Cellnex Telecom Sa Ord

Hello, good afternoon. Welcome everyone to Cellnex Telecom's first half 26 results presentation. I'm Maria Carrapato and it's a pleasure to be with you today again. Before we begin, as usual, I'd like to remind you that this presentation contains forward-looking statements. Please refer to the disclaimer included in the appendix in the slide deck. Marco will open the presentation with the main highlights, Raimon will take you through the financial performance, and then Marco and Simone Battiferri, our COO, will close with some considerations on other industrial and strategic topics that are often raised by the market. With that, let me hand you over to Marco.

Thank you. Thank you, Maria. Good afternoon, everyone. So, before going into the number, let me frame the first half in one sentence. Sunlinks is delivering exactly on the model we described to the market. Predictable organic growth, expanding margins, accelerating free cash flow and tangible shareholder remuneration. Let me highlight the four key messages of the first half. First is that operational momentum remains strong. Organic points of presence growth reached plus 4.9% year-on-year, confirming sustained demand from customers across the entire portfolio. This translated into solid financial performance. Revenues grew by 5%, adjusted EBITDA by 6.4%, EBITDA after leases by 7.7%, recurring level free cash flow by 11%, and recurring level free cash flow per share by 18.1%. From a margin perspective, both EBDA and EBDA after leases margins increased by nearly 200 basis points, reflecting continuing operational efficiencies and land management actions. The second is that free cash flow has entered a new phase, from 19 million in the first half of 2025 to approximately 301 million in the first half of the year. This allows us to reiterate our guidance. Third, we continue to deepen our customer relationship. Sunrise in Switzerland, Vodafone Spain, Telefónica in Spain are all examples of Celnex being selected as a trusted infrastructure partner for network expansion, contract renewal, and network resilience. And fourth, shareholder remuneration, which is delivered as committed. The 500 million dividend has been paid, the 300 million share buyback has been completed, and 11.3 million shares are expected to be canceled during the second part of the year, improving the per share metrics. I'm pleased to share that today our board of directors has approved an additional share buyback program of 200 million euro to be completed until the end of 2026. So overall, the message is clear. Our industrial position is translating into predictable growth, stronger cash, and direct shareholder value creation as promised. With the announcement we are making today of an additional 200 million in share buybacks, the total shareholder remuneration in 2026 will reach 1 billion euros, combining the 500 million of dividends already paid, the 300 million of SBB executed in the first half of the year and the additional 200 million of share buyback just announced. Between 2025 and 2026, we will have returned a total of 2 billion to shareholders between dividends and share buybacks, representing 11% of our current market capitalization. We have no doubt that the share buyback we are announcing is a highly accretive capital allocation decision, driving significant growth in per share returns and long-term value creation for our shareholders. With that, let me hand over to Raimon, who will take you through the financial and operational performance in more detail. Raimon, the floor is yours. Thank you, Marco.

Good afternoon, everyone. Let me start with slide 7, which summarizes the financial performance of the first half on a pro forma organic basis. The key message is simple. Celnex continues to convert predictable top-line growth into higher cash-in revenue per share. Revenue growth was plus 5%, adjusted EBITDA grew by 6.4%, and EBITDA after leases grew by 7.7%. At the cash flow level, recurrent labor free cash flow increased by 11%, while the metric per share grew by 18.1%, reflecting both operational execution and disciplined capital allocation. On the next slide, we show the bridge from reported revenues to organic revenue growth. Starting from the first half 25 revenue base, perimeter adjustments bring us to comparable pro forma base. This results in 2 billion of organic revenues in the first half 26, representing 5% growth year on year, supported by price escalators and continued demand from customers. Moving forward, you can see points of prices continue to show healthy commercial momentum. In absolute terms, second quarter showed strong performance, with more than 2,000 new net pops and positive contributions across our main regions. In the first half, gross pop growth reached 5.7%, while net pop growth was 4.9%. Importantly, this growth comes despite consolidation trends in some markets. Consolidation does not eliminate investment. Healthier operators continues to deploy more capacity, coverage and network quality. This is one of the most important messages from the first half. The need for densification remains strong, and Celnex continue to capture that demand through both colocation and B2S programs. The operational momentum translates directly into tower revenues, as you can see on the current slide. On a pro forma basis, excluding Ireland, tower revenues grew organically by 5.2%. Tower revenues remain the core growth engine of the Group, driven by contracted price escalators, co-location and build-to-suit activity. This is the essence of our business model. Growing coverage, improving densification and leveraging our existing asset base. Moving to slide 11, our other business lines also continue to provide growth upside. Fiber connectivity and housing services grew organically by 7.8%, adjusted for the French data center disposal and supported by the continued rollout of the Nexloop project in France. Thus, small cells and run-as-a-service grew by 4.5% organically, supported by high demand in high-traffic locations, venues and complex indoor environments. Finale broadcasting remained stable, growing by 0.5% organically, continuing to provide a steady and predictable revenue stream. We are providing you practical examples of how our industrial strategy translates into real commercial activity. First in Switzerland, Sunrise and Celnex have extended their long-term strategic partnership through an expanded build-to-suit program covering 300 additional sites. This supports the next phase of Switzerland mobile network evolution and reinforces Celnex's role as a scalable infrastructure provider. Second, in Spain, our legacy Vodafone framework agreement has been renewed for 10 years, covering approximately 2,000 existing PoPs. Importantly, the renewal has been signed on unchanged technical and financial terms, and Celnex will also host a limited number of additional POPs on existing infrastructure. Third, Telefónica and Celnex have extended the backup battery partnership to a total of 3,800 sites, reinforcing network resilience and energy security after the recent blackouts. This reinforces our role as a trusted infrastructure partner and shows how resilience, energy security and network availability are becoming increasingly relevant customer priorities. Beyond our traditional tower business, we are also expanding our presence in dust and neutral host solutions. For example, CELNEX is deploying a multi-operator DAS at the new Valencia football stadium in Spain and expanding neutral host mobile connectivity along the Brighton mainline in the UK. These examples show how CELNEX is actively shaping infrastructure solutions for our customers' needs and their ongoing network investments. Returning to slide 13, operational efficiency continues to be a key lever of value creation for Celnex. On a pro forma basis, cost per tower decreased by 3.3% year on year, maintaining a high level of operational quality across the portfolio. As a result, we continue to expand margins, with EBITDA margin reaching 84.6% and EBITDA margin increasing to 61.8%, the highest level achieved in recent years. This reflects the operating leverage embedded in our business model, the benefits from our efficiency initiatives, and the continued progress of our land management program. In short, we are not only growing revenues and cash flow, we are doing so with greater industrial efficiency, supporting sustainable margin expansion and value creation for shareholders. Next slide shows the cash flow bridge from the first half 26. Starting from a bid after leases, we reach recurrent lever free cash flow of 908 million euros and free cash flow after expansion and B2C capex reaches approximately 301 million euros. The three key drivers behind the result are the solid operating performance, an efficient capital and tax structure supported by optimized cost of debt, and lower B2C capex intensity as the B2C cycle normalizes. On slide 15 shows the free cash flow inflection point where it is clearly visible. Proforma organic recurrent lever free cash flow increased by 11% and recurrent lever free cash flow per share increased by 18.1%. The share buyback program is enhancing per share value creation while the business itself continues to generate stronger underlying cash flows. At the same time, free cash flow increased from approximately 19 million to 301 million in the first half of 26, an increase of approximately 282 million year on year. Free cash flow generation is no longer a future promise, it is happening now and it's accelerating. Our liquidity and funding position remain very strong. At the end of the first half 26, liquidity stood at approximately 5.3 billion, including circa 2 billion of cash and 3.3 billion of undrawn committed credit lines. As such, our 2026 to 2028 maturities are largely funded, giving us flexibility to navigate market windows. With that, let me hand back to Marco to discuss some broader industry dynamics and why they reinforce our confidence in the long-term investment case. Thank you, Raimon.

