Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Juan Gaitán, Director of Investor Relations at Cellnex, and I would like to thank you all for joining us today for our Q3 2021 results conference call. As always, I'm joined by our CEO, Tobias Martinez, our CFO, José Manuel Aisa, and our Deputy CEO, Àlex Mestre, who we'll lead today's session. Throughout our prepared remarks, we will refer to the presentation that we have just published, and then we will open the line for your questions. Without further ado, over to you, Tobias.
Well, good afternoon, and thank you so much for your time today. Let me please go straight to the main highlights of the period. Our organic growth generation continues to be strong. New PoPs from existing sites and our build-to-suit programs generating a 6.5% growth. Please note that the main driver behind this strong growth in the period has been the significant contribution from our build-to-suit programs, with more than 500 new sites transferred this quarter. We are also making tangible progress on our efficiencies plan, and we are on track to meet our target shared with you at the beginning of the year. Also, on the organic front, we are expanding our presence in the transport segment, and a new example is the project to provide mobile coverage in lines 16 and 17 of the Paris Metro system.
The period provides, again, a strong set of numbers, with revenues increasing 53% compared to last year, our adjusted EBITDA increasing 59% and our recurrent levered free cash flow increasing 52%. We would also like to highlight the defensive profile of our revenues against interest rates potentially rising. With the majority of our contracts inflation-linked, we see it as a natural hedge. A quick comment on rising energy prices. As you can see in more detail in our presentation, the vast majority of our electricity costs are protected against rising prices, thanks to our pass-through mechanisms and our price hedging strategies. Moving to ESG, we are making steady progress on the initiatives set out in our new ESG master plan. A couple of examples are our recent upgrade by MSCI to A from BBB.
On our FTSE4Good rating improvement, we consolidate our position among the top five companies in the mobile sector sub-sector. We are also implementing creative solutions such as a zero-emission rural site, which combines innovation and sustainability to connect rural areas while minimizing the environmental impact. Moving to our capital structure strategy to fund our growth, we keep all doors open, and we are constantly assessing a wide array of options to maintain our financial flexibility and to decide what is the best option at any given moment. As a reminder, we have recently issued around EUR 1.8 billion in new bonds, taking advantage of a very favorable rate environment, increasing our debt maturity and maintaining our cost of debt. Integration is crucial for the success of our growth strategy.
In this sense, we are very happy with the progress made on our closing processes, with some deals closed earlier than expected. All our integration projects are also progressing in line with our initial expectations. Let me please share with you a quick comment on the FCA's recent decision, by which the French regulator authorizes the Hivory deal subject to the disposal of circa 3,200 rooftops, to be completed over a maximum period of 30 months following the signing of the divestment agreement. We acknowledge this decision, we thank the FCA, their cooperation during this process, and we also confirm that we are already working on new opportunities related to the deployment of new core assets to invest the proceeds of this divestment, with a view that both CapEx and adjusted EBITDA would remain unaffected on a consolidated run rate basis.
We will try and provide more details on this as soon as we can. Finally, we are reiterating both our 2021 guidance and our medium-term guidance with all metrics on track. If we go to slide three. We are showing here, for illustrative purposes, the generation profile of our adjusted EBITDA and recurrent leverage free cash flow during 2021. As you can see, these magnitudes have been increasing every quarter as we have generated organic growth, made progress on our build-to-suit and efficiencies plan, and seen the contribution from new deals as they closed. Our 2021 guidance implies an expected adjusted EBITDA growth of 65% and a recurrent leverage free cash flow growth of more than 60% compared to 2020.
Very quickly, on the following slide, you can see the status of our ongoing integration processes, and all of them are progressing as planned. Compared to the information we provided the previous quarter, you can see that we have now closed the Hivory deal in France, while we are still working as planned on our last pending closing, Hutchison in the U.K. If we go to slide number five, just a quick review of our current footprint and financial targets. When all of our deals are closed and our build-to-suit program is complete, Cellnex will further strengthen its position in Europe as the main independent telecom infrastructure operator, managing a portfolio of around 130,000 sites, with presence in 12 markets, boosting our financials and becoming the industrial partner of choice for our clients. A quick reminder of our medium-term guidance, which we are reiterating.
It implies an annual growth of more than 20% in our key financial metrics since 2020, and a well-diversified expected EBITDA in 2025 of between EUR 3.3 billion and EUR 3.5 billion. If we go to slide six, just a few words on our last connectivity project within the transport segment. As you know, we have been awarded the connectivity project for line 16 and 17 of the new metro transport network in Paris. We will be responsible for the design, installation, and operation of the system through a neutral host model. This is our third connectivity project won in a short period of time after ProRail in the Netherlands and the London Brighton line in the U.K.
We think there is a scope in Europe to continue providing seamless connectivity, value-added services, dedicated security communication networks, and integrated management system for the transport segment using a neutral host approach. With this, I will now hand over to our CFO, José Manuel Aisa, who will provide a few more details of the period.
Thank you, Tobias. Moving to slide eight, I'm providing a few more details here. Revenues have increased 55% to EUR 1,750 million. Our recurrent free cash flow has increased by 52%. Total PoPs have increased 70%. We include the contribution from organic growth and M&A. If we focus on organic growth only, our PoPs have increased around 6.5% compared to last year as a result of increased colocation and an acceleration of our build-to-suit program. Moving now to the performance in slide number nine of our main financial metrics. On top of the figures just discussed, our adjusted EBITDA has increased 59% compared to last year, and our margin has significantly expanded.
