US tower operator Crown Castle could soon strike a deal for more than US$2bn to acquire T-Mobile USA’s tower assets, reports the Wall Street Journal citing people familiar with the matter. According to the report American Tower and Global Tower…
US tower operator Crown Castle could soon strike a deal for more than US$2bn to acquire T-Mobile USA’s tower assets, reports the Wall Street Journal citing people familiar with the matter.
According to the report American Tower and Global Tower Partners are also in for the assets, but talks with Crown Castle are said to be at a more advanced stage.
T-Mobile put its 7,300 towers on the market in March and has enlisted Deutsche Bank and TAP Advisors to offload the assets.
Deutsche Bank will reportedly offer financing for the buyers of the towers at a multiple of 12 times the towers’ estimated cash flow.
The tower sell-off follows the unsuccessful attempt by AT&T to buy T-Mobile last year, which fell apart due to antitrust concerns. T-Mobile is now looking to become more financially independent of its parent Deutsche Telekom.
T-Mobile is selling its towers and plans to lease them back to free up capital to invest in its upgrade to LTE.
In June the telco agreed to buy AWS spectrum from Verizon for an unspecified amount, and proceeds from the tower sale may go towards paying for those licences.
The spectrum deal is subject to FCC approval, which will depend on the regulator’s decision on Verizon’s US$3.9bn deal with cablecos. T-Mobile recently met with the regulator to persuade them to okay Verizon’s deal soon, demonstrating its interest to get more spectrum so it has a path to LTE.
Crown Castle owns, operates and manages over 22,000 wireless communication sites in the US at present.