I would like now to step back from the financial result for a moment and discuss the broader industry backdrop. This matters because our equity story is also about why demand for our infrastructure will remain strong for many years. The next slides address some of the topics investors raise most often. Traffic growth, direct-to-device satellite, Europe's competitiveness and digital sovereignty, and M&O consolidation in France. For us, the conclusion across all four the topics is consistent. Europe needs more infrastructure investment and Celnex is one of the best positioned platforms to capture this investment cycle. The topic is very technical, so my colleague Simone Battiferri, our Chief Operating Officer, is also joining us today. and he will walk you through trends in mobile data growth and explain some fundamental concepts on how to devise satellite connectivity. So, Simone, make it simple, please, and drive us through the mystery of the technical stuff.

Thank you, Marco, and good afternoon, everyone. Well, looking at slide 18, the key message is that we see a clear positive inflection point in mobile data growth. and in fact, it is accelerating again. Global mobile networks data traffic increased by 22% between first quarter 25 and first quarter 26, confirming that demand for mobile capacity continue to expand at a sustained pace. Importantly and curiously, this acceleration is not yet AI driven. Latest industry traffic reports make the point clear. AI applications are still a very small portion of total traffic, let's say low single digit today. And there has not yet been a visible AI-led inflection in mobile uplink trend. The main growth drivers remain video streaming, the expansion of FWA and the increase in penetration of 5G devices. And this matters because Europe is still in the middle of the 5G adoption cycle. 5G enabled devices represent only half of the mobile connection in Western Europe today and adoption is expected to move close to 95% by the end of this decade. Well, the implication is clear. 5G subscribers already consume around three times more than a 4G user on average. And 5G traffic per user is expected to further double in the next few years. So the mods are simple. As the customer base continues to migrate to 5G in the coming years, overall traffic will increase significantly. Underlying consumer behavior is therefore still pointing to analog data growth above 20%. and more network capacity will be required just only to avoid congestion and preserve service quality. At the same time, the natural traffic is changing too. The network is not only being asked to carry more data, but to carry more demanding data. AI-enabled application, real-time collaboration, industrial automation, connected device, future wearables will require networks that are more responsive, more reliable and more available indoor. They will also increase the relevance of uplink capacity, making networks demand progressively more symmetrical than in the past. So mobile networks are entering a new phase. The question is shifting from do I have coverage to do I have guaranteed quality? And quality means higher capacity, stronger indoor performance, more predictable service levels, better reliability, higher uplink capacity and lower latency. The physics of the networks at the end are simple. Carrying more data requires more capacity. More capacity generally means using more spectrum and adding higher frequency. Higher frequencies deliver more bandwidth, but at the same time they propagate over shorter distances, requiring a denser grid of cells. Furthermore, they penetrate buildings less effectively, which makes dedicated indoor coverage increasingly important. The only way to solve that equation is to bring the network physically closer to the user. That means densification, particularly in urban areas that translate in more indoor systems and a larger and more capable infrastructure footprint. So if we go to the slide 19, let me address another topic we are increasingly asked about by our investors, that is the direct device satellite connectivity. Let me start by saying clearly that satellite is a powerful and valuable technology. D2D can play an important role in the broader connectivity ecosystem, especially in remote or under-serviced areas where terrestrial coverage is technically difficult or impossible, or even economically inefficient to deploy. But satellite and terrestrial networks are designed to solve very different problems. Terrestrial networks are optimized for capacity, latency, reliability and indoor performance. Satellite networks are optimized for extending coverage over very large areas. The reason is not only technological, it is physical. A terrestrial network can reuse spectrum every few hundred meters, serving a very large number of users simultaneously with high capacity. A satellite beam on the opposite covers a much larger area, shares capacity across many more users, and has far less ability to reuse spectrum effectively. This is why the average downlink capacity of a satellite D2D connection is today less than 0.1% of a terrestrial mobile network in urban areas and less than 5% in remote locations. Set in practical terms, even when constellations are fully deployed, the service will remain much closer to a 2G-like experience, valuable for essential connectivity, messaging, and potentially basic voice, but not comparable at all to mobile broadband. Distance is another fundamental constraint. A low earth orbit satellite is typical hundreds of kilometers away from a handheld device and sends a vertical signal that in urban and suburban environments must pass through multiple physical obstacles before reaching the user. By contrast, a mobile antenna on a tower is usually a few hundred meters to a few kilometers away and projects a horizontal signal designed to serve users with much higher capacity and better penetration into buildings. This is particularly important because most mobile traffic is generated indoors. We are talking about two-thirds. where satellite signals face a structural limitation. These differences define the role that the right-to-device can play, an excellent complement for coverage but not at all a substitute for terrestrial capacity. So, if you go to summarize the key takeaways in slide 20, first, satellite D2D is fundamentally a coverage solution. Its strongest use case is sustaining basic connectivity to remote or hard-to-reach locations. A clear evidence of these days is the emergency connectivity provided by satellites during the wildfires raging across Spain and France. Second, the capacity gap versus terrestrial network is structural and rooted by physics itself. Satellites are much farther away, beams cover much larger area, spectrum is reused far less efficiently, and signals face more difficult propagation and penetration conditions. So, even if there is a major future technology breakthrough in direct-to-device, the satellite capacity will remain multiple times lower than mobile terrestrial networks. Third, indoor performance remains a fundamental limitation, particularly because most mobile traffic originates indoor. Fourth, handset battery life and antenna constraints create additional challenges for uplink capacity and user experience. So let me say that the conclusion is clear. Satellite-directed device that does not replace the need for microtowers, network densification, or dedicated indoor solution. As mobile traffic growth and quality requirements increase, especially in dense areas, investment in the rest of mobile infrastructure will remain essential. Well, back to you, Marco.