This adjusted EBITDA growth is mainly explained by the contribution from telecom infrastructure services, organic growth, build-to-suit, recent acquisitions, and by the efficient management of our cost base. Payment of leases increased as our portfolio sites increase. Maintenance CapEx is expected to come in towards our guidance, and interest paid reflects the terms of our debt structure. The following slide number 10, explains our recurring leverage-free cash flow generation in the period. As you can see, the contribution to organic growth from our different drivers, colocation and associated services, build-to-suit, escalator, and efficiencies. These segments combined generate EUR 86 million in the period at 20% growth compared to last year.
If we also take the additional contribution from M&A and the rest of cash items below adjusted EBITDA, Cellnex has generated again a strong recurrent leverage free cash flow growth of 52% compared to last year. Moving to slide 11. Just a quick update of our lease efficiency plan. Please note that site management has always played a key role in our operations, and we have demonstrated a strong record crystallizing efficiency out of our portfolio of sites. Year to date, we have renegotiated more than 2,200 ground lease contracts, generating EUR 10 million of annualized efficiency this year, and we are on track to meet our 2025 target. Moving to our balance sheet movements compared to last year, mainly explained by our M&A and capital structure activity in the period.
The increase in total assets also explained the corresponding increase in equity and liabilities as a result of our rights issue and the issuance of debt instruments in the period. Just to remind that we take a prudent approach with regard to purchase price allocations in the context of our M&A activity, which prioritize allocation to fixed assets. The growth that you see in our balance sheet does not correspond to any cash out. Finally, a quick update on our capital structure and liquidity position. We have around EUR 14 billion of available liquidity, including EUR 5 billion of undrawn credit lines. A strong backlog of contracted revenues at around EUR 110 billion. An average debt maturity of seven years at a highly competitive cost of around 1.5%. No significant refinancing is expected before 2024.
80% of our debt is fixed, and our corporate debt has no covenant, no pledge, no guarantee. With this, let's open the line for your questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Q&A session starts now. If you wish to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. The first question comes from Simon Coles from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Thanks for taking the question. I guess the first one is on the French remedies. Is there any other reason why the competition authorities had any concerns other than just having a high market share in urban areas? Linked to that, should we have seen that there's any read across to the U.K.? I would assume that the U.K. is completely different given their views on CTIL, Cornerstone, whatever you want to call it, but be interesting to hear your views on that. I guess a bigger picture sort of related to all of this is should we now sort of expect your strategy in markets where you've already done two acquisitions? Should we think that would now focus more on active equipment given what we've seen happen in France?
Is it still you want to go for passive or active wherever there are opportunities? Just trying to understand how the strategy is now perhaps sort of given what we've seen from the regulators in France and potentially might see elsewhere. Thank you.
Thank you, Simon. I will start and that is my colleagues, any comment you might have on the first question. The answer is no. The only constraint, the only limitation that we had in the context of this assessment was simply the resulting market share in highly dense areas. Basically, these remedies, this agreement that we have reached is just a solution to this specific constraint. There is nothing else. On the second question, these are completely unrelated processes. You know that we have a vast experience dealing with antitrust authorities across Europe. We are present in 12 countries.
I would say that we are comfortable with the understanding of the different antitrust authorities of our business model. Again, in France, there was a specific issue that we needed to solve thanks to this agreement. The CMA process in the U.K. is following its path. You know that everything is going on track. Again, we see those as completely separate processes.
Yeah. Good afternoon. This is Àlex Mestre. Just to add a couple of topics that clearly make the two transactions different. In the case of France, we are talking about having three anchors, and that clearly makes a difference. In the case of the U.K., at the moment we close the transactions as we expect we will have our first anchor. That clearly makes a huge difference. There is another difference. In France, the authority, because this has been the way that we deem convenient also with the seller, has cleared the transaction on phase I, whereas in the U.K., we are on phase II. On phase II, you have always a much deeper assessment of the situation.
Probably another element which is quite important is that on this first analysis done on phase I by the French authority, our market relevance is as such because TOTEM is not yet existing and is not considered as part of the market. As you can imagine, when having three anchors and in dense areas, which is basically with Bouygues for instance, with whom we've been working quite a lot, that makes that percentage high. That was part of the rules of engagement on the deal, and we accept it as it is.
It's not a particularly clear path. By all means, I'm trying to answer Simon's last part. This is by all means not defining a ceiling on the rest of the countries and having to move from our core assets, that is the main part of our investment. In fact, the proceeds that we are intending to recover from that sale, which by the way, we are having a long time to deploy that divestment, are going to be invested in core assets.
Maybe to briefly comment on your last question. I guess that there are still opportunities in the markets where we already have two anchor tenants. Actually, France is one example where we are reaching three, so we are not stopping at two. Beyond that, it's a matter of continuing organic growth, making progress on our build-to-suit programs, assessing the possibility of achieving efficiencies, operating synergies. Also, you know that we are being quite active in the area of tower adjacent assets. To add layers of revenues and contracts and additional services to the existing cooperation that we already have with our anchor tenants. Within that basket, active equipment could be a possibility that, as you know, we are actively assessing.
Thanks. Could I just ask one follow-up? I don't know if you'll be able to answer this, but why was your neutrality not enough to allow you to have a more dominant market position in France in high density areas, given you'll let anyone on your site?
