Telstra could raise as much as $1.4 billion by selling its Next G mobile towers and use the money to pay down debt and assist capital management initiatives, according to a Wall Street Journal report,
The WSJ quotes Morgan Stanley analyst Mark Goodridge as coming up with the idea and floating it to its clients after noting that listed tower companies in the US trade at an average enterprise value/EBITDA multiple of 16x – against Telstra at a current 5.6x
But Goodridge warned that any sale would mean Telstra loses its competitive advantage as a superior mobile network provider.
The WSJ notes that recent activity in this area has included SBA Communications’ US$1.45 billion acquisition of towers from TowerCo; American Tower’s purchase of towers from Movistar, Telefonica del Peru and MTN Uganda; and Indonesian operator Tower Bersama’s $519 million acquisition of towers from Indosat.
