STC and PIF to bid for Austrian telco tower operator 

Cellnex/X

Saudi Arabia’s STC Group and the Public Investment Fund (PIF), the kingdom’s sovereign fund, are likely to jointly bid for the Austrian unit of Cellnex, Spain’s mobile phone tower operator, El Economista newspaper reported.

The Austrian unit, owning 4,500 towers, is estimated to be valued at €800 million ($857 million), the newspaper said, quoting unnamed sources.

Cellnex’s Austrian towers will give a “decisive boost” to PIF-owned Golden Lattice Investment Company and STC-owned Telecommunication Towers Company Limited (Tawal).

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This week, Tawal and Golden Lattice decided to merge to create a new telecommunications infrastructure company, which is expected to have 30,000 mobile tower sites and estimated annual revenues of $1.3 billion.

Cellnex purchased the Austrian towers company in January 2021 from Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison Holdings, along with 1,400 towers in Denmark and 2,650 sites in Sweden, for €10 billion, the report said.

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STC already holds around 5 percent stake in Spain’s Telefonica but confirmed in October 2023 that it has no plans to convert the stake it holds in derivatives into voting shares, Spanish El Economista news outlet reported.

The Saudi telecom major acquired a 10 percent stake in Telefonica for SAR8.5 billion ($2.25 billion) last September as part of its global expansion drive.