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Integrated
Annual
Report
2015
Annual
Report
2015
Cellnex is the leading European operator in wireless telecommunications infrastructure management that provides services, through its customers, to more than 100 million people in Spain and Italy. The business model is based on the provision and sharing of telecommunications assets with service operators, acting as an independent and neutral infrastructure provider for telecommunications operators.
Cellnex is the result of the spin-off of the telecommunications business of Abertis through its flotation on the stock market, which took place in May 2015.
Cellnex was founded with the aim of becoming Europe’s leader in telecommunications infrastructure, and creating value for shareholders, customers, employees and other stakeholders through innovative, efficient, independent and quality management.
A new cycle of growth and internationalisationThe establishment of Cellnex as an independent listed company from 2015 coincided with the Company’s main internationalisation operation to date: the agreement with mobile operator WIND to acquire and manage most of its network of cell-phone towers in Italy.
The IPO and the incorporation of WIND’s assets set Cellnex on a path of growth and internationalisation of its business, raising the profile of its mobile telecommunications infrastructure section, which became its main field of business in terms of size and revenue, already contributing more than 50% of total Cellnex revenues, 35% of which originate outside Spain.
On 19 March 2015, Abertis Infraestructuras decided to initiate the necessary steps and formalities to found the new Cellnex, as heir to Abertis Telecom. This decision came about as a result of strategic thinking that began in the summer of 2014 and culminated in April with the birth of Cellnex Telecom, a new name and a new brand, based on the slogan “we promote telecommunications connectivity,” symbolising the beginning of a new phase as a global telecommunications operator.
On 26 March 2015, Cellnex signed an agreement with Italian mobile operator WIND, under which Cellnex now controls the Italian companyCompany Galata, which manages some 7,400 telecommunications infrastructure sites in Italy. This operation entailed a transformational leap forward for Cellnex:
On 7 May 2015, after seven months of hard work and commitment by the Abertis and Cellnex teams, Cellnex successfully completed the Company’s stock-market flotation. The IPO (Initial Public Offering of shares) was finally completed with the placement of a 66% stake in Cellnex’s capital, after the coordinating bodies of the offering exercised their 6% purchase option (“green shoe”) to join the shares initially offered by Abertis representing 60% of the capital. The sale closed at a price of 14 euros, at the top of the indicative price range given in the prospectus, of between 12 and 14 euros per share. The resulting market capitalisation of Cellnex at the time of flotation was 3.244 billion euros.
The flotation was a key milestone in the achievement of the Abertis Strategic Plan for 2015-2017 and the implementation of the Cellnex Telecom project. The result is a win-win situation in which the reference shareholder (Abertis), the new shareholders and the Cellnex project and its team all emerge much stronger. The IPO gives Cellnex a powerful tool for access to capital markets and offers the conditions for a flexible financing structure to continue the cycle of growth and internationalisation that began with the operations in Italy.
2015 was characterised by a focus on day-to-day management: the robust organic growth and the successful restructuring of debt, following the acquisition of Galata, are the pillars of this historic exercise for Cellnex.
The increase in operators and revenues per site is the result of management focused on customer service and maximising installed capacity.
In the financial sphere, the issue of a corporate bond for 600 million euros in July 2015, taking advantage of one of the few windows of opportunity in the market, substantially improves Cellnex’s debt structure, giving it long maturities and a balanced cost, and removing restrictive conditions (covenants) for inorganic growth projects in its portfolio.
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