Thank you, Simone, and thank you for these Jumping to the technology, I think you made it simple and clear, so really thank you for your effort. So Europe faces a clear challenge in terms of digital competitiveness. Average mobile download speed in Europe is around 86 megabits per second, materially below North America, China, Korea, Japan. This gap is increasingly recognized as a strategic issue for competitiveness, resilience, and security of our continent. GSMA estimates total mobile investment needs in Europe at around 475 billion euro over the next decade. 270 billion just to maintain the ordinary technology cycle, which explicitly includes densification to improve quality coverage and performance, plus 200 billion more if Europe wants to regain connectivity leadership. I would like to call your attention to yesterday's announcement by AGICOM of the Spectrum renewal public consultation process in Italy and the network performance metric expected from the MNO and please consider that similar regulatory processes are advancing in Portugal and France. The proposed obligations include investment in transport routes, 5G standalone coverage, network resilience and AI-ready networks, all areas that are infrastructure intensive. And we haven't even begun to talk about 6G, which is expected to kick off in 2031 or 2032. This is the core message for investors. cannot close the gap with spectrum alone or in software alone. It needs physical infrastructure, more densification, better resilience, higher quality network. And Cellnex is uniquely positioned to provide efficient, shared and sustainable platform to deploy those networks. Let me finish with France, which is one of the topics that animate quite the discussion around Cellnex. Our view remains constructive. We believe consolidation has the potential to create stronger operators with greater capacity to invest in network quality and infrastructure. As shown on the slide, our direct exposure remains manageable, while the process itself is expected to be lengthy, involving regulatory review, approvals and a very long transition period. And timing is important. Operators are unlikely to make long-term decisions based solely on the network requirements that we see today. By the time the consolidation process is fully completed, traffic volumes, file G penetration, digital user patterns will be significantly different from where they are today, as we already discussed with Simone. In that environment, operators will need better networks, not smaller networks. Over the past decade, France has been adding around 5,000 pops per year, reflecting the industry's ongoing need to invest in network capacity and quality. And despite that level of investment, France still ranks only 21st in Europe and 34th globally in mobile network experience, highlighting the significant room for improvement that still exists. That is why we believe it is important to look beyond the analysis of the respective networks today and focus on the network that operators will need five years from now. Stronger operators with a healthier balance sheet will be better positioned to continue investing, densifying and improving network performance. Our objective is therefore to remain constructive and proactive, working alongside our customers to support that next phase of investment. So if we step back from all these industry trends, the message is remarkably clear. Mobile traffic continues to grow. Europe needs to improve its digital competitiveness. Satellite enhances connectivity but does not replace terrestrial capacity. And market consolidation can create stronger operators with greater ability to invest. When we look across traffic growth, digitalization, AI adoption, network quality requirements and market consolidation, we arrive at the same conclusion. Europe will need more network capacity, more densification and continued infrastructure investment. In short, the future requires better networks, and better networks require more infrastructure. Maria, it has been a little bit longer than usual. Please, I would like to excuse with our investors and analysts, and back to you.

Thank you Marco, Raimon and Simone for very clear explanations. So we're now open to take calls. The first question comes from Andre Kavesek from UBS.

Hi, can you hear me now?

Yes, we can.

Good, thank you. Thank you for the presentation and all the very helpful additional color. I had two questions, please. Both topics that were touched upon. So the first one was on the French deal, just from a regulatory perspective. We now know that this will be analyzed locally. And I was wondering whether from your perspective, there might be any differences to the kind of remedies that you would expect around the investment obligations. And obviously, the reason I'm asking is that while we have some Commentary from the French authorities around the need to improve networks. It is perhaps not as explicit as a policy as it is from the European Commission with the Draghi report. So any implications of the local jurisdiction versus EC in France would be very helpful. And then the second question, Marco, you touched upon this, but the and Simone, I guess, as well. But the AGECOM proposal yesterday where the network obligations are, I guess, very conducive for someone like yourself. So I guess there are two dimensions I would appreciate if you could give us color on. one are the coverage obligations and looking at the targets that you know they set out or AGECOM sets out I was wondering what kind of increase in the number of sites and the physical infrastructure that you were talking about do you reckon is needed to comply with these numbers I believe Inuit suggests something like 20 to 25 percent to reach some kind of you know good coverage in Italy or up to 12 000 sites so is this roughly your estimate as well that Italy should see kind of an increase in the number of towers similar to that and secondly and perhaps more technically the regulator says there will be a minimum download speed requirement of 150 megabits per second you make the point that you know data traffic traffic continues to grow and uh ukla reported median speeds in italy uh and one queue exactly half of this proposed floor so on that one i was wondering how these higher speed requirements could translate into more business for you and again any estimate of of like pop increases uh to get there would be very helpful thank you

