The past 12 months have seen a spate of activity across the European tower industry which has caused a significant shake-up of the landscape. Cellnex, Europe’s largest independent towerco announced six deals in 2019, acquiring 10,700 sites from Iliad/Salt in France, Italy and Switzerland, signing a collaboration agreement governing 220 BT high sites in the UK, reaching a deal to acquire Ireland’s Cignal and announcing the acquisition of Arqiva’s telecoms division. In early 2020, Cellnex entered the Portuguese market via the acquisition of OMTEL. Digital Colony has also been active on the M&A front, adding two businesses (iWireless Solutions and Spyder Facilities) and to its growing digital infrastructure platform, The Freshwave Group, plus further M&A activity has taken place in the UK with Brookfield’s acquisition of 3i’s stake in Wireless Infrastructure Group.
