nTelos Wireless today announced plans to sell most of its remaining owned towers to an affiliate of Grain Management.
nTelos will make $41 million off the sale of up to 103 towers in its Western markets. The regional carrier will then turn around and lease capacity from Grain.
The deal is expected to close in multiple installments throughout 2015.
“Today’s announcement of an agreement to sell these towers reflects an opportunistic sale of non-strategic assets and is consistent with our previously stated strategic objectives,” nTelos Chairman Michael A. Huber said in a statement. “We expect the proceeds from the sale will enhance our financial flexibility to continue executing our strategic refocus on our Western Markets.”
In December 2014 nTelos announced it would wind down operations in its Eastern Virginia markets and sell its 1900 MHz PCS spectrum for $56 million to T-Mobile. The carrier is now focusing on its Western markets.
nTelos is a wholesale partner of Sprint’s and in May of last year the regional carrier extended by 10 years its Strategic Network Alliance with Sprint.
In addition to today’s announcement of the tower sales, nTelos also disclosed some subscriber numbers. At end of the fourth quarter the carrier had more than 282,000 total subscribers, up from 273,600 in the year-ago quarter.