Yeah, sure. So on the regulatory France versus Europe, I think that it has been a good decision because I expected that the French regulator will be close to the market, closer to the market, closer to the interest of the French. At the end, when you design a new When you make a new market design, you're asking to a country to renounce to something, which is the competition on the market. So you're making something that is very important. And so the citizens, the nation, the community needs to receive something in exchange. So it's good that the regulator is French, but I'm 100% sure that there will be a super strong bonding and connection and the French regulator and the EU authority. So, ultimately, there will be more or less, it will be more or less the same with, let me say, an easier accessibility of all the parties that are involved vis-à-vis the regulated authority. So, remedies I expect to be the usual ones, the ones that we expect. It's not what, it's the size probably that will be decided by the authority. This brings me to your second question. Your second question is, well, 12,000 new sites is mid-high in my expectation. I would have said 10 to 15. So 12, you are in the mid-high part of Italy of the Italian need. How much coverage or much densification? I think that the coverage has a permitting process way easier, but it has to be thought... I would say with a business model that has to be more convenient for the operator, I would strongly suggest to have more densification, more sharing, more collocation. So this is what is needed. Now, your technical part on the speed. You know that when you move from the current 5G to the 5G standalone, you're not touching just the transmission. The transmission, at the end, is limited by the core network. So now, a good part of the problems in speed, latency and responsiveness of the network depends also on the fact that the core networks of the operators are not designed for the 5G standalone. This is something that most of the mobile operators make very clear every time. My old friend, Pietro Labriola, makes clear every time he has to invest a lot on the core network. Core networks are expensive. Yes, core networks are relatively expensive, not dramatically expensive, a few hundred million euros. But the problem is that it's a few hundred million euros each. So you cannot, it's very difficult to share a core network. So if you can be efficient in towers and in transmission, In transport is less obvious. So if you put in your model something on core network, you don't make a mistake. Hope I answered, Andre.

Very interesting. Thank you.

Okay, so the next question comes from Andrew Lee at Goldman Sachs.

Good evening, everyone. I had two questions. First, I just want to say thanks for the satellite technology articulation around the debate. Obviously, a lot of misunderstanding or lack of understanding there, and I think articulating is really helpful, especially given that I think operators have really struggled to do that, which has not helped the conversation. But moving on, I had two questions. Firstly, I just wanted to ask Have you seen any signs of post-consolidation densification acceleration by operators in Spain and the UK? Obviously, it's a key area of confidence building in the consolidation debate. Do you have any visibility on when this will begin? It doesn't look like it started yet. And then the second question, there was a Press article a week ago suggesting that Cellnex had been examining strategic options including buyouts, large-scale mergers. I just wanted to ask is there any truth to this? Not expecting you to comment on specific examples, but do you think there is a material strategic option available? And in the context of this, just wonder if you could comment on why You chose to buy back shares rather than pay down debt today. Thank you.

Okay, so definitely your two questions are three. Well, Andrew, let's start from consolidation and Spain and UK. In Spain, we started to see something happening. Mass Orange is well advanced in their integration phase. You saw that last year we had a big bulk of their consolidation. In the second part of this year, we will have a second step that we agreed with them, but as before now. They are working on two areas. They are working very seriously on transportation corridors. Transportation Corridors Massoranja is making this as a strategic investment area and they are starting using a small cell way more than what was done in the past, especially in problematic dense urban areas. So this is good because we are working very strictly with them. It's not particularly known, but we are the largest operator in Europe in dust and small cells. So we have a big know-how and in particular our Spanish chapter is possibly the most advanced that we have in the group. UK. UK, unfortunately, it's taking longer than what we expected. So we don't change our view. So the fact that something will happen, I'm totally sure that something will happen, that there will be a need of some thousands of sites that have to be built. both urban and non-urban so we're talking about several thousands of sites that we in our network simulations that we see for the time being different from other markets the carrier neutral model for again transport lines so the Brighton line is something that possibly some of you Thank you very much. Is it something that I expect for 2027? Yes, definitely. On strategic option, I read what my lawyer wrote me. So I stay to my, he's here in the room looking at me. So as a leading European player, it's natural that the company may attract investor interest at current valuation levels. However, we're not familiar with the conversation referred to the article. So, apart of being very well written, you get the sense. Yes, it's convenient, this price for Sednex is the reason why we're making the share buyback. So, your third question is why share buyback and not debt repayment?

Well, you know, our cash generation is doing well.

and we're convinced that we can do well for the entire year and this means that we, as I told, we entered in a different phase in which cash is going to be very evident. We're not changing our overall targets for capital structure but today the share price does not reflect our vision on the intrinsic value of the company. Headwinds are In my view, overestimated in our price and tailwinds that Simone was saying are not included. So the board is convinced that allocating 200 millions to share buyback in this moment generates value to the shareholders, not only in the short term, but most importantly, in the long term. And this is why the moment is correct for doing it now.

Thank you. Very clear.

Okay, so the next question comes from Akhil Datani at JP Morgan.

Hi, good afternoon. Marco, maybe I can start with the shareholder return comments you just made and maybe just ask for a bit more colour. I understand, as you mentioned, it's a reaction to seeing value. but I guess I'd love to understand the general framework you're using in terms of thinking about what you want to do because over the last couple of years we've had a few add-on buy-back decisions that you've taken as you felt it was appropriate if we try and step back and think about the journey going forward can you sort of help us frame how you're likely to approach your decision around buybacks is it going to be opportunistic based on share price is it going to be based on more framework driven decision making so just if you could just elaborate generally how you're thinking about the philosophy of what you're likely to do that would be super helpful and then the second one was the topic you've mentioned around tailwinds You talked a lot about various opportunities. One opportunity you didn't mention, which your USP has talked about a lot, is edge computing. And I'd love to understand what your general thoughts are. I appreciate it's a long term topic, but the US tower codes are already starting to make investments in this space. Do you see it a little bit like small cells where the U.S. pushed hard and ultimately didn't amount to a huge opportunity? And I guess you didn't pursue that at the time. Or is it different this time? Is this something that you similarly also see as being an interesting opportunity for Towers midterm? Cool.

