Cellnex has raised €7.7 billion from selling equity in the last two years.
Earlier this week, the Spanish infrastrastructure investor sold shares to raise a further €9 billion, to cover new acquisitions in Poland (from Play and Polkomtel) and France (Altice).
This appears to be its business model – to keep buying which pushes up the share price which can be leveraged to sell more shares to fund more acquisitions.
Cellnex’s share price is not rising as fast as it was although its CEO Tobias Martinez has said he expects the company, counting what it is committed to already, will €18 billion by the end of next year.
Cellnex’s income is from very low growth mobile operators – its promise to investors is long term, inflation-proof returns.
Yet the company’s invested capital has increased four-fold since 2017. Bloomberg notes that last year the return on invested capital was barely above zero.
The Financial Times [subscription needed] recommends that Cellnex should stop selling shares and improve returns for investors.