Cellnex closes the purchase of CK Hutchison's assets in Austria, Ireland and Denmark

The Spanish company has already closed the acquisition of the first 7,050 towers and sites of the total of 24,600 that made up CK Hutchison's portfolio in Europe. The agreement also provides for the deployment of up to 5,250 sites over the next eight years.

Cellnex Telecom has concluded the purchase of the telecommunications tower assets of CK Hutchison in Austria, Denmark and Ireland, three of the six countries covered by the agreement announced on November 12. With this, the company already consolidates 7,050 locations out of a total of 24,600 included in the agreement. The operation as a whole reaches a value of 10,000 million euros and the agreements also contemplate the deployment of up to 5,250 new sites in the next eight years with an additional investment of 1,400 million euros.

The global amount of the transactions in the six countries reaches 10,000 million euros: 8,600 million in cash and 1,400 million euros in shares that represent a participation of around 5% in the company. Cellnex has committed to payment in cash for the operations in the three countries in which the agreement has already been closed, as well as in Italy and Sweden, while in the United Kingdom the payment will be with cash and new Cellnex shares at the closing of the transaction in that country.

The operations were structured in six separate transactions (one for each country). The closures were planned in stages and also separately as the established conditions were met (e.g. the aforementioned authorization from the competition authorities in cases where this is required).

CK Hutchison's entry into the capital of Cellnex will not occur until the complete closure of the operation in the United Kingdom.

Cellnex has closed and will close long-term service provision contracts with CK Hutchison in different countries for an initial period of 15 years, extendable for another 15 and subsequent periods of 5 years.

The estimated additional EBITDA will reach around 970 million euros (under IFRS16 and once the acquisitions are closed and new deployments have been executed, including the company's estimates on third-party leases and efficiencies), while free and recurring cash flow will grow by around 620 million.

Regarding sales, the turnover of the group will increase by 1,200 million until the 3.8 billion euros once all planned deployments are completed.

The result of these pan-European agreements in terms of backlog, or volume of sales contracted by Cellnex, is a growth of around 33,000 million to reach 86,000 million euros.

Three new markets

Under the agreed terms, Cellnex will enter three new markets: Austria, Sweden and Denmark, starting to operate in a total of twelve European countries, in addition to expanding its presence in key markets such as Italy, Ireland and the United Kingdom in which the volume of managed assets will double.

Of the total of 24,600 sites to be acquired, 8,900 correspond to Italy; 6,000 to the United Kingdom[1]; 1,150 to Ireland; 2,650 to Sweden; 1,400 to Denmark and 4,500 to Austria.

Regarding the up to 5,250 additional sites to be deployed in the next eight years, 1,100 are planned in Italy, 600 in the United Kingdom, 100 in Ireland, 2,550 in Sweden, 500 in Denmark and 400 more in Austria.