Well, on the philosophy, you remember we made very clear that we have a dividend policy that we're not changing. So our dividend policy is 500 million grow at 7.5% blah blah blah you remember we are delivering we paid the 500 million and you can bet that next year we will do 500 million plus 7.5% second we said the minimum we're going to do is 800 million and the delta between dividends and 800 million is depending on the value creation the value creation is in this moment clearly coming from Share Buy Back. I wouldn't describe this as opportunistic. I would describe it as logic, or if you want, fundamental analysis. So there is a big difference between yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Yesterday we made Share Buy Back because we had some extraordinary disposal. and which make available some extraordinary money that we used. Today we are making a decision that is based on our capacity to generate cash flow which going forward will remain generous and abundant and we said that we will allocate these extra capacity in the way that will generate more value to our shareholders. As of today, the board made the decision that share buyback was the way. So I would say that this is the philosophy. So let's consider what is the value creation, where the value creation comes from. Let's see what are the resources available, structurally available, and let's do it. So on your second question, It's very interesting because Simone and I, we have been discussing this topic not less than five times in the last two weeks. If I look at what has been done today by Look, for example, NVIDIA and Nokia. It's not really an edge computing on a tower. It's an AI integrated equipment with a sort of self-configure or AI driven configuration of the equipment. So it's not really edge computing on the tower. But I'm convinced that... The more we enter into distributed AI, the more a system that brings everything to the center is tremendously inefficient in terms of traffic load. So every time you have to transport a lot of data, that most of the time are useless. So imagine that you need some AI for self-driving vehicles. Do you really need to have data going to US and coming back, or it's better to have some maps on a tower that is 300 meters from you? I think that this is something that can happen, but it's really at the moment a bit unclear how it will happen. and Simone is working very actively. Simone has been in the IT and in the semiconductors for a good part of his career. So we're activating our contact. Just stage one, I think is better understanding. I see an opportunity, but as you said, it's a midterm opportunity more than the short term one. I hope I answered. Yes, that's great. Thank you. Thank you, Akil. See you soon.

Okay, so the next question comes from Rohit Modi at Citibank.

Hi, thank you for taking my questions.

I have two pieces. One is the follow-up on Andrew's question on the article, and I understand you can only talk to some extent on it, but in general, your discussions with private players, how do you see, what are the key constraints that you see in terms of valuation of towers? I mean, apart from rates, is what is going on in Italy and partly in Spain a kind of rippling effect in the way private players see now power covaluations with all the renewal risk and any color around that. And secondly, you mentioned about the cash flow generation was pretty strong in the 1H. Again, looking at the 1H number and the phasing you had in the last two years on your free cash flow and recurring level free cash flow, you are heading kind of towards the upper end of your guidance. is that the kind of ways we should look for the second half and full year and should that be the base for the next year in terms of when you look at you know the guidance range uh thank you good um i'm looking my lawyer for for uh i can't add very much because uh so what i can tell you we trade at 14 times

We trade at 14 times. We trade at more than 10% recurring layer free cash flow per share yield. I think that there are numbers that speak for themselves. We are large. We are diversified. So what I can tell you, honestly, I have very little to add. Cash, Raimon.

Hi, Rohit. Look, during the year 26, as you have seen, we have massively increased the free cash flow. There is a changing point to a situation where we are going to be this year between the 600 and 700 that we gave as a guidance that will grow next year to a level that is from 975 to 1075. We are reiterating our guidance. and we are not expecting any change on that. This year we are on halfway, half the year, halfway in the free cash flow. Second part of the year we will see as the first half some build to suit is still coming. We will still have some of the growth coming from the collocation and all of it will help us achieve the guidance that we have given to the market. We are not giving any short-term guidance or anything similar because we are just expecting to be, as promised, between the 600 and the 700 million.

Got it. Thank you.

Okay, so now moving to the next question. We have Roshan Ranjit at Deutsche Bank.

Great evening everyone. Thank you for the questions. I've got two operational ones actually. Firstly, turning to Spain and the renewal of the framework agreement with Vodafone Spain. So I think the first part, very, very clear renewal of existing POPs under the same conditions. But you've also added additional new POPs. So I just wanted to get a sense of the kind of, I guess, level of discipline in that market. Clearly, you know, one operator has been very Thank you very much. Please. And the second question, again, on the operational side in France. We've seen a pickup in the BTS deployment. It seems quite evenly split between the Bouygues and the SFR build suits. How should we think about that going forward in the context of the kind of ongoing regulatory review? Because I know previously there has been talk about synergies from potentially combining built-to-suits, or is it kind of business as usual in terms of the deployment until we get a bit of news flow through the air or perhaps next year?

Thank you. Thank you, Roshan. So Spain. Goal number one was we had 2,000 POPs, which were secondary POPs that were expiring. We wanted to renew. And our Spanish team has been able to renew at the same terms and conditions we had before. So tick the box that we made another renewal without suffering, which is one of the many headwinds that time to time we had to face. So we continue to renew ordinary course of business. The second part of your question, we have been asked making an analysis if some of our towers could be eligible for hosting antennas from Vodafone. We made a technical analysis, so some towers the answer was yes, some towers the answer was no. and we applied the usual price list so we did not make any special favor and we have been asked to host some hundred antennae. Which is good. Now, to your point, is it something it's new deployment or sorry, I'm not the CTO of Vodafone. And so is it densification? Is it coverage? Is it to say the truth? I don't know. Possibly it's densification. Second, France. Did something change in our B2S program due to the SFR split? Of course, yes. It's obvious. What we are doing is there are areas that are not under discussion. All the non-dense urban zone is coverage. and Coverage is Coverage. If there is not enough network, we build a network and it's good. by the way we continue to insist to the concept of collocation to suit so every time we build a tower we strongly insist to have more than one operator in order to make those networks more efficient first of all for them in order to avoid that those networks becomes way too expensive and in the urban areas of course we are working more prudently We have to avoid to generate new overlaps, even though the consolidation takes time. So there is some business as usual, but business as usual with good common sense. So let's avoid to create today the problem of tomorrow. I think that in this, everybody is well aware. The attitude is constructive. and we have several years of experience with all of them. So we're working well with them. That's great. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, now moving on. The next question comes from Ulrich Rath from Bernstein.

