thursday 16 and friday 17 june, boca raton resort and club ... · thursday 16 and friday 17 june,...

Meetup Americas 2016

Thursday 16 and Friday 17 June, Boca Raton Resort and Club, Boca Raton

A unique networking opportunity with 250 leaders of the CALA telecom tower industry

To discuss your participation, contact Annabelle on +44 7423 512588 or email [email protected]

Silver Sponsors: Exhibitors:DIAMOND SPONSOR: Bronze Sponsors:

“TowerXchange is doing a tremendous job for the tower industry in Latin America. The opportunity to get together in one location and exchange ideas over several days with all of the tower companies in our region is truly invaluable”- Jim Eisenstein, Chairman and CEO, Grupo TorreSur

The unique experience of a TowerXchange Meetup

< CALA market forecasts< Q&A with the CEOs< Round tables add insight< Structured introductions< Select your own agenda< Local market knowledge

< Market transformation< Next sale & leasebacks< BTS opportunities< Site upgrades< Energy opex reduction< Country specific round tables

Insights

Infrastructure focused

Personal development

Connections

Experience

Learning

< Network sharing JV leaders< Towerco CXOs< MNO tower strategists< Investors< Strategic advisors< Proven suppliers

< Networking< Selective audience< Curated exhibition< Relax and enjoy< Professionally hosted

< Telecom towers< Broadcast towers< Real estate< Decommissioning< Microcells and DAS< Monitoring< I&C and O&M

< Learn from 250 peers, the leaders of the CALA tower industry< Align your role and strategy with the needs of the ecosystem

For more information visit www.towerxchange.com/meetups/meetup-americas

Day One | Thursday 16 June

8:00 Registration and coffee

9:00 TowerXchange’s analysis of the CALA telecom tower industrySpeakers: Kieron Osmotherly, Founder and CEO and Arianna Neri, Head of Americas, TowerXchange

9:45 CXO panel part I: Brazil < Moderator: Jonathan Atkin, Managing Director, RBC Capital Markets < Peter Bendall, Senior Vice President, Macquarie Group< Eric Crabtree, Chief Investment Officer, IFC < Jim Eisenstein, Chairman and CEO, Grupo TorreSur< Mauricio Giusti, CEO, Phoenix Tower do Brasil < Andre T. Laloni, Managing Director, Head of Brazil and Southern Cone, UBS< Roberto Piazza, General Manager - Brazil, SBA Communications< Douglas Silva, Head of Operations - Brazil, American Tower< Chahram Zolfaghari, CEO, Brazil Tower Company

11:00 Strategic partners panel: remote monitoring solutions

11:20 Networking coffee break

11:50 Roundtable session I

12:50 Networking lunch

14:00 CXO panel part II: Central America and the Caribbean

< Moderator TBA< Kurt Bagwell, President - International, SBA Communications< José F. Escobar, Director, Catalina Site Management < Edgar Geidans, Group CTO, Trilogy International Partners < Federico Lorenzana, Country Manager - Costa Rica,< Continental Towers Corp.< Maria Scotti, CEO, Torrecom

15:00 Strategic partners panel: energy solution providers


15:50 Roundtable session II

17:00 End of day one followed by drinks reception

19:30 TowerXchange networking dinner

DAY 2 - Friday 17 June

8:30 Morning coffee

9:00 CXO panel part III: the Andean States < Moderator TBA < Manuel Aviles, President and Founder, Innovattel/ Torresec< Eric Ensor, COO, Torres Andinas< Fernando García Álvarez, Construction and Network Infrastructure Manager, Entel Peru < Ryan Lepene, Senior Managing Director, Peppertree Capital< Estrella Zaharia, CEO, Andean Tower Partners

10:20 Strategic partners panel: access control and site management platforms


11:10 CXO panel part IV: Mexico < Moderator: Marco Cordoni, Senior Partner, Analysys Mason < Felipe de Antuñano, Co-CEO, Intelli Site Solutions< Mariano Gomez, Vice President, NMS< William Ritchey, Executive Vice President, IIMT< Maria Scotti, CEO, Torrecom< José Sola, CEO, Mexico Tower Partners< Alex Wright, Managing Director, Nau Securities

12:20 Roundtable session III

13:20 Networking lunch

14:30 Roundtable session IV


16:00 A look at the rest of CALA: from Cuba to Argentina< Moderator: Arianna Neri, Head of Americas, TowerXchange< Juan Cueria, Vice President and COO, Innovattel Torresec < Andre T. Laloni, Managing Director, Head of Brazil and Southern Cone, UBS< Guillermo Mulville, Head of TMT for Latin America, IFC< Miguel Ángel Arrigoni, President, First Capital Markets

17:00 End of Meetup

TowerXchange Meetup Americas – Draft AgendaBoca Raton | 16-17 June 2016

www.towerxchange.com/meetups/meetup-americas | TowerXchange Meetup Americas 2016, 16-17 June, Boca Raton | 3

Sachit Ahuja, VP, Business Development, Tillman Global Holdings Bill Bates, Vice President, Business Development, SBA CommunicationsMarco Cordoni, Senior Partner, Analysys Mason Alex Gellman, CEO, Vertical BridgeMariano Gomez, Vice President, NMS Federico Lorenzana, Country Manager - Costa Rica, Continental Towers Corp.Eduardo Martins Pedro, COO, AlfaSite

Guillermo Mulville, Head of TMT for Latin America, IFCRoberto Piazza, General Manager - Brazil, SBA CommunicationsDavid Porte, VP International, SBA CommunicationsSenior representative, V&ERicardo Ruiz, International Operations Director, SBA CommunicationsJose Augusto Varela, VP Operations LatAm, Grupo TorreSurMichel Buhler, former VP Business Development - LatAm, American Tower

TowerXchange Meetup Americas 2016 | Roundtable sessionsCountry and regional focus:

< Brazil (open)

< Brazil (VIP only*)

< Mexico (open)

< Mexico (VIP only*)

< Colombia (open)

< Colombia (VIP only*)

< Peru

< Chile

< Argentina

< Ecuador

< Cuba

< Costa Rica

< Panama, Honduras & El Salvador

< Guatemala and Nicaragua

< USA

< Canada

< Puerto Rico

< Caribbean

Operational focus:

< Opportunities for renewables and ESCOs in CALA< Microcells, small cells and DAS< Accelerating build-to-suit construction and colocation< How to build towers with maximum future sale value< How to minimise the total cost of evaluating and strengthening towers< How towercos and their subcontractors can ensure adherence with challenging SLAs< Low cost sites deployment < Beyond passive infrastructure: end to end models < Reducing opex through workforce and vendor performance management< Redefining the way we manage SLAs and KPIs: managing system performance rather than site performance< Subcontractor performance management< Impact of spectrum regulation and technology policy on towerco tenancies< Project management best practices: from site acquisition to licensing in Brazil

Financial focus:

< The investibility of the telecom tower sector< How towercos should be licensed, regulated and taxed< New towerco business models: developing new opex and capex structures< How do ratings agencies look at towercos?< Master lease agreements best practices < MNO consolidation: implications for the tower industry < Listed towercos: what do equity investors focus on?< How to mitigate forex exposure< How to raise local and international debt for towercos and their suppliers< Best practices for mature towercos (VIP only*)< Optimising the capital structure of CALA towercos< What are telecom towers worth?< How to evaluate U.S. towerco investments versus CALA

| TowerXchange Meetup Americas, 16-17 June, Boca Raton | www.towerxchange.com/meetups/meetup-americas4

Roundtable leaders include:

Tower Industry Value Chain

TowerXchange Meetups bring together 250+ business leaders representing the entire telecoms and broadcast infrastructure ecosystem. TowerXchange engages with MNOs who retain their passive infrastructure, and with 151 independent towercos and network sharing joint ventures which between them have acquired or built over 2,032,800 towers worldwide.

TowerXchange also maintains relationships with over 500 investment and advisory firms who facilitate tower transactions.

TowerXchange explores the implications of tower transactions for the supply chain: from tower designers and manufacturers to tower construction and O&M firms. The TowerXchange community engages with every major telecom energy equipment and service provider worldwide, including an emerging class of credible ESCOs. We track over 30 different RMS and ILM solution providers, as well as leaders in access control and H&S solutions for cell sites. And we connect the passive infrastructure ecosystem with innovations in microcells, small cells and DAS as well as fibre, microwave and satellite backhaul.

The TowerXchange community is brought together by the renowned TowerXchange Journal, circulated to 15,000 tower industry leaders worldwide. The tower industry’s leaders gather annually at TowerXchange Meetups – we look forward to meeting you there!

Who you will meet

Fibre, microwave, satellite backhaul Microcells, small cells & DAS Active equipment

Tier 1 OEMs

Mobile Network Operators

Investors: private equity, DFIs, debt finance, infrastructure funds

Law firms

Group level strategistsC-suite & network planners at local OpCos

Outsourceto

Strategic consultancyDue diligenceDemand modelingAsset register audits

Independent TowercosSell co-locationsGenerate amendment revenueBuild-to-suitAchieve SLAsEfficiency programmesOptimise supplier contracts

Transfer assets to

Construction servicesTurnkey infrastructure rollout Tower design & manufactureImport, customs & delivery Site acq, leasing & permitting Installation of towers Tower strengtheningDecommissioning

Dynamic assets

Energy equipmentDiesel gensetSolarWindFuel cell

BatteriesRectifiersInvertersLine conditioningPIUs

Air conditioning Lightning protectionControllerVoltage regulatorAlternator

Managed service providers

ESCOs

Static assetsTowers & mastsSheltersBracketsEnclosuresLightingFencing

0&M servicesMaintenanceStaffingSpare partsSecurityRefueling

Energy as a service

Monitoring & managementRMSIntelligence/analysisSite managementJob ticketingAsset lifecycle platform

Access control

Subcontract

Opex modelsVendor financeDistributed generationCommunity power

Subcontract or in-house

Outsourceto

Investment management advisors


80-90% of the leading towercos and MNOs attend

At other telecom events, a maximum of around 10-15% of the CXOs who lead tower strategy for MNOs and towercos are in attendance. At TowerXchange we regularly attract multiple senior representatives from 80-90% of the towercos active in any region, as well as the majority of MNOs. And thanks to our unique structured networking round tables, everyone has access to these decision makers.