Well, this is a question to be asked to the authority, you know. Of course, our neutral host profile is the strong argumentation that we've been defending. However, the reality is the reality. If the major player of the market, being that Orange is not considered as part of the market, then it's logical that our market share is high, you know. Again, it's fine. It's part of the scenario that we were anticipating since the very beginning.
Okay, great. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. The next question comes from Akhil Dattani from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, good afternoon. Couple of questions from myself as well, please. If we can start on France and the remedies again, if I may. I guess just to tackle a question from a slightly different stance. I guess what I was trying to understand is what are the specific market share limits or caps or restrictions that the French authorities were considering when they were looking at urban areas? I guess what I'm trying to understand is when we look at other markets, like for example, Poland or Portugal, where your total pro forma market share of the towers industry is higher than what it would be in France, was there less of an urban concentration issue in those markets?
Is it simply that the regulatory authorities in those countries didn't look at it in the same way they do in France? That's my first question. The second one, I guess, is linked to the last answer you just gave, with regards to Orange not being considered, and TOTEM, I mean, sorry, specifically, not being considered in the way that the authorities are looking at the industry. I guess, you know, you flagged a similar issue with the CMA in the U.K. where Cornerstone is also not being considered. Can you maybe help us understand why the regulatory authorities in these countries are not including these telco run towers when they're equally renting sites to third parties? What is the difference? Why do they differentiate in that way and not consider those players? That's the second one.
The third one is just linking to some comments you made in the introductory comments around interest rates and inflation. Obviously I understand your comments around inflation protection that you have in your contracts. I just wondered if you could remind us though, of what you've assumed within your 2025 guidance, because, you know, where we are today and the sort of inflation volatility we're seeing is probably quite different from when you set your guidance. Maybe if you could just help us understand what you embedded, just so we can better understand that if inflation were to last longer, whether that would or could not cause a deviation to your guidance. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. Thank you so much again, Akhil. Maybe we will start with the third one. José Manuel.
Akhil, when we run 2025 guidance, we run different scenarios in terms of macroeconomics and we gave you something that is achievable in different scenarios. We gave you a range, and this range is, I think, quite a good range in order of difference, no? I think that will be one of the elements that could take us, no, to one part of the range or to the other. We plan long term, you know, and we plan to run the model not only under one scenario. It's multiple scenarios, especially regarding macroeconomics, you know. Taking into account when we did this exercise that it was true that inflation was not there, but macroeconomics, the GDP, it was less.
How long this inflation is going to last, if you look at right now, the different, European, well, the U.S. sources, there is quite a wide spread, no, of opinion. All in all, to make it brief, I think everything is factored into the 2025 guidance we gave to you.
Coming back to the first question on why potentially not maybe other?
Yeah. First of all, I think this is extremely important to headline. We are extremely respectful on any authority decisions on that. In that sense, we cannot do anything else than just follow because it's part of the game. The question is interesting. First of all, you may have two jurisdiction, which is either member state jurisdiction or European level jurisdiction. You file, depending on certain parameters, either on the local jurisdiction or the European jurisdiction. When you go to the local jurisdiction, interestingly, the way that the market is assessed is different from country to country, but also may be different in the same country from file to file, and we've experienced that as well.
Sometimes the authority is looking at overlap of towers, sometimes it's looking at other types of potential elements that could lessen the competition. Every filing it's a case, and I would not be now in a position, I think, neither I nor any other company to say from that percentage onwards, we have an issue. Because percentage of what, and how this is measured, in France, they decided to separate rural from the urban areas. Well, it's one way to do it. Methodologies do not necessarily have to be the same everywhere, and this is what we are seeing, no? Since we've been facing several competition approvals on the last transactions, no?
On your second question on why these captive tower companies are not considered as part of the market, well, it's precisely for that reason that being the shareholder, the client, there is well the potential thinking that those companies will not be as eager as cellco could be in trying to capture the market, that they will be more focused on just serving the interest of the shareholder. Well, actually, the way that those companies have been expressing themselves, their intentions are not exactly like that. When we listen to them, we hear an equity story not very far from Cellnex. There is interest in capturing growth. When we listen to CTIL, it's not very dissimilar.
There is not much more that we can say other than respect the decisions coming out from the authorities, even though our opinion probably is different. Going back to France, well, that transaction, remember, is again three anchors. We would like to have three anchors in other jurisdictions. North of 25,000 sites, plus build-to-suits. A lot of them yet to be deployed in rural areas. In that sense, I think we are in an interesting position to roll out our business in France.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Andrew Lee from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good evening, everyone. I had two questions. The first question was just on the public transport contracts you signed. Obviously relatively small in the scheme of things. This may be the tough question, but I wonder if you could just help us try and size the opportunity that you have in Western Europe in terms of what's the total market size that you think is available, and give us an indication as well of the competition you face in trying to win those contracts. Second question was just on, again, on inflation. You obviously shown us that Cellnex has an I Love Inflation badge, but obviously, yeah, a lot of your customers don't, and we've had some more negative commentary around inflation from operators over the last few days.
The question is, are you noticing any change in behavior, in willingness to speed up, you know, either build to suit programs to get them off balance sheet or go after 5G tower programs and contracts with you so that operators can get those costs off their balance sheets and those inflation risks off their balance sheet? Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, Andrew. I will try, and Àlex, if you will help me. On the first question, it's difficult to provide a figure at this stage. I mean, we are finding a quite interesting opportunity. We are finding interest from authorities managing transport networks in terms of improving the quality experience. I guess that is the reason why we are having these opportunities. Now, they are these entities are managing these transport networks, metro systems. Now they have an incentive to provide more connectivity. They have an incentive to actually make the customer happier, and they are growing more and more interested in setting these type of auction processes to provide this connectivity, and we are participating in these processes.
