The French Competition Authority (Autorité de la Concurrence) has approved Cellnex’s acquisition of Hivory from Altice France and Starlight Holdco. The acquisition will now be finalised in the next few days.
According to Cellnex, Hivory manages the 10,500 sites that mainly serve the French mobile phone operator SFR. The agreement represents an investment of €5.2 billion by Cellnex, which will be accompanied by an eight-year investment programme totalling approximately €900 million for the roll-out of up to 2,500 new sites, among other projects.
It adds that the approval by the French Competition Authority states that Cellnex must divest around 3,200 rooftops. o this end, Cellnex is already working on new opportunities related to the deployment of new core assets to reinvest the proceeds of the divestment requested with a view that the Company’s expected financials on a consolidated run rate basis remain unaffected.
Cellnex also refers to a statement by its CEO Tobias Martinez made last February when announcing the agreement. In it, he said: “the purchase of Hivory emphasises the rationale behind the business model of neutral and independent telecommunications infrastructure operators. With the integration of Hivory, we will be working with three of the largest mobile operators in France, promoting infrastructure sharing; freeing up financial resources from those operators; promoting processes for the rationalisation of existing sites; and accelerating the deployment of new locations that both ensure the efficient and fluid 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 “not-spots” or areas without coverage”.
