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Deutsche Telekom has signed a partnership deal with DigitalBridge and Brookfield for its German and Austrian tower assets called the GD Towers. The German telecommunications company has sold 51% of its tower business to a consortium of Canada's Brookfield and American private equity company, DigitalBridge.
The stake was acquired after a last-minute bid valued at 17.5 billion euros or around $17.5 billion in US dollars. As per Reuters, Brookfield had originally supported the bid of Cellnex, a Spanish telecom firm, by helping it fund its offer to buy Deutsche Telekom's towers.
However, Cellnex withdrew its bid on Wednesday, July 13, so it instead joined a consortium with DigitalBridge. In the deal, Deutsche Telekom will be keeping the remaining 49% stake in its GD Towers business.
"The partnership being formed today is about building the next generation digital infrastructure champion of Europe," DigitalBridge's chief executive officer, Marc Ganzi, said in a press release regarding the acquisition of stake. "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."
The deal between Deutsche Telekom and the consortium of DigitalBridge and Brookfield is expected to be completed by the end of this year. Part of the payment that it will receive from the sale amounting to 10.7 billion euros will be used by the German telecom firm to pay its debt. The funds will also be used for the acquisition of a majority share in its T-Mobile US subsidiary.
This agreement is so far the biggest in Germany this year, and it is the second largest in Europe. The first in Europe was the Benetton family and Blackstone fund's €58 billion takeover of Atlantia, an Italian infrastructure group.
Meanwhile, the deal is still subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions but is still expected to close in the last part of 2022.