Laser beam focus on towers

Another problem with other telecom events is that passive infrastructure is typically hidden away as an under-appreciated small part of a broader show. The huge audience of middle management, device and VAS influencers at other events dilutes access to the few tower decision makers present. In comparison, TowerXchange has been described as a “networking club for tower geeks” – everyone you meet at TowerXchange is focused on towers, and everyone you meet is a decision maker.

Proven over seven past events attended by over 1,000 decision makers, TowerXchange Meetups are unique executive retreats for the most influential men and women in telecoms infrastructure. Held annually in Africa, Asia, CALA and Europe, we use small group round table breakouts to give participants unique access to the key stakeholders in the telecom tower industry in each country.

What is a Meetup?

Accelerate vendor selection

If you want to buy telecom tower structures and accessories, energy equipment, energy services, RMS, ILM, access control, H&S equipment, or if you want to contract with tower construction and O&M firms, then

Every TowerXchange expo has sold out

Curated expo of proven suppliers


the private expo at the TowerXchange Meetup provides a ‘who’s who’ of proven passive infrastructure equipment and service providers.

Identify opportunities for your business today…

TowerXchange introduces each Meetup with our proprietary research, defining the size of the tower market in each country, identifying who owns the towers today and predicting the future tower transaction pipeline. We also track network consolidations, extensions and densification, and

examine ownership of energy assets and the prospects for energy service providers.

…And opportunities for your business tomorrow

We use MNO and towerco CXO panel sessions to understand the future of the tower industry. What has been the progress of tower transactions and of portfolio integration? What future acquisitions are planned? How is capex being deployed? What are the priorities of efficiency programmes? Are opex-sharing models being explored? Are microcells, small cells and

DAS being rolled out?

Unique structured networking

TowerXchange’s renowned round table breakouts are led by an expert moderator, but everyone’s opinions and questions are welcomed. Each round table focuses on a specific country, financial or operational issue. You can attend three or four round tables at each Meetup. Register now to secure your choice of round table and tailor your agenda to meet your networking objectives!

Unique round table breakouts


(Chairman) Daniel Lee Managing DirectorIntrepid Advisory Partners

Hal HessEVP, International Operations andPresident, EMEA and Latin AmericaAmerican Tower

Marc GanziPresident, Digital Bridge &Mexico Tower Partners

Akhil GuptaChairmanBharti Infratel

Michel FaivreDirecteur Programme Partaged’Infrastructure AMEAOrange

Terry RhodesActing CEOEaton Towers

Arun KapurExecutive ChairmanIrrawaddy Green Towers

James Maclaurinformerly CEOedotco

Areef KassamDirector of InfrastructureGSMA Mobile for Development

Ayman Al AdlDirector - TMTStandard Chartered Bank

Malcolm CollinsChief ExecutiveCTIL

Dagan KasavanaCEOPhoenix Tower International

Kurt BagwellPresident InternationalSBA Communications

Chuck GreenExecutive ChairmanHelios Towers Africa

Suresh SidhuCEOedotco

Nobel TanihahaPresident DirectorPT SOLUSI TUNAS PRATAMA (STP)

Umang DasChief MentorViom Networks

David MeganckFounder and COOAcsys

Gary StauntonCEOLikusasa Group

Tilak Raj DuaDirector GeneralTAIPA

Nina TriantisManaging Director, Global, Head of Telecoms & MediaStandard Bank

Peter Owen EdmundsCo-founder and ChairmanRussian Towers

Maria ScottiCEOTorrecom

Jim EisensteinChairman & CEOGrupo TorreSur

Riana DonaldsonManager: International Network Operations SupportVodacom

Bimal DayalCOOIndus Towers

Inder BajajCEOHTN Towers

Tunde TitilayoVice ChairmanSWAP International

Thorsten SchaeferCEOazeti Networks

Jeffrey EldredgePartnerVinson & Elkins

Enda HardimanManaging PartnerHardiman Telecommunications Ltd.

Adeel BajwaSenior GM of Legal Affairs and ContractsWarid Telecom

Scott CoatesCEOWireless Infrastructure Group

With special thanks to the TowerXchange “Inner Circle”About TowerXchange

TowerXchange is your independent community for operators, towercos, investors and suppliers interested in EMEA, CALA and Asian towers. We’re a community of practitioners formed to promote and accelerate infrastructure sharing. TowerXchange don’t build, operate or invest in towers; we’re a neutral community host and commentator on telecoms infrastructure.

The TowerXchange Journal is free to qualifying recipients. We also provide webinars and regular meetups. TowerXchange monetizes this community through hosting annual Meetups and the sale of advertising, without compromising editorial integrity.

TowerXchange was founded by Kieron Osmotherly, a TMT community host and events organizer with 16 years’ experience, and is governed with the support and advice of the TowerXchange “Inner Circle” – an informal network of advisors

Our informal network of advisers:

© 2015 Site Seven Media Ltd. All rights reserved. Neither the whole nor any substantial part of this publication may be re-produced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the prior permission of Site Seven Media Ltd. Short extracts may be quoted if TowerXchange is cited as the source. TowerXchange is a trading name of Site Seven Media Ltd, registered in the UK. Company number 8293930.


TowerXchange’s analysisof the independent tower market in CALA

Middle market matures TowerXchange just completed our bi-annual update of CALA tower counts and, wow, the independent developers are growing fast! Scale and geographical footprints are growing quickly: in Brazil alone the number of middle market towerco towers (i.e. not owned by carriers, AMT, SBA or GTS) increased 55% from 2,600 a year ago to 4,030 in Q3 2015. But the phenomenon of middle market tower growth is not restricted to Brazil – consider the examples of dramatic CALA portfolio growth shown in the table on the page after next. Other tower companies such as Torrecom, NMS and Innovattel / TORRESEC have grown by similar magnitudes. While TowerXchange’s tower counts should only be treated as estimates, there is no doubt that the stock of independent developer towers in CALA is growing healthily. Growth is not limited to volume, but also geographical extensions. 2015 has seen a rush of middle market towercos into Peru and Mexico, attracted by the BTS investments of Entel and AT&T respectively, and the amplifying effect their investments are having on competitive carriers’ capex budgets. We’ve also seen two virgin territories opened up by middle market towercos: TORRESEC will be the first towerco to build in Argentina, while some “under the radar” activity in Ecuador has become more visible with SBA Communications’ acquisition of 130 towers in the country, again from TORRESEC. The last year has also seen PTI make their debut in Costa

*American Tower

5,000 10,000 15,000 20,000 25,000 30,000 35,000

18,851

2,5001,250

1,250

**Telesites 12,874

3,677

Dominican Republic

Ecuador

Unknown

Spain

8,777

1,179 581470

Estimated number of towers owned or managed by towercos in CALA

1000

800

1200

1400

600

400

200

****

*Contin

enta

l

Centen

nial

Torres

Unid

as

Mex

ico Tower

Partner

s

****

*NM

S

600

1450

600

208

450400

500

323

51105 40 40

155

193

480

65

690 400

100

901

***Q

MC

1203

CSS

Torrec

om

753

Brazil

Tower

Company

IIMT

Andean Tower

Partner

s

****

**In

novattel

(Torr

esec

)

200

40

Torres

Andin

as

Highlin

e

do Bra

sil

Torre

s Onlin

e

60

Torre

s de P

anam

a

190 150

Phoenix

Tower

650

Inter

national

Intel

li Site

Solutio

ns

Grupo A

lfa

TOCSA

Skysit

es

Teleco

m Torr

es

34%

20%7%

31%

4%

4%

Crown Castle

American Tower

SBA Communications

Verizon

AT&T

Miscellaneous

Year Seller BuyerCountry Deal structureCost per tower US$Deal value US$Tower count

