Vodafone and Vantage Towers today announced they have set the price range for shares of Vantage Towers’ planned initial public offering (IPO) between €22.50 and €29.00 per share. Indeed, the final offer price is expected to be determined by March 17, 2021. Therefore, trading of the shares on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange will begin by March 18, 2021 under the symbol VTWR.
Overall, this IPO price range implies a total market capitalization for Vantage Towers of €11.4bn to €14.7bn. Notably, this market capitalization is lower than preliminary estimates of €15bn+ for Vantage Towers.
Following completion of the IPO, Vantage Towers will become the second largest publicly-traded European towers operator with 82.0k tower sites in 10 markets in Europe.
Vantage Towers – IPO Size and Price Range
Vantage Towers will raise initial gross proceeds of €2.0bn, from the sale of up to 88.9 million Vodafone shares, assuming the low-end of its targeted IPO range of €22.50 per share. Additionally, the company will raise initial gross proceeds of over €2.5bn, assuming the high-end of its targeted IPO range of €29.00 per share.
Upsize Option
Furthermore, the size of the offering can be increased by €500m, by selling up to 22.2 million additional Vodafone shares, through an upsize option. Indeed, this upsize option represents 25% of the shares from the initial offering.
Greenshoe (Over-Allotment) Option
Finally, another 13.3 million shares, worth up to a further €300m, can be sold by Vodafone to cover possible over-allotments. Indeed, this greenshoe option represents 15% of the shares from the initial offering.
Maximum Offer Size
Overall, the maximum offer size assuming exercise of the upsize option and greenshoe option, in-full, will be €2.8bn. In turn, this would represent a sale by Vodafone of 19.1% to 24.6% of Vantage Towers’ outstanding share capital.
Use of Proceeds from IPO
The Vantage Towers Initial Public Offering (IPO) is entirely a secondary share sale by Vodafone. Therefore, Vantage Towers will not receive a primary capital infusion as part of any of the share sales.
Vodafone intends to use proceeds of €2bn+ from the Vantage Towers IPO to reduce its leverage by paying down debt. Additionally, Vodafone will allocate some of these proceeds to upcoming 5G spectrum auctions in the UK and Spain, which will require capital outlays.
Vantage Towers – Cornerstone IPO Investors
The Vantage Towers Initial Public Offering (IPO) comprises a public offering in Germany and private placements to two institutional shareholders.
Digital Colony Partners II
Firstly, Digital Colony Partners II, which is a $4.2bn private equity fund managed by Colony Capital, has agreed to purchase €500m worth of shares in the IPO. Notably, Digital Colony has also agreed to a lock-up period of 180 calendar days, until mid-September 2021.
Digital Colony’s commitment to Vantage Towers’ IPO, follows recent comments it made in January 2021, about the difficulty of finding suitable investment opportunities in the European towers market. Notably, Colony was initially skeptical based on its review of the financial projections of upcoming European public tower vehicles, such as Vantage Towers.
RRJ Capital
Secondly, RRJ Capital, a Singapore-based private equity fund, agreed to purchase €450m worth of shares in the Vantage Towers IPO. Overall, RRJ Capital has total assets under management (AUM) of ~$11bn U.S. dollars. Typically, the firm focuses on private equity investments in China and Southeast Asia. RRJ Capital is led by Richard Ong and Charles Ong.
IPO Global Coordinators and Bookrunners
The Joint Global Coordinators and Joint Bookrunners for Vantage Towers’ IPO are Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, and UBS. Additionally, Barclays, Berenberg, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, and Jefferies are acting as Joint Bookrunners.