Yeah, thank you very much. I have two questions, please. The first one is on Marco, on the recent interview that sort of popped up on YouTube, you talked about legacy BTS terms that need to be adapted for future BTS. Can you comment on how these terms are changing, such as the one that you're announcing now for Switzerland? If it's not the numbers, it's sort of, you know, which elements of the BTS are you touching? My second question is, could you provide an update on the land management program in terms of how far you are and how it's going? Thank you.

Okay, I answer the first and I leave the land to Raimon. Possibly the Swiss case is not the best example of an innovative contract. The Swiss case is a bit more of the same. We had a program with our client. We expanded the program. Please keep in mind that building new sites in Switzerland is quite complex because of permitting. It's one of the countries with the most severe legislation both on permitting and in radio electromagnetic emission limits. So it is a bit more of the same, even though please remember that the Swiss market is really a very solid one because of its structure. So when I say that going forward we should imagine something different is yesterday the bill to suit were a sort of a forward execution of an M&A. So you were taking the M&A, I buy a part of the portfolio which is an existing portfolio and then I buy a part of the portfolio which is a forward delivery of the same conditions. Which means that the same conditions were the conditions of a world that does not exist any longer. Rates are different, conditions are different, etc. So what I assume, I assume first that towers should be built by design multi-tenant. Every time we go somewhere, we have to make the question day one, how can we make it multi-tenant? And this can allow to have two semi-anchor fee. You should imagine something between a full anchor fee and a full second fee, second tenant fee, which will be convenient for both at the end. and it will be convenient because you build day one the tower optimized for multiple tenants so with the structural exercise the structural engineering that is okay with the energy which is good so you have not to go there twice so you save a lot of money then possibly if I make something like this by design I can buy the land by design and if I buy the land by design possibly we can share part of the benefit because this is something that's all in all I think that the European case suffered a bit of over financial engineering and today we are telecom engineers and Telecom Engineers work a little bit different, work more on the cost and the value that we are transferring to our clients. So proximity to the clients, making the network not too expensive, sharing the synergy, sharing the savings that we make, And we are making incredible work on AI applications for infrastructure. Of course, we are specialized infrastructure, so we invest. That's it.

So, yeah, on the land will reach. Basically, as you know, we launched in the year 24 the concept of Zelland. It was an entity to be able to accelerate the acquisition of land, but as well the cash advances on mainly rooftops in order to achieve an improvement of their efficiencies. This year, our cost per tower has been improving month after month. The efficiencies that we have achieved so far this year offset and are a bit higher even than the increase on CPI. That is our target, always trying to offset the increase on CPI. Although you will have seen in the numbers in the free cash flow that the efficiency capex and the land acquisition capex is a bit below last year, it remains more or less in line and we're expecting like last year a bit of acceleration in the second half of the year. We have already acquired more than 700 sites this year, more than 1000 sites where we have done cash advances and we continue with the same rhythm. And the returns that we're getting are very much in line with what we had last year. The only thing is that, as Marco has mentioned before, we are being a bit more careful on some places. For example, in France today, we're looking at the consolidation potential effects to make sure that we buy the site that makes sense buying and we avoid buying sites that can generate a problem for tomorrow. But so far the program continues working extremely well and we are not expecting any change rather than accelerating on the second half.

That's great, thank you very much.

Okay, now over to James Ratzer from New Street Research.

Yes, thank you very much indeed, good evening. So two questions please, the first one Marcos, we've kind of talked a lot through the presentation about kind of technological drivers helping to support your growth, whether it's kind of 6G or FWA, more transport connectivity, just kind of growing usage. And then obviously today you've announced the deal with Sunrise and we have the AG Comm announcement yesterday. And other drivers as well. I mean, when I take that all together, How do you then actually think about what your organic tenancy growth will do over the next, let's say, kind of three, five, eight years? You're currently growing your organic pops at around 5% year on year. I mean, do you think that rate of growth is sustainable at that level for the foreseeable future? Just love to get your thoughts on putting all these drivers together. What it means for overall pop growth. And then the second question I had was just would love it if you could just kind of dig in a bit further on the answer you gave earlier around Spain to make sure I understand this correctly. It sounds like on the new tenancies you've signed with Vodafone, were they approaching you to ask you for a much bigger kind of potential portfolio of additions? Your pricing was suitably high that you only managed to agree on a few hundred. I would love you to expand on that answer you gave a bit earlier to kind of understand the process by which those few hundred new sites were agreed on in the Vodafone Spain contract. Thank you.