Portfolio acquisition

Company acquisition

Company acquisition

Company acquisition

SLB

Subsidiary acquisition

Company acquisition

SLB

SLB

Company acquisition

SLB

SLB

SLB

SLB

Company acquisition

SLB

SLB

SLB

SLB

Partial acquisition

SLB

SLB

SLB

SLB

SLB

SLB

SLB

SLB

SLB

SLB

SLB

SLB

Partial acquisition

$185,185

$211,231

$321146

$179,897

$546,610

$321,375

$148,029

$238,896

$162,328

$305,732

$118,788

$138,665

$193,548

$283,126

$222,500

$213,576

$171,875

$131,799

$150,000

$172,043

$207,851

$208,904

$144,000

$85,607

$151,694

$878,378

$200,349

$1,200,000,000

$978,000,000

$527,000,000

$349,000,000

$129,000,000

$645,000,000

$413,000,000

$398,000,000

$343,000,000

$4,800,000,000

$251,000,000

$293,000,000

$18,000,000

$250,000,000

$178,000,000

$258,000,000

$33,000,000

$252,000,000

$225,000,000

$96,000,000

$323,000,000

$122,000,000

$18,000,000

$182,000,000

$206,000,000

$585,000,000

$8,272,000,000

130

190

529

529

6480

60

4630

1641

1940

236

2007

2790

1666

2113

15700

2113

2113

93

883

100

400

800

1208

192

1912

1500

558

1554

584

125

2126

1358

666

58267

SBA Communications

Phoenix Tower

Phoenix Tower

Phoenix Tower

American Tower

Phoenix Tower

American Tower

SBA Communications

American Tower

American Tower

SBA Communications

American Tower

American Tower

SBA Communications

American Tower

BR Towers

Grupo TorreSur

American Tower

American Tower

BR Towers

Torres Unidas

SBA Communications

Grupo TorreSur

American Tower

BR Towers

American Tower

American Tower

American Tower

American Tower

American Tower

American Tower

Grupo TorreSur

American Tower

Totals / average

Torresec

Amzak/Teletower

T4U

T4U

TIM

American Tower

BR Towers

Oi

Nextel

Z-Sites

Oi

Nextel

Nextel

Oi

GTP

Oi

Oi

Telefonica

Axtel

Sitesharing

Telefonica

Telefonica

Oi

Telefonica

Telefonica

Telefonica

Telefonica

Telefonica

Telefonica

Telefonica

Millicom/Tigo

Telefonica

Sitesharing

Ecuador

Dominican Republic

Brazil

Brazil

Brazil

Panama

Brazil

Brazil

Brazil

Brazil

Brazil

Brazil

Mexico

Brazil

USA, Panama & Costa Rica

Brazil

Brazil

Brazil

Mexico

Brazil

Chile

Brazil

Brazil

Brazil

Brazil

Brazil

Chile

Mexico

Mexico

Colombia

Colombia

Brazil

Brazil

2015

2015

2015

2015

2014

2014

2014

2014

2013

2013

2013

2013

2013

2013

2013

2013

2013

2013

2013

2013

2012

2012

2012

2012

2012

2012

2012

2011

2011

2011

2011

2011

2011

11,000Telxius

Grupo TorreSur 6,500

SBA Communications 7,000 527 196520 303541 130

600

71

132

23

*American Tower

5,000 10,000 15,000 20,000 25,000 30,000 35,000

18,851

2,5001,250

1,250

**Telesites 12,874

3,677

Dominican Republic

Ecuador

Unknown

Spain

8,777

1,179 581470


1000

800

1200

1400

600

400

200

****

*Contin

enta

l

Centen

nial

Torres

Unid

as

Mex

ico Tower

Partner

s

****

*NM

S

600

1450

600

208

450400

500

323

51105 40 40

155

193

480

65

690 400

100

901

***Q

MC

1203

CSS

Torrec

om

753

Brazil

Tower

Company

IIMT

Andean Tower

Partner

s

****

**In

novattel

(Torr

esec

)

200

40

Torres

Andin

as

Highlin

e

do Bra

sil

Torre

s Onlin

e

60

Torre

s de P

anam

a

190 150

Phoenix

Tower

650

Inter

national

Intel

li Site

Solutio

ns

Grupo A

lfa

TOCSA

Skysit

es

Teleco

m Torr

es

34%

20%7%

31%

4%

4%

Crown Castle

American Tower

SBA Communications

Verizon

AT&T

Miscellaneous



Company acquisition

Company acquisition

Company acquisition

SLB


Company acquisition

SLB

SLB

Company acquisition

SLB

SLB

SLB

SLB

Company acquisition

SLB

SLB

SLB

SLB

Partial acquisition

SLB

SLB

SLB

SLB

SLB

SLB

SLB

SLB

SLB

SLB

SLB

SLB

Partial acquisition

$185,185

$211,231

$321146

$179,897

$546,610

$321,375

$148,029

$238,896

$162,328

$305,732

$118,788

$138,665

$193,548

$283,126

$222,500

$213,576

$171,875

$131,799

$150,000

$172,043

$207,851

$208,904

$144,000

$85,607

$151,694

$878,378

$200,349

$1,200,000,000

$978,000,000

$527,000,000

$349,000,000

$129,000,000

$645,000,000

$413,000,000

$398,000,000

$343,000,000

$4,800,000,000

$251,000,000

$293,000,000

$18,000,000

$250,000,000

$178,000,000

$258,000,000

$33,000,000

$252,000,000

$225,000,000

$96,000,000

$323,000,000

$122,000,000

$18,000,000

$182,000,000

$206,000,000

$585,000,000

$8,272,000,000

130

190

529

529

6480

60

4630

1641

1940

236

2007

2790

1666

2113

15700

2113

2113

93

883

100

400

800

1208

192

1912

1500

558

1554

584

125

2126

1358

666

58267

SBA Communications

Phoenix Tower

Phoenix Tower

Phoenix Tower

American Tower

Phoenix Tower

American Tower

SBA Communications

American Tower

American Tower

SBA Communications

American Tower

American Tower

SBA Communications

American Tower

BR Towers

Grupo TorreSur

American Tower

American Tower

BR Towers

Torres Unidas

SBA Communications

Grupo TorreSur

American Tower

BR Towers

American Tower

American Tower

American Tower

American Tower

American Tower

American Tower

Grupo TorreSur

American Tower

Totals / average

Torresec

Amzak/Teletower

T4U

T4U

TIM

American Tower

BR Towers

Oi

Nextel

Z-Sites

Oi

Nextel

Nextel

Oi

GTP

Oi

Oi

Telefonica

Axtel

Sitesharing

Telefonica

Telefonica

Oi

Telefonica

Telefonica

Telefonica

Telefonica

Telefonica

Telefonica

Telefonica

Millicom/Tigo

Telefonica

Sitesharing

Ecuador

Dominican Republic

Brazil

Brazil

Brazil

Panama

Brazil

Brazil

Brazil

Brazil

Brazil

Brazil

Mexico

Brazil


Brazil

Brazil

Brazil

Mexico

Brazil

Chile

Brazil

Brazil

Brazil

Brazil

Brazil

Chile

Mexico

Mexico

Colombia

Colombia

Brazil

Brazil

2015

2015

2015

2015

2014

2014

2014

2014

2013

2013

2013

2013

2013

2013

2013

2013

2013

2013

2013

2013

2012

2012

2012

2012

2012

2012

2012

2011

2011

2011

2011

2011

2011

11,000Telxius



600

71

132

23

*American Tower

5,000 10,000 15,000 20,000 25,000 30,000 35,000

18,851

2,5001,250

1,250

**Telesites 12,874

3,677

Dominican Republic

Ecuador

Unknown

Spain

8,777

1,179 581470


1000

800

1200

1400

600

400

200

****

*Contin

enta

l

Centen

nial

Torres

Unid

as

Mex

ico Tower

Partner

s

****

*NM

S

600

1450

600

208

450400

500

323

51105 40 40

155

193

480

65

690 400

100

901

***Q

MC

1203

CSS

Torrec

om

753

Brazil

Tower

Company

IIMT

Andean Tower

Partner

s

****

**In

novattel

(Torr

esec

)

200

40

Torres

Andin

as

Highlin

e

do Bra

sil

Torre

s Onlin

e

60

Torre

s de P

anam

a

190 150

Phoenix

Tower

650

Inter

national

Intel

li Site

Solutio

ns

Grupo A

lfa

TOCSA

Skysit

es

Teleco

m Torr

es

34%

20%7%

31%

4%

4%

Crown Castle

American Tower

SBA Communications

Verizon

AT&T

Miscellaneous



Company acquisition

Company acquisition

Company acquisition

SLB


Company acquisition

SLB

SLB

Company acquisition

SLB

SLB

SLB

SLB

Company acquisition

SLB

SLB

SLB

SLB

Partial acquisition

SLB

SLB

SLB

SLB

SLB

SLB

SLB

SLB

SLB

SLB

SLB

SLB

Partial acquisition

$185,185

$211,231

$321146

$179,897

$546,610

$321,375

$148,029

$238,896

$162,328

$305,732

$118,788

$138,665

$193,548

$283,126

$222,500

$213,576

$171,875

$131,799

$150,000

$172,043

$207,851

$208,904

$144,000

$85,607

$151,694

$878,378

$200,349

$1,200,000,000

$978,000,000

$527,000,000

$349,000,000

$129,000,000

$645,000,000

$413,000,000

$398,000,000

$343,000,000

$4,800,000,000

$251,000,000

$293,000,000

$18,000,000

$250,000,000

$178,000,000

$258,000,000

$33,000,000

$252,000,000

$225,000,000

$96,000,000

$323,000,000

$122,000,000

$18,000,000

$182,000,000

$206,000,000

$585,000,000

$8,272,000,000

130

190

529

529

6480

60

4630

1641

1940

236

2007

2790

1666

2113

15700

2113

2113

93

883

100

400

800

1208

192

1912

1500

558

1554

584

125

2126

1358

666

58267

SBA Communications

Phoenix Tower

Phoenix Tower

Phoenix Tower

American Tower

Phoenix Tower

American Tower

SBA Communications

American Tower

American Tower

SBA Communications

American Tower

American Tower

SBA Communications

American Tower

BR Towers

Grupo TorreSur

American Tower

American Tower

BR Towers

Torres Unidas

SBA Communications

Grupo TorreSur

American Tower

BR Towers

American Tower

American Tower

American Tower

American Tower

American Tower

American Tower

Grupo TorreSur

American Tower

Totals / average

Torresec

Amzak/Teletower

T4U

T4U

TIM

American Tower

BR Towers

Oi

Nextel

Z-Sites

Oi

Nextel

Nextel

Oi

GTP

Oi

Oi

Telefonica

Axtel

Sitesharing

Telefonica

Telefonica

Oi

Telefonica

Telefonica

Telefonica

Telefonica

Telefonica

Telefonica

Telefonica

Millicom/Tigo

Telefonica

Sitesharing

Ecuador

Dominican Republic

Brazil

Brazil

Brazil

Panama

Brazil

Brazil

Brazil

Brazil

Brazil

Brazil

Mexico

Brazil


Brazil

Brazil

Brazil

Mexico

Brazil

Chile

Brazil

Brazil

Brazil

Brazil

Brazil

Chile

Mexico

Mexico

Colombia

Colombia

Brazil

Brazil

2015

2015

2015

2015

2014

2014

2014

2014

2013

2013

2013

2013

2013

2013

2013

2013

2013

2013

2013

2013

2012

2012

2012

2012

2012

2012

2012

2011

2011

2011

2011

2011

2011

11,000Telxius



600

71

132

23

Estimated number of towers owned or managed by towercos in CALASource: TowerXchange research, quarterly filings, site lists

