Good morning, everyone. My name is Juan Gaitan, Director of Investor Relations at Cellnex, I would like to thank you all for joining us today for our Q2 2021 results conference call in this busy day. As always, I'm joined by our CEO, Tobias Martinez, our CFO, Jose Manuel Aisa, and our Deputy CEO, Alex Mestre, who will lead today's session. Throughout our prepared remarks, we will refer to the results presentation we have shared this morning, then we will open the line for your questions. Please note that the session today needs to have a maximum duration of one hour. Without further ado, over to you, Tobias.
Thank you, Juan. Good morning, everyone, 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 with new PoPs on existing sites and our build-to-suit program generating a 7.5% growth. Please note that the main driver behind this strong growth in the period has been the significant contribution from build-to-suit, with around 1,000 new sites transferred in Q2 2021. Taking into consideration that we are delivering such kind of build-to-suit in the middle of the pandemic, which is remarkable. We are also making tangible progress on our efficiency plan in a way consistent with the lease optimization initiatives we have been implementing over the last years.
The period also provides a strong financial performance, with revenues increasing 47% compared to the last year. Our adjusted EBITDA 53%, and our recurrent levered free cash flow 47%, with our EBITDA margin expanding 400 basis points to 79%. As you know, ESG is a cornerstone of our strategy, and as such, we are making a steady progress on the initiatives set out in our new ESG master plan. An example of this is the Sustainalytics recent risk rating, improving 4 points and placing Cellnex among the top five companies in the telecom sector. We are also happy to share the creation of the Cellnex Foundation with the objective to narrow the digital and social dividers through projects that will improve the access to connectivity.
Our intention is to create a dynamic tool at the service of people, tackling situations of vulnerability while contributing to the improvement of the environment. Moving to capital structure strategy in order to fund our growth, we continue keeping all doors open, and we are constantly assessing a wide array of options to maintain our financial flexibility. One recent example of this pragmatic approach is our inaugural bond in U.S. dollars. We have tapped the most liquid market for the first time, issuing our longest ever instrument and at a very competitive cost. Integration is also crucial for the success of our growth strategy. In this sense, we are very happy with the progress made on our closing processes, with even some deals closed earlier than expected, and all of our integrations projects are advancing in line with our initial expectations.
Finally, we are upgrading our guidance, mainly reflecting the early closing of the Polkomtel deal. We are also reiterating our medium-term guidance with all metrics on track. If we go to slide number three, we are showing here, for illustrative purposes, the expected profile of both adjusted EBITDA and recurrent levered free cash flow during the remaining quarters of 2021. As you can see, these magnitudes will increase every quarter as we generate organic growth, make progress on our build-to-suit programs and efficiencies plan, and see the contribution from new deals as they are closed. Our upgraded guidance implies an expected adjusted EBITDA growth of 65% and a recurrent levered free cash flow growth of close than 60% compared to 2020.
On the following slide, you can see the status of our current integration processes, and the main conclusion is that all of them are going as planned. Compared to the previous quarter, you can see that we have closed T-Infra in the Netherlands, Hutchison Italian deal, and Polkomtel, while we are actively working on our two pending closings, Hivory in France and Hutchison in U.K. We have implemented a global governance model with the following characteristics. Clearly distributed responsibilities between group and countries. Transversal policies which can be adapted to the realities of each country. Use of global dashboards which allows the tracking of KPIs. Also supervisory and decision-making roles at all levels. 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 programs completed, 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, and boosting our financial and becoming the industrial partner of choice for our clients. Finally, a quick reminder of our medium-term guidance, which we are reiterating. It implies an annual growth of well above 20% in our key financial metrics from 2020, and a very well-diversified expected EBITDA in 2025 of between EUR 3.3 billion and EUR 3.5 billion. With this, I will now hand over to our CFO, Jose Manuel Aisa, who will provide a few more details of the period.