We've been successful in three of them, and I guess that going forward, every time that we learn that there is a new opportunity where the neutral host model makes sense, we will continue participating. I guess at this stage, it's a little early to quantify the opportunity for transport systems in Europe. On the second question, if I understand-
Yes.
If the question is if the economic situation of high inflation, potential inflation rate in the future is changing, tactically, the interest of the MNOs in deploying more rapidly or anything, we have not-
Fiber to the tower. Yeah, exactly.
Exactly. We have not perceived that. Normally the way we see our clients are planning their network roll-outs are quite well planned with a horizon which has to be followed by all the supply chain of elements, no? Which is from several years, and so far, we have not perceived any change in any rollout planning due to any economic macro environment.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Ottavio Adorisio from Société. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon, gentlemen. I have a couple of questions on my side. The first relates to the numbers you released, and the second on the strategy. One of the numbers I congratulate you because basically it's another clear growth on organic delivered free cash flow. I looked into the main drivers, and I can see that the growth in the BTS keeping a good momentum, and all the delta is coming from efficiency synergies. When I looked on slide 11, you provide an update of the lease optimization strategy. It looks that you increased a number of the targets. I'm talking about the SAP action for year end. You go to 2.8 from 2.4 last quarter. You also looks to have increased the annual efficiencies for full year 2021, 2022 and 2023.
However, you've maintained the target of EUR 90 billion-EUR 110 billion by 2025. The question is, the fact that you increased the medium targets is the fact that you've stepped up faster execution, or you're just taking a cautious approach, and you expect to increase further before you upgrade your long-term target. The second one is on strategy. Now, since covering Cellnex from, you know, 2015, the IPO, the last six months been one of the quietest time in terms of deal making. I guess time has been spent more on integration of the past deals and of course, all the questions we've seen prior on the call on the antitrust processes for the deal that were not completed.
My question is a bit more on the other strategy you announced earlier this year, the large towerco that was announced with the acquisition of the tower, of course, from Polkomtel. I was wondering if you can provide a bit of an update there, because I guess you were pretty vocal on the fact that this will open a new market to you guys. I guess over the last six-nine months, you have been active looking for or talking to operators. My question is, how many operators are willing to sell active equipment to you or to anyone else, or to turn active sharing agreements into a client-supplier relationships? And on the Polkomtel deal per se, now the deal has completed. I think it was completed in July.
I was wondering if you can provide a bit of color how it's going to work in terms of the risk for future CapEx cycles. Revenues on the contract will be adjusted upwards if at any time Cellnex is to upgrade the equipment starting from the 5G, or that risk now remain with Cellnex. Thanks.
Thank you so much, Ottavio. I will take the first one. Please remember that our target is just quite recent, so we provided that at the beginning of this year. It is true that we are very happy with the progress, but we start until 2025. We still have some years it will be before we reach the end of that time period. If during this time frame we realize that maybe that target is unreasonable because of the progress that we are making, we are more than happy to revisit that figure. We are still at the beginning. It is true that we are comfortable, but I think it's maybe too early to anticipate any change on that target. Second part, Àlex if you?
I'm happy to take it, yes. For the last part of the question, the CapEx cycles are confirmed. After, let's say, already being hands-on on the asset, we are confirming what we were expecting. Any CapEx will come alongside with an additional revenue, no?
In relation to how ready we are to start deploying that massively, I would refer you to page four, where you have the level of integration, and when you look at Polkomtel, which is the third column from the right, you see that on taking control, we are just declaring at 17% and on full integration plan because we have deployed our industrial model only 3%. We need to, and this means that our systems are ready to handle the whole new level of operations that we are supposed to handle. We are here delivering carriers, not delivering a space in a mast. No? As you can imagine, that is having an impact on, for instance, invoicing. No?
Before we going massively to the rest of our potential prospects on trying to transact this type of new activity, we are, as you can imagine, prudent. Which is not preventing for us, as we already mentioned in the past, to entertain discussions. People is calling us. That's interesting. Why don't you explain me on how it is working? This is the type of interactions now we are having, and as you can imagine, the sales cycle for this type of activity, it's a long one, no? Because you are facing previous rent sharing agreements that maybe the operators were already having. How this has to be tackled.
Vendor swaps because there are certain vendors that have to be replaced. There is a set of elements of complexity that we love them because we feel that we are the right partner for this type of industrial complex elements. It's going to take time, as we have already indicated at the very beginning.
Àlex, first of all, thank you very much for the answer. But can I just a very quick one. When you launched into Europe, you basically tapped into a very long tradition of passive outsourcing of passive infrastructure. Outsourcing of active infrastructure, it's not just Europe, but globally, it's not something that we've seen. What makes you confident? Because active sharing, the operator still has ownership sharing with someone else. How to make confident that operators can move from active sharing to a client-supplier relationship? Do you have anything to give a bit of, you know, guide, a bit of visibility to us that can repeat the confidence that actually the enlarged TowerCo has got any legs as a strategy?
Well, if you look historically, what is actually starting to happen now with the active is not very different from what happened with the passive 15 years ago. At the beginning, everyone was having their own active, their own passive. After they started to share the passive among MNOs, okay? At the moment that they share passive, they question themselves, well, and this is what we were questioning them when we were trying to develop that market in Europe. Where is the competitive advantage if you are already sharing the passive? Sell the asset, okay? Well, this has actually crystallized, and it's happening all over in Europe. Look at the active, how many rent sharing agreements are, and not only in rural, also in dense areas. By the way, 5G is massively shared.