* American Tower’s Brazil count is pro rata to the closing of the second tranche of TIM Brazil towers** Creation of Telesites remains subject to regulatory approval. We understand Telesites has a BTS contract from Claro Costa Rica*** QMC has a portfolio of 901 towers across Brazil, Mexico, Colombia and Puerto Rico**** Continental Towers owns a portfolio of ~690 towers, which their website claims are distributed across Mexico, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia and Peru***** NMS has a portfolio of 600 towers across Nicaragua, Mexico, Colombia and Peru****** Innovattel (Torresec) owns a portfolio of 350 towers across Puerto Rico, Colombia, Argentina and Peru


Major tower transactions in Latin America 2011/2015


Portfolio acquisitionCompany acquisition

SLBCompany acquisition

SLBSubsidiary acquisitionCompany acquisition

SLBSLB

Company acquisitionSLBSLBSLBSLB

Company acquisitionSLBSLBSLBSLB

Partial acquisitionSLBSLBSLBSLBSLBSLBSLBSLBSLBSLBSLBSLBSLB

Partial acquisition

$128,000

$185,185

$211,231$321146$179,897$546,610$321,375$148,029$238,896$162,328$305,732$118,788$138,665$193,548$283,126

$222,500$213,576$171,875$131,799$150,000$172,043$207,851$208,904$144,000$85,607

$151,694$878,378

$200,130

$16,000,000

$1,200,000,000

$978,000,000$527,000,000$349,000,000$129,000,000$645,000,000$413,000,000$398,000,000$343,000,000

$4,800,000,000$251,000,000$293,000,000$18,000,000

$250,000,000

$178,000,000$258,000,000$33,000,000

$252,000,000$225,000,000$96,000,000

$323,000,000$122,000,000$18,000,000

$182,000,000$206,000,000$585,000,000

$8,288,000,000

130190125529

648060

463016411940236

2007279016662113

1570021132113

93883100350400800

1208192

19121500558

1554584125

21261358666

42,822

SBA CommunicationsPhoenix Tower

Highline do BrasilPhoenix Tower

American TowerPhoenix Tower

American TowerSBA Communications

American TowerAmerican Tower

SBA CommunicationsAmerican TowerAmerican Tower

SBA CommunicationsAmerican Tower

BR TowersGrupo TorreSurAmerican TowerAmerican Tower

BR TowersTorres UnidasTorres Unidas

SBA CommunicationsGrupo TorreSurAmerican Tower

BR TowersAmerican TowerAmerican TowerAmerican TowerAmerican TowerAmerican TowerAmerican TowerGrupo TorreSurAmerican Tower

Totals / average

TorresecAmzak/Teletower

Algar TelecomT4UTIM

American TowerBR Towers*

OiNextelZ-Sites

OiNextelNextel

OiGTP**

OiOi

TelefonicaAxtel

SitesharingTelefonicaTelefonicaTelefonica

OiTelefonicaTelefonicaTelefonicaTelefonicaTelefonicaTelefonicaTelefonica

Millicom/TigoTelefonicaSitesharing

EcuadorDominican Republic

BrazilBrazilBrazil

PanamaBrazilBrazilBrazilBrazilBrazilBrazil

MexicoBrazil


BrazilBrazilBrazil

MexicoBrazilPeruChileBrazilBrazilBrazilBrazilBrazilChile

MexicoMexico

ColombiaColombia

BrazilBrazil

2015201520152015201420142014201420132013201320132013201320132013201320132013201320122012201220122012201220122012201120112011201120112011

Special thanks to Jonathan Atkin, Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets for his contribution

*American Tower acquisition of 4,630 BR Towers includes 2,530 towers plus 2,100 exclusive rights**Totals and average exclude the GTP / American Tower deal as it was US-centric


Towerco

Phoenix Tower International*

CSS

Brazil Tower Company

Mexico Tower Partners

QMC Telecom

Torres Unidas

Q3 2014 count

58

341

300

600

550

750

Q3 2015 count

1096

1203

753

1278

901

1080

Growth

17.05x

3.53x

2.51x

2.13x

1.64x

1.44x

Rica, Colombia, Dominican Republic and Brazil, while Torres Andinas has expanded beyond their Colombia base and now has 40 towers in Peru. Some of these independent developer portfolios are destined to be retained, but most are ‘built to flip’, with a sale to one of the U.S. publicly listed towercos the most likely exit, although Phoenix Tower International (PTI) are certainly stirring up the status quo in that regard, as will the various Digital Bridge entities including MTP and ATP. Whereas Grupo TorreSur had previously been a buyer, rumor continues to suggest their Brazilian portfolio could be acquired for the right price. With many of CALA’s middle market towercos maturing rapidly toward exit, the TowerXchange Meetup Americas 2016 – taking place in Boca Raton, 16-17 June 2016 – will certainly be an interesting gathering! Note that the TowerXchange Meetup Americas won’t be hosted in co-location with the PCIA. Texas is not a suitable location for a CALA-focused gathering, besides which we feel the CALA tower industry is sufficiently mature to merit its own stand-alone event. Pace of sale and leasebacks slows There hasn’t been a large scale sale and leaseback deal (SLB) in CALA since American Tower announced the acquisition of an estimated 6,480 towers from TIM in 2014. Rumors or a potential SLB with Entel in Peru have not yet crystalised into a formal process. With Brazil and Mexico approaching saturation, in terms of sale and

Dramatic CALA portfolio growth

*PTI’s growth is not all organic; they have acquired towers from T4U in Brazil, TOCSA in Costa Rica and Teletower Dominicana / Amzak in the Dominican Republic, but organic growth has also been substantial.

Source: TowerXchange

Brazil 50,139

Mexico 25,334

Estimated total towers in rest of South America: 17,400 (Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Surinam, French Guiana and Guyana)


Argentina 16,000

Selected estimated CALA tower counts


Colombia 15,240

CentralAmerica11,520

Caribbean10,550

Peru 9,450

Chile8,400

LatAm towerco breakdown by country

AMT Andinas Continental Innovattel QMC SBA Torrecom TorresUnidas

Phoenix Tower Int.

Centennial NMS ATP Balesia

Towercos focusing on a single countryBrazil: GTS, Highline, CSS, Skysites, Telecom Torres, Torre Online, AlfaSite, Brazil Tower CompanyMexico: MTP, IIMT, Intelli Site Solutions, Telesites, MX Towers, Vialux, Rent-A-TowerPanama: Torres de PanamaUruguay: Uruguay TorresCosta Rica: Catalina Inc., TocsaPeru: Telecommunications Partners

leaseback (SLB) opportunities, TowerXchange expect the tower ‘land grab’ to move the West Coast countries Colombia, Chile and Peru, which are less penetrated by towercos but highly attractive and which each feature significant potential growth. Let’s take a closer look at each of CALA’s tower markets. Argentina Doubtless attracted by the recent 4G auctions, the associated 98% population coverage obligations, and the network investment that has inspired on the part of Claro, Telecom Personal and Movistar, TORRESEC’s maiden BTS contract win in Argentina marks the breaking of ground in Argentina for the first time by an independent towerco. It’s a bold move and one which could pay dividends if a culture of infrastructure sharing can be fostered in Argentina’s growing 16,000 tower market, but the specter of country risk and challenges repatriating funds seem likely to keep the U.S. publics out of Argentina for the foreseeable future. Brazil Towercos continue to drive significant organic growth in Brazil, where 73% of the country’s 50,139 investible towers are now owned by independent towercos. With Claro’s and only a handful of other towers remaining on carrier balance sheets (Oi reportedly has around 1,000 remaining towers which could still be monetised), Brazil is otherwise ‘sold out’ in terms of SLBs, so the next transactions


Brazil Mexico Colombia Chile Peru Costa Rica Panama Nicaragua Guatemala El Salvador Jamaica Honduras Ecuador Puerto Rico Argentina Dominican Republic

we see could be further middle market towerco acquisitions. These would follow previous consolidation of companies like BR Towers, Z-Sites and Sitesharing by American Tower, and T4U by PTI. Even Highline do Brasil has been getting in on the acquisition act recently, acquiring 60+ rooftop sites from ON Telecom and a further 125 towers from Algar Telecom for 18 BRL and 64 BRL respectively (around US$4.5mn and US$16mn). Central America If you consider it one market which, with shared operational resources it effectively is, with 1,520 towers Central America is CALA’s fifth largest and

third most penetrated tower market (34%). SBA Communications is the market leader in Central America, with over 2,000 towers, Continental Towers has just under 700 towers in the region, American Tower is now present only in Costa Rica, having sold their Panamanian towers to Phoenix Tower International, who also recently acquired some assets from TOCSA in Costa Rica. Torrecom, NMS, Torres de Panama and startup Catalina round off Central America’s towercos. The majority of operator captive towers are retained by Millicom-Tigo and Claro although for different reasons we don’t think many are likely

to come to market under SLBs. Whilst inorganic growth opportunities are finite, the rollout of 4G across Central America (most advanced in Costa Rica) is generating excellent organic growth and amendment revenue opportunities for towercos. SBA reports achieving similar Tower Cash Flow, with a similar spread between ground rent and tenant rent, in Central America as in Brazil. Caribbean More than half of the Caribbean’s 10,550 towers serving the Caribbean’s 28mn population are in the Dominican Republic and Haiti. TowerXchange has identified only one towerco in the Caribbean; 189 towers formerly owned by Amzak’s Teletower Dominicana, but recently acquired by Phoenix Tower International.There is the possibility to roll up a Caribbean tower play either with a substantial acquisition, such as of Viva’s towers in the Dominican Republic, or for example by rolling up a portfolio across the holdings of LIME or Digicel, but of course the challenge will be achieving economies of scale across 700 islands. The jewel in the crown of a Caribbean tower portfolio five years from now could be Cuba. With just 23% mobile penetration in a population of 11.3mn and ETECSA remaining the sole operator, there would be no shortage of carriers and towercos keen to enter Cuba should U.S.-Cuban relations continue on their current trajectory toward normalisation, and should the telecom market liberalise. Reports suggest all four U.S. carriers


Who owns Brazil’s 51,929 towers?

