Crown Castle Considers Future of Australian Operations

The wireless tower operator, Crown Castle International says that it has commenced an evaluation of strategic alternatives for its investment in Crown Castle Australia ("CC Australia"), which may directly or indirectly include a leveraged recapitalization or a sale of part or all of its interests in a transaction involving an Australian initial public offering or a private sale. CC Australia is the largest independent tower operator in Australia with 1,387 towers, which were primarily acquired from Vodafone Australia and Cable and Wireless Optus in 2001 and 2000, respectively. Crown Castle owns 77.6% of CC Australia.

UBS Investment Bank has been engaged to act as the advisor for this review.

Crown Castle International Corp. engineers, deploys, owns and operates technologically advanced shared wireless infrastructure, including extensive networks of towers. Crown Castle offers significant wireless communications coverage to 76 of the top 100 United States markets and to substantially all of the Australian population. Crown Castle owns, operates and manages over 11,000 and 1,300 wireless communication sites in the U.S. and Australia, respectively."

Posted to the site on 5th October 2005