Ireland’s Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) has cleared Cellnex's €971m ($1bn) tower sale to Phoenix Tower International (PTI).

Following an investigation into the deal, which was announced last year, the CCPC has cleared the transaction subject to legally binding commitments.

As part of the planned acquisition, PTI will snap up around 1,900 towers from Cellnex, which has sold a number of its assets in recent years.

Spanish infrastructure company Cellnex has been operating in Ireland since 2019, after it acquired tower operator Cignal.

The CCPC noted that it found potential competition concerns during its investigation into the deal, in relation "to the supply of hosting services on macro passive network infrastructure sites in the State."

One of its concerns was around an "increase in market concentration through the loss of close competition between Phoenix and Cellnex resulting in higher prices and/or lower service quality for their customers and, ultimately, end users of mobile networks."

According to the CCPC, Phoenix has agreed to a number of binding commitments to the CCPC.

Included is the "divestment of sites in areas where the effect of the transaction would be to reduce the number of competitors offering hosting services on macro passive infrastructure from three to two or from two to one."

On top of this, the agreement includes a provision to "divest new sites to be developed within the same areas, where the new sites are part of an existing agreement between the merging parties and a mobile network operator."

The CCPC notes that the commitments will allow competitors to enter or expand in the market, and replace any lost competition due to the merger.

Cellnex is slimming down, PTI fattening up

Cellnex has sold a number of its assets in the last couple of years, including its private networks business to Boldyn Networks.

The firm completed the sale of its Austrian unit to a consortium comprised of Vauban Infrastructure Partners, EDF Invest, and MEAG for €803 million ($828m) at the end of last year.

Last month, reports also suggested Cellnex was looking to shift its Swiss unit.

Going back to September 2023, Cellnex also agreed on a deal to sell a 49 percent stake in its Sweden and Denmark subsidiaries to Stonepeak for €730 million ($753m). Cellnex entered the markets after buying CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd.’s European towers in 2021.

In 2023, Florida-based PTI acquired almost 2,000 more urban sites in France following the closing of two deals and separately entered an agreement to enter the German market.

The company also acquired 1,300 telecom towers from Liberty Latin America (LLA) for $407 million, for sites across Panama, Jamaica, the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, Barbados, and the British Virgin Islands.

The TowerCo operates over 29,000 telecom towers across Europe, the US, Latin America, and the Caribbean.

In August, PTI struck a deal with Iliad to build up to 1,900 new telecom towers for the telco in Italy.