Amsterdam-based international telecoms group Vimpelcom intends to offload ‘several thousand’ mobile towers belonging to its Italian subsidiary Wind Telecomunicazioni, TMT Finance reports. Vimpelcom is believed to be in the process of selecting a financial adviser for the sale, and hopes to launch the process as quickly as possible, thus beating Telecom Italia (TI) to the punch.
TI has hired Deutsche Bank to act as an adviser on the disposal of its own 9,000-10,000 Italian towers, and bids are likely to start at around EUR1 billion (USD1.4 billion), making the sale the largest of its kind in Europe to date. TMT notes that Barclays Capital is advising Vimpelcom on the sale of its Russian towers, and is therefore well-placed to land a second advisory role for the company.