Cellnex consolidates its position in Spain

Cellnex consolidates its position as an independent telecommunications infrastructure operator in Spain after sign an agreement with Orange Spain for the acquisition of a portfolio of 1,500 locations. Towers and antennas located in urban, suburban and rural areas. The operation involves an investment of 260 million euros for Cellnex.

The operation has been carried out by signing an initial 10-year contract – extensible to 10 more years and successive periods of 1 year -, in which Orange Spain will continue to use the locations that Cellnex will operate. With this operation Cellnex “strengthens its position in Spain as an independent telecommunications infrastructure operator and consolidates the relationship with Orange as one of the group’s key clients in Spain and France” said Àlex Mestre, Global Business Director at Cellnex Telecom.

In 2019, Cellex has consolidated its transformation as a company, reached several asset acquisition agreements and companies that will help to expand the current portfolio of assets in more than 25,000 in the seven European countries in which the company is present.

In the first half of 2019, Cellnex signed long-term strategic collaboration agreements with Iliad in France and Italy. Also with Salt in Switzerland to acquire 10,700 sites (5,700 in France, 2,200 in Italy and 2,800 in Switzerland) and carry out a construction program of 4,000 new sites until 2027 (2,500 in France and 1,000 in Italy for Iliad, and 500 for Salt in Switzerland). The total planned investment is close to 4,000 million euros (2,700 million euros for site acquisition and 1,350 million euros for BTS programs).

In June, Cellnex and BT announced the signing of the strategic long-term collaboration agreement through which Cellnex acquired the exploitation and commercialization rights of 220 high-rise telecommunications towers in the United Kingdom.

In September, Cellnex announced the acquisition of Cignal in Ireland , one of the main Irish infrastructure operators in telecommunications, for a total of 210 million euros. In addition, the company expects the deployment of another 600 new sites until 2026, with an additional investment estimated at 60 million euros.

Already in October the company announced the agreement to acquire the Telecommunications division of the English company Arqiva by c. 2,000 million pounds sterling. The operation involves the acquisition of 7,400 sites of ownership and the marketing rights of some 900 sites in the United Kingdom. It also includes concessions for the use of 5G. The closing of this operation is planned for the second half of 2020.

Since the IPO in 2015, Cellnex has executed or committed investments worth nearly 11,000 million euros for the acquisition or construction – until 2027 – of up to 44,200 telecommunications infrastructures that add up to the approximately 10,000 with which the company at that time.