Britain gives conditional approval for sale of CK Hutchison’s UK tower assets to Cellnex Telecom in US$4 billion deal
- Approval is conditional on Cellnex completing the sale of certain of its existing sites to an independent third party
- Deal unlocks value in our telecoms assets to our shareholders, CK Hutchison’s Canning Fok says
“CK Hutchison and Cellnex will proceed to complete the UK tower transaction as soon as possible, once this requirement has been satisfied,” it said.
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), however, said in December last year that the sale of CK Hutchison’s business to Cellnex would raise significant competition concerns.
It said the deal “would prevent the emergence of an important alternative competitor in the supply of passive infrastructure, leaving mobile networks facing higher prices and more onerous contracts in future contract negotiations”. This could result in higher prices or lower quality of services for users of mobile networks across the UK over a period of time, it added.
On Thursday, the CMA gave its conditional approval after an in-depth investigation into the proposed deal. The deal can proceed after Cellnex’s proposed sale of all existing sites that geographically overlap with the CK Hutchison assets it has agreed to buy, the regulator said.
This will result in a package of more than 1,000 passive infrastructure sites being sold to a purchaser approved by the CMA.
It will also improve operational efficiency and accelerate the group’s 5G roll-out, benefiting consumers across the UK, he added.
Tobias Martinez, the CEO of Cellnex, said in a statement that its presence in Britain as a “neutral operator” would contribute to speeding up, improving and expanding mobile phone coverage.