Yeah. On the technological drivers, You have to split it in two. One is increased co-location. Increased co-location, if you want to really to understand increased co-location, first of all, you have to split between towers and rooftops. And when you split between towers and rooftops, you have to split once again between urban and non-urban. On a tower, the tendency can be way more than two. because you can go with two tenants plus an FWA plus some other dishes. You can put a lot of things. When you are in a dense urban area and you have a rooftop, going above one, it really depends where you are. If you are close to the center of Paris, it's possible that the mayor does not give you the authorizations. So all in all, our portfolio, if you take mature countries, which are the countries in which we've been able to grow since more time, Spain, Italy, et cetera, the overall blended goes in the direction of slightly above two. If you take communities above two, if you take mature tower operator, they tend to go above two, which means that on tower you are well above two. and on a rooftop you are in 1.5, 1.6 etc. What makes the difference is the price mix because today we have a price mix in which there is a big difference between an anchor, a second and a run sharing. So going forward the densification doesn't bring the same effect of new network creation. The economic impact is the economic impact of a second or a grand sharing. And then you have the future need of further network creation. There will be further network creation. As I was saying one second ago, the business model possibly will be different, but there will be still to build more towers. And I would say that possibly another exercise will be proactively dismantle some towers. This is going to be an exercise that I see coming. So if I can proactively make some network rationalization, These can drive efficiency that can be shared between the tower operator and the MNO, which once again reduces the appetite for making something bold because we feed them with the savings that we can make for them. Is it a 5% growth sustainable eight years from now? Only God knows. I would say that a 5% pop growth possibly at eight years from now possibly is a bit generous, but it will very much depend on how much network creation we will have. because I don't think it's gonna be zero. So this is the big mistake is that people believes that we have already too many towers and this is wrong. Spain, let me try to put a little bit of order. Did we make special prices for the, or eventually higher prices for new location? Absolutely not. So we have a price scheme that is the same that we apply for second tenant. By the way, we apply to Vodafone the same as we apply to others. So we don't privilege and we don't penalize. Of course, what makes the difference is that if... In order to host a new antenna, I have to rebuild the tower because I have to make so much capex to strengthen the tower that is an absurd. It's a little bit difficult. So the first exercise is if I can materially host you in the place where you're interested, because by the way, you're not interested in every tower I have in my portfolio. We have been asked for a certain list of towers and we answered which of those lists of towers could be eligible, easy, not easy, dramatic. Is it densification? As far as we understand, there is a bit of everything. But this has been the process. So we don't add the specific capex which is not the tower reinforcement. We don't pay for the antenna movement in case there is a movement of an antenna. So it's really business as usual and I think it's a good contract for our client. The price we made for them is a very good second tenant contract because unfortunately in Spain prices for second tenancies are a little bit lower than what I would like to have.

That's great. So you wouldn't expect any further announcement with Vodafone Spain at all over the next year or two as they resolve their issue with Vantage. You think your agreement with them is now finished?

As far as we have interacted with them, this is what they told us. Then if they will approach us again for having more, happy to serve my clients. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, so the next question comes from Arnaud Camus from Bestinver.

Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. On network resilience, Could you provide more details on the 15-20 years life protection solution offered to telecom operators and including the recurring revenue profile and unit economics? And is it fair to assume the opportunity is greater in the UK and France? And the second one, given the recent geopolitical context and the growing use of drones in modern warfare, how significant an opportunity could this become for CELNEX? Okay.

So when you refer to Network Resilience Services, I suppose we are referring to Energy Resilience Services, which is the batteries, to give the vulgar name. So we buy the batteries at pan-European level. So these allow us to have better prices and better conditions. Better conditions means that we have guaranteed the life of those batteries for a material number of years that we are extending. Now we are depending on the supplier between 12 and 15 years. Is it good? It's super good because of course, if we put the battery, you have to imagine that those batteries can stay indoor or outdoor. Of course, the life of a battery which stays indoor is longer than the life of a battery which stays outdoor because of the obvious conditions. Even if they don't burn, in any case, there are weather, atmospheric elements that shorten the life. This is important because when we make the agreement with the MNO, the agreement with the MNO has the duration of the underlying contract that we have for the tenancy. So if I have a 15-year contract, I have to provide the batteries for 15 years. So it's important that we have... Guaranteed behind us that after seven years I have not to remake another cycle of investment because otherwise the business case basically doesn't work. Some economics we make more or less with Total is a sort of 5 to 6 million a year in this moment with our client, which if you look, it means that good for them, good for us. Of course, this includes also all the maintenance services that are on us. So it's turnkey. So the client has not to worry about nothing because we do everything. Is this potential big? Yes, I think it is. Of course, Spain started first. Why? Because they had the blackout. By the way, now Spain is, we created Iberia and Portugal had the same problem as Spain when there was the blackout. So people started to be sensitive. But I think that this is becoming more a topic, a trend, a European trend that resilience. I see two big trends. One is sovereignty. and the other is resilience. On sovereignty, I can do nothing because honestly the batteries, you can have all the fantasy you want and then you go, you end buying in the same place. On resilience, we can do a lot. Defense, can be defense, can the tower be used for defense? Well, defense are big, big budget. And most of the time, when you talk about defense, the problem is not the budget, the problem is the solution. What is the solution? We are not a company which makes anti-drone systems. We don't make anti-drone systems. We have good IT, but our IT makes towers. It doesn't make anti-drone systems. Of course, a tower can host, and so to your question, what is it? It's a collocation, and it's a collocation of a pop. Then, which kind of a pop is it, and who is the client? It's more or less the same animal of a client that is not an MNO. That's it. So, we don't do more than this, and our business model is not different from a usual pop collocation.

Okay, so we've got another few questions. I'm conscious of the time already, so let's try and rush through now. It's Fabio Pavan now from Mediabanca. Or maybe not.

Yes, hi. Can you hear me? Well, thank you for the presentation. I think it is interesting to have it today and I was wondering if you can help me in reconciling What we just discussed about this need for specification to support all these data center planning, AI spending capacity, with the news we had today with Europe launching the 30 billion plan for gigafactories, how we could think about Digital Network to be involved because I think this is clearly needed. So I wanted to have your view on this. Thank you.

So let me make two points. One is one of our peers invested in a big data center, one of our US peers. Of course, this is giving them a very good growth, but it's draining an enormous, gigantic amount of capex. And this is one piece of the answer. The second piece of the answer is that it requires a huge expertise and know-how. and I love my engineers, but they are telecom engineers and not data center engineers. And we don't have this kind of know-how. So we decided that investing on scale, on gigafactories, on data center, et cetera, is not for us. This is why we sold our data center in Spain. This is why our Proxy of a data center in France have been sold. And this is why we're not going to put our fingers in big data center projects. There are very good specialized companies and we leave to them. Second is somehow what was the question from Akil? So where the data center ends? So there is a portion of the data center which can stay at the foothold of a tower. Fabio, I'm listening this story since not less than five years. And I saw some of those, I don't know how to call them, remote data center. And at the end, never happened on scale today. But then the point that Achille is making is sometime it's just too early. Some time what is not working yesterday, what was not working yesterday, it was just because it was too early. So is it tomorrow the day that this will happen? We are super active in the technological space. You know me since ever. You know Simone, we are both tech geek, very curious. So we monitor these and believe me that if there will be an opportunity, it will be there.