Thank you, Tobias. Moving to slide seven, I am providing a few more details on the period. Revenues have increased around 50% to EUR 1,061 million in the period. Our recurrent levered free cash flow has increased 50% to EUR 394 million. Our total PoPs have almost doubled if we include the contribution from organic growth and M&A. If we focus on organic growth only, our PoPs have increased around 7.5% compared to last year, as a result of increased co-location and acceleration of our build-to-suit programs. Please note that our PoPs do not include RAN sharing tenancies or IoT tenancies. Also please note that we maintain the guidance unchanged. Moving now to slide eight. The performance of our main metrics.
On top of the figures just discussed, our adjusted EBITDA has increased 53% compared to last year, and our margin has expanded around 400 basis points. This adjusted EBITDA growth is mainly explained by the contribution from telecom infrastructure services, organic growth, build-to-suit, and recent acquisitions, and by the efficient management of our cost base. Payment of leases increased with a larger portfolio of sites. Maintenance CapEx is expected to converge towards our guidance, and interest paid reflects the terms of our debt structure. The following slide explains our recurrent levered free cash flow generation in the period, and you can see the contribution to organic growth from our different drivers: co-location and associated services, build-to-suit, escalators, and efficiencies. These elements combined generate EUR 52 million in the period, a 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 levered free cash flow growth of 47% compared to last year. Moving to slide 10, a quick update on our efficiency plan. Please note that the site management has always played a key role in our operations, and we have a strong track record crystallizing efficiencies out of our portfolios of sites. We have renegotiated close to 1,500 ground leases contracts in the period, generated EUR 7 million of efficiency this year so far, and we are on track to meet our 2025 target. Moving to our balance sheet. Movements compared to last year are mainly explained by our M&A and capital structure activity in the period.
The increase in total assets also explains the corresponding increase in equity and liabilities as a result of our last rights issue and the issuance of debt instruments in the period, respectively. Just to remind that we take a prudent purchase price allocation approach in the context of our M&A activity that prioritize the allocation to fixed assets. The goodwill you can see in our balance sheet does not correspond to any cash out. You will find a thorough explanation in the frequently asked questions section. A quick update of our capital structure and liquidity position. We have around EUR 19 billion of available liquidity, including EUR 11 billion of undrawn credit lines. A strong backlog of contracted revenues at around EUR 110 billion. An average debt maturity of seven years with a highly competitive associated cost of around 1.5%.
No significant refinancing is expected before 2024. 86% of our debt is fixed.
Our corporate debt has no covenant, pledge or guarantees. Very quickly on our upgraded 2021 financial outlook in slide 13, which mostly reflects the early closing of the Polkomtel deal. It implies an expected adjusted EBITDA growth of 65% and a recurrent levered free cash flow close to 60% compared to 2020. With this, let's please open the line for your questions.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, the question starts now. The first question comes from Simon Coles from Barclays. Please go ahead.
The question. The first one's on the U.K. deal. We've obviously seen the news of the CMA and the deal moving to phase II, but I'd love to get your thoughts on what we've seen so far. Some of the objections or concerns seem quite surprising given you are an independent tower co. Secondly, just on the pipeline, not seeing any mention of that in the presentation. I'm sure there's lots going on. Could you just give us some color and any update on what the mix of the pipeline might be and timeline expectations? Is it still 12 months and you're just waiting for the right deal? That's it. Thank you.
Thank you so much, Simon. Tobias,
Well, good morning, Simon. Well, about CMA in U.K., I can tell you that is everything as expected. I mean, we are in phase II. We understand perfectly that we have to well, to assess and to work with the CMA. It was planning, you can see in our last capital increase in the prospectus, we were expecting around Q2, the closing around Q2 2022. Nothing, I think remarkable up to date. Well, we should expect to overcome obviously and to finally close successfully the transaction. You know, we have to work on it. About pipeline, maybe there is no relevant news, if I may say.
