On 9 August 2024 Cellnex Telecom announced the long awaited sale of its Austrian telecom tower portfolio. The consortium acquiring the sites was announced as comprising Vauban Infrastructure Partners, through Core Infrastructure Fund IV SCSp and Core Infrastructure Fund IV SCA SICAV RAIF, EDF Invest, the investment arm of EDF for non-listed Dedicated Asset and MEAG, the asset manager of Munich Re and ERGO.
The consotrium has agreed to pay €803mn to acquire 100% of Cellnex's business in Austria. The consortia will join DigitalBridge and Deutsche Telekom-backed TOWERS Infra Austria and A1 Groups EuroTeleSites as the third towerco active in Austria.
Cellnex has been operating in Austria since early 2021, when it finalised the acquisition of CK Hutchison's sites in the country as part of the agreement to acquire CK Hutchison's infrastructure portfolio in six European countries. At TowerXchange's last count Cellnex managed 4,639 sites in the central European state, meaning an price per tower of €173,097. This is a substantial discount on the price paid by Phoenix Tower International in Ireland for its sites there, where €971mn was paid for 1,900 sites.
Marco Patuano, CEO of Cellnex, highlighted that “the sale of our business in Austria is one further step within the company's ‘Next Chapter’, in line with our strategy, to achieve the goal of consolidating, simplifying our corporate structure and focusing our efforts in the existing growth opportunities in the main markets in which we operate”.
“It will also allow us," added Patuano, "to move forward on two other strategic objectives such as the focus on the balance sheet and shareholder remuneration, thus fulfilling our commitments to the market”.
The closing of the deal is subject to the corresponding regulatory approvals. This transaction allows Cellnex to continue its deleveraging process as announced at its recent Capital Markets Day, as recently covered by TowerXchange.
Familiar names were included on the sell side of the transaction. Deutsche Bank and Mediobanca are serving as financial advisors and Clifford Chance and Wolf Theiss are serving as legal counsels to Cellnex. However, to TowerXchange's knowledge the buy side comprising of Vauban Infrastructure Partners, EDF Invest and MEAG are new to TowerXchange and will be welcome additions to the busy towerco ecosystem in Europe.
