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T-Mobile USA, the US wireless subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, discontinued the auction of its tower business because financial markets had deteriorated, two bankers told mergermarket.
A T-Mobile spokesperson said the company had “no information to share” regarding its tower auction.
On 16 November, JPMorgan issued an analyst note saying: “DT has called off the sale of its mobile towers in the US. Furthermore it is not pursuing earlier considerations to sell (some of) its European towers.”
According to the bankers, shortly after DT held second round bids, rumored to have taken place in late October, financial markets had deteriorated to the point where DT decided values failed to make the divestiture worth its while. Bankers previously said DT had estimated its US tower operation at roughly USD 1.5bn.
During a press meeting in March, DT CEO Rene Obermann named US and German tower businesses as among non-core assets up for possible divestiture.
In June, this news service reported that T-Mobile had retained UBS and Bank of America to auction its towers.
The strong cash flows generated by tower operations, a type of real estate venture in which tower operates lease space to telecom carriers to hang their antennae, attracts potential bidders from competing tower concerns as well as private equity houses. The large, acquisitive, US tower companies are American Tower in Massachusetts, Crown Castle in Texas and SBA Communications in Florida. Private equity concerns that have held tower assets include Blackstone and Macquarie.
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