Major international groups continue to pour money into the telecom tower segment in Latin America through stake purchases and asset acquisitions, indicating that the consolidation in the segment is showing no sign of slowing down anytime soon. In a somewhat surprising move to more established rivals, Nigeria-based IHS Towers inked a deal to buy 2,115 Brazilian towers belonging to São Paulo Cinco Locação de Torres (SP5), a portfolio company of Grupo Torresur. The purchase price, on a cash and debt-free basis, was set at US$315mn. Following the approval of the deal, IHS Towers said it will own approximately 7,000 towers in Brazil, in addition to the secondary fiber network covering approximately 6.4mn homes passed that it currently operates, making it the third largest tower company in the country.
With the new acquisition, IHS pushes the Highline group down to fourth position in the Brazilian market in terms of total towers. At present, American Tower Corporation has over 20,000 towers. SBA Communications 10,200 and Torresur around 6,000, but with part of these already divested. Digital Bridge’s Highline, in turn, ended 2021 with a total of 5,392 towers in Brazil. In another recent deal, New York-based Blackstone purchased a 35% stake in Phoenix Tower International (PTI) from Manulife Investment Management through its Blackstone Infrastructure Partners fund. Founded in 2013, PTI owns and operates over 14,000 towers and other wireless infrastructure and related sites across 18 countries in the Americas and Europe. The investment is aimed at supporting PTI’s growth and expansion in those markets.