Spanish operator Cellnex has agreed to acquire the tower infrastructure of Polish operator P4 from France's Iliad group. Under the deal, Cellnex will buy about 7,000 sites, and pay EUR 800 million for a 60 percent controlling stake in the company that will manage those sites. The newly-created tower company plans to invest up to EUR 1.3 billion into rolling out of up to 5,000 new sites over the next 10 years. Iliad launched a takeover bid for Play last month and is expected to close that deal by November. The agreement between Iliad and Cellnex is expected to complete in the second quarter of next year. At that point, Cellnex will have 73,000 sites in nine countries.
The remaining 40 percent stake in the newly-created tower company will continue to be owned by Play (Iliad) in line with the model that Cellnex and Iliad previously agreed for the sites formerly operated by Free (Iliad) in France. Cellnex will finance the transaction with available cash.
Earlier this September, Iliad signed a binding agreement to purchase a 40 percent controlling interest from Play’s two reference shareholders for PLN 39 per share, which will give Iliad the majority of seats on Play’s management board. It will launch a public bid for the remaining Play shares at the same price, for a total price of EUR 2.2 billion, or EUR 3.5 billion including debt.
