Telstra have entered into an agreement for the sale of 49 per cent of its mobile towers business (InfraCo Towers) which holds 8,200 mobile towers.
Following the sale of the non-controlling stake, Telstra established Amplitel as the legal entity to own and operate its mobile towers.
Amplitel was established as part of a restructure which saw three separate legal entities formed under the Telstra Group parent company:
- InfraCo Fixed, which will own and operate fibre assets, data centre exchanges, and subsea cables
- InfraCo Towers (Amplitel), which will own and operate mobile towers, and
- ServeCo, which will own and operate the radio access network, mobile spectrum, and customer service functions.
Key Dates
| Nov 2020 | Project Announcement |
| Jun 2021 | Contract Award |
| Sep 2021 | Financial Close |
Financing
| Equity Finance: | Future Fund, Comm Super Corp, Australian Retirement Trust |
Procurement
| Procuring Agency: | Telstra |
| Successful Tenderer: | A consortium comprising the Future Fund, Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation and Sunsuper. |
PROJECT HISTORY
| Jun 2018 | Telstra announced the T22 Strategy. A key pillar of the Strategy was to establish a standalone infrastructure business unit. |
| Jul 2018 | Telstra established InfraCo as a standalone business unit. InfraCo initially consisted of fixed network infrastructure including data centres, non-mobiles related domestic fibre, copper, HFC, international subsea cables, exchanges, poles, ducts and pipes. |
| Nov 2019 | Telstra announced InfraCo would also own and operate mobile towers under the TowerCo sub-corporation. InfraCo would also hold all fibre, and network supporting infrastructure while analogue phone lines, legacy fixed, and satellite infrastructure would be transferred back into Telstra. |
| Nov 2020 | Telstra announced a proposed restructure of the business into three seperate legal entities - InfraCo Fixed, InfraCo Towers and ServeCo. InfraCo Towers will own and operate Telstra's mobile tower assets. |
| Feb 2021 | Telstra announced a timeline for the sale of InfraCo Towers. |
| Mar 2021 | Telstra announced the next steps in its proposed legal restructure that will see InfraCo Towers established. |
| Jun 2021 | Telstra announced the sale of 49 per cent of InfraCo Towers for $2.8 billion to a consortium comprising the Future Fund, Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation and Sunsuper. Telstra will retain majority ownership of InfraCo Towers and continue to own the active parts of its network, including the radio access equipment and spectrum assets. This announcement represents a change in the approach outlined by Telstra in February. The $2.8 billion transaction values Telstra InfraCo Towers at $5.9 billion, representing an enterprise value of 28 times earnings. |
| Sep 2021 | Telstra launched Amplitel as the new legal entity that will hold and manage the infrastructure assets. |
Estimated Total Cost
(2021)
Sector
Telecom
Procurement approach
Brownfield transaction |
Location
National |
Resources
