As foreshadowed at its half year results, Spark New Zealand has commenced a process to explore the introduction of third-party capital into its subsidiary, Spark TowerCo.
Spark TowerCo will be a leading New Zealand towers business with approximately 1,263 sites. Spark intends to maintain a shareholding in Spark TowerCo and will be a key, long-term, anchor tenant and strategic partner. Forsyth Barr and Jarden have been appointed to undertake the market engagement process, however there is no certainty that a transaction will proceed.
Spark TowerCo is projected to have EBITDA in FY23 of ~NZ$35m with a strong growth profile over the next 10 years. The establishment of Spark TowerCo will not create any change for Spark’s customers, who will continue to benefit from Spark’s investment in enhancing its network experience and improving coverage for Aotearoa.
Stefan Knight, Spark Finance Director
The infrastructure build programmes needed to support New Zealand’s increasing data needs and new technologies like 5G, and potentially 6G in the future, will be very different from the build programmes of today – requiring many more, smaller sites, closer to the end customer, and greater overall densification.