You know that we are always proactively looking for the opportunities or at least our opportunities. Consolidation in every country where we are today, I think it's a public information that maybe in Germany will come an opportunity. Believe me, no news up to date. Obviously, if there is an opportunity, we will assess seriously. Currently, we do not have additional information in order to be disclosed. Everything I think on track and so far so good. The company remains very active in order to improve our local presence in every country. Obviously, ready to go, ready to assess seriously if there is an opportunity in Germany.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question from Roshan Ranjit from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Great. Morning. Thank you for the questions. Two for me, please. Maybe just to maybe follow up quickly on Simon Coles's point. I think the CMA said that some of the measures presented in their view wasn't a viable solution. Whilst everything is tracking according to your H1 2022 timeframe, it'd be really interesting to know what some of those measures you presented were and maybe why the CMA weren't comfortable with those initially. Secondly, just moving to Italy. Now, in your KPI file, you've obviously included now the Hutch Italy deal, which has closed. It's a bit difficult to see how the organic PoP growth tracked there.
Are you seeing any upside in Italy, given the delays from INWIT and being able to get some of the Iliad PoPs on there? Are you benefiting there? I know obviously you have the build-to-suit and you are the default provider for Iliad, but any upside there and anything you could say would be good. Just maybe tied on to that, tracking with your synergy run rate, you saw material increase in the organic PoP growth this quarter. Should we think that the synergy run rate is closely aligned to that organic PoP growth, given the scope for the combination of build-to-suits? Thank you.
Thank you, Roshan. Maybe I will maybe reverse the order in terms of answers. Starting with your last one, maybe a short answer is too early to say. Bear in mind that it is true that we have posted a quite a strong organic growth this quarter. We think it's just a timing effect. You know that there is a perimeter of sites to be deployed for our anchor tenants in the context of the different build-to-suit programs. The speed at which we have been able to integrate sites this quarter has been maybe faster than anticipated, but the perimeter is what it is.
After the completion of these build-to-suit programs, we will be able to deploy the sites that we announced at the moment of those transactions, no? In terms of the progress that we are making on our efficiency synergies programs, we are happy with the progress. The vast majority of the savings are mostly related to ground lease renegotiations rather than synergies or build-to-suit optimization. As we make progress and have more information, we're happy to provide a more updated picture. As of today, we are not in a position to change our view. Your second question. no, I mean, we are happy with the performance that we are generating, with organic growth that we are generating in Italy.
We are not seeing any change or any acceleration due to any relationship that Iliad or Wind might have. We continue executing our plan. The way we see our organic growth generation in Italy is consistent with the performance that we have posted during previous quarters. Maybe Tobias on the CMA point.
No, Roshan, good morning. Just to maybe to reiterate, today, it's very difficult for us to provide additional information because at the end, it's a perception. We need to work deeply with CMA. Market assessment is key, as you can imagine, always in a filing, in antitrust authorities. We do expect to provide enough information to the CMA in order to, well, to show that maybe no one in this call, maybe, it's, no one in this, in this call, is having doubts about the role, the active role of CTIL in the U.K. market.
Again, I think we should work together with the CMA in order to make a new market assessment, which will be key. I think the facts are clear. This is not just about opinion. There is a new market structure in U.K. rather than the previous IPO of Vantage in the market. Again, we continue to work on it. Let's see at the end. Just to reiterate again, our strong commitment with U.K. market, with our customers as well, and therefore for us, U.K. it's a masterpiece in our Cellnex European platform.
That's great. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question comes from Ottavio Adorisio from Societe Generale. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. A couple questions from my side. The first one is on the organic growth rate. You recorded a mild deceleration on revenues from new co-location and associates revenues. You did EUR 7 million compared with EUR 9 million in the first quarter. That is against the acceleration on the PoP. Now, you also stressed that the PoP main, the acceleration comes from the BTS. I was wondering if you can give us the breakdown with the PoPs on your existing towers and the one from the BTS. The second question is on a point you make during the presentation, the purchase price acquisition. Now, my understanding is that, the aim is to attribute the price paid to intangible that could be depreciated and provide tax shields while goodwill is not depreciated.
