Macquarie may bid for tower firm

SYDNEY - TDF, a French owner of television and radio broadcast towers, is up for sale and may draw an offer from a fund managed by Australia's Macquarie Bank, sources say.

They said Macquarie Communications Infrastructure Group might lead an offer for the Paris-based company. TDF, whose controlling shareholder is Charterhouse Capital Partners, will send potential buyers sale documents as early as next month. TDF may be valued at as much as €5 billion ($10.2 billion) including debt and equity.

TDF has more than 7500 towers across Europe and had sales of €954 million in 2005. Buyers of infrastructure assets typically use them as a steady source of cash to pay dividends and finance debt.

Sydney-based Macquarie Communications led a group that bought NTL's UK towers for £1.27 billion in 2004.

It bid unsuccessfully for control of Hungarian broadcaster Antenna Hungaria Rt in 2005.

"TDF would be desirable for the predictability of its cash flows," said Nicolas von Stackelberg, a technology analyst at Sal Oppenheim Jr & Cie in Frankfurt. "Investors are swimming in cash and find it increasingly difficult to identify suitable targets."

Charterhouse Capital Partners, a London-based buyout firm, and Caisse des Depots et Consignations own about 85 per cent of TDF. CDC Entreprises Equity Capital owns 14 per cent and company's employees hold 1 per cent.

TDF, with transmission assets in France, Spain, Finland, Poland, Estonia and Monaco, may also attract offers from other private equity firms. The company also develops multimedia services such as broadcasting over the internet.

"As with all acquisition transactions the market will be looking at the quality and pricing of any deal to assess its merit," said Angus Gluskie at White Funds Management.

Sydney-based Macquarie Bank is the world's largest manager of infrastructure assets, with A$140 billion ($171 billion) under management.

Macquarie Communications controls Broadcast Australia, which owns and operates a broadcast transmission network, providing transmission services to the Australian Broadcasting Corp, Special Broadcasting Service and other regional network services.

Charterhouse bought control of France Telecom SA's TDF broadcasting unit in 2002 with its French partners CDC Entreprises and Caisse des Depots et Consignations.

Charterhouse invested about €241.5 million from its own fund to buy TDF in a deal that valued the broadcaster at €2.5 billion.

France Telecom sold its remaining stake in TDF to the shareholders in 2005.

- BLOOMBERG