Digital Colony is buying Eco-Site through its Vertical Bridge investment arm. The deal will take Vertical Bridge’s tower portfolio to over 20,000 sites and its entire portfolio to more than 290,000 sites in the US and Puerto Rico.
Alex Gellman, CEO of Vertical Bridge, said: “Vertical Bridge and Eco-Site share a proven track record of success in build-to-suit, having collectively constructed well over 1,600 new towers in the last five years alone. This is the highest rate of any company in the market, and a testament to our collective capabilities.”
Eco-Site co-founder Dale Carey, who will be executive vice president of strategy and convergence at the expanded company, said: “The wireless sector is significantly different than it was just a few years ago and scale matters more than ever when it comes to being able to meet the evolving needs of our customers.”
The deal comes hours after Digital Colony Brazilian company, Highline do Brasil, said it was to buy another Brazilian tower company, Phoenix Tower do Brasil, from existing owner Blackstone.
That acquisition will add 2,500 new sites to Highline’s existing portfolio of 700 infrastructure assets, to take the total to 3,200, making Highline one of the largest privately-owned tower and small cell companies in Brazil.
Meanwhile the Bloomberg agency has said Digital Colony has formed a partnership with Suresh Sidhu, former CEO of Asian infrastructure company Edotco. Sidhu has set up a Singapore-based operation, Edgepoint Infrastructure, that will invest in existing and new towers in the region.
Bloomberg said, quoting an unnamed source: “Edgepoint could amass 20,000 to 50,000 towers in the next five to seven years, with possible equity capital commitments from Digital Colony and its partners of $1 billion or more.”
