The IPO is set to launch in 2017, said Tong Jielu, general manager of China Tower. But he didn't provide specific details like the size of the IPO and possible market for listing.
"We have a unique advantage due to our huge volume of assets (telecom towers) that can provide stable and reliable returns," said Tong, who was a former top executive of China Unicom.
The locations of the 1.52 million telecom towers are in downtown areas, which makes them valuable commercially, the firm said.
State-owned China Tower, which was founded in 2014, will use the proceeds from the IPO to diversify into the air monitor and surveillance camera business as well as charging stations for new-energy cars. The firm is testing to offer charging services for new-energy cars in Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen and cities in Jiangsu Province, said Tong.
China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom pooled their tower assets to the firm to avoid overlapping tower building.
