Country profile: France

Three of France’s four MNOs have completed tower sales in the country, whilst Orange has carved out their portfolio into their own towerco, TOTEM. TOTEM’s perimeter is initially confined to France and Spain (with a view to explore the integration of further assets at a later date). TOTEM currently has 19,859 towers in France, of which 58% are ground based towers, 30% flat rooftops and 12% other locations.

Bouygues Telecom was one of Europe’s first MNOs to sell towers to an independent towerco, selling 2,166 of their estimated 17,000 towers to Antin Infrastructure Partners’ FPS Towers in 2012 for €185mn (originally retaining 15% equity, which Antin subsequently bought in 2015). FPS Towers expanded their portfolio to over 2,400 sites and secured the rights to 20,000 rooftops and 76,000 electricity pylons.

In 2016, Antin subsequently sold FPS Towers to ATC Europe (American Tower’s European arm) for a total of €697mn. As of Q2 2023, ATC Europe has a portfolio of 4,281 sites in the country. A contract with Orange to rollout up to 2,000 new sites, primarily in rural areas and along transport routes, gives ATC Europe strong growth potential in the market.

Bouygues Telecom has also completed several tower transactions with Cellnex. In 2016 they sold 500 towers (an initial tranche of 230 towers, followed by a second tranche of 270) to Cellnex for a total of €147mn; in February 2017 they signed a third deal with the aforementioned governing the transfer of 1,800 urban (primarily rooftop) sites and 1,200 new build towers for a total of €854mn; later the same year they signed a further deal with Cellnex transferring a further 600 sites for €170mn.

In December 2018, the operator deepened their relationship with Cellnex, signing an agreement for the towerco to provide distributed processing capabilities (edge computing) at 88 strategic telecom centres, a deal since extended to cover 150 centres. In February 2020, Cellnex and Bouygues’ relationship deepened even further with the two parties announcing the formation of a joint venture to deploy a nationwide fibre network, with plans to invest up to €1bn to rollout up to 30,000 km of fibre, with the new agreement also including the rollout of a further 90 strategic telecom centres.

In March 2020, Bouygues Telecom announced a second joint venture, this time with Phoenix Tower International (PTI), with the PTI controlled joint venture set to rollout up to 4,000 new sites outside Very Dense Areas as part of Bouygues’ New Deal Mobile obligations.

In 2018, MNO SFR (owned by Altice) carved out their towers into a new towerco, SFR Towerco, in which they subsequently sold a 49.99% stake to investment firm, KKR and rebranded the unit to “Hivory”. In February 2021, Cellnex announced that it had reached a deal to acquire Hivory and its 10,500 sites, with plans to deploy a further 2,500 sites over the next eight years.

The deal closed in Q4 2021, with one of the conditions of the French Competition Authorities approval being that Cellnex must divest 3,200 sites. Cellnex has reached a deal to sell the towers to Phoenix Tower. The asset transfer is currently underway with 2,353 sites now sold to PTI for EUR 631mn and is expected to complete in 2024. Altice is expected to explore a stake sale in SFR to reduce its EUR23 bn debt of its French unit. The move will be in parallel to the sale of its datacentre unit.

In mid-2019 France’s newest MNO, Free Mobile (owned by Iliad) also agreed a tower sale in the country, reaching a deal with Cellnex for the sale of its 5,700 sites, retaining a 30% stake in the assets (Cellnex has since exercised the right to acquire the Iliad’s 30% stake in the assets). The transaction also involves a build to suit component with Cellnex to add up to 2,500 new sites for the operator.

Broadcast-telecom hybrid TDF has 8,200 telecom towers as well as an established broadcast business and growing fibre deployment. In 2016, TDF acquired the previously family owned, towerco, ITAS TIM and its 420 towers for a reported €100mn. Brookfield, which owns a 45% stake in TDF has appointed advisors to oversee the sale of its shareholding – the investor having previously attempted a sale in 2019 and 2021.

Broadcast towerco, TowerCast (owned by NRJ Group) which owns around 500 sites also sell co-locations to telecom clients in the country. NRJ announced that TowerCast would come to market in 2017, but the deal has quietly slipped off the radar since.

Some reports suggest that France may need as many as 50,000 new points of presence, with the regulator, ARCEP, stipulating that the three most established operators (Orange, SFR and Bouygues) must add a further 15,000 points of presence between them.

The newest market entrant, Free Mobile, needs to add a further 10,000 points of presence to compete with its peers. Co-location on existing structures will help hit the PoP targets but new build is still expected. Cellnex is committed to add up to 5,020 sites through its BTS agreements with Bouygues, Free and SFR. PTI plans to build up to 4,000 new sites for Bouygues in rural areas and ATC Europe building rural sites for Orange.

Free Mobile signed a long-term agreement with TOTEM in Q4 2022 which gives the MNO access to TOTEM’s ground-based and roof top sites in France.The French government is also heavily incentivising MNOs to buildtowers in rural areas, which should further promote BTS.