The European Investment Bank (EIB) has signed a €315m loan agreement with Spanish telecommunications firm Cellnex to support 5G rollouts in France, Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain.
According to Cellnex, the loan will mobilise total investment of €631m to improve and expand the coverage and capacity of very high bandwidth mobile network infrastructure in these countries, helping to speed up the digital transition.
The project will include new telecoms infrastructure, such as mobile phone masts and urban base stations, improvements to enable the infrastructure to be shared by multiple operators, fibre roll-out to connect towers to each operator’s network, distributed antenna systems to significantly increase base station capacity and the use of renewable energies and other energy efficiency measures to save energy and cut the network’s CO2 emissions.
“This finance contract enables the EIB to support a major project that will help accelerate the European digital transition,” said EIB vice-president Ricardo Mourinho Félix. “We are very happy to work with Cellnex on this loan aiming to expand and optimise mobile telecoms infrastructure in five European countries including Spain.”
He added: “This infrastructure – particularly the 5G rollout – is vital to the digital transition and to accelerate access to digital services for all, regardless of location. The agreement signed today will also increase the density of this infrastructure in cohesion regions, contributing to the EIB’s goal to foster economic, social, and territorial cohesion.”
EU Digital Decade
The project will make a major contribution to the EU Digital Decade 2030 objectives. That policy, according to the European Commission, will guide the continent’s digital transformation and promote investment in the infrastructure needed for the digital transition across urban and rural areas of Europe.
José Manuel Aisa, CFO of Cellnex, said: “This new agreement with the EIB strengthens our partnership with one of the European Union’s most important bodies and shows the company’s commitment to contributing to the digital and technological development of the EU. This financing will enable us to continue supporting our clients with the rollout of new sites, ensuring the efficient and seamless deployment of 5G in several countries.”
He added: “We are also very happy with the characteristics of the operation, which has a long maturity and competitive interest rate, allowing us to improve our average debt maturity.”
