Cellnex has reached an exclusivity agreement with Altice France and Starlight to buy 100% of Hivory in France.
Hivory is a telco tower operator that manages the 10,500 sites that mainly serve SFR as anchor tenant.
The transaction, which is worth €5.2 billion and expected to close in the second half of this year, will be accompanied by an eight-year programme involving a further €0.9 billion for the roll-out of up to 2,500 new sites, among other projects.
Commenting on the transaction, Cellnex CEO Tobías Martínez underlined “the importance of an agreement that emphasises the rationale behind the business model and value proposal of neutral and independent telecommunications infrastructure operators. With the acquisition of Hivory, which will have to receive the green light from the competition authority, we will now be working in France with three of the big mobile operators in this market as anchor tenants, fostering infrastructure sharing; freeing up financial resources for those MNOs; enhancing rationalisation processes of existing sites; and accelerating the deployment of new sites that ensure both an efficient and seamless extension of 5G coverage in the country and the effective fulfilment of an objective that is also shared by the players in the sector: eliminating “non spot areas” or zones without proper coverage in the country”.
Cellnex has also announced that it plans to launch a new rights issue for up to €7 billion. With it the company plans to finance a portfolio of projects that could reach up to €18 billion following its completion.
