Several tower site developments have taken place lately on a global scale, and TeleGeography reports Spanish firm Cellnex is the first out of the gate. The passive infrastructure firm has signed a $88.6 million deal for 230 towers from French cellco Bouygues Telecom. There is a second phase on the table for 270 more towers. Additionally, according to TeleGeography, the agreement includes a 20-year contract “for Cellnex to provide services to Bouygues Telecom.”
Cellnex’s CEO, Tobias Martinez told TeleGeography that he hopes the agreement “opens the door to extend it in the future to other areas such as construction of new towers on demand (Build to Suit), or the deployment of new technologies based on the “small cells” for the mobile broadband extension.”
Reuters reported that Cellnex will “likely” bid for French tower firm FPS Towers. The sale could raise around one billion Euro.
In Asia, China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom have signed five-year lease agreements with China Tower. According to the South China Morning Post, savings of CNY 2.4 billion (USD 358.8 million), CNY 1.9 billion and CNY 1.8 billion this year for Mobile, Unicom and Telecom respectively, could be generated.
Other highlights include:
- Helios Towers DRCs’s subsidiary, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), has completed a $105 million upsizing of its syndicated term loan facility. It “will be used to finance its acquisition of Bharti Airtel’s tower portfolio and to fund organic growth, including the construction of new towers and investment in new power technologies.”
- Tele2 Russia may sell off its tower portfolio of 10,000, negotiating with three buyers and looking for at least $385.65 million.
- Indus Towers and Bharti Infratel are looking at rates they charge, freezing the annual rent escalation for Bharti Airtel in many areas, a decision “prompted by concerns from cellcos that the tower providers were charging competitors different rates for tenancies at the same location.”
Finally, The Sun Daily reported that OCK Group Bhd bought Vietnamese telecom tower firm Southeast Asia Telecommunications Holdings Pte Ltd for $50 million, a joint venture between.
OCK Group and CapAsia Telecommunications Ltd. will both reportedly pay $20 million, with $30 million coming from borrowed bank funds. OCK has been looking to expand into the Vietnamese market, and this transaction, according to The Sun Daily, will give the company around 3,000 tower assets in the Asean region by the end of 2016. OCK also has an order book of 350 new towers.
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