Spain's Cellnex gets storming investor support for British towers buy
Summary
Cellnex offered 86.2 million shares to existing shareholders but received enough demand to sell as many as 3.2 billion, making it one of the most sought-after rights issues in recent years, a lead manager said. “These listed vehicles buy and lease back towers from (telecoms) operators, and in doing so are delivering huge equity returns. Cellnex said earlier in October that it had agreed to buy Arqiva’s telecoms division for £2 billion, expanding the Spanish company’s phone tower network to more than 50,000 sites across Europe. Credit Suisse analysts said at the time they saw scope for Cellnex to play a bigger role in building new towers in the expanding British market, which has four mobile operators but 4G coverage below the European average. Typically, the share price of a company tends to fall at the time of a rights issue as investors account for a dilution of their stakes.