UPDATE Vodafone GmbH has sold its shares in Vantage Towers to a consortium consisting of Global Infrastructure Partners and KKR through a joint venture, which accounts for 81.7 percent of the share capital. The consortium now plans to launch a voluntary takeover of outstanding Vantage Towers shares for $32 per share, a multiple of 26x adjusted EBITDA.
The deal, which values Vantage at $16 billion, allows Vodafone to retain co-control of the towers, while cutting its debt by $3.2 billion, according to Mobile World Live.
The Business Combination Agreement followed a structured bidding process, which had been initiated by Vodafone Group Plc. as the parent company and Vodafone GmbH as the company’s principal shareholder.
Vantage has a large, geographically diverse European tower portfolio, which includes ground-based and rooftop towers that facilitate 4G and 5G coverage, DAS networks, and small cells. The tower company has more than 83,000 macro tower sites, from Ireland to Greece. Its biggest concentration of towers resides in Italy with 22,800, followed by Germany with 19,400, and the United Kingdom with 14,500.
The tower agreement comes after Vodafone confirmed last month that it is in talks with CK Hutchison Holdings Limited concerning the combination of their respective mobile network operators, Vodafone UK and Three UK, Inside Towers reported.
By J. Sharpe Smith, Inside Towers Technology Editor
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