Okay, so moving on. The next question comes from Fernando Abril Alantra. From Alantra, sorry.

Hi, thank you for taking my questions. Two very quick ones. First, so you targeted five to six times leverage back at the CMD. So where do you want leverage to be at things standing today? Where do you want leverage to be at the end of the decade? Low, upper end, somewhere else. And linked to this, because obviously this is the other part of the equation, can we assume that you distributed 1 billion last year, 1 billion this year? Should we assume 1 billion as the shareholder return floor for the next years with obviously the committed dividends and on top dividends or buybacks, depending on the share price? So should we assume 1 billion as the new floor? Thank you.

Okay, so leverage. We're going to be between five and six at the end of the decade. Sorry, it seems to be a little bit of a stupid answer. But it will really depend on the conditions on the market. If the market we see with structural tensions, and let me underline structural, because what we see today is a crisis that is driven by energy. because of a war that we all hope that will not last long. So structurally, we don't see high interest rates long term. So we don't see the need to explore the bottom part of the range. But if you ask me about end of the decade, I honestly don't know. We will be coherently in the range between five and six, depending on the structural conditions on the market. Very good question on the floor. It's a mixed answer. I mean, is it a new floor? No, it's not a new floor. It's the demonstration that when we said that everything that is made available Thank you very much.

Okay, so now last two questions. First coming from Abhilash Mahatra at Exxon BNP.

Hey, hi, good evening. Thanks for taking my questions. And thank you, obviously, for all the details, Q&A and thoughts. I just had a couple of questions on the Q2 results themselves. Firstly, just on slide nine, where you show your net co-location growth in, you know, nice pickup in Italy and Spain. If you look at the growth on an equivalent basis, it's about a third of the total number. So should we just assume that Spain growth is mainly DigiRAN sharing pops and Italy is IoT? And then the second question, just on the cash flow this quarter, quite a strong positive working capital contribution. Just be interested to hear your thoughts on how you expect that to evolve. on a full year basis. Is it still a sort of neutral contribution or do you expect this to remain positive? Thank you.

Okay. So, no, Italy is not IoT. Italy, there was some run sharing and the rest was second tenant. The number of built-to-suit is relatively modest in Italy. and in Spain is Digi. So the majority is run sharing. Then we are moving towers for Mass Orange. Net-net when I move from A to B still remains one. Sometime moving one you generate the need of another one. So we have some mild growth, but we have some growth. So Spain is DG plus Mass Orange, Telefonica not that much, Vodafone for the time being no, but let's see going forward. Italy has been some run sharing and some run sharing. Very interesting. Some run sharing of who? Some run sharing of Vodafone Fastweb. So Vodafone Fastweb, who had a run sharing agreement with Wind, is still making, adding some run sharing pop. And this tells you that Swisscom is used to a network quality. whose KPI are not the same KPI of Vodafone Italy and so they wanted to improve the network quality. So that's super interesting. It's something that honestly a bit surprised us. So I have next to me the king of the working capital. So Raimon, please.

So on the working capital, Avilash, basically, as you have seen, the second quarter we have been improving following a similar trend to what happened last year. We had a first quarter with a negative working capital, second quarter improving the working capital. There are a couple of things there. First, there is some seasonality. We have some contracts that have different payment terms. Some of them get paid end of quarter, some get paid at the beginning of the next. So that always plays. But it's true that we have been improving working capital year after year. We're having a working capital closer to the 8-9% on sales. We are now closer to the 6-7% on sales. We expect to keep on improving. We still have some room for improvement, both on the receivables, but also on the supplier side. There is a continuous improvement plan and we expect that it will keep on improving. But it's true that the more that we make it more efficient, the more difficult it is to keep on having a big improvement. As you know, we always say that working capital tends more or less to zero, so trying to make sure that any growth that we have that has an impact on working capital can be made more efficient and get back to zero.

That's great, thank you very much.

Okay, so the last question from Fernando Cardero at Banco Santander.

Hello, and thanks for taking my only question. It is quite a follow-up on the former tenancy ratio question, but with a different scope, more on the short and medium term. As we are approaching to the end of the B2S program, it is clear the impact in cash flow, but also I would like to understand the impact in organic growth. Or in other words, at which extent the B2S program fadeaway should be a positive driver for the pure colocation growth. Thank you. If you look today the 5% and you split the 5% between CPI collocation and built-to-suit, you have a sort of a 3% from CPI plus collocation, a little bit more.

and you have a sort of a 2% from B2S. Now, big numbers. If you take this trend, you see that we are investing less in B2S, so this contribution from B2S is progressively reducing. And this is also the reason why we were growing at 6%, we're growing at 5%. Now, the question is, Should we imagine a bill to shoot down to zero? The answer is no, we should not expect down to zero. Should we expect it down to the huge numbers we had in the past? No, it's not going to be like this. So possibly, of course, our effort will be to push our machine in order to make more collocation. We have several countries in which we can do more. and so we have to make a little bit better if the contribution from B2S will decrease, but some network creation, I think it will be more selective, it will be with a different contract, et cetera, et cetera, but some network creation will remain. So you have not to factor The three becomes five and the two becomes zero. The three will grow a little bit and the two will decrease, but it's not going to go to zero. I hope I gave you help. Absolutely. Many thanks, Marco. Thank you. So it was the last one. So before passing to Maria, Please let me thank all of you for your time, for the participation and have a super good and joyful summer vacation.

Thank you, Marco. And as usual, if you'd like a need to follow up with any questions, you know where we are in the IR team. We've also purposely left a slide being projected, which gives you a link to many documents that we've been posting on the website. So please take a look because there's quite a lot of information which could help further understand the equity story. And I reiterate Marco's words. Have a lovely summer holiday.