Dutch telco KPN is said to be nearing an agreement to sell its German mobile phone towers to Boston-based American Tower for between €300m and €400m (US$384m to US$512m).
Bidders who made it to the second round of the process also include a…
Dutch telco KPN is said to be nearing an agreement to sell its German mobile phone towers to Boston-based American Tower for between €300m and €400m (US$384m to US$512m).
Bidders who made it to the second round of the process also include a consortium of Antin Infrastructure and TDF, a person involved in the auction process said. In this consortium, Antin would inject the equity, while TDF could provide the management for the assets, the source told TelecomFinance.
This would address an issue that has complicated the sale process – the fact that E-Plus’ towers are not a separate entity at this point, which means that there is no management structure in place for the asset if it is carved out of the operations.
Another party still said to be interested is EQT Infrastructure.
According to reports today, a deal with American Tower may be announced next week, although negotiations are still ongoing.
Pressure to close before year-end
The source suggested that it was not too late for other players to improve their bids, although noting that time pressure was increasing if KPN wanted to take the transaction into account for this year’s balance sheet.
KPN, which is advised by UBS on the sale, has declined to comment and American Tower was not immediately available for comment.
Last week, KPN agreed to sell and lease back part of its Dutch tower portfolio to Indonesian towerco Protelindo. Announcing the deal on 31 October, KPN said it would generate €75m (US$97m) in cash proceeds and result in a book gain of €66m (US$86m). The telco said it did not consider the exploitation of the Dutch towers to be part of its core business, noting that mobile towers are generally used by multiple operators in the Netherlands.
Given that the acquisition of KPN’s Dutch towers was Protelindo’s first transaction outside Indonesia, a sector banker suggested that Protelindo could also take an interest in the German assets.
KPN reported revenues of €3.044bn for the third quarter – down 6.5% from the Q3 2011 result. EBITDA stood at €1.164bn – down 38.2% from Q3 2011.
Commenting on the results, CEO Eelco Blok noted the “mixed performance” across the group. He said that while the company is on track to reaching its market share targets in the Netherlands and the Belgian unit “performed strongly”, the situation in Germany is more challenging.
“[I]n Germany, competition on price has intensified in recent quarters which is leading to a slow-down in E-Plus’ top-line growth,” he said.
“The growth from higher postpaid net adds is being offset by customers optimising their tariffs.”
American Tower owns and manages about 49,000 communication sites internationally.
