Spanish infrastructure group Abertis is expected to lodge a bid for towers belonging to Italian operator Wind Telecomunicazioni in the next few weeks, people familiar with the matter told TelecomFinance.
The news comes as Abertis has begun pre-marketing…
Spanish infrastructure group Abertis is expected to lodge a bid for towers belonging to Italian operator Wind Telecomunicazioni in the next few weeks, people familiar with the matter told TelecomFinance.
The news comes as Abertis has begun pre-marketing the IPO of its tower business into a new unit called Abertis Telecom Terrestre (ATT), which it plans to spin off and list in the first half of 2015.
In spite of the groundwork for the flotation now taking place, Abertis is looking to pursue tower acquisitions before the spinoff, the people said.
Wind is reported to be selling up to 50% of its 13,000 towers and is being advised by HSBC and Banca IMI.
Abertis entered the Italian market in May when it acquired TowerCo for €94.6m (US$129.7m) from Italian motorway operator Atlantia.
Alongside the Wind portfolio, Abertis is also interested in Portugal Telecom’s planned disposal of 3,000 towers and is watching what Orange Spain and Telecom Italia choose to do with their own sites.
However, Abertis is not tempted to enter the Latin American tower market which has been buoyant in recent years. Explaining this decision, Aljaro said independent towercos in Latin America were a lot more established than the ones in Europe, which is why Abertis sees more opportunities closer to home.
Abertis’s planned ATT unit will hold all 7,700 of the group’s telecoms and broadcast towers and could be valued at US$3.8bn.
Independence will allow the towerco to take on levels of debt for expansion which Abertis is not able to do, given its commitment to maintain its credit rating.
