France’s competition authority has conditionally approved the acquisition of tower venture Hivory by infrastructure operator Cellnex Telecom, originally announced in early February. Owned by Altice France and Starlight Holdco, Hivory manages a footprint of 10,500 towers that mainly serve Altice subsidiary SFR as anchor tenant. Cellnex is present in the French passive infrastructure market with approximately 9,000 mobile cell sites, following previous acquisition deals for tower assets used by SFR’s rivals Bouygues Telecom and Free Mobile.
As a condition for the approval, Cellnex has agreed to divest approximately 3,200 rooftop sites. It now expects to finalise the deal in the coming days.
Commenting on the ruling, the competition authority noted that it carried out a Phase 1 investigation into the deal. The probe found that Cellnex’s commitments were required to remove regulatory concerns over the impact of the acquisition on two market segments (rooftop and so-called ‘other’ sites) in French urban areas. In these segments, the operator has agreed to sell to one or more players approved by the watchdog over 2,500 rooftop sites and more than 300 ‘other’ sites in urban locations.
Cellnex is already working on new opportunities that will be funded by reinvesting the proceeds of the divestment agreed with the watchdog. This is with a view that the financial indicators initially forecast for the original scope of the Hivory acquisition remain unaffected, said the company.
