Singtel’s NCS expands in the Philippines through a joint venture for clients to better access services

[SINGAPORE] NCS, Singtel’s technology services arm, announced on Thursday (Mar 27) that it is expanding its presence in the Asia-Pacific (Apac) region through a joint venture with Globe Telecom in the Philippines.

The tech company has acquired a majority stake in Globe’s IT arm Yondu in the Philippines, to give clients better access to digital, cloud, data and artificial intelligence services, it said in a statement.

NCS, through its wholly owned subsidiary NCSI Holdings, will acquire a 51 per cent stake in Yondu for a total net consideration of 134 million Philippine pesos (S$3 million) – net of the 818 million pesos used by Yondu to acquire the existing NCS subsidiary, NCSI Philippines.

This will bring the post-transaction enterprise value to around 1.9 billion pesos. The new entity will be renamed NCS Philippines.

Ng Kuo Pin, NCS’ chief executive officer, said: “Globe and Yondu’s deep country expertise, coupled with NCS’ technology capabilities, will increase our capacity to further drive business transformation and innovation, especially in the telecommunications sector.”

Through the joint venture, NCS’ local workforce in the Philippines will be boosted from 150 to more than 1,200 professionals, and will improve its global delivery network – combining NCS’ delivery capability and capacity with Yondu’s resources and skills.

This partnership will “unlock new global opportunities”, said Globe’s president and CEO Ernest Cu, and enable Yondu to expand its reach worldwide and deliver more impactful IT solutions.