NOS sells telecom towers to cellnex for €550 million

Portugal’s telecommunication company NOS has sold its subsidiary NOS Towering S.A., the company that manages its telecommunication towers to Cellnex for €550 million.

The deal ensures the telecom operator an immediate windfall of €375 million but should be worth €550 million over the next six years.

This is the second acquisition that Cellnex has made in Portugal in four months as part of a raft of investments that could top €1.3Bn.

After having acquired the telecoms towers belonging to OMTEL in January, the Spanish telecoms company Cellnex bought around 2,000 telecoms towers from NOS which was announced on 14 April by both companies.

NOS profits have steadily risen since 2014 from €74 million to €143 million last year, making it the second most important operator after Altis Portugal.

According to Cellnex the deal involves “a portfolio of telecommunication towers located in urban areas (40%) and suburban and rural areas (60%) in Portugal”.

The agreement reached between NOS and Cellnex also foresees that the Spanish company will “supply hosting services” for NOS’ active network using the purchased towers to ensure their services until 2035, a period of 15 years which can be automatically renewed for equal periods.

“The expected impact on pro-forma operation cash-flow in the first year will be approximately €22 million” states NOS in a communiqué sent to the regulator CMVM.

As to business in other countries, in the first six months of 2019, Cellnex signed long-term strategic cooperation agreements with Iliad – in France and Italy – and with Salt in Switzerland to purchase 10,700 infrastructures (5,700 in France, 2,200 in Italy and 2,800 in Switzerland in a total estimated investment of almost €4Bn.