AMT

SBA

GTS

Independent developers

América Móvil (Claro, Net and Embratel)

Towerco Latam Brasil

TIM

Oi

Nextel

Other small and non-traditional operators, including

Sky Brasil, Algar Telecom, Sercomtel and ON Telecom

18,851

7,0006,300

4,353

8,500

1,6551,720

1,000 300500


would be interested to launch in Cuba, attracted both by tremendous untapped domestic market growth potential, and significant Cuba to U.S. international call volume. Chile Chile is a notably more mature mobile market than Peru and Colombia, boasting 147% SIM penetration and 51% mobile broadband (GSMA Intelligence, Q4 2014), and a nicely balanced carrier market split

between Movistar (39.5%), Entel (37.3%) and Claro (21.4%). Entel look the most likely tower seller, Movistar having sold towers to American Tower and Torres Unidas, towercos who remain the leaders in a relatively small tower market which operates just 22% of Chile’s towers. Torres Andinas also has around 200 Chilean towers in the air or in the pipeline. Law No. 20.599, also known as the Towers Law, has suppressed Chile’s BTS market with its onerous

restrictions on building in saturated or sensitive areas, its somewhat heavy handed attempt to mandate infrastructure sharing, and its requirements to invest in camouflage, at times to compensating local communities. While this has stifled tower build in the short term, strict zoning rules tend to have an aggregate positive impact on the tower industry as they force network planners to share more structures as it becomes almost impossible to build.

Recently auctioned but not yet allocated 700MHz spectrum for 4G came with extra coverage obligations including connecting 1,281 remote regions, leading BMI to project that Chile’s carriers would need three to four times as many towers. Colombia There’s a good runway for tower market growth in Colombia, with 4G on the AWS band already being deployed and a 700MHz auction imminent. But TowerXchange don’t see why Colombia seems to be as attractive if not more attractive to towercos as its Western CALA neighbours. The lack of a strong regulator means there isn’t the same pressure on América Móvil to share towers as we’ve seen in Mexico, despite their market share in both markets being significantly North of 50%, and the carrier still sees their towers as a competitive differentiator. A National Law designed to ease permitting in Colombia reportedly has not prevented local government from closing sites. And Tigo, Movistar and ETB are sharing their 4G rollout, with roaming agreements in place, which will dampen tenancy

Estimated breakdown of tower ownership in Mexico


Telesites

American Tower

Mexico Tower Partners

Centennial

IIMT

Torrecom

Other independent towercos, including

Conex (QMC) and NMS Towers

Estimated remaining MNO-captive

towers

12,555

2,000

8,777

1,278

400250

175250


demand. However Avantel and DirecTV, with the potential of AT&T investment represent significant upside to tenancy ratio models.

The sheer size and doubtless potential of Colombian market has attracted substantial investment by American Tower, which acquired 656 towers from Movistar between 2010 and 2012 and a further 2,126 from Tigo in 2011. American Tower currently has 3,626 towers in Colombia, where other active towercos with low triple and double digit tower counts include Continental, Innovattel, Centennial, NMS, Torres Unidas, Phoenix Tower International and Torres Andinas.

Mexico While América Móvil’s Telesites is still a ‘black box’ when it comes to hard data, TowerXchange have seen some pretty aggressive organic growth targets just under 1,000 per year in Mexico alone – although noises coming out of América Móvil continue to suggest Telesites will be used to build new towers in most of their other tower markets. Similarly aggressive Telesites tenancy ratio growth targets will be difficult to achieve if the aforementioned volume of new builds are added. AT&T and Telefónica are negotiating to co-locate on Telesites’ towers, and it seems increasingly likely

that Telesites will charge a market lease rate in Mexico – pricing the towers to sell co-locations, not to protect the assets from competitors. However, the fact remains that entire Telesites venture is still pending regulatory approval.Today’s Mexican tower market isn’t just a duopoly between American Tower and Telesites; Mexico Tower Partners (MTP), which was GTP’s footprint in Mexico which was retained when the rest of the assets were sold, is growing fast thanks in no small part to a symbiotic relationship between MTP and a local tower builder who build and flip towers to the MTP balance sheet on a regular basis. Meanwhile Centennial, IIMT, Torrecom, NMS and Conex (QMC’s Mexican towerco) will all vie for the frenzy of BTS opportunities triggered by AT&T’s market entry, compounded by the deployment of a new government-sponsored 700 MHz wholesale LTE network expected to need ~8,000 sites, with initial tenders expected in the second half of 2015.The Mexican telecommunications regulator theIFT says 80,000 PoS are needed in Mexico, almost 4x the country’s current inventory, a need which could, for example, be served by a healthy tower market of 40,000 towers with a tenancy ratio of 2.0. Peru Peru was a comfortable, relatively slow growth duopoly between Movistar and Claro with Nextel only active in the big cities, but Entel’s acquisition of Nextel and nationwide vision has stimulated network investment. Indeed, Entel could conceivably raise capital for network investment by monetising their Peruvian towers. There’s

Breakdown of ownership of CALA’s 165,000 telecom towers, Q1 2016


American TowerTelesitesSBA CommunicationsGrupo TorreSurOther independent towercosOperator-captive

33,535

90,029 12,555

9,217

13,364

6,300


plenty of room for tower market growth in Peru with one of CALA’s lowest SIM penetration rates (101% according to GSMA Intelligence, Q4 2014) and a fledgling 4G market, although all three market leaders have launched LTE and more spectrum is coming. Peru’s Ministry of Transport and Communications has called for an increase from their current 9,000 to 22,000 cell sites over the next three years, an increase of almost 2.5x in tower stock. Peru’s previously notoriously complex permitting regime should be eased by new legislation which has just come into law which creates a uniform administration process, although at least one towerco is pushing back against the regulator’s apparent right to intercede in pricing. While there are five towercos in Peru, they hold only 14% of the country’s towers. Torres Unidas claim to have 600 towers in Peru, American Tower has 581 and there are smaller portfolios owned by NMS, Torres Andinas and Innovattel. The rest of CALA TowerXchange have yet to study the new towerco markets of Ecuador, where SBA Communications recently acquired 130 towers from TORRESEC, and where a couple of other middle market towercos are rumored to be commencing operations. Similarly, there are a couple of local towercos in Uruguay, a finite but potentially attractive tower market. Bolivia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana have seldom come up on our radar, at

Latin America Heatmap

Towercos have acquired the majority of towers from carriers

Towercos have acquired a significant proportion of towers from carriers, but the majority remain carrier-owned. Significant BTS towerco activity also present

Less SLB activity, but plenty of BTS towerco activity

Early stage market for BTS and/or SLB

Negligible towerco activity

Legend



least not since a conversation with Frontier Tower Solutions a couple of years ago. Paraguay has been similarly quiet in terms of towerco activity. Conclusion: Towerco penetration approaching 50% in CALA, could approach 75% by 2020 Towercos currently own 45% of CALA’s ~165,000 towers, assuming one counts Telesites as a bona fide towerco. With a significant proportion of new towers being built by towercos, and with a significant proportion of Claro’s BTS looking increasingly likely to be destined for Telesites’ balance sheet, the penetration of the towerco model into CALA will pass 50% in 2016 even if the SLB market remains in stasis. CALA’s towercos don’t want all the towers: a lot of parallel infrastructure built during the carriers’ land grab is destined to be stranded on carriers’ balance sheets where a competitor monetises their towers first. TowerXchange would estimate the addressable market in CALA as may be 65% of the region’s current towers. Of course, CALA needs more towers. Organic growth will largely reside on towerco balance sheets, which could see the region’s tower count double in the next six to seven years, pushing towerco penetration in CALA to almost 75% by 2020. This impressive absorption of the macro network could be supplemented (eventually) by a heterogeneous network layer in which the region’s carriers and towercos have hitherto been reluctant to engage

To discuss your participation, contact Annabelle on +44 7423 512588 or email [email protected]

Meetup Americas 2016

Thursday 16 and Friday 17 June, Boca Raton Resort and Club, Boca Raton

A unique networking opportunity with 250 leaders of the CALA telecom and broadcast tower industry

Silver Sponsors: Exhibitors:Bronze Sponsors:DIAMONDSPONSOR:


Keynote insights from AMT, SBA, GTS and Digital Bridge Management The future of CALA telecoms according to the leaders of the region’s largest towercos

Reintroducing the leaders of CALA’s leading towercos

Grupo TorreSur (GTS) is an independent towerco active in Brazil with a portfolio of approximately 6,300 sites accumulated through six acquisitions since 2010 and supplemented by BTS. Jim Eisenstein, its CEO and President, is a pioneer of the U.S. tower industry and is one of the original co-founders of American Tower.

Marc Ganzi is a serial tower entrepreneur who sold Global Tower Partners to American Tower for US$4.8bn in 2013. Marc retained the Mexican towers from GTP, known as Mexico Tower Partners, or MTP, now with 1,278 towers, as a key component of his latest venture, Digital Bridge Management. Digital Bridge is also an investor in Vertical Bridge (with 2,400 towers in the U.S.), Q Towers (with 320 towers in China), with interests in other towercos worldwide.

American Tower (AMT) is the largest independent towerco in the CALA region, with 33,395 towers across Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Peru and Costa Rica. After announced deals close, AMT will operate 98,877 sites across Europe, Africa, Asia, North and South America. Alejandro Messmacher is in charge of AMT’s financial performance in LatAm.

SBA Communications runs a portfolio of over 24,500 towers in the U.S., Brazil and Central America, where SBA is the clear market leader. Its HQ is in Boca Raton but SBA is now organised via six local offices which contribute to harnessing local talents.

Read this article to learn:< How the leading towercos will extend their growth narrative in the CALA region< Mexico: the Telecom Reform, AT&T and Telesites< Success stories and further opportunities on the West Coast of Southern America and in Central America < The Brazilian tower industry: the next wave of M&A coming up?< Argentina and Cuba: views on frontier markets

It doesn’t happen every day: four executives representing the top towercos in the CALA region in terms of size of portfolio, geographical footprint and company valuation, debated the future of their industry at the second TowerXchange Meetup Americas. Jonathan Atkin, Managing Director of RBC Capital Markets moderated a panel discussion between Kurt Bagwell, President, International at SBA Communications, Jim Eisenstein, CEO and President of Grupo TorreSur, Marc Ganzi, CEO of Digital Bridge Management (which owns a controlling stake in Mexico Tower Partners) and Alejandro Messmacher, CFO LatAm, American Tower. Here is a summary of what we learned during this exclusive session.

