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The €518 million deal will see Cellnex take full control of the towerco, which has over 8,500 sites across Poland
Tower infrastructure giant Cellnex has acquired a 30% stake in OnTower Poland from French telco group Iliad for €510 million.
Combined with Cellnex’s existing 70% stake in the business, this now gives the company full control of the Polish towerco.
OnTower owns and operates around 8,500 mobile sites across Poland, with Cellnex planning to expand this portfolio by an additional 3,400 sites by 2030.
“This transaction must be seen as an intermediate step in the process of actively assessing strategic options for our current portfolio in order to crystallize value and accelerate the path to the Investment Grade rating,” said Cellnex in a statement, noting it was hoping to achieve this status by 2024.
OnTower Poland was formed back in 2021 when Cellnex agreed to acquire 7,000 sites from Polish mobile operator Play for €800 million. The transaction gave Cellnex a 60% stake in the newly formed company, with the remaining 40% stake held by French telco group Iliad, which was in the lengthy process of acquiring Play.
Cellnex would go on to purchase a further 10% stake in the business from Iliad in early 2022, indicating at the time that they may could be interested in taking full ownership of the business in future and merging it with Cellnex Poland.
With the purchase of this final 30% stake, Cellnex will now make this ambition a reality.
The Polish market has been a major focus for Cellnex in recent years, having quickly bolstered its position with the purchase 99% stake in Polkomtel Infrastruktura from parent company Cyfrowy Polsat in 2021. The deal gave Cellnex an additional 7,000 towers and sites in Poland.
Combined, this means that Cellnex’s total footprint is Poland is today around 15,500 – a not insignificant portion of the roughly 135,000 sites the company manages across Europe.
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