Deutsche Telekom said GD Towers operates more than 40,000 sites in Germany and Austria
Germany carrier Deutsche Telekom announced the sale of 51% of GD Towers comprising its tower assets in Germany and Austria, to Digital Bridge and Brookfield for 17.5 billion euros ($17.58 billion), the telco said in a release.
“We crystalize the value of our tower assets, thereby creating value for our shareholders,” said Tim Höttges, CEO of Deutsche Telekom. “At the same time the deal allows us to continue improving Deutsche Telekom’s undisputed network leadership in Germany and benefit from further value upside of the towers business through our retained 49% stake.”
With around 800 employees, GD Towers operates more than 40,000 sites in Germany and Austria.
“The combination of Deutsche Telekom’s leading mobile network and market position, alongside one of the largest real asset managers in the world in Brookfield, combined with the digital infrastructure domain expertise of DigitalBridge, creates a team of unmatched capabilities to support GD Towers as it grows to meet the evolving network demands of enterprises and consumers across Europe,” said Marc Ganzi, CEO of DigitalBridge.
“We’re delighted to be partnering with Deutsche Telekom and DigitalBridge to expand our presence in the European telecom infrastructure sector,” said Sam Pollock, managing partner at Brookfield and CEO Infrastructure. “This represents a great opportunity to invest in a highly attractive tower portfolio, with highly contracted cash flows and strong upside potential.”
Pollock noted that Brookfield currently has approximately 200,000 telecom tower and rooftop sites under management globally.
Deutsche Telekom also said it has the right to regain control and reconsolidate GD Towers in the future.
Under the terms of the deal, Telekom Deutschland and Magenta Austria will continue to have unconstrained access to the passive mobile infrastructure of GD Towers via favorable long-term lease agreements. The operators will also access to strategically critical ”golden sites” as well as preferential access to free site capacity for future network upgrades. Both Telekom Deutschland and Magenta Austria have secured reciprocal contractual commitments from GD Towers for around 5,400 new sites through 2026 and prioritized capacity for radio access network modernization through 2028.
The transaction, which is subject to usual regulatory approvals, is expected to be completed by the end of the year.
The sale of this stake in GD Towers will reduce Deutsche Telekom’s financial leverage by 10.7 billion euros and net debt including leases by 6.5 billion euros.
The German telco said this new scenario will enable the group to accelerate the path towards its targeted 50.1% share capital interest in T-Mobile US.
In April, Deutsche Telekom had increased its participation in T-Mobile US after it paid $2.4 billion to Japanese operator SoftBank Group.
Following the transaction Deutsche Telekom owned 48.4% of T-Mobile US after it acquired 21.2 million shares at an average price of $113 per share.
The German operator previously had a 46.7% stake in T-Mobile after it acquired 45 million shares in the company in September as part of a previous deal with SoftBank.