At the moment that you are sharing something that potentially could be as competitive as having 5G, you can question exactly, you can pose the same question as we were making a few years ago on the passive. If you are sharing it, where is the competitive advantage? This is when the next wave, we believe, may be triggered. No? Not becoming a competitive advantage because you are already sharing the active by means of rent sharing. No? On the top of that, there is a technological evolution that may be also helping for all this to happen, which is OpenRAN. When you think of how the radio access network equipment may be evolving, which is equipment which is actually installed in our sites, this is going to be a commodity.
As of today, you're having an equipment from one vendor or the other vendor, and they are not compatible. What Open RAN is going to allow is actually to make those equipments commodities and therefore lowering the barriers for mutualizing all of them. We foresee a trend in this direction. Is this going to be as big as the passive? No. I think when we announced the deal, we compare a little bit the CapEx being devoted for the active equipment versus the CapEx that we devote for the acquisition of a passive infrastructure. There is not an order of magnitude on CapEx, but easily five times difference on how much is the equipment cost versus how much we pay for a tower. That is going to give you a clear idea that never this is going to be as big as the passive has been.
Perfect. Many thanks.
Thank you. The next question comes from Luigi Minerva from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon, and thanks for taking my questions. The first one is on an interview that Tobias you gave a couple of weeks ago, mentioning 200,000 sites as the kind of a medium-term ambition for Cellnex. I think that you know necessarily implies entering new markets for you I would guess. I just wanted to check whether you think well that's what you implied. And also, if it's about new markets
What characteristics are you looking for in these new markets? Perhaps, you know, as we are talking about progress, can I just mention Germany here, just to get an update on that one. The second question is on just a bit of following up from the OpenRAN discussion, and thanks, that's very helpful. I see in your slide that you basically say that given that antennas and radio transmitters will still have to be placed on towers, you know, there is no change to your business model. I presume that with OpenRAN, those antennas and transmitters will also be lighter and smaller. Will that represent a threat to your ability to keep rents where they are?
Finally, just a read-across question, because we are seeing in Asia, particularly in China, that chip shortage is leading to a slowdown in 5G base stations deployment. I'm wondering if you are seeing any evidence of that also in Europe, in your markets. Thank you.
Thank you, Luigi. I think that we were starting the best order.
Yeah.
Maybe on the third one, maybe, the answer is no. We are not seeing a similar performance here in Europe. Yeah, I guess that Europe is following its own path. Interesting question, the second one. We actually have the contrary view. I mean, we think that with 5G, many more massive MIMO antennas will need to be deployed, and they are actually larger and heavier, you know? Maybe that is also a way these incremental space and weight needs will offset any lower requirement in terms of shelter usage, no? That's, we do believe that in the context of 5G, if anything, actually active antennas, no?
Larger and heavier will be deployed. Tobias, on the first one?
Yeah. No, when we were talking about the potential addressable market in Europe, always we are considering the broad understanding of Europe, of course. You know that we are in 12 countries. Obviously, we are foreseeing 200,000 sites in the countries where we are not today, but also including the potential acquisitions in the countries where we are today. As you very well know, for us, the first priority is to consolidate our market presence in every country. This is always our main priority and remains the main priority. Second one, even though we are always looking at new opportunities in new markets, we are not in a rush. This is not our premise to be the largest company in Europe running a number of sites. This is not.
We do not have any objective related with the number of sites. We do prefer to talk about country by country, and therefore, qualitative-wise, it's much profitable for our shareholders. That's it. I mean, when we talk about 200,000 sites, just to remind that I was including the 5G requirements in terms of densification. Sometimes we have to remind also that such a number of sites includes, let me say, new or urban telecom infrastructure, which is not just about microcells. And therefore, maybe we are foreseeing such kind of 500,000 sites on 2025 onwards, because it is when we are considering full 5G development.
Okay, thank you. On Germany, nothing new?
Nothing new.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Sam McHugh from Exane BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Just two questions for me. Just firstly, back on France. I just wondered if you could give us a bit more color on how the divestment process will work. I think the good news is there's probably at least four people who might be interested. But how will it work? Does SFR have any veto? Will you run a competitive auction for the sites? I don't know if you can give us any detail. And then the second question is on renegotiation of contract. I think next year, we all know you have the Telefónica sites start coming up for renewal. I think it's the Babel project. There's about 1,000 sites first. So just a few kind of sub-questions, sorry. Which is first, would these more urban or more rural sites? And how would you characterize the pricing?
Just so we can kinda get a bit of an idea around the renewal risk. Then secondly, you know, Telefónica presumably are somewhat incentivized to play hardball on the first renewal, given there's a few more renewals afterwards. Have you thought about being a bit more proactive and trying to package up all of the sites over the next three or four years that come up for renewal into some sort of new master service agreement with them, just to de-risk that renegotiation process? Thank you very much.
Thank you, Sam. I will take the first one, and I will leave the difficult one for Àlex. On the first one, no, SFR has no veto. Also let me clarify that this divestment is not directly associated with the portfolio that we are acquiring from SFR. I mean, the decision takes into consideration our presence in high-risk areas. I would say that we have the flexibility to choose out of our new portfolio. We target the sites that are most appropriate or convenient to disposal. Because of that flexibility.
We have time.
