The Amalgamated Telecom Holdings (ATH) shareholders have agreed for the sale of Ganilau House to the Fiji National Provident Fund for $16.25 million VAT exclusive.

This general consensus was reached during the ATH annual general meeting held yesterday at the Grand Pacific Hotel in Suva.

Telecom Fiji had been trying to sell Ganilau House since 2012 but had not received any offers which would match its market value.

ATH general manager, Ivan Fong, told shareholders that Telecom Fiji currently only occupies one-quarter of the building

But the sale would include conditions of lease-back of property of about 1500 square metres from the total of over 6000 square metres to Telecom Fiji.

One of the reasons for the sale of the property given by Mr Fong was that given the advances in technology and reduction in staffing that TFL had undertaken, they do not require that much floor space anyway.

He said: “They are looking at the option to sell the property to both reduce their asset base and redeploy the funds towards the other capital investments and early payment of some of the debt.”

The lease back terms are yet to be negotiated between the two parties.

Mr Fong said the transaction for the leaseback will be on commercial terms between the parties. Market benchmarks will be used in terms of setting these, he said.

Not an ordinary property

One of the reasons for choosing the Fiji National Provident Fund was given the fact that the property was not an ordinary one.

Mr Fong said: “TFL, by virtue of being a telecommunications carrier in the telecommunications law, has special rights of way through ducts and chambers that run through and beneath the property.

“So the ground floor as caveat of some sort. So any owner of the property would need to take it forward with them.

“So these are the things the new owners would have to take over. So it is very hard to just sell the property to just anyone.”

Money from sale

Telecom Fiji management intends to utilise the money received from the sale of Ganilau House in the expansion of its network.

Mr Fong confirmed this would be around $13 million.

“TFL is looking at revamping its next generation IP network which TFL expects the total capital cost for that and the wireless broadband infrastructure is about $13 million,” he said.

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