Therefore, the question is the process completed for all the acquisition you announced, or it's still ongoing with the auditors? If it's still ongoing in terms of the allocation, so the price towards intangible versus goodwill, could that impact the 2025 guidance that you have for EUR 2 billion-EUR 2.2 billion? The third is just for clarification. The CMA raising competition concern, it's an ongoing process, and totally understand that's difficult for you to comment. Could you just give us a bit of color if that could be repeated in other countries, or if the U.K. situation makes different because of the presence of two large JVs? Thanks.
Thank you, Ottavio. Very quickly on the first one. Out of the 7.5% organic growth that we have generated, this is basically due to two factors. The contribution from build-to-suit is 4%, and the contribution from pure colocation is 3.5%, so consistent with previous quarters. On the second question, sorry you want-
On the PPA, Ottavio. No, it's, we have never changed the criteria. You know the criteria is the following: The auditor has one year, and the management of Cellnex has one year to present amendments to the PPAs that are initially recorded in our books. We have always agreed with the auditor, no change in our initial criteria of PPA. Therefore, we do not expect any impact at all in the 2025 outlook. I would suggest, if you can go through slide 26, for instance, that's helpful. Also our semestral accounts, you will see that the criteria, which has not changed and I mean, no impact in recurring free cash flow at all. The answer is super simple. No change.
The third question, that is maybe a difficult answer. No, I guess that bear in mind that we haven't gone through any European wide process. All of our antitrust processes have been at local level, and it is true that maybe each antitrust regulator defines market in a different way. I guess that that is the situation that we are now facing in the U.K. It's difficult to extrapolate across Europe. Maybe you Alex want to-
Probably it's a matter of time on actually realizing that those companies are having commercial activity, which is the case. We find them in the field. We are going very fast, and this is true, and maybe sometimes regulators need to get their time in order to get a proper assessment of the market. Also, it is true that the transaction in the U.K. was not a plain vanilla transaction. There is additional complexity with the JVA and everything to be assessed, and that's the reason that we believe it's normal, that probably we are on the situation as we have already advised since the very beginning.
Thanks.
Thank you. The next question comes from Giles Thorne from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Thank you. I think it's probably two questions for Alex. The first one is on Spain and the recent spectrum auction. It was already signaled that Mas wouldn't participate in the 700 MHz auction. I just wanted to get your sense of organic growth going forward in Spain as a result of one of your anchor tenants or your anchor tenant being subscale in some of their spectrum holdings relative to peers. My second question, in a similar fashion, is on Italy. EOLO has a new owner and has spoken about a very big investment program into the network. I don't know if you've had any early sights or early conversations on how you can help them. Any color there would be useful. Thank you.
Giles, thank you. In relation to Spain, look, not really we do expect here any potential reduction of the addressable market, to be honest. Because MásMóvil has been always quite pragmatic on the way that they have been approaching both. The access to frequencies and their potential RAN sharing agreements with others. Remember is that if this is translated to a RAN sharing agreement, there are also revenues, mechanisms linked to that we will be able to capture. Even though we will not, or until now, we are not reporting that as PoPs, as was previously mentioned by Jose Manuel. In relation to the second question, yes, this is quite interesting, specifically, in general, the fixed wireless access in Italy is a very interesting market.
We have EOLO, we have Linkem, we have also Fastweb. All those are quite active on that market, which is very much perceived as a fast track digital divide action that can be done on rural areas to provide with 3.5 GHz another spectrum with a broadband connection, no? It is very interesting. Of course, we are having, let's say close discussions with all those players and we've been reporting already in the past that, let's say that, it has been part of our, let's say, commercial activity in Italy. Interestingly, we think that that sort of model of fixed wireless access could be tractioning in other countries potentially.
No explicit conversations with the new owners at EOLO?
We are maintaining active talks, no? With the OPCOs and the shareholders as well. I would say in general, in all this arena, because since being as of now specific for Italy, well, we want to be very ensure that if we endorse actions and commercial activities with them, we are having the proper view in relation to our effort in order to support these type of players, no? It's a very interesting opportunity.
