Spain’s Abertis is looking at opportunities to acquire towers from Brazilian telcos.
The infrastructure company attempted to buy 2,000 towers from wireless operator Oi recently but was outbid, according to Abertis’ CFO Jose Aljaro quoted by…
Spain’s Abertis is looking at opportunities to acquire towers from Brazilian telcos.
The infrastructure company attempted to buy 2,000 towers from wireless operator Oi recently but was outbid, according to Abertis’ CFO Jose Aljaro quoted by Reuters.
He told reporters in Rio de Janeiro that he was analysing any towers that came on to the market and predicted more operators would look to dispose of their infrastructure.
In July Oi signed a US$304m tower deal with SBA Communications for 2,113 of its sites. At the end of August BR Towers acquired the right to a further 2,113 towers from Oi for 30 years, paying US$211m.
Meanwhile American Tower has recently bought 2,790 towers for US$413m from business-focused operator Nextel Brazil.
Brazil’s tower market is particularly active at the moment because operators are racing to meet 4G coverage targets set by the government ahead of next year’s football World Cup.
Upgrading their networks is expensive and selling towers allows them to raise funds. It also increases the rate of towers owned by independent companies, which in turn means that site sharing is occurring at a faster rate so operators can improve their coverage footprints quicker.
