Deutsche Telekom to sell tower business to N. American consortium - Handelsblatt

Deutsche Telekom aims to decide on the sale of its tower business on Wednesday, and a surprise bid by a consortium of Canada's Brookfield and private equity group DigitalBridge is internally seen as the winner, daily Handelsblatt said on Wednesday. The new consortium follows the withdrawal early Wednesday of Spain's Cellnex, which had been teaming up with Brookfield and was seen as a top contender for a stake.

Deutsche Telekom aims to decide on the sale of its tower business on Wednesday, and a surprise bid by a consortium of Canada's Brookfield and private equity group DigitalBridge is internally seen as the winner, daily Handelsblatt said on Wednesday.

The new consortium follows the withdrawal early Wednesday of Spain's Cellnex, which had been teaming up with Brookfield and was seen as a top contender for a stake. If successful, the bid would knock out a competing offer by a consortium led by KKR.

Handelsblatt, citing financial and company sources, said the consortium was expected to acquire a majority stake in the tower business. Deutsche Telekom and DigitalBridge declined comment on the report. Brookfield didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

A source familiar with the discussions told Reuters that DigitalBridge had been looking to team up with another financial investor since the start of the auction but the U.S. investment firm was struggling to form its own bidding consortium. A transaction would rank as Germany's biggest deal this year and Europe's second largest, after the Benetton family and U.S. fund Blackstone's 58 billion euro takeover of Italian infrastructure group Atlantia.

The sales process, which kicked off in March, has seen strategic bidders and infrastructure funds compete for a stake in the masts unit known as Deutsche Funkturm GmbH (DFMG). The deal is expected to help the German telecoms giant raise enough funds to cut its debt while keeping some exposure to key infrastructure.