Very good. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Nick Delfas from Redburn. Please go ahead.
It's around BTS optimization. Could you talk to us a little bit about how many conversations you've started to have and over what kind of period we might see some results from that? Thanks very much.
Thank you, Nick. Alex.
Yes. I think the question is in relation to build-to-suit optimization.
Yeah.
Yes. Well, no, we've been proactively at the moment that we are having those two anchors with agreed build-to-suit programs. We have been already active, and we are starting to have the first results, not, in order to show that increment on build-to-suit, as the question was referring before. That increment is not due to those synergies being captured, but we are starting to have, I would say, the first handful cases on which we've been able to demonstrate that what we were envisaging as a potential value creation lever, the build-to-suit optimization, it's actually working.
It's, as you can imagine, a process which is not immediate because you need to negotiate the radio frequency design plans with the MNOs in order for them to agree that what was initially envisaged is not going to be the final position of the point of presence. Yes, it will, it will work.
Mainly maybe, I can add to that mainly in Italy and France. Those countries are the more active ones in terms of capturing such kind of efficiencies.
Could I just ask for one operator who's no longer building a tower and selling it on to you, and therefore they won't be recording some kind of EBITDA benefit, is that a problem for them? 'Cause obviously the, the ability to show revenues from build-to-suit on the other side, or rather EBITDA on the other side is quite valuable. How do they You know, what do they get instead in terms of the structure for the party that's no longer building a site?
Well, I think what the beauty of the element is that in those build-to-suit agreements we have, as you know, there are several modes and schemes on which we have agreed build-to-suit with our anchors. We have levers by which we can do a fair share of the value creation on all. If there was a potential revenue on our anchor side to be created with this build-to-suit, we intend to honor that. However, in any case, there is the CapEx savings that will not be required anymore. With all those levers that we have, not all the cases are identical.
We are finding the way to have the proper incentive by the MNO to engage in those discussions.
Okay, thanks very much.
Thank you. The next question comes from Fabio Pavan, from Mediobanca. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, good morning, and thank you for taking my two questions. The first one is on the European Recovery Plan. We have heard in recent days some operators is already starting to have some discussion with the countries, government countries on these plans. Was wondering if you already started to have some conversation, if there is something you can share with us? The other question is on an update on the discussions you said in the past you would have had with your existing customers for what concern potential inclusion in the agreements of the active equipment. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Fabio. I will take maybe the first one. There is no tangible progress on this. As you can imagine, I mean, we are the different processes. We are doing our homework, coming up with a quite long list of projects that we think might be eligible for this funds. We are also aware about everything that our clients are saying. As we might agree that this could be a very good opportunity. I guess that in terms of a tangible process on how European countries will be setting up the rules of the game, nothing new, I would say. The second question, Alex?
Yes. In relation to the augmented tower company, well, as you can imagine, we are tractioning very well discussions with everyone because MNOs are intrigued on what we've been doing with Polkomtel and everything. There are a lot of conceptual discussions being on the table as of now. Nevertheless, let's do not forget that we have just got the keys of the factory a few days ago. We are now on the process of also understanding the deep implications on providing these type of services, on understanding if there are some fine-tunes that should be done on the value proposition to other players, the different schemes on maybe just doing that on a region area or getting the full active equipment for one operator.
We are having that. As we have already mentioned in the past, this is going to take some time, and we are very prudent on the way that we want to scale up this activity, you know.
Very clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question comes from Gareth Hollis from BNP. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, both. First one, a couple of your peers have been talking about seeing inflationary OpEx pressures as they renew their maintenance contracts on sites. I think this partially relates to some of the Huawei swap outs. When it comes to some of your maintenance OpEx and CapEx looking forward, how much do you outsource much of this spend? Are you seeing any inflationary pressures? On the second one, just more broadly, the pace of the BTS, you're obviously making good progress. When you've closed deals recently, you've commented that much of this is back-end loaded, and we've seen such progress coming through in these results. I was wondering kind of why and how this is accelerating. Thanks both.
