Telkom has revealed the details about its new subsidiary, Gyro group, which will focus on monetising the group's extensive property portfolio.
"We have begun the process of migrating all of our property - masts, towers, offices and exchange buildings - into one cohesive entity that will make sure that now we begin to monetise and commercialise the property and real estate that we have," Telkom group CEO, Sipho Maseko, said at the company's annual results presentation in Midrand today.
In March, the group confirmed with ITWeb it was planning to create a separate and wholly-owned subsidiary for its property portfolio in order to add another external revenue stream.
Telkom today announced that it and Gyro group "are entering into a sale of business for shares transaction" in terms of which Telkom is selling its masts and towers (M&T) business to an existing subsidiary, Swiftnet, and 40 properties to the newly established subsidiary, Gyro.
"Included in the M&T business are contracts, licenses, M&T fixed assets and free right of use on Intellectual Property (IP) all of which is currently used by the M&T business. The 40 properties consist of technical, commercial and industrial properties owned by Telkom," the group said in its results announcement for the year ended 31 March 2017.
Maseko said that the group thinks it can unlock a lot of value from its property portfolio.
"As the technology changes we realise that we don't need all of the buildings that we have so it's about repurposing them and partnering with different people to develop them and actually create value differently," said Maseko.
"We will have a different model around how we can monetise our masts and towers both for ourselves and for the market, so that business needs to really be outward looking to create that scale of services that it can provide," he added.
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