Telecom infrastructure giant American Tower Corp. (AMT) said it will buy up to 2,126 towers from telecommunications group Millicom International Cellular S.A. (MIC) subsidiary Colombia Móvil for $182 million in cash.
Barring any issues, the transfer of ownership is expected to start in the fourth quarter of 2011, leading to a new American Tower unit that is tentatively named ATC Infraco. The new unit will provide Colombia Móvil with wireless communications towers through long-term leasing options and build-to-suit deals. The transaction is expected to create savings in both capital and operating expenditures for Colombia Móvil.
“This transaction solidifies our first partnership with Millicom and improves upon our current economies of scale in Colombia,” said James Taiclet, chairman, president and CEO of American Tower. “As our customers in Colombia continue their focus on deploying wireless data networks, we believe our collocation model provides them with significant value through capex savings and time to market advantages.”
Through a Millicom subsidiary, Millicom and Colombia Móvil’s other shareholders will have an option to acquire an indirect, substantial minority equity interest in ATC Infraco.
“We are pleased to announce our first tower deal in Latin America,” said Mikael Grahne, president and CEO of Millicom. “This agreement confirms our commitment to outsourcing passive infrastructure, and is entirely consistent with our strategy of improving both our capital and operating efficiency by focusing on our core activities of sales, marketing, branding, distribution, service innovation and customer care, and this makes even more sense in a large country such as Colombia.”
Millicom is a global telecommunications group with mobile telephony operations in 13 countries in Latin America and Africa and operates various combinations of fixed telephony, cable and broadband businesses in five countries in Central America. The group’s mobile operations have a combined population under license of approximately 260 million people.
American Tower currently owns and operates over 37,000 communications sites in the United States, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ghana, India, Mexico, Peru and South Africa.
Large wireless tower companies such as American Tower, SBA Communications and Crown Castle International are looking into emerging markets as to counter increasingly saturated demand in domestic markets.
