Breakingviews - Cellnex’s Nordic towers sale is a good omen

Marco Patuano is starting with a small but firm step. The Italian-born chief executive of 24 billion euro Spanish tower operator Cellnex announced on Friday the sale of 49% of the group’s Nordics division to private equity fund Stonepeak for 730 million euros. This will only make a small dent in the group’s large net debt pile - which stood at 20 billion euros, or 6.3 times next year’s EBITDA after leases, as per JPMorgan estimates. But it does put some flesh around Patuano’s vision for the group. After years of M&A-fuelled expansion, the new CEO wants to return Cellnex to investment grade and focus on organic growth and efficiency.