TPG Telecom has agreed to sell 100 per cent of its remaining passive mobile tower and rooftop infrastructure to Canadian investment group OMERS Infrastructure Management, with the deal worth approximately $950 million.
The deal values the towers at 32.1 times EBITDA, and includes a deal to lease back to TPG under a 20-year contract.
TPG will use its approximately $350-$400 gain of the sale, after taxes, to repay existing bank debt.
OMERS gets 428 towers, and 809 rooftops in the deal, which represents 21 per cent of TPG’s national mobile network footprint. The rest of TPG’s towers are already owned and operated by various other infrastructure businesses.
OMERS unsuccessfully bid for both Optus and Axicom’s mobile towers portfolios.
This new deal comes after TPG entered into a decade-long network sharing agreement with Telstra.
The deal, which is being opposed by Optus, will see Telstra will gain access to TPG’s 4G and 5G spectrum, and 169 mobile sites.
TPG will, in turn, access 3,700 Telstra cellular towers, bumping its 4G coverage to 98.8 per cent of Australians.