Announcement of the acquisition of Swiss Towers AG from Sunrise Communications
Cellnex Telecom in consortium with Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners and Swiss Life Asset Managers announces the acquisition of Swiss Towers AG from Sunrise Communications.
Sunrise Communications and a consortium led by Cellnex Telecom (54%) and further comprising Swiss Life Asset Managers (28%) and Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners (18%) (the “Consortium”) announced today that they have reached an agreement regarding the sale of Swiss Towers AG (“Swiss Towers”), which owns a portfolio of 2,239 telecom towers in Switzerland. The transaction remains subject to merger clearance and certain further conditions.
Under the transaction the Consortium will acquire Swiss Tower for a total consideration of € 430 million free of cash, in an acquisition that will increase the number of sites managed by Cellnex in Europe by 2’239, pushing the total operated in Spain, Italy, Switzerland, France, Netherlands and the United Kingdom to over 23,000. As part of the transaction Swiss Towers and Sunrise have entered into a Master Service Agreement (“MSA”) for an initial period of 20 years, extendible by a further 20 years in two 10-year tranches.
Cellnex Telecom becomes the first independent wireless telecommunications services and infrastructure operator to enter Switzerland, consolidating the company’s position in Europe with more than 23,000 sites across Spain, Italy, France, Netherlands, the UK, and now Switzerland.
Niederer Kraft Frey acted as legal adviser to the consortium. The NKF team was led by Corporate/M&A partner Philippe Weber with Technology partner András Gurovits acting as deputy and covered in particular the following areas:
- Corporate/M&A: Philippe Weber, Moritz Maurer, Julia Tolstova, Alex Attinger
- Technology: Andras Gurovits, Maxim Eifinger, Rune Müller
- Banking, Finance & Regulatory: Marco Häusermann, Christine Hohl
- Anti-trust: András Gurovits, Nicolas Birkhäuser, Lukas Fahrländer