KKR bids for Deutsche Telekom tower business
June 21, 2022
By Chris Forrester
A trio of investors, KKR & Co, Global Infrastructure Partners and Stonepeak Partners, have combined to bid for a controlling stake in Deutsche Telekom’s (DT) cellular towers subsidiary, according to Bloomberg.
However, they are not alone in the bidding war. A consortium of Canadian investment firm Brookfield Asset Management and Cellnex Telecom has also made a confirmatory bid for part of the DT asset.
Cellnex already jointly owns towers with DT in Switzerland and the Netherlands. Germany is reportedly the only major European market where Cellnex does not have a presence. The company was spun off from Abertis Group in 2015.
Cellnex is a Barcelona-based Spanish wireless infrastructure company and claims some 53,000 tower sites throughout Europe and is forecast to be aiming for 137,000 sites by 2030. It employs 3000 staff and either in its own name or in joint-ventures it has concluded acquisitions in France (Hivory), Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Italy and Sweden (CK Hutchison), Poland (Play and Polkomtel Infrastructure) and the Netherlands (DT sites).