T.C. | Cellnex (CLNX) has closed its €7 billion capital increase without a problem. During the pre-emptive subscription period, 99.37% of the new shares were subscribed, in line with previous capital increases. For the allotment of the remaining shares, demand exceeded the offer by 8 times (1.2 million new shares). The new shares will start trading on April 27th.
According to Bankinter analysts, this is “good news for Cellnex, which maintains a high level of investor interest. However, we expect the news to have a neutral impact on the share price (indeed, Cellnex rose 0.23% yesterday, while the Ibex 35 rose 1.61%). This is because the success of the deal was already discounted, given the favourable price of the rights and the share in the final part of the pre-emptive subscription period. We reiterate our Buy recommendation. It offers a 20% upside potential compared to our target price (56.75/share; no significant change) and its fundamentals are reinforced. It will have the capacity to buy assets worth an additional 10 billion euros, which will allow it to strengthen its leading position in Europe and generate new economies of scale. Moreover, its financial situation is comfortable, with a NFD/EBITDA 2021e ratio close to 3.5x. CELLNEX (Buy; Target Price: 56.75 euros; Close: 47.18 euros; Var. Day: +2.6%; Var. 2021: +3.70%).”
Cellnex, which until today had capitalised €23 billion trading at 2.8 times its book value, has been immersed in a huge investment process since its IPO in 2015. It has some 10,500 sites (it currently has more than 100,000 towers) and has not distributed dividends since 2017. This is the company’s fourth capital increase in two years. Since February 2019. Cellnex has raised €14.7 billion in capital on the market and is, after the latest capital increase, the fourth largest company in the Spanish market. The Benettons did not take part in this new capital increase – which was made at a discount of 17% – and have sold their rights, reducing their stake from 13.5% to 8.5%. On the other hand, the sovereign wealth fund of Singapore, which bought 2.5% of the capital from the Benettons, has now become the largest shareholder with 9.23%.
With the €7 billion from this capital increase, the company managed by Tobías Martínez plans to finance a project portfolio of close to 18 billion, of which 9 billion have already been committed, with acquisitions in Poland, France and the Netherlands.
