Virgin Media O2 has reportedly agreed to sell an eight percent stake in Britain’s biggest mobile tower network, Cornerstone (CTIL).

As reported by the Financial Times, the UK carrier has agreed to sell the stake to infrastructure investor Equitix for an estimated value of around £150m ($197m) to £160m ($210m).

Cornerstone is the UK's largest tower infrastructure company, with 20,000 masts across rural and urban locations. The company has committed to expanding this with a further 1,200 new sites by 2025.

Virgin Media O2, owned by Liberty Global and Telefónica after a merger between Virgin Media and O2 in 2021, owns half of Cornerstone, which maintains and operates its mobile infrastructure in the UK.

The other half of the tower firm is owned by Vodafone-backed Vantage Towers. Both Virgin Media O2 and Vodafone use the sites.

Last year, Virgin Media O2 agreed to sell a 16.7 percent stake in CTIL to GLIL Infrastructure LLP for £360 million ($473m).

At present, Virgin Media O2 owns around a third of CTIL, while Vantage Towers owns 50 percent. Virgin Media O2 will retain a stake in the business of more than 25 percent.

Several carriers have sought to sell stakes in their telecom infrastructure or spin off the assets entirely in order to ease debt and free up capital to fund their network rollouts.

In July, Vodafone sold another 10 percent stake in its own tower business, Vantage Towers, for €1.3 billion ($1.44bn).