Passive infrastructure outsourcing has been a global trend for more than a decade. Tower transactions which first occurred in the US and Europe have spread to other regions such as South America, Africa and Asia while fuelling the growth of tower companies such as American Towers, Crown Castle, Bharti Infratel, Tower Bersama, Helios Towers, Eaton Towers, IHS and others. In this context, the Middle East is one of the few remaining ‘virgin’ markets. Even though site sharing among operators in the region is relatively common, there have been virtually no transactions to date.
In 2011 STC and Mobily were in talks to spin off their towers in Saudi Arabia into a joint venture with the operators retaining ownership in the joint venture and becoming anchor tenants.