Keywords: American Tower, SBA Communications, Grupo TorreSur, Digital Bridge Management, RBC Capital Markets, Mexico Tower Partners, Vertical Bridge, Q Towers, Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Peru, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Argentina, Cuba, 3G, 4G, Acquisition, LTE, Capex, Market Overview, Tenancy Ratios, Co-locations, Infrastructure Sharing, Build-to-Suit, Business Case, DAS, Small Cells, C-Level Perspective, Sale & Leaseback


Kurt Bagwell, President - International, represented SBA on the panel.

How does your garden grow? Acquisitions vs amendments vs new leases

The four market leading towercos represented on the panel are always seeking the right transaction to grow their portfolios and TowerXchange’s data on the last four years of M&As illustrates the wave of tower transactions in the region. However, the CALA region has been relatively quiet over the past few months in terms of sale and leaseback deals, also in light of various regulatory and carrier consolidation events which forced carriers and towercos alike to pause and assess their next moves.

As an example, Mexico’s Telecom Reform Act, the creation of Telesites along with acquisition of Iusacell and Nextel Mexico by AT&T have been disruptive factors changing the shape of the Mexican industry. For now, towercos are sitting back and waiting to see what happens next but most stakeholders predict a wave of new build and co-location generated by AT&T, and supplemented by government wholesale LTE and public safety networks, in the future.

Mexico Tower Partners was formed in 2013 and has grown considerably thanks to 27 small acquisitions. On the BTS side, the company has completed about 300 sites and has now 127 under development for all major carriers.

Whereas amendment revenues have been positive

in Mexico especially thanks to LTE overlay, there hasn’t been as much activity in 2015 in terms of new co-locations.

In Brazil, Grupo TorreSur saw an increase in its BTS activity over the past six months and expects to have built 2,000 new sites by the end of 2015. Jim Eisenstein commented that BTS is likely to be their core activity in 2016-2017 but added that the M&A side has been quiet in 2015 mainly due to the scarcity of carrier portfolios available for sale. In fact, only Claro retains a significant amount of towers in Brazil - but isn’t expected to sell - hence towercos will refocus on growth through new builds. (Editor: or on the acquisition of other towercos!)

Continuing uncertainty around the possible

consolidation of Oi and TIM seems to have caused their capex to decrease, although Vivo and Claro are still investing substantially in new sites and network upgrades and Sky has been driving significant lease-up revenue.

Kurt Bagwell commented on SBA’s activities which have been mainly focused on the closing of the recent Oi deal (1,641 sites). SBA company scaled from zero to 7,000 Brazilian sites in two years and now is focusing most of its attention on integrating those assets. Bagwell agreed that Vivo is still driving both BTS and new lease revenue in Brazil and that Oi has been a very quiet fourth player over the past few months.

Commenting on its Central American activities, Bagwell explained that SBA built over 200 towers


over the past year in the region. With as many as 40mn residents across the region, Central America represents significant potential growth for SBA and carriers are far from done in terms of reaching optimal coverage and capacity, which allows towercos to still seize opportunities such as the 100 new sites being built in Costa Rica.

American Tower stressed that the fundamentals remain very solid in Latin America. 3G and 4G deployment and new spectrum availability contribute to an overall expectation of solid growth over the next 24-36 months. Messmacher highlighted that the company is still in an acquisitive mode, following its successful 2014 acquisitions and that, in spite of some carriers experiencing financial difficulties, other Brazilian operators are still investing in their networks.

The Mexican revolution: from telecom reform to AT&T

Mexico’s recent telecom reform is the only real piece of telecom reform that Mexico has ever experienced and it has already had a significant impact on the tower market with América Móvil’s carve out of their towers into Telesites.

Over the next few months, AT&T will be integrating the operations of recently purchased Nextel and Iusacell but when ready, the new organisation will become a key player with huge investment power. The company is bringing to the table its U.S. experience in offering competitive packages, unprecedented incentives and superior handsets. If

successful in introducing subsidised handsets into the country, AT&T would substantially disrupt the Mexican carrier market as we know it.

On the other hand, Telefónica’s near term strategy for Mexico is yet to be defined. On one hand, the operator is focusing on rural coverage but also devoting its attention to small cells. Unable to compete with Telcel’s strong macro-coverage strategy, Telefónica is planning to tackle indoor coverage and has issued a comprehensive list of 25,000 buildings they would like to cover. However, so far, Mexican towercos haven’t gotten much involved in IBS.

Telcel remains the top performer in Mexico with focused and disciplined operations and a strong capex plan focused on LTE expansion. The company is investing in greenfield projects as well as amendments and new co-locations and its outlook for the future is still very positive. Concluding on Mexican carriers, it was noted that AT&T is a very serious competitor to Telcel and in the near future it could outpace Telefónica and become the second player of the country.

Could DAS spread in Mexico?

Panelists agreed that there is potential for DAS and small cells in Mexico. Mexico is still heavily underserved in terms PoA per subscriber with the U.S. average at 1,000 subscribers per site and the Mexican average around 2,500. DAS could therefore represent an ideal solution for metropolitan areas, major cities, indoor locations et cetera but to date,

although interested, carriers are still primarily focused on building macro sites.

Once more, the entrance of AT&T is mentioned as a disruptive factor. By creating real competition among players, they will force everyone to work the extra mile to enhance coverage and improve on the quality of networks and services.

According to Messmacher, AT&T will take up to three years to fully assess what they can do with the networks, assets and people they have acquired in Mexico, so a comprehensive modernisation process is likely to take some time.

What is the future of Telesites and what is the likely impact for towercos?

Up until now, Telesites hasn’t really made any move towards opening sites for co-location. Therefore, it’s very hard to comment on whether it will really

75% of independently owned CALA towers on stage


AMT 33,395

SBA 9,364

GTS 6,300

MTP 1,278

Total 50,337


On the carrier side, ARPUs have been steadily declining so now the time could be right for some consolidation. However, carriers don’t seem to be inclined to divest their towers yet, so SBA’s M&A attention has been focused on independent developers and their assets.

Meanwhile, American Tower decided to deploy its capital elsewhere and divested 60 Panamanian towers to Phoenix Tower International back in October 2014 for an undisclosed amount.

Colombia and the rest of the west coast

After buying Millicom’s towers back in 2011, American Tower entered into a joint venture agreement with a subsidiary of the operator. However, the attempted venture didn’t go through and, as commented by Messmacher, Millicom exited the JV shortly after its announcement back in 2013.

AMT still operates over 3,400 sites in Colombia and remains the largest towerco in the country. When asked about its potential interest in the Pacific coast, SBA’s Bagwell commented that the company’s plans are to keep expanding and countries like Colombia, Peru, Chile and Ecuador are all on the radar. On the other hand, Bagwell added that Argentina is still far from investible due to political, financial and country-risk.

The west coast of Latin America presents the right macro conditions for towerco investment, with most countries hosting at least three carriers or more, relatively low country risk and strong economics.

achieve independence or will remain a financial engineering exercise similar to the creation of Reliance Infratel in India.

On the other hand, Ganzi added that Carlos Slim has proven to be a formidable competitor in all industries and has always played for first place – hence the assumption that Telesites will be a strong organisation once fully operational.

To date, Telcel is still working with towercos as Telesites won’t be able to support the nationwide network rollout by itself and both American Tower and MTP are still securing new business with the carrier. In spite of the carve out, to date, Telcel retains anything between 2,800 to 3,700 of strategic sites on their books, possibly representing their microwave, fibre and switch facilities. Therefore, the carrier is still playing hard to retain its advantage against competitors.

According to panelists, Telesites’ model won’t expand into other countries any time soon.

The US$10bn 700MHz Mexican mobile broadband network

The creation from scratch of the new broadband network could be in the hands of either Ericsson or Alcatel Lucent and plans seem to be moving faster than in the U.S., where FirstNet is in charge of building the first high-speed nationwide network.

According to the panel, Ericsson’s consortium released an RF plan including 12,000-14,000

sites of which 65-70% would be co-locations and 35% greenfield and rooftops. Less information is available on the second consortium and its plans. (Editor’s note: the Mexican government has subsequently suggested that 8,000 sites will be adequate).

The Government would like to select the winning organisation before October 2015 to proceed with the funding before the end of the year. Search rings and network design would take place during 2016 and the actual execution in 2017. The plan is therefore moving along relatively quickly and panelists commended the Government for its push towards a serious modernisation of the telecom sector which is changing the shape of the industry.

Scaling a towerco in Central America

With offices in five Central American capitals, SBA Communications has been organically expanding in the region and is now working with all major carriers such as Claro, Telefónica, LIME, Tigo and Digicel. SBA commented that carriers tend to treat each local market differently but the towerco has succeeded in establishing a stable relationship with most local opcos the region and is now experiencing more demand than ever for new builds, amendments and lease ups.To date, SBA has 350 BTS projects in process, which is a substantial number in light of the scale of the region. Lots of towers are required in light of the geographical conditions of the region, where mountains and hills jeopardise the quality of the signal.


to Eisenstein. Panelists agreed that players like Sky and ON Telecom rep-resented a growing supplemental source of revenue beyond Brazil’s four traditional carriers. American Tower went on to comment that the AT&T - DirecTV deal was a U.S. driven business which could be replicated in other countries. If AT&T was to eventually take a turn towards a fixed wireless strategy, the potential for involvement of the tower industry would increase.

Beyond macro-sites, are towercos diversifying into DAS in CALA?

DAS is an optimal solution beyond indoor locations such as shopping malls, airports and public buildings, however the industry for now is focused on iDAS (indoor DAS) more than oDAS (outdoor DAS). AMT’s Messmacher stressed that carriers need to seek alternatives to offload networks, and that DAS, small cells and other products are the ideal alternative.

