Why did the three largest telecom operators in Russia simultaneously start selling their tower infrastructure?
Tele2 intends to sell its tower infrastructure. According to one of the sources of "Vedomosti", we are talking about about 10 thousand towers. Among potential buyers is the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF).
In October, it became known that Megafon PJSC intends to separate its cell towers into a separate company. The operator was going to start with an inventory of the infrastructure, and then take up the selection of management to manage the new company. MegaFon has about 14 thousand towers.
Operator's manual does not exclude that in the future a new company (more precisely - 49%) will be sold. In addition to VTB, the possibility of participation in the capital of the First Tower Company was considered by VEB and the associated RDIF.
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“Megamind” also wrote that the operator Vimpelcom offered for sale 10-12 thousand towers for base stations in Russia and the near abroad. Vimpelcom owns 50 thousand towers - in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Georgia.
For them, she intends to gain not less than $ 500 million, told earlier by the interlocutors of "Vedomosti". One of the conditions of the transaction is that the buyer will be obliged to lease the towers to VimpelCom.
According to interlocutors Bloomberg, the operator thus tries to compensate for their losses. The holding towers can be separated into a separate infrastructure company with an industrial or financial partner. An IPO is also being considered for this company.
Among the contenders for the VimpelCom towers are the Russian Towers, along with Goldman Sachs , Vertical , which received guarantees for financing the transaction from Sberbank and VTB, RDIF and the UAE Mubadala and Baring Vostok Capital, as well as the Indian conglomerate Srei .
“Owning such an infrastructure is a stable and high-margin business, tower companies around the world have a margin of 60-70%. The multipliers of such companies are higher than those of cellular operators, but it’s too early to talk about multipliers in the case of Russian companies, as there have been no precedents [tower allocation], ” told Ivan Interfax, MegaFon CEO Ivan Tavrin.
According to both sources of Vedomosti, Tele2 is not yet considering the possibility of creating a joint venture with any of the other operators. Perhaps, the infrastructure consolidation will take place already at the buyer’s level, one of the Vedomosti interlocutors believes: he explains that investors often purchase towers from several operators and then integrate them into a single network in order to increase the efficiency of their use (later you can place base stations on the towers several operators).
Analysts of Renaissance Capital consider the completion of these transactions unlikely. Russia has already passed that stage when such a sale would be profitable (and this is the early stage of network deployment), they write in their February report on the mobile communications market in Russia. In their opinion, Tele2 is more important to keep the towers as a resource in the fight against the “big three” than to get momentary profits from their sale, analysts emphasize.
However, it is worth noting that in Russia it would be cheaper to rent towers in a competitive market rather than incur individual capital expenditures on construction and maintenance, certification.
An analyst at VTB Capital, Ivan Kim, says that the terms of sale and use of tower infrastructure in Russia are different from, for example, European. In Europe, potential investors earn not only by increasing the number of tenants on the acquired infrastructure, but also on savings from renting land after the demolition of unnecessary objects, says Kim. In Russia, renting land is not so expensive and reducing the number of rigs will not give the new owner such a strong effect, the analyst concludes.
For the time being, only MTS company does not intend to sell tower infrastructure, Vedomosti reports.
In October, it became known that Megafon PJSC intends to separate its cell towers into a separate company. The operator was going to start with an inventory of the infrastructure, and then take up the selection of management to manage the new company. MegaFon has about 14 thousand towers.
Operator's manual does not exclude that in the future a new company (more precisely - 49%) will be sold. In addition to VTB, the possibility of participation in the capital of the First Tower Company was considered by VEB and the associated RDIF.
')
“Megamind” also wrote that the operator Vimpelcom offered for sale 10-12 thousand towers for base stations in Russia and the near abroad. Vimpelcom owns 50 thousand towers - in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Georgia.
For them, she intends to gain not less than $ 500 million, told earlier by the interlocutors of "Vedomosti". One of the conditions of the transaction is that the buyer will be obliged to lease the towers to VimpelCom.
According to interlocutors Bloomberg, the operator thus tries to compensate for their losses. The holding towers can be separated into a separate infrastructure company with an industrial or financial partner. An IPO is also being considered for this company.
Among the contenders for the VimpelCom towers are the Russian Towers, along with Goldman Sachs , Vertical , which received guarantees for financing the transaction from Sberbank and VTB, RDIF and the UAE Mubadala and Baring Vostok Capital, as well as the Indian conglomerate Srei .
In the third quarter of 2015, 37.6% of its revenue was secured by cooperation with T2 RTK Holding (Tele2 brand). Vimpelcom accounted for 19% of revenue, MTS - 17.7%, and Megafon - 13.1%.“In general, the direction of infrastructure monetization [sale of towers] is an interesting way to get additional money for network development,” commented Alexander Popovsky, vice president of corporate strategy and business development, at VimpelCom.
A year ago, in the third quarter of 2014, most of the revenue of the Russian Towers (almost 32%) also fell on contracts with Tele2, a representative of the Russian Towers said. At the same time, in 2014–2015, the share of Tele2 in the revenues of the infrastructure company only grew. This growth is also due to the launch of Tele2 in Moscow.
“Owning such an infrastructure is a stable and high-margin business, tower companies around the world have a margin of 60-70%. The multipliers of such companies are higher than those of cellular operators, but it’s too early to talk about multipliers in the case of Russian companies, as there have been no precedents [tower allocation], ” told Ivan Interfax, MegaFon CEO Ivan Tavrin.
According to both sources of Vedomosti, Tele2 is not yet considering the possibility of creating a joint venture with any of the other operators. Perhaps, the infrastructure consolidation will take place already at the buyer’s level, one of the Vedomosti interlocutors believes: he explains that investors often purchase towers from several operators and then integrate them into a single network in order to increase the efficiency of their use (later you can place base stations on the towers several operators).
Analysts of Renaissance Capital consider the completion of these transactions unlikely. Russia has already passed that stage when such a sale would be profitable (and this is the early stage of network deployment), they write in their February report on the mobile communications market in Russia. In their opinion, Tele2 is more important to keep the towers as a resource in the fight against the “big three” than to get momentary profits from their sale, analysts emphasize.
However, it is worth noting that in Russia it would be cheaper to rent towers in a competitive market rather than incur individual capital expenditures on construction and maintenance, certification.
An analyst at VTB Capital, Ivan Kim, says that the terms of sale and use of tower infrastructure in Russia are different from, for example, European. In Europe, potential investors earn not only by increasing the number of tenants on the acquired infrastructure, but also on savings from renting land after the demolition of unnecessary objects, says Kim. In Russia, renting land is not so expensive and reducing the number of rigs will not give the new owner such a strong effect, the analyst concludes.
For the time being, only MTS company does not intend to sell tower infrastructure, Vedomosti reports.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/298994/
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