ST Telemedia and StarHub Enter Partnership to Develop MediaHub

ST Telemedia will take a majority stake in the joint venture company and operate the facility

Partnership will help StarHub lower capital expenditure

Singapore, 22 July 2015 - ST Telemedia and StarHub today announced a strategic joint venture partnership where ST Telemedia, through its wholly owned subsidiary, STT GDC Pte Ltd (STT GDC), will make an investment of approximately S$36.9 million for a 70 per cent stake in Shine Systems Assets Pte. Ltd. (SSAPL), which holds MediaHub. StarHub will own the remaining 30 per cent stake in SSAPL. Prior to this partnership, SSAPL was wholly owned by StarHub.

Both ST Telemedia and StarHub are committed to further their investments to build and develop MediaHub into a state-of-the-art facility. MediaHub is being constructed with the intended use as a highly specialised telecommunications, media and data centre facility with media headend, central office and innovations centre. MediaHub will be StarHub's convergence hub for its fixed, mobile and pay TV networks. There is significant synergy in its location at Mediapolis@one-north where the Singapore government intended the country's first digital media hub to be, and where emerging media technologies, content, services and applications will be developed, produced, financed and distributed to the world.

Under the partnership, the facility will be managed and operated by the STT GDC-led JV as a carrier-neutral and highly secure Tier 3 data centre facility which will achieve the BCA Green Mark GoldPlus certification for Data Centres. StarHub will sub-lease space of not less than 65 per cent of the total gross floor area of the facility. Its media headend, social analytics lab and adaptive production studio will be housed there. With the synergy between ST Telemedia's global presence and StarHubs extensive facilities management experience, MediaHub will have the advantage of attracting customers in Singapore and beyond.

MediaHub is the second data centre asset in Singapore for ST Telemedia and the latest addition to the companys rapidly expanding global data centre footprint. In the last 12 months, ST Telemedia has swiftly established a strong presence in major data centre hubs in Asia and Europe. Last month, ST Telemedia completed its investment into UKs fastest growing data centre provider, VIRTUS Data Centres, giving it a vital foothold in London, a key global tier-one data centre market. In March this year, ST Telemedia announced its acquisition of land at Defu Lane to develop its flagship data centre in Singapore and unveiled its intention to develop a unique data centre business globally.

Commenting on the transaction, Mr Sio Tat Hiang, Executive Director of ST Telemedia, said: "ST Telemedia is delighted to be teaming with StarHub to develop a state-of-the-art media and data centre facility. We believe that this partnership will bring enormous benefits to stakeholders of both companies. The collaboration will provide StarHub with greater financial flexibility for fund deployment and value enhancement but more importantly the ability to offer its customers a broader offering in this space within Singapore and beyond. It will also allow ST Telemedia to expand its Singapore data centre footprint in addition to our previously announced Singapore flagship asset."

"MediaHub will leverage on ST Telemedias deep data centre expertise and global connectivity through the Groups data centre assets around the world, to accelerate its time-to-market. ST Telemedia is firmly committed to continuing our data centre expansion to meet the growing demand for premium data centre services in this region and globally," he added.

Mr Tan Tong Hai, Chief Executive Officer of StarHub, said: MediaHub will be a key facility for StarHub. It will not only house advanced telecommunications and broadcasting facilities such as a leading edge headend, but will also be the centre for our innovations and equip StarHub to harness the latest digital media and info-communications technologies to benefit both our commercial and residential customers in the long run.

He added: This partnership with ST Telemedia will significantly reduce our CAPEX commitment as we will own only 30 per cent of MediaHub. As we have paid for the land and made some progressive payments for the construction, this transaction is not expected to have a material impact on StarHub's financials for 2015.

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LINK:	http://www.starhub.com/about-us/newsroom/2015/july/st-telemedia-and-st...
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