Phoenix Towers International (PTI) has announced this week that it is in exclusive talks to acquire 3,700 towers in France from Bouygues Telecom and SFR's tower JV.

The JV, called Infracos, was put up for sale earlier this year.

Bouygues Telecom and Patrick Drahi-owned SFR each own 50 percent of the stake, which covers 3,700 sites across medium-density areas in France. The duo founded the JV in 2014.

PTI notes that a potential deal would take the company's tower portfolio to nearly 10,000 nationwide sites in France, a country that it first entered in 2020.

Financial terms were not disclosed, though French newspaper Le Monde previously reported that the tower JV would seek between €800 million ($914m) to €1 billion ($1.14bn)

"This transaction would be a natural and exciting next step in our growth trajectory with strong existing partners in a market where we already have an outstanding local team," said Dagan Kasavana, CEO of Phoenix Tower International.

At present, PTI owns and operates approximately 33,000 towers across Europe, the US, Latin America, and the Caribbean.

Earlier this year, Florida-based PTI spent €971m ($1.1bn) to acquire Cellnex's Irish tower unit.

In September 2023, the company 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.

PTI also snapped up 1,300 telecom towers from Liberty Latin America (LLA) for $407m, for sites across Panama, Jamaica, the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, Barbados, and the British Virgin Islands.

A sale for SFR makes sense, given the company is looking to sell its business units in France.

"This joint venture has been an important part of our strategy to invest in and expand very high-quality telecom infrastructure across France," said Olivier Tailfer, executive director, SFR. "Together, from 2014 to today, we've achieved strong results in mobile network deployment. This transition marks the beginning of a new chapter of continued excellence for this part of the network and its users."