RE: Highlights12 Nov 2019 07:39
European Towers
We remain on track to legally separate our European Tower infrastructure into a new organisation, which will be operational by May 2020. We recently appointed Vivek Badrinath as the CEO of our European TowerCo, who will be able to draw on his extensive telecoms and technology leadership experience from his role at Vodafone, where he is currently the Chief Executive of Vodafone's Rest of World operations, and from his experience at Orange as Deputy Chief Executive and, prior to that, as the leader of Orange's global networks and operations division.
We intend to monetise a substantial proportion of our European TowerCo over the next 15 months, depending on market conditions. We believe that there is significant scope to generate operational efficiencies and increase tenancy ratios across our Tower portfolio, and that it will be possible to monetise towers while preserving network differentiation and long-term strategic flexibility.
On 26 July 2019 we announced an agreement to merge our passive tower infrastructure in Italy with INWIT Spa, creating the leading tower company in Italy with 22,100 towers, and the second largest listed tower operator in Europe. As part of the combination, Vodafone will receive a cash consideration of €2,140 million and a 37.5% shareholding in the combined entity. The combination is subject to regulatory approval as well as the approval of INWIT's minority shareholders, and completion is expected in the first half of calendar year 2020.