Thank you, Gareth. I can maybe try and start. You can complement Alex, please. I mean, typically, when we announce a transaction, you know that there is the initial acquisition of an existing portfolio of towers, but also where that's build-to-suit. Maybe at the moment of the announcement, we have limited information on the actual needs of the client, you know, in terms of our future densification needs. What happens is that at the moment that we start working closely with the client, we find the opportunity to accelerate this deployment, you know. It's just I guess it's a combination of densification needs of our clients.
Maybe they need to have these sites ready earlier than we expected at the moment of announcing the deal. That's why we have been saying that our initial expectation was a back-end loaded completion of these of these programs. It's just mostly timing, you know. On your first question, short answer is no. I mean, we are not seeing any. Bear in mind that, I mean, obviously we are involved in the telecom sector. We are following everything that is going on. Our business model is quite different from that of our clients. Basically we are not seeing what you mentioned, no.
We have our main, not really OpEx, but linked to our activity leases. If anything, that is being the object of a quite important efficiency program, you know. No, I would say that in general, we are not seeing any inflationary pressure on any of our OpEx or lease items.
Okay. Clear. Thank you very, very much.
Thank you. The next question comes from Ben Rickett from New Street Research. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning, guys. Thanks for your question. I had a question on the Italian emissions restrictions. You've been growing co-location tendencies very strongly in Italy in recent years. I was just wondering, has that growth been restricted by the emissions restrictions there? Secondly, I know there's been some political noise around whether those restrictions will be lifted. It'd be great to understand your expectations for whether they will be lifted this year or in the near future. Thank you.
Yeah. We never factorize any regulation changes so far, right? What has been in the past also being posed. When we came into a country, we take what it is and we want to build based on what it is. However, on that point, we have sometimes a mix, let's say, feeling, you know. When there is the possibility to raise the co-location emissions, the co-location you may expect could also go high, but also could go high the RAN sharing. Because the RAN sharing, as you know, there are additional carriers on the same site, the emission being radiated is also increasing.
In the event that this is not possible, another site may be required nearby at say reasonable distance in order not to affect the radiations around the original site. This is also generating a new demand for densification, as Jose was also mentioning before. That's the element that we do see, and we believe all the MNOs in Italy have been already considering. All those that were thinking on doing RAN sharing, that may be having an impact. That's possible. And they may require a physical POP at a certain distance from the original one. In the case of Italy, the players that were thinking of doing so, maybe that could potentially have an impact on them.
There will be less RAN sharing, more physical points of presence. Maybe it's not that bad.
Thanks. That's helpful color. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Emmet Kelly from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, everybody, and, thank you for taking the questions. I have, two questions, please. The first question relates to, build-to-suit and covering, white and gray spots in Spain. I know that you've partnered with REE to fund the rollout of, independently owned masts, in rural parts of Spain. Can you maybe just say a few words about this project and, how big it could be? Would it run into the thousands of potential new sites? Maybe just also mention, maybe some sensitivities around the project, because I know you are competing with a consortium that is made up of your telco customers, so does that, does that pose an issue or not? Then the second question is, I think something that's similar to what I asked last quarter.
You've already announced a few contracts to cover railway across Europe. You've been pretty successful in this area with the rail projects on London, Brighton, ProRail in the Netherlands, Spain, et cetera. Can you maybe just say a few words about the outlook for this market, especially with the European Recovery Fund in play? Thank you.
Yes. Thank you, Emmet. Look, in the first question, well, you mentioned that we are competing with our clients. Well, that's not really the case. What we are always willing is to cooperate, to find the best way in order to ensure that what this project is actually looking after is best served with the minimum resources and not overspending. Here we have, let's say, the Spanish government that has yet to, let's say, release the public tender proposals. Maybe, the public tender will already face the situation on a different way that we may have initially envisaged with REE or the MNOs themselves have initially envisaged or even the vendors, no?
