Vodafone Towers spinoff Vantage eyes growth, open to bigger deals, says CEO

Vodafone Towers spinoff Vantage eyes growth, open to bigger deals, says CEO

Vodafone Towers spinoff Vantage eyes growth, open to bigger deals, says CEO

Vodafone Towers spinoff Vantage eyes growth, open to bigger deals, says CEO

A technician works on the top of a Vodafone tower in Cairo. (Reuters)

Short Url

Vodafone Towers spinoff Vantage eyes growth, open to bigger deals, says CEO

Vantage Towers, which owns 68,000 masts across nine European countries

Updated 14 December 2020

Follow @arabnews

CAIRO: The telecoms infrastructure business spun out by Britain's Vodafone is ready to join the dealmaking fray in Europe but even with its existing asset base sees a decade of promising growth ahead, its CEO told Reuters.

Vantage Towers, which owns 68,000 masts across nine European countries, is eyeing a spring listing in Frankfurt that would arm CEO Vivek Badrinath with the firepower to pay for takeovers with its own shares. In an interview, Badrinath said his primary focus would be to strengthen Vantage's position in its existing markets. But the former Orange executive suggested a tie-up with the leading French operator would also make sense. Europe lagged the US by 20 years in reshaping its industry to split infrastructure from mobile operators, with just 42 percent of its towers run by specialist companies compared to 90 percent in the US.

"There is 10