Cellnex to launch new share buyback, hoping to boost stock price

By Joan Faus

BARCELONA (Reuters) -Spain's Cellnex said on Thursday it would buy back another 200 million euros ($233 million) of shares next year, hoping to boost a stock price that its CEO called "irrationally low".

Shares in Europe's largest mobile phone tower operator, which has a market capitalisation of around 19.5 billion euros ($22.7 billion), have dropped 10% so far this year amid a strategic shift focused on reducing debt and improving its credit rating.

On Thursday, the shares closed up 1.5% to 27.59 euros.

Cellnex posted a 6.9% year-on-year increase in adjusted nine-month core earnings to 2.4 billion euros, though booked a net loss of 263 million euros, which the company attributed mainly to amortising previous acquisitions.

Cellnex said it would pay out 250 million euros to shareholders next January as part of its 500-million-euro dividend policy.

The additional 200 million euros in share buybacks are on top of 300 million euros it had already announced.

The extra funds are tied to the sale of its data centre in France, which it expects to close at the end of 2025 or beginning of 2026, CEO Marco Patuano told Reuters.

Patuano said the company was not considering further asset sales, explicitly excluding a sale of its Dutch business, while adding that sector consolidation was "more an opportunity than a risk" as it would lead to better clients.

"We always said (we would sell) only if a price reflected the value of the asset ... Otherwise we keep our perimeter and this does not have any impact on our capacity to remunerate shareholders," Patuano said, when asked about any deal involving its Swiss business.

($1 = 0.8575 euros)

(Reporting by Joan Faus. Editing by David Latona, Jesús Aguado and Mark Potter)