Cellnex acquires the Irish company Cignal

Cignal is one of the leading independent telecommunications infrastructure operators in Ireland.

Ireland has become the seventh European market in which Cellnex operates. Cignal has significantly expanded its portfolio of assets since its inception in 2015 after the initial acquisition of 300 telecommunications towers. Cellnex also plans to deploy up to 600 new sites in the next 7 years, with an investment of approximately 60 million euros.

Ireland currently has a total stock of 4,500 telecommunications sites. 40% of these sites are managed by eight different tower operators, including Cignal. The rest (60%) are controlled by the mobile operators Vodafone, 3 and Eir.

Tobias Martínez, CEO of Cellnex says that “with Cignal, we are not only integrating the leading independent telecommunications infrastructure operator in Ireland with a professional and experienced management team; we are also committing to consistent growth in Europe, incorporating a seventh market —which naturally extends the current geographical coverage of the six countries in which we already operate—, and in which we will work with customers to whom we already offer service in other countries, thereby strengthening our long-term collaborative relationship“.

This has been the fifth non-organic growth operation of Cellnex in 2019. In the first nine months of the year Cellnex closed different agreements that will lead the company to expand its infrastructure portfolio in Europe by about 16,000 new assets. The agreements with Iliad, in France and Italy, and with Salt in Switzerland stand out, with a global investment of 4,000 million euros, which includes the acquisition (2,700 million) and the deployment of new sites (1,350 million) until 2027.

Cellnex also expanded its activity in the United Kingdom. The company signed a strategic long-term collaboration agreement with BT through which it has acquired the marketing and operating rights of 220 telecommunications towers.