The sources for the funding could be devoted to passive, to passive plus active or both of them, or just one of them. What we now is on this standby mode, proposals as expression of interest, have been already presented to the Spanish Government. I think the Spanish Government has a very clear idea on what can be done or not, and that will be translated in a tender process. Hopefully we'll be in a position to have a really cooperating project around that, and that's what we really expect to happen. On the second question in relation to transportation lines, look, we believe that this has life on its own, even without recovery funds, because it's a real demand.
We have started, let's say, working around that, as you know, even the sad situation of the pandemic actually happened. Independently from the European Recovery Fund, we expect to be in a position to, let's say, provide good news in the future around that in other areas where we are, let's say, commercially pushing for developing these type of services. With the European recovery plan, yes, it is true, you are well aware that there are also expressions of interest in relation to that, and we feel the public administration's very sensitive to the topic as well. Yes, we remain inclined to think that this is going to be an interesting path for growth for Cellnex.
Super. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question comes from Giovanni Montalti from UBS. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thank you. You were mentioning that, I mean, the Italian market for FWA is particularly developed, and you think there may be similar opportunities in other European markets. Is there any other market you could flag in particular? Why do you think the Italian market has moved so much ahead of, let's say, European average in terms of FWA? Is this linked with, I don't know, the quality of the fixed coverage in certain areas or competitive dynamics or, I mean, anything you could share with us that would be helpful. Thank you.
Look, where else this could be deployed, and maybe just referring to public information, no? We've been hearing some initiatives in the U.K. in relation to that. That will be, let's say, an area where we would potentially benefit because we are having presence in the U.K. And in a few other countries also, let's say there is this push for this fix, especially with 5G at 3.5 GHz and with new frequencies like 26 GHz band that may be coming in the future, no? The reason why this is happening in Italy, well, that's a very interesting question.
I think there is probably an entrepreneurial origin in all of that, in order to cover, let's say, areas where the fixed broadband was initially not yet arriving, and that has been endorsed by strong investors, no? All those entrepreneurs around these type of activities. We believe that if you look at the investors behind of those initiatives, those are international players that will also help potentially to spread that type of services beyond Italy and those early initiatives in other countries.
Thanks very much. If I may, have a very quick follow-up. Unfortunately, I missed part of the call, so I may go back to something you have already discussed. Apologies for that. We've seen a big acceleration on your organic growth in terms of PoPs. However, you are reiterating the guidance. I mean, you are not, let's say, improving the guidance. Is this just because you wanna keep some margin of, let's say?
Flexibility. There could be room, let's say, to maybe improve it later on. I mean, shall we expect these improvements in terms of organic growth to continue in the coming quarters? How should we think about it? Again, apologies if you've already discussed this. Thank you.
Not a worry, Giovanni. No, this is What we have highlighted is that this is just a timing effect. In Q2 only, we have seen around 1,000 of new sites being integrated coming from our build-to-suit programs. That is also putting upwards pressure on our organic growth. Also, as we have been mentioning before, out of this 7.5%, around 3.5% is coming from pure co-location. The additional 4%, which is linked to this 1,000 new sites, is coming from build-to-suit, no? Again, it's just an acceleration in the quarter of the build-to-suit efforts. Again, I mean, we are not changing the total scope for obvious reasons of the build-to-suit programs.
In difficult to anticipate future performance. In any case, that's why we want to stick to our medium-term guidance because in terms of co-location generation and in terms of the total scope of the build-to-suit programs that we have on the table, nothing is really changing.
Sure. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question comes from Georgios Ierodiaconou from Citi. Please go ahead.
Thank you for taking my questions. I actually have two follow-ups. The first one is just a follow-up on the question Giovanni asked around the build-to-suit programs. I appreciate you haven't upgraded the midterm guidance. Perhaps you want to confirm expansion of the build-to-suit programs before you do that. Perhaps if I can ask the question a bit differently, is the phasing of the build-to-suit programs different from what you are expecting? Is it more front-end loaded, or are you seeing any, you know, perhaps indications that there may need to be more rollout plans from some of your clients than what you expected six or 12 months ago? The other question is just a clarification on one of your answers earlier to Nick's question around the efficiency programs.
