Telecoms

We advised Colohouse, a leading player in the.... Read more

We advised Colohouse, a leading player in the colocation, cloud, hosting, and network services sector, on its acquisition of Hivelocity, a leading provider of bare metal hosting.

The acquisition elevates Colohouse's service offerings, addressing customer demand with enhanced automation capabilities.

Lawyers in our Northern Virginia office led the transaction, with support from our Brussels, Denver, Los Angeles, New York, and Washington, D.C. offices and our antitrust, banking, employment, intellectual property, international trade, real estate, and tax practices.

We advised Pantheon, a global asset manager, as.... Read more

We advised Pantheon, a global asset manager, as co-lead investor on its investment in eStruxture Data Centers, the largest Canadian data center platform.

The co-investment was part of an overall CAD$1.8 billion transaction led by Fengate Asset Management and is the most significant investment ever made in the Canadian data center sector.

Lawyers in our Northern Virginia office led the transaction, with support from our Baltimore, New York, and Washington, D.C. offices and our antitrust, employment, litigation, private equity, tax, and white collar practices.

We advised a consortium of European infrastructure.... Read more

We advised a consortium of European infrastructure investment firms, including Vauban Infrastructure Partners, EDF Invest, and MEAG, on its €803 million acquisition of OnTower Austria, the largest independent TowerCo in Austria.

OnTower Austria owns and operates around 4,600 ground and rooftop telecommunications towers, providing mobile coverage to businesses and communities across the country.

Lawyers in our London and Paris offices led the transaction, with support from our Frankfurt office and our banking and private equity practices.

We advised Vodafone on its strategic partnership and... Read more

We advised Vodafone on its strategic partnership and joint venture with Accenture for commercialization of telecoms shared services through Vodafone Intelligent Solutions and on its creation of a standalone IoT business.

Vodafone is a leading global telecoms company, providing mobile and fixed services to over 330 million customers.

Lawyers in our London office led these transactions with support from our offices in Amsterdam, Brussels, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Madrid, Milan, Munich, New York, Rome, Tokyo and Washington DC offices and our antitrust, capital markets, employment, intellectual property, international arbitration, litigation, strategic operations and tax practices. 

Sector performance

2024 was a strong year for telecoms M&A activity, with deal value in the sector rebounding after a slow 2023. Consolidation was a key theme, with several significant mergers announced in Europe and the United States.

As in previous years, many telecoms companies looked to expand and move into adjacent sectors to augment long-term capabilities, while financial and infrastructure investors acquired data centers and tower assets. Portfolio optimization drove deal activity in the sector and is likely to lead to further M&A opportunities for telecoms businesses in 2025, especially those focused on fiber assets, satellites, and data centers.


Hogan Lovells activities

In 2024, our Telecoms team advised clients across the carrier, fiber, infrastructure, and tower sectors. We engaged with industry leaders at major global conferences, including CES, London Tech Week, and the annual Mobile World Congress events in Barcelona and Las Vegas. In partnership with Space and Satellite Professionals International, we hosted events exploring the UK commercial space sector and strategies for mitigating orbital debris.

Our thought leadership covered hot topics such as telecoms infrastructure, AI, standard essential patents, data centers, and net neutrality. The annual Winnik International Tech & Telecom Forum, our flagship telecoms event, focused on geopolitical risk and investment in the sector, featuring panels on the impact of high-profile global elections, online safety, AI, and evolving regulatory challenges.

Hogan Lovells has...a deep bench of very experienced attorneys who know the [telecoms] industry, regulations, and regulators.”

Legal 500 US, 2024

350+

Telecoms lawyers

Tier 1

Telecoms and
Broadcast: Transactions
Legal 500 US, 2024

Four Pillars of our M&A Group

Technical excellence

Executing transactions effectively

Sector knowledge

Understanding issues in regulated industries

Global reach

Worldwide scope, local know-how

Full-service capabilities

Subject matter experience

M&A Year in Review

Expander

Dear Clients and Friends,

Welcome to the 2024 edition of our Hogan Lovells M&A Year in Review!

Each year, we publish the M&A Year in Review to express our gratitude to you — our clients and friends — for the opportunity to work together and for the successes we have shared. We hope you enjoy our review of dealmaking in 2024 and our outlook for M&A in 2025.

During 2024, M&A transaction values increased across the world, recovering from their decade-low levels in 2023, to reach an aggregate deal value of approximately US$3.5 trillion. These increases were attributable largely to a 25% rise in sponsor-related dealmaking and a return of megadeals. 

M&A transaction volumes improved during the third and fourth quarters of the year, following a lackluster first half of the year. This resulted in an annual global increase of 1.5%, even amidst a 3% decline in the United States.

Across sectors, technology M&A reasserted itself as the market leader by value and volume in 2024, rebounding from 2023 lows as investor demand for AI, digital innovation, and machine learning increased.

Our M&A Group is grateful to have worked with you over the course of the past year. Your transactions propelled Hogan Lovells to more than 30 M&A league table rankings worldwide, including top rankings for Global M&A and across Europe, France, Germany, Italy, the Nordics, Spain, the United Kingdom, Canada, Latin America, Asia Pacific, and China.

We enter 2025 with measured optimism for substantial M&A activity, based upon strong corporate fundamentals for strategics, significant capital held by sponsors, and reduced regulatory intervention, and in anticipation of compromises to be reached across the economic and diplomatic policies of new administrations. Our perspectives are set forth within our 2025 M&A Outlook here.

We appreciate the trust that you continue to place in us, and we look forward to supporting you on your M&A transactions in the year ahead.

Best wishes for continuing success in 2025,

The Hogan Lovells M&A Group