Exactly. Basically, according to the regulatory filing, as you know, since the moment that we sign the binding agreement for disposal, after that, we have 30 months to fulfill this requirement. We have flexibility in terms of timing and also in terms of the sites that may be eligible for this disposal. Thank you, Àlex. The second question.
On the renewals of Telefónica, it is true. We are facing this renegotiation as a normal course of business. As you may recall, this portfolio, let's say, is complementary with other sites that Telefónica sold recently to another operator. There is no overlap on any of those sites. Just continuing on the consideration, it has yet to be confirmed, but this is the way we are facing that renewal. We do not expect any surprises at all on that thing.
Just trying to follow up. What is the precise timing of, you know, when do you start talking to them? Is there a set date or something? Just so we can kind of get the date in our minds.
Yes. We never stop talking to them.
There we go. Okay. Fantastic. Perfect. Thank you, guys.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Nick Delfas from Redburn. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks very much. Just one question on RLFCF. If I look at your slide, it looks as though we're about 11% growth excluding BTS, that's slide 10. I just wanted to know if there's much impact from ground lease buyouts in that growth. Could you give us some kind of a idea of how many ground leases have been taken out through buyouts? The only other question was a quick one on cost inflation. What are you expecting for your own labor cost inflation and your outsourced labor? Thanks very much.
Nick, I might need you to repeat the first question because I'm not sure that, are you referring to slide 10? Sorry.
Yeah. Slide 10, you've got 20% growth in organic RLFCF. If I take out the BTS, it's still 11%. The question is, have ground lease buyouts contributed to that 11% growth, and if so, how much?
Okay. No, and you are talking about the acquisition of land, no? I think, no? This is your question.
So the cost would effectively disappear from the cash flow in the near term, I would imagine.
No. In fact, when we talk about acquisition of land, it can be our land, which is your case. We could be talking about acquisition of land from third party. Your question is referring to the acquisition of land from third party in which our sites are there. This is set up. This is defined within this EUR 86 million. You know that we have invested EUR 38 million until today in the first nine months. As we are suggesting here, our payback is more or less a third of 10%. If you consider that we do this EUR 38 million step by step throughout the year, and you consider a payback of 10 years or 10% to make it very simple.
Okay.
That can give you a figure which is next to EUR 2 million. Okay? Be careful. The EUR 2 million is for the two kinds of acquisition of land. One can be to acquire our own land, which is what you are suggesting, and can be acquisition of land of third parties then, which should be a revenue. All in all, this is within the EUR 86 million. Both kind of acquisitions within EUR 86 million. Okay? The second question was how is your pressure on employees. Look, in general, correct me if I'm wrong, I think that Cellnex has two kind of employees, those that follow the bargaining agreement and those that do not follow the bargaining agreement.
I think that the bargaining agreement was set up with some elements that tend to be linked to inflation in that case. Those who are not under bargaining agreement, it's more case by case basis and it depends. Again, the answer to this question is a little bit more as people that say we will follow the inflation. Please be aware of something. This company has changed significantly, and this is again in slide number 10, the change of perimeter. Significantly. Obviously, labor is going to grow. For instance, in Poland, we have more people than before. The change in this item of employees will be driven by change of perimeter, not by inflation. The main driver is the perimeter.
Yeah.
Inflation is important, but it's not the key driver at all. I will say to you, tends to be non-significant.
Okay, thanks so much.
Thank you. The next question comes from Georgios Ierodiaconou from Citi. Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon, and thank you for taking my questions. I have two questions related to your leverage position. The first one is around the net debt evolution in the last six months. I think on the after-lease view that you provide on a pro forma basis, it's up around EUR 800 million. Under IFRS 16, it's up around EUR 100 million. On an after-lease perspective, in the last six months, it's up more than EUR 1 billion. So I just wanted to maybe get an idea of how we should expect this to evolve in the coming quarters, whether some of these outflows we are seeing beyond build-to-suit will remain in place or whether some of them may reverse.
My second question is around your priorities around capital structure as you continue to expand. I think on an after-lease view, more or less, your net debt-to-EBITDA is around seven to 7.5 times, which is significantly higher than your competitors. As I mentioned earlier, it's still rising. You have some minorities, and you've pledged to the market that you may do EUR 9 billion of acquisitions without raising equity. I am curious whether that is a firm plan or whether there are conditions under which you may decide to either not make the EUR 9 billion acquisitions or use equity a bit earlier, so you do not exceed certain metrics. Thank you.
Thank you very much and thank you because it's interesting, Georgios, talking about this, you know, this thing. Let me go to my screen because we are receiving many questions and this is very important. In terms of leverage position, and you talk about net-to-EBITDA evolution and all these kind of things, let me recall you that when talking about credit quality, it's important not only to be focused on a ratio, which is important, but also please take into account the business profile of Cellnex and also what rating agencies say about us, no? All this is.
This information is not only for the equity holders, also for the loan holders, and therefore everything that we have been doing this year, which is to meet the business plan and to meet the payments of the M&A and to meet the payments of the build-to-suit program, is public information. We cannot change it. We present this to rating agencies, and rating agencies give us the current corporate rating. So far so good. It is true that we can have a peak one year, then we will deliver the following, which is important here, and I think that we must not miss the point, is the backlog. The backlog generates cash flow. So net-to-EBITDA should be taken into account in 2021, in 2023, 2025. This is the key question.
