US-based telco NII Holdings has completed the disposal of 1,940 tower sites across Brazil to American Tower for US$348m.
NII’s local subsidiary Nextel Brazil has agreed to lease back the towers for 12 years.
When the transaction was announced in…
US-based telco NII Holdings has completed the disposal of 1,940 tower sites across Brazil to American Tower for US$348m.
NII’s local subsidiary Nextel Brazil has agreed to lease back the towers for 12 years.
When the transaction was announced in August, the companies had agreed a deal for 2,790 towers, but closing conditions have not been met for 850 – or 30% – of the sites. The 850 remaining sites will be sold as and when closing conditions are met, the company said.
A delay on the closing of some of the sites was expected. The decentralised nature of Brazilian tower administration means the companies have to negotiate the transfer of the ownership of the sites with local municipalities.
As part of the same deal, NII agreed to sell American Tower 1,666 sites in Mexico. However, only 1,483 of these towers were transferred to American Tower when the companies completed that part of the transaction in November.
NII decided to sell the towers after a shift in strategy earlier this year. It also moved to exit three of the five markets it operates in to focus on its “core markets” of Brazil and Mexico. It has already agreed to sell Nextel Peru to Entel Chile while Nextel Argentina and Nextel Chile are also on the block.
The returns from the tower sales will be used by Nextel Brazil to invest in network upgrades.
Deutsche Bank acted as financial adviser to NII and Jones Day and Lape Mansfield Nakasian & Gibson were its legal advisers.
Evercore was American Tower’s financial adviser and Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton was its legal adviser.