The Brazilian telecom industry is still active in investing ahead of the 2016 Olympics but there isn’t much time to get projects done and investments in stadiums and other venues are competing against other priorities such as network rollout. This capex dilemma is helping motivate carriers to get towercos involved to provide them with the capacity to execute all these short term project priorities.

In CALA, whereas AMT is actively looking at DAS, SBA highlighted that for now, its priority is to integrate its existing tower portfolio and focus on macro-sites while keeping an eye on alternatives

TowerXchange expects SBA Communications to enter one or more west coast markets in the near future.

You can read more detailed coverage of the tower markets in Colombia, Chile and Peru in the round table reports also featured within this edition of the TowerXchange Journal.

Are further M&A opportunities in sight in Brazil?

Brazil presents considerable opportunities for larger towercos looking at acquiring small to mid-sized independent developers’ portfolios. Moreover, BTS projects as well as amendments are still high on the shopping lists of carriers.

Panelists agreed that the towerco landscape is divided between larger towercos and a middle market of BTS-focused towercos which could sometimes be willing to accept tougher conditions from carriers in order to scale their businesses and acquire new clients.

Eisenstein commented that their BTS portfolio has been growing at a pace and under terms that the company always felt comfortable with, which sometimes meant they were prepared not to work on certain projects offered on less favourable terms. Bagwell agreed on this point and added that accepting tough conditions is a risky business in the long run as it could harm independent portfolios’ sellability in the future.

According to SBA, the Brazilian market is almost

ready to welcome a new wave of M&A, with independent towercos selling their portfolios or even their entire business to larger entities.

With an average of over 4,000 subscribers per tower, Brazil is still far off from achieving its capacity needs and American Tower added that so far, its BTS business has been consistently growing thanks to the constant demand for new sites. In spite of the presence of 10 to 15 BTS firms, Brazil remains an underserved market where 3G is yet to reach full capacity and 4G has only just started to be deployed.

AT&T’s investments in Brazil: where is Sky heading?

Demand for towers and tenancies from Sky was significant in Brazil even before AT&T’s investment, thanks to a growing customer base and a bold expansion plan primarily in São Paulo, according

“ “According to SBA, the Brazilian market is almost ready to welcome a new wave of M&A, with independent towercos selling their portfolios or even their entire business to larger entities


One thing is clear: towercos benefit from transparency of permitting processes especially since in the past, thousands of towers had been built without the necessary permits and are now either stuck in the hands of carriers or being transferred with a very heavy bureaucratic burden.

Towercos take a more rigorous approach to permitting as their final goal is to ensure their assets are investible. Whereas early deals were made with safety nets such as swap clauses, increasingly towercos are conscious of permitting and most of them have permit compliance teams that deal with nothing but the associated processes and paperwork.

Comparing expected tenancy ratios for a tower built today in five years time

Since towercos are often reluctant to talk about their actual tenancy ratios, moderator Jonathan Atkin asked a great question to gauge the towerco leaders’ personal views of potential tenancy ratio growth. If a new tower portfolio were built in your country today, what would you anticipate the tenancy ratio to rise to within a five year period?

Ganzi’s expectations for Mexico were around 1.35-1.45. Grupo TorreSur plans to achieve 1.8-2.0 in Brazil, while SBA expected to reach 1.5-1.8 in the same country. American Tower estimated an average across its CALA regional operations around 1.5-1.7 but stressed that these figures would be higher in Brazil than Mexico

such as DAS.

Frontier markets: Argentina and Cuba

Argentina is a country that presents all the right conditions from a telecom industry perspective, with three solid carriers, the early adoption of the co-location model, an upcoming spectrum auction and the potential for a nationwide network, Ganzi highlighted.

On the other hand, the country’s political situation is extremely complicated to say the least, and international investors aren’t keen to even consider a move under these risky conditions. Once invested, it would be impossible for international companies to take out cash to be redeployed in other markets.

It would take a change of mindset and a move to ease foreign investments as well as a radical shift in the political regime for any international towerco - especially for listed ones - to even consider Argentina as a market.

Ganzi stressed that Cuba could become the next Costa Rica and reminded the audience that as recently as five years ago, the Central American country had one carrier and extremely low penetration rates. Currently thriving, Costa Rica is one of the most successful markets not only in Central America but in the entire CALA region. Cuba has a larger population than Costa Rica and, should reforms take a positive turn, could represent a tremendous opportunity for the CALA tower industry.

The potential impact of the Brazilian Antenna Law and similar regional regulations

What towercos need to see changing is the speed and consistency of permitting and of permitting processes. It’s too early to assess the success of the new Brazilian Antenna law, although panelists agreed it was definitely a step in the right direction. That said, the implementation of the law by each municipality is what will make the difference.

The tower industry is interested in promoting regulatory best practices and streamlining the way companies invest in infrastructure. Governments are starting to perceive the advantages and benefits of the co-location model.

Other countries such as Chile are perceived by some as being over-regulated with regulatory change having cause more harm than good. Whereas Costa Rica created a definite process which could be time consuming but consistent, thus very rarely fails to result in a positive outcome.

In Mexico, the regulator is strongly in favour of rules like the Brazilian shot clock, whereby if the local municipality doesn’t reach a decision within thirty days, a permit is automatically granted. If created, a law mandating co-locations would be a huge push forward for the industry, and the Telecom Reform Act already includes a passage regarding portions of lands being made available to telecom, hence technically facilitating the ground lease process. But in practice, towercos are yet to assess the efficiency of these rules.


CALA’s thriving middle market towercosSeven top middle-market towercos share insights in a panel session at the TowerXchange Meetup Americas 2015

The middle market towerco segment in the CALA region has been rapidly expanding over the course of the past few years. Established tower builders are driving toward scale, and new build to suit (BTS) firms have been formed by experienced telecom and tower professionals from Mexico all the way to Brazil and Chile.

During the middle market towerco panel, leaders from seven towercos took the stage to discuss the dynamics of the CALA region from a BTS perspective, moderated by analyst Jon Atkin from RBC Capital Markets.

On stage, TowerXchange gathered top representatives from Innovattel/Torresec, Torres Andinas, Catalina Inc., IIMT Mexico, Square1 Infrastructure, Torrecom and Brazil Tower Company - seven firms representing the BTS industry in Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

Innovattel / Torresec operates in Puerto Rico, Ecuador, Peru and Colombia and owns 200+ sites across all these markets. The company was created by Manuel A. Aviles, an entrepreneur with a passion for telecom infrastructure, who took the stage during the panel.

Torres Andinas is active in Colombia and Peru while assessing market opportunities in Ecuador and Chile. Focused on the west coast of Latin America, the company was represented by Eric Ensor, its COO.

Read this article to learn:< What has changed since the last TowerXchange Meetup Americas in the CALA market< Key opportunities in Mexico since the entrance of AT&T and the creation of Telesites< Which factors towercos consider before entering a new market < Demand drivers in the region and proportion of business from BTS vs SLB

At the TowerXchange Meetup Americas held in April in Hollywood, Florida, key executives from top middle market towercos operating in the CALA region gathered and shared their views on the status of the CALA tower industry, opportunities for new market developments and the effect of AT&T entrance on the shape of the Mexican market.

Keywords: Americas, Americas Insights, Central Americas, Insights, South Americas Tagged 3G, 4G, América Móvil, AT&T, Brazil, Brazil Tower Company, Build-To-Suit, CALA Insights, Catalina Inc, Central America, Chile, Co-Locations, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Editorial, Guatemala, GVT, IIMT Mexico, Infrastructure Sharing, Innovattel, Insights, Iusacell, Market Entry, Market Forecasts, Market Overview, Mexico, Network Rollout, New License, New Market Entrant, Nextel, Nicaragua, Peru, Private Equity, Puerto Rico, RBC Capital Markets, Regulation, Sale & Leaseback, South America, Square1 Infrastructure, Telefonica, Telesites, Torrecom, Torres Andinas, Torresec, Towercos, Transfer Assets, VIVO


Catalina Inc. is a newly formed towerco focused on the Costa Rican market. José Escobar, its President, joined the panel and shared insights gathered after several years of operations in the country with GTP and TOCSA.

William Ritchey, Executive VP of IIMT, was on stage representing the Mexican towerco. With a growing tower portfolio (250+) and the right to use towers owned by the electric utility company, widely known as CFE, IIMT is one of several BTS firms currently active in Mexico.

Dan Ryan is a serial tower entrepreneur who has already launched ventures in South Africa and Myanmar. Now assessing opportunities on the west coast of Latin America via his company, Square1 Infrastructure.

Torrecom is a U.S.-backed towerco with operations in Mexico (approx. 150), Guatemala (80+) and Nicaragua (90+). Maria Scotti, the company’s CEO, has been active in the wireless space since 1992 and is now in charge of the company’s expansion in the tower and small cell business.

Last but not least, Brazil Tower Company is purely focused on the Brazilian market where it has so far built 300 towers and expects to reach 1,000 by the end of 2015. Dr Chahram Zolfaghari, the company’s CEO, joined the panel and shared his views on the country’s supply and demand dynamics.

Here is an overview of key findings these experienced professionals shared with us at the

second TowerXchange Meetup Americas.

What has changed over the past six to eight months in the CALA region?

Mexico is currently undergoing crucial changes as a result of the creation of Telesites by América Móvil and the entrance of AT&T through the acquisition of Nextel and Iusacell. The towerco community has great expectations for AT&T’s role as a disruptive and positive force in the local market and local towercos expect an increase in BTS projects.

That said, Mexico is still in need of plenty of new infrastructure to achieve optimal coverage - William

Ritchey from IIMT referred to a total of as many as 80,000 tenancies being needed in the country - so the path towards a modern infrastructure system is still a long one.