Please consider other elements, qualitative elements, that also mitigate what can be perceived as a high number. If you don't do so, you can maybe reach to a point that somehow cannot be validated by our capital structure. Yes, please. In order to answer, I need 2 slides. Let's go to slide number 13. In slide number 13, you can see here the financial structure. You know it is well. It's. I mean, we have a very competitive cost, which is 1.5%. It's not hedged, it's not pledged, it's not covenant. If someone gives Cellnex all this capacity, all this profile of maturities in the future, it is because somehow do not fully agree with your question, no?
Somehow also perceive that Cellnex generate significant cash flow in the future in order to meet all the maturities. This is the key point. Fine, net-to-EBITDA is important, yes, but what is really important is the cash flow generation of Cellnex in a commensurative way with the maturities and also with the structure of this debt. When you raise the question, you forget, you are forgetting many credit angles. Finally, in slide 20, and I think that this is a point, this is a slide which is not new at all. We have put it several times before, but we re-implement it. We are telling you that Cellnex has always been able to define a key flexibility in the financing. Key flexibility that give us capacity to postpone M&A payments to build-to-suit program.
To mix the profitability of our build-to-suit program with just what we pay for the build-to-suit does not make sense. You have to understand that the build-to-suit program for us is a way of funding this company. This has always been from the very beginning. Georgios, not from now. You have seen how Cellnex has been able to maintain this net debt-to-EBITDA more or less in the previous years and invest or commit to invest in this sector in growth. Why to change what has been working so far? If you take the hypothesis that we have done in the past and you project in the future, you will find this EUR 9 billion. If you only focus on the net debt in the short term, obviously, I understand your question.
Please look at slide 20 and 13, and we can take it offline and to help you to understand the credit quality of Cellnex.
If I could ask a follow-up on the cash flow. I understand your point about the build-to-suit programs, that these are set and highlighted. Obviously, there's expansion CapEx, which is your decision on how quickly you buy back your leases, and I understand the effect on your credit. There's also a few other outflows we are seeing in accrued interest and non-recurring items. I'm just curious whether those outflows will reverse in the coming quarters or are there structural reasons why they put them in interest? Thank you.
That could be the case. That is also the reason why we are specifying this cash within non-recurring items, no? Because they are not recurring in nature. I mean, it is true that we are an acquisitive company. There are costs associated with the nature of what we do and that if in the coming quarters that speed of execution slows. At the same time, you should also be seeing that is this non-recurring costs are also different, no? Yeah. Especially, you will find a stamp duty. If we have to pay the stamp duty, we execute M&A. This is something that we expect to pay forever now. We will pay once, but obviously it's non-recurring.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Jakob Bluestone from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question. I had two questions. One, I noticed in slide 10, you talk about how the Bouygues fiber to the tower is starting to contribute. So just wondering if you could maybe expand a little bit more on what are you seeing in terms of the fiber to the tower uptake. Is it just Bouygues, or are you seeing interest from other parties? And, you know, are you rolling out similar projects in other markets that are starting to add to revenues as well? And then just secondly, could you maybe just give us an update on what is the latest thinking around the sort of completion of your M&A pipeline? I mean, I guess you sort of expect it probably will take the full 12, 18 months.
Just any comments you can make around the timing of completing that pipeline? Thank you.
Thank you, Jakob. Maybe I will start with the second one. We do believe that in this occasion, and maybe compared to other capital increases when we use this language now of requiring 18 months to deploy our pipeline. That's because in this case, we do believe that it will take longer compared to other occasions. We are actively working, as you can imagine. We are seeing a number of opportunities. I guess that one factor that adds a bit more complexity to the discussions is 5G. I mean, we are not just discussing plain vanilla deals, specification and other potential solutions for mobile operators are playing a role. I guess that that extends somehow the conversations that we are having, no? Nothing has really changed.
I mean, in terms of the number of projects in our pipeline, in terms of the intensity of our conversations and in terms of expected timing on this particular occasion, we will need, we think these 18 months, starting since the completion of our last capital increase in order to deploy our pipeline. Maybe Àlex, if you want.
Yeah, on the second first question in relation to fiber to the tower. Well, of course, Bouygues, this is what we are deploying, and this is going perfectly on track. I would like also to remind that in the second Polish transaction, there is a type of asset very similar to the one that we have with Bouygues. You have all the fiber connecting the central offices, metropolitan offices with the tower. In that case, we have acquired an already existing base of fiber to the tower that will require to be updated, two more towers as well. It's not only Bouygues, it's also with Polkomtel that we are having an important fiber to the tower infrastructure.
How this conversion, because actually here we are converting from radio links to fiber, because historically, if there was no fiber, it's because there was a radio link. The radio link, as we've been also discussing in the past, today's capacity is quite high. However, when you are adding 5G on a side, probably that radio link needs to be replaced by fiber. The growth that we expect on fiber to the tower, deployed by ourself or deployed by our clients to our towers, which is also something which is possible, will be very much linked to the not only the deployment, but also the actual usage of 5G.
Because you may deploy 5G, but if there are no cell phones actually capable to connect to the 5G, then this demand of additional data is not there. There is no need to replace that radio link. That will be very much in line and in parallel with 5G data usage in the coming years.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Emmet Kelly from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Yes, good evening, everybody, and, thank you for taking my question. My question actually relates to slide 11 and the lease optimization program. Just a very simple question, can you just maybe give us a number for what the kind of cost-benefit analysis you're seeing at the moment is? If you were to, we'd say, spend EUR 100 million on seeking to generate, we'd say lease savings, what savings are you seeing? Is it an eight-to-one, a 10-to-one, a 12-to-one? Maybe just say a few words as well about, which geographies, you're seeing the biggest benefits in. Is it still quite Spain and Italy-centric, or are you also beginning to see a better lease saving opportunity in other markets as well? Thank you.