I just want to clarify, when you do approach your partners and agree to more efficiently roll out their networks, am I right in assuming you will still buy two separate sites through the build-to-suit program, but you will coordinate that effort so they are based on the same physical site? Is that the way to think about it? There's still [audio distortion] TSS, but then you get the efficiency from the co-location. Thank you.
Thank you, Georgios. I will maybe start with the first one. I mean, with the information we have today and also maybe looking at the rest of the year 2021, maybe it is true that the progress is a bit more front-loaded compared to the information we had when we provided the mid-term guidance. This is something, this is maybe an effect that we are anticipating for 2021 only. Other than that, let me reiterate that we are not changing the total amount of sites to be deployed. Of course, I mean, we haven't reached any binding agreement to go beyond what we have announced to the market.
If over the course of the conversation that we are having with our clients, we identified that, there is an additional opportunity, of course we will provide that information. As of today, the scope of what we have on the table, the scope of our build-to-suit programs is still the same. It is simply that in the coming quarters, maybe you see an activity a bit more front-loaded than initially expected. Alex Mestre?
Yes. On the build-to-suit, I think on our 2020 results presentation on the annexes, page 29, there was one slide trying to illustrate the different synergies. Because not only is a build-to-suit gain against a build-to-suit that may actually be saved here. It's a build-to-suit against a legacy site that we may be having from a other portfolio, or could be between two legacy sites. In the case of build-to-suit, which, if I understand correctly, this is what you were asking for, we do not build the two sites, and then we do movement of the one of the two sites. We avoid building 1 of the sites. This means there are two type of savings.
First of all, the ground lease of one of the sites, and secondly, the CapEx for building one of the sites. This is the way we approach these, build-to-suit against build-to-suit, synergies, no? I don't know if that helps.
Very clear. Thank you.
Thank you very much. The next question comes from Andrew Lee from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Morning, everyone. I've had two questions. One was a follow-up from the last two questions, just on the underlying organic growth. I get that build-to-suit was responsible for a large chunk of the uplift. If we strip out build-to-suit, the underlying organic growth ex build-to-suit actually improved a bit too. Just wondered if you can make any comments on that and the co-tenancy growth and demand you're seeing. I know that 5G CapEx peak run rate is still a while away, but if you're seeing any kind of change in behavior from operators there will be great. The second question is just on fiber to the tower. No contract signed since the Bouygues one at the start of 2019.
I think you'd mentioned a few months ago that there was chance to maybe sign a contract or two or similar to that, you know, in the coming quarters. Just wondered any progress on that and how we should be thinking about it. Thank you.
Thank you. On your first question, the answer is no, we are not seeing any change in underlying trends. The 7.5% growth is due to a timing effect. We have been integrating build-to-suit sites at a faster speed at least compared to Q1 2021. In terms of pure colocation, new tenants on existing sites, we continue to provide a consistent performance. 3.5% this quarter. This compares to 3.2% in Q1, quite consistent. This is the sort of speed that we are also expecting for the following quarters based on the information that we are receiving from our clients.
In relation to the fiber to the tower, what we perceive, which is happening now in the market, is that the real need for the fiber comes when 5G is massively in usage. Which does not mean that you power up 1 5G site. What we are realizing is that many of the MNOs are still using radio frequency links to power up 1 5G. The fiber may be envisaged in the future because the traffic being generated by this 5G is very small, because the number of handsets yet being available. There are very few handsets yet in the market. Therefore, the traffic that this 5G has to be handled, it's small enough to reuse the backhauling to the tower that was already existing before powering up 1 5G.
What is clear is that at the end, the fiber will be required because the bandwidth when you have all the frequencies per site will require another means of backhauling every site beyond the radio frequency link which is what today is being used . The market is there. What now is being put as priority by the MNOs is just powering up 5G because it's also part of their regulatory obligations and the backhauling will come later on.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. There are no further questions. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. We have reached the end of the conference.
Thank you so much. Take care. Bye-bye.