Macquarie, Digital Bridge team up in telecoms JV

Macquarie Mexican Infrastructure Fund and Digital Bridge have launched Mexico Tower Partners, a 50/50 joint venture that owns wireless telecoms towers in Mexico.

Macquarie Mexican Infrastructure Fund (MMIF) has partnered with independent tower operator Digital Bridge to launch Mexico Tower Partners (MTP), a joint venture that owns and manages more than 550 wireless telecommunications towers across Mexico, MMIF said in a statement.

MMIF and Digital Bridge are equal equity owners in the Mexico City-based joint venture, which is now Mexico’s second-largest independent telecommunications tower business, according to the statement.

MMIF, which is the Australian fund manager’s first managed fund in Latin America and the first peso-denominated fund focused solely on investment opportunities in Mexican infrastructure projects, first established its tower business in October 2011 when MMIF and Global Tower Partners (GTP) acquired a portfolio of 199 towers in Mexico from Telefonica. GTP was sold to American Tower in September 2013.

“We believe that the wireless tower industry in Mexico presents attractive opportunities for investors given the low levels of current coverage, increasing demand driven by the popularity of smart phones and other data-intensive wireless devices and current plans of local carriers to continue to deploy newer wireless technologies,” MMIF chairman Jonathan Davis Arzac said.

“Further, Mexico’s telecommunications reforms are expected to result in more opportunities and a more competitive environment for new entrants,” he added.

MMIF comprises two trusts: Macquarie Mexican Infrastructure Trusts I and II, which are managed by Macquarie México Infrastructure Management, which operates within Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets (MIRA), a division of Macquarie Group.

MMIF targets investments in a number of infrastructure sectors, including transportation, water, energy and utilities, communications and social infrastructure.