Thank you, Emmett. José, do you want to take?
Particularly the way we are assessing this type of project is in a way very similar to an expansion CapEx project. We are targeting returns very similar to those of our historical transactions and financially for us now. Around 10%, 11%, 12%, depending on the contract, but around that. Yeah. Also in terms of geographies, it is true historically we have been doing very good progress in Italy and continue to do so because also bear in mind that now we have recently closed a new transaction.
That give us, I would say, raw material, you know, in order to continue progressing on this front, you know, in a country where it was already mature. Now we're integrating new contracts to be potentially renegotiated. Now we are in the process of seeing if we can align these new contracts that we are integrating into our with our best practices, no? In Spain also there is room to continue improvement, Portugal as well.
Basically, there are two elements here that we are taking into consideration, Emmett. One is where we have high ground lease costs, and this is where logically we try to put priority in terms of generating efficiencies as soon as possible. Historically, Italy has been a country where the ground leases has been, on average, higher than the rest of geography. We are putting priority based on that. Second, based on the maturity of our teams on the ground, no? Because, as you can imagine, in those countries where we have just landed, our focus first of all establishing and stabilizing the operations, making sure that with the acquisition we are not creating any quality issues to our clients.
As I was saying, when we are already settled, like for instance in Portugal, we are starting to work on also those efficiencies. There are always those two elements that we take into consideration. The idea is that we do have well this settled machine of efficiency generation in every country.
Super. Thank you so much, both. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Fernando Cordero of Banco Santander. Please go ahead.
Hello, good afternoon, and thanks for taking my three questions. The first one is going back to the capital structure and to the slide number 10, 20. You are adding some, let's say, additional alternatives to the funding, available funding alternatives. In that sense, I would like to understand how this then is likely to see either the exchange of your current minorities as MNOs with new investors or even including new investors in your potential new projects of inorganic growth. Not just as an alternative, how likely are you considering that option?
Not only that, to what extent the increase in the level of minorities in your corporate structure would also affect the leverage ceiling understood as a net debt to EBITDA of 7x when looking to the M&A. My second question is related with organic growth and particularly with one of your mid-sized markets, Portugal. We have just seen the outcome of the five-year spectrum yesterday, and in that sense, two new entrants are coming to the market, and I would like to understand what are the organic growth outlooks that you are foreseeing for that market, thanks to the outcome of this spectrum auction. Finally, also on the organic growth, in previous calls you had limited visibility and impact on the European Union NextGenerationEU funds. I would like to understand if there is any increased visibility on the impact of those funds could have in your business. Thank you.
Thank you, Fernando. I will maybe take the third one, which is the easiest, no news. I mean, you know that we have a very large pipeline of projects, very long list of projects that we think could be eligible, but that we are still, I would say, waiting for the rules of the game to see how these funds will be allocated. So no news on that, no news on that front. Regarding leverage and minorities, and just to complete also previous question, no? Yes, I think that we have always had partners. I mean, if I recall Galata, our first acquisition, we had 10%. Then we repeated with other partners. I remember Swiss Life in Switzerland. We have Iliad in Poland, and we have Iliad also in France.
We have Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners, I think, is in the Netherlands. For us, a partner has always been there, and it can continue. I mean, why we do not have the obligation to buy. We can say to someone, "You can buy this estate," maybe, no? We do have all the right, all the optionality open. We have done it, and we will continue doing, and we can swap also. In fact, for instance, Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners was in Switzerland, and today it's in the, in the Netherlands. There has been somehow a swap through all the transactions. We have been able to show this flexibility, which is key in our net debt, in our credit quality structure. You raise the point about net debt to EBITDA if there are minorities.
If there are partners, as it is happening, for instance, in Cellnex Switzerland yesterday or Cellnex Netherlands, there is a refinance financing. Refinance financing somehow has this characteristic that maximize the level of the debt in the different companies without having an impact on the corporate rating of Cellnex. This is called subordination. Obviously for us, for me, in my view, as a CFO of this company, subordination is a red line that I will never cross. In this case, Fernando, I think that the answer is a little more angles than only a net debt to EBITDA calculation. There are clear rules of subordination, clear rules of refinancing the debt at the level of the countries and also the partners that we can also take into account.
If you put all these things together, as always have been on the table, give us the flexibility that we required in order to fund the next round of the money. I think.
The second question, Fernando, obrigado for the question. Really, finally, the auction has finished. There are two new entrants. Honestly, we believe we are well positioned. We have two out of the three networks. The third network is one of those captive networks. As we did in Italy, if we do not make major mistakes that we will not make, we will be able to seize that opportunity massively.
Just a follow-up on that, Àlex. Given that you bought two different portfolios in Portugal, do you have any kind of, let's say, restriction on tenancy ratio, particularly in urban areas, in the big urban areas in Portugal, given the coverage requirement for the new entrants? In that sense, are you having any restriction to allocate both new entrants in your towers?
Not at all. Having two portfolios is giving a good flexibility on our side to make the right combination. No restrictions on that sense.
Okay. Thank you. Very clear.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we have now reached the end of our Q&A session. I will now give back the floor to our speakers. Thank you.
Thank you so much for your time, for your attention, and we hope to see you very, very soon. Okay. Bye-bye.