Brookfield and DigitalBridge have bought a 51% stake in Deutsche Telekom’s €17.5bn (€17.4bn) mobile telecommunications tower business.
Deutsche Telekom, which continues to hold 49% of GD Tower, said it will have the right to regain control of the tower business in the future.
The unit operates more than 40,500 sites in Germany and Austria, 33,500 run under provider Deutsche Funkturm in Germany and 7,000 under Magenta Telekom Infra in Austria.
Sam Pollock, managing partner at Brookfield and infrastructure CEO, said: “We’re delighted to be partnering with Deutsche Telekom and DigitalBridge to expand our presence in the European telecom infrastructure sector.”
He added: “This represents a great opportunity to invest in a highly attractive tower portfolio, with highly contracted cash flows and strong upside potential. Brookfield is already a leading global infrastructure investor, with approximately 200,000 telecom tower and rooftop sites under management globally.”
Marc Ganzi, CEO of DigitalBridge, said: “The combination of Deutsche Telekom’s leading mobile network and market position, alongside one of the largest real asset managers in the world in Brookfield, combined with the digital infrastructure domain expertise of DigitalBridge, creates a team of unmatched capabilities to support GD Towers as it grows to meet the evolving network demands of enterprises and consumers across Europe.”
Tim Höttges, CEO of Deutsche Telekom, said: “We crystalise the value of our tower assets, thereby creating value for our shareholders” through the deal.
Deutsche Telekom will use part of the proceed from the stake sale to finance a previously announced acquisition of a 50.1% stake in T-Mobile US.
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