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T-Mobile USA hires advisors for tower sale
30 March 2012
US mobile network operator turns to TAP Advisors for help to sell wireless towers and raise cash
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T-Mobile USA
towers
TAP Advisors
T-Mobile USA is
seeking help from advisors for the sale of its wireless towers. Deutsche
Telekom has hired US-based investment firm TAP Advisors to look for buyers for
the towers, after a failure to finalise a deal with AT&T in 2011, reported
Bloomberg, citing unnamed sources.
Deutsche Telekom had dropped plans to sell the tower assets after agreeing to
AT&T’s $39 billion bid for T-Mobile, but since the deal fell through due to
regulatory hurdles, Deutsche Telekom is back to considering a tower sale to
help fund network expansion and spectrum acquisition.
Jan Goehmann, analyst at NordLB told Bloomberg: “They lost a lot of time last
year and that creates urgency to find a solution for those assets soon. This is
the logical next step.”
Kevin Smithen, analyst at Macquarie Capital USA, expects the planned sale to
raise as much as $3 billion. He considers US tower operators SBA
Communications, Crown Castle International and American Tower potential buyers,
but a Deutsche Telekom spokesman declined to comment on the sale or possible
buyers.
T-Mobile is calling the sale a part of its self-funding plan, said the report,
citing T-Mobile spokeswoman Michelle Taylerson. She said the operator owned
7,000 antenna towers in the US.
Deutsche Telekom recently announced plans to enhance US network spending by
$1.4 billion over two years, while subsidiary T-Mobile is shutting down seven
call centres and terminating 1,900 jobs to cut costs. GTB