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Cellnex acquired a 72% stake in the company in 2017 for €430 million
Spanish TowerCo Cellnex is considering the sale of its Swiss subsidiary, according to a report from Spanish newspaper Expansion, which cited unnamed sources.
The report says US investment bank JP Morgan has been selected as an advisor for the potential sale of its stake. According to the unnamed sources, the company’s Swiss tower business could be worth up to €1.5 billion, with Cellnex’s 72% stake worth approximately €1.1 billion.
The remaining 28% of the business is owned by Swiss Life Asset Managers.
The unit owns and operates around 6,000 mobile tower sites across Switzerland, making it the largest independent tower operator in the country.
Cellnex has undergone a major shift in focus since 2022, after a period of intense mergers and acquisitions left the company with a debt pile of €17.2 billion. Since then, it has sold off various business units in order to ‘focus on core markets and divest from non-core business lines’.
In March last year, Cellnex sold its Irish unit to Phoenix Tower International for €1 billion, a market Cellnex has been operating in since 2019. The deal is expected to close later this quarter.
Cellnex CEO Marco Patuano summarised the transaction as “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,”.
This week, the company has also announced the launch of a share buyback programme of up to €800 million.
“The program aims to benefit from current share price levels and reduce the Company’s share capital by cancelling these shares, subject to approval by the General Shareholders’ Meeting,” the company confirmed this morning.
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