CMS advises Sunrise on the sale of Swiss Towers AG

Munich – Swiss Sunrise Communications Group AG (Sunrise) announced that it has sold Swiss Towers AG for 500 million Swiss francs. The company owns 2239 telecom towers in Switzerland. Buyer is a consortium consisting of the main Spanish independent operator of wireless communications infrastructure Cellnex Telecom S.A., Swiss Life Asset Management AG and Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners.

A German-Swiss CMS team headed by Dr Clemens von Zedtwitz (CMS Switzerland) provided Sunrise with comprehensive legal advice during the transaction.

In the run-up to this transaction, 2239 telecom towers and their related contracts were spun-off into Swiss Towers AG in March 2017. The transaction relates to the passive network infrastructure, i.e. mainly steel and concrete constructions (telecom towers), while the active network infrastructure (antennas) remain with Sunrise. Sunrise has entered into a long-term service agreement with the consortium for the provision of tower infrastructure servicesand is thus the first telecommunications provider in Switzerland to enter into such a partnership.

Sunrise, headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, has more than 1700 employees and is the largest private telecommunications provider in Switzerland, covering all areas of telecommunications and listed since February 2015. Its main shareholder is the German Freenet AG. Sunrise has more than 3.3 million customers (as of December 31, 2016).

CMS Germany

Dr Oliver Thurn, Partner
Dr Simon Sabel, Counsel
Karen Eldred, Senior Associate, all Corporate/M&A
Dr Jens Neitzel, Partner
Dr Daniel Hofmann, Counsel, both Technology, Media & Communication

CMS Switzerland

Dr Clemens von Zedtwitz, Lead Partner
Marc Mischler
Matthias Kuert, both Associates, all Technology, Media & Communications/Commercial
Alain Raemy, Federführung
Dr Daniel Jenny, Partner
Andrea Ferchl, Associate, all Corporate/M&A
Dr Sibylle Schnyder, Partner
Seraina Kihm, Associate
Thomas Zweifel, Senior Associate, all Real Estate & Construction
Dr Kaspar Landolt, Partner, Banking & Finance
Marquard Christen, Partner, Competition & EU
Dr Simone Brauchbar Birkhäuser, Counsel, Intellectual Property

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