American Tower has taken its portfolio of sites to more than 61,000 after completing the purchase of Global Tower Partners (GTP) for an enterprise value of US$4.8bn.
It acquired 100% of GTP’s parent – private real estate investment trust MIP Tower…
American Tower has taken its portfolio of sites to more than 61,000 after completing the purchase of Global Tower Partners (GTP) for an enterprise value of US$4.8bn.
It acquired 100% of GTP’s parent – private real estate investment trust MIP Tower Holdings – from Macquarie Infrastructure Partners and its minority partners, Dutch pension fund manager PGGM and GTP’s management.
American Tower assumed GTP’s US$1.5bn debt pile and paid US$3.3bn in cash. It used its revolvers to pay US$2.8bn of the cash consideration and made up the remaining US$500m using cash on hand.
American Tower said that now the deal has closed it has total liquidity of US$1.9bn, which includes cash on hand and remaining capacity under its existing revolvers.
In the US, Florida-based GTP owns and operates 5,400 towers, 800 property interests under third-party communications sites, and management rights to over 9,000 sites – primarily rooftop assets. It also owns 500 sites in Costa Rica.
When the deal was first announced in September, American Tower said it expected the new assets to generate roughly US$345m in revenues next year and US$270m of gross margin.
Goldman Sachs and EA Markets Securities were financial advisers to American Tower, and Clifford Chance and Sullivan & Worcester were its legal advisers.
Deutsche Bank was GTP’s exclusive financial adviser.
American Tower now owns more and operates than 61,000 sites across the United States, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Germany, Ghana, India, Mexico, Panama, Peru, South Africa and Uganda.
The highly-acquisitive towerco has most recently been linked with purchasing a US$5bn portfolio of towers from US incumbent wireless operator AT&T.