Clifford advises Cellnex on its €1.6bn acquisition of Polkomtel Infrastruktura
Clifford Chance has advised Spain´s Cellnex on its acquisition of Poland´s Polkomtel Infrastruktura for €1.6 billion
Barcelona-headquartered Cellnex Telecom, Europe’s leading operator of wireless telecommunications and broadcasting infrastructure, has signed an agreement with Cyfrowy Polsat and Polkomtel to acquire 99,99 per cent of Polkomtel Infrastruktura, the owner of the passive and active layers of Polsat Group’s mobile telecom infrastructure in Poland.
The value of the transaction is over PLN 7 billion and The deal is expected to be completed in Q4 2021.
Cellnex CEO Tobias Martinez highlighted: “We celebrate both a long-term strategic partnership with one of the most significant players in the Polish telecommunications market, as well as the relevance and strategic value of an agreement which involves two main derivatives. First, it allows Cellnex to rapidly consolidate and reinforce its position in Poland following the recent announcement to acquire towers and sites from Play. Secondly, it exemplifies our commitment to evolving the traditional tower operator model towards an integrated telecommunications infrastructure management model, combining the operation of passive elements (towers) and active elements such as transmission equipment, radio links and fibre-to-the-tower.”
Polkomtel Infrastruktura operates the group’s passive infrastructure (c.7,000 telecommunication towers and sites) and active infrastructures (c.37,000 radio carriers covering all the bands used by 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G; c. 11,300 km of fibre backbone and fibre-to-the-tower backhaul, and a national network of microwave radio links). The agreement involves an investment of €1.6 billion by Cellnex, plus an additional programme to roll out up to c. 1,500 sites, as well as investments in active equipment, mostly for 5G, for a further c. €600 million over the next 10 years.
A Clifford Chance’s team of lawyers in London and Warsaw was led by Joel Ziff (partner, Corporate/M&A, London) and Agnieszka Janicka (managing partner, Warsaw), also with the participation of Spain.
The Clifford Chance´s team advising on this deal from Spain´s Barcelona office was formed by Corporate/M&A partner Guillermo Guardia (pictured left) and senior lawyer Jose María Vilaseca (pictured right).
