Spanish infrastructure operator Cellnex Telecom is in advanced negotiations to acquire CK Hutchison’s European mobile tower business for around EUR 9 billion, according to unnamed sources cited by Bloomberg. Cellnex is already Europe’s largest towers company and has recently agreed to acquire 7,000 Polish cites from France’s Iliad Group to increase its portfolio to 73,000 towers in 9 countries by the end of H1 2021. CK Hutchison and Cellnex have been in talks since at least July, when Bloomberg reported that the Hong Kong-based conglomerate was considering the sale of a minority stake in its European towers unit.
However, the sources indicate that Cellnex is now prepared to acquire CK Hutchison’s entire European portfolio of 28,500 masts, with the latter keen to sell to reduce debt and fund 5G network rollouts. The transaction would be the largest in the history of Cellnex, boosting its towers footprint by around 40 percent beyond 100,000 sites and allowing it to enter new markets including Austria, Denmark and Sweden.
In July, Cellnex's board agreed to execute a new capital increase amounting to EUR 4 billion, with the company confirming that it was “actively analysing market opportunities” for an aggregate amount of up to EUR 11 billion.
