Vodafone Group, the leading mobile operator, is seeking buyers or investors for its telecom tower assets in Europe.
Vodafone has decided to separate its passive tower assets in Europe in order to create a new TowerCo organisation with a dedicated management team by May 2020.
TowerCo will own Europe’s largest tower portfolio, comprising approximately 61,700 towers across 10 countries. 75 percent of these telecom sites are in the major markets of Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK.
TowerCo could generate annual revenue of around €1.7 billion and EBITDA €900 million. TowerCo’s annual maintenance and expansion Capex could be up to €200 million.
Vodafone aims to monetise a substantial proportion of TowerCo over the next 18 months, depending on market conditions, Vodafone CEO Nick Read said.
Vodafone Group, which posted 2.3 percent drop in revenue to €10.653 billion in the June quarter of 2019, has already announced its plan to combine Vodafone Italy’s passive tower infrastructure with Inwit.
Vodafone has recently announced active and passive network sharing agreements in Italy, Spain and the UK, and will continue to pursue similar arrangements across its European footprint in order to monetise its tower infrastructure.