In terms of Nicaragua, one of the main news has been the start of a much needed regulatory reform process. The country is experiencing dynamics such as infrastructure sharing for the very first time and the regulator was simply not equipped for it. Maria Scotti from Torrecom reported that one of their main tenants, Telefonica, has been extremely active in the BTS space - a process in line with Telefonica’s strategy of not owning sites and being a pioneer in divesting its tower portfolios and outsourcing


to towercos across the CALA region. Torrecom also mentioned that Nicaragua and Guatemala are both shifting from 3G to 4G testing which for towercos should mean more BTS projects to ensure proper coverage in underserved areas and adequate capacity in dense urban areas.

Touching upon Colombia, the BTS market is very active and the market has been developing very fast over the past couple of years. However, it is also extremely competitive due to the presence of so many towercos. In fact, TowerXchange reports that as many as eight towercos are present in the country including American Tower, Torres Andinas, Continental Towers Corp, Innovattel, NMS as well as new entrants Phoenix Tower International and Torres Unidas.

In neighbouring Peru things have been developing

at a slower pace due to local politics but to date, the market is expanding and is moving in a positive direction.

Lastly, when discussing Brazil, Chahram Zolfaghari, CEO of Brazil Tower Company commented that the BTS landscape has changed significantly over the last twelve months. In fact, almost all carriers have embraced the BTS model which resulted in BTS firms sharing almost equal portions of the market.

Furthermore, the imminent purchase of GVT by Vivo is likely to have an impact on the BTS market as large mergers tend to create a significant slow down in activities for the carriers. The announcement of the approval of the deal by of CADE, the Administrative Council for Economic Defense, was released this past March.

Lastly, Brazil’s recently approved Antenna Law is creating a single process for all municipalities to release permits for greenfield projects. Players active in the Brazilian market judge this change as highly positive for the overall shape of the industry. TowerXchange previously reported that the effects of this law will very much depend on the swift adoption by each municipality of the new text.

The status of telecom infrastructure in Mexico

Most of the Mexican telecom infrastructure is in good condition but is over ten years old, which creates tension with the usual habit of carriers to load as much technology as they can on a tower, often with minimal regard for its usefulness. This

dynamic requires a double effort, from carriers to really pay attention to which equipment they load onto a tower, and from towercos to reinforce existing assets and build stronger towers taking into account future load requirements.

Investments and opportunities for carriers

Carriers have reportedly already invested over US$10bn to operate in Mexico, but the market is now looking even more promising thanks to the entrance of AT&T and the creation of Telesites. However, the Mexican tower market has hitherto been characterised by a lack of communication and cooperation between players such as América Móvil’s Telcel, Telefonica’s Movistar, Iusacell and Nextel; it remains to be seen whether the entry of AT&T and creation of Telesites might open up more infrastructure sharing and other opportunities.

AT&T: what are the company’s plans for the future?

It will take some time for AT&T to figure out their total network asset base and they will definitely need to bid in the next spectrum auction to further enhance their position in the market. Panellists agreed that it will take at least six to eight months for the company to understand the market, its dynamics and what are the next necessary steps.

The perceived risk is that AT&T will stop working with quite a few vendors in the near future as they re-assess their business model and asset base before starting any BTS activity. However, up

“ “Carriers have reportedly already invested over US$10bn to operate in Mexico, but the market is now looking even more promising thanks to the entrance of AT&T and the creation of Telesites


Another issue is represented by security and in Torrecom’s experience, Guatemala is a typical example of a country where it can be hard to develop projects, especially in remote areas. On the other hand, Torrecom encountered less problems in Nicaragua. On the security side though, the CALA region doesn’t present as many security challenges as TowerXchange has encountered in SSA, for example, at least in the most developed CALA countries where towercos tend to operate.

A chapter of its own should be devoted to Argentina

until now, Nextel has been operating as usual and continuing on with its BTS plans, as are Iusacell. Panellists agreed that the Mexican model is very different to what AT&T is used to and it will take the company quite some time to adjust and get up to speed, especially when it comes to permitting and regulatory issues. Therefore, while waiting for AT&T to become fully operational, towercos might end up with less business in the short term, but expectations are quite high for the mid-term.

Is CALA an integrated tower market or not?

Panellists had different takes on the shape of the CALA tower market and whether that can be treated as one or not. Generally speaking, regional operators such as América Móvil and Telefonica seek multi-country vendors able to work with them throughout the region.

Eric Ensor, COO of Torres Andinas commented that each country presented very different conditions in terms of country risk, political framework and regulatory environment. For Torres Andinas, each market where they operate - namely Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Peru and Ecuador - is very different and has to be treated separately.

With regards to a possible replication of Telesites’ model in other countries beyond Mexico, it was pointed out that the reality of Telesites will be hard to replicate throughout the region. In fact, Claro doesn’t necessarily have the capacity to build as much as they’ve done in the past and especially, as widespread as in Mexico. Therefore, it was

felt that it was likely that Claro would continue to rely on third party towercos to fulfill their BTS requirements in the future.

Which factors play a key role when towercos are considering entering a new market?

Forex risk is definitely on top of the list and all towercos on stage agreed that it is the biggest risk they have to take into consideration. In fact, once invested, it can be very hard and financially inefficient to take money out of a country.

CALA has a uniquely mature class of middle market towercos, with over twenty BTS-centric towercos supplementing the build capacity of American Tower, SBA, GTS, MTP and Telesites, who own the region’s largest portfolios and who, along with Phoenix Tower International, appear the most likely buyers of any middle-market towerco inclined to monetise their assets.

It’s a good time to be a manager or an investor in a middle-market towerco in CALA. Regulations are being reformed to ease permitting and encourage investment in telecom infrastructure, and demand for towers and tenancies is strong. The mindset of CALA’s carriers has shifted to a preference whereby they generally prefer to lease rather than build, and prefer third parties to build and own assets where necessary.

However, the increasingly competitive landscape for middle market towercos means this is not a market for the feint-hearted nor for unproven management. Tremendous capital value can be created by building a portfolio of robust assets in unique locations on soundly negotiated, readily transferrable leases. But at the same time, capital value can be destroyed if middle market towercos succumb to the temptation to deviate too far from the established business model in order to differentiate themselves and win business.

2015 will be about driving to scale. 2016-17 will see a wave of middle market towerco acquisitions, which will be very rewarding to towercos, and their investors, who stick to the established towerco playbook

Commentary by Kieron Osmotherly, Founder & CEO, TowerXchange


which was mentioned by panellists as a very attractive country for the competitive dynamics within its telecom market. However, its currency risk, political instability and overall future outlook haven’t allowed any towerco to make an entry yet.

What is driving demand in the region?

José Escobar commented that co-location is a key driver in Costa Rica. Costa Rica’s carriers primarily operate following a BTS model as they are so swamped by data demand that building passive infrastructure is not a priority. Carriers in the country - and throughout the Central Americas - are desperate for more capacity and coverage and this creates the perfect storm for towercos, also thanks to a very favourable regulatory environment.

The future for middle market towercos is perceived as quite positive. In fact, as consumers keep purchasing new technology, demand for new products and enhanced networks is occurring much faster. And this is where towercos and their expertise come into play, stronger than ever.

In markets such as Colombia and Peru - where both Innovattel/Torresec and Torres Andinas operate - BTS is the prevalent line of business. Carriers are still in charge of most of the projects and towercos serve them on demand. However, the relationship between carriers and towercos is maturing and changing regulatory environments contribute to the acceptance of the independent towerco model. Deep changes at a regulatory level might push carriers to cooperate with towercos even further, especially since penalties in case of failure to meet coverage requirements can be very high.

In Brazil, the demand is such that tens of thousands of sites are needed to ensure the right level of coverage and capacity. As shared by Chahram Zolfaghari, Brazil Tower Company is able to build around 500-600 sites per year and this is in line with others BTS firms in the country. However, supply in Brazil is heavily outweighed by the demand. Brazil Tower Company insisted that their strategy is to reach out to areas with zero coverage. By doing so, the probability of gaining new tenants without marketing their portfolio is very high

“ “In markets such as Colombia and Peru - where both Innovattel/Torresec and Torres Andinas operate - BTS is the prevalent line of business. Carriers are still in charge of most of the projects and towercos serve them on demand

Find out more about CALA middle market towercos

For more information and insights on each towerco, you can read the following interviews:

Brazil Tower Company: http://www.towerxchange.com/why-building-rather-than-buying-towers-creates-more-value/ or Issue 11 page 75

Catalina Inc.: http://www.towerxchange.com/costa-rica-a-new-tower-market-with-a-first-class-business-environment/ or issue 10 page 165

IIMT Mexico: http://www.towerxchange.com/70000-towers-needed-to-achieve-90-coverage-in-mexico/ or issue 7 page 76

Innovattel/Torresec: http://www.towerxchange.com/the-core-competencies-key-to-success-in-bts/ or issue 12 page 81

Square1 Infrastructure: http://www.towerxchange.com/how-square1-infrastructure-is-building-new-towercos-in-ssa-and-myanmar/ or issue 10 page 105

Torrecom: http://www.towerxchange.com/the-evolution-of-vertical-real-estate-in-central-america/ or issue 9 page 123

Torres Andinas: http://www.towerxchange.com/torres-andinas-creating-a-successful-build-to-suit-business-in-colombia-and-peru/ or issue 9 page 140 and issue 13 page 272


Mexico: a tale of two citiesMarc Ganzi and José Sola on MTP, AT&T, Telesites and what is going on in Mexico

TowerXchange: José, please share with us the latest developments in MTP.

José Sola, CEO, Mexico Tower Partners: Mexico Tower Partners has been growing steadily over the past couple of years. Our headcount grew from 11 people in 2013 to the current count of 40. Every year we’ve been doubling our staff, which is a good sign.

On the other hand, MTP is still a very lean towerco and we outsource most of the site acquisition and construction work to a network of trusted partners. I’d say 80% of our workload relates to managing the existing portfolio while the remaining 20% of the time we spend dealing with outsourced contractors.

Over the past few years, we have built strong relationships with third party companies that serve us with what is known in the U.S. as a build to flip model. We basically work with local towercos that build towers to then sell them to us. This is an extremely efficient model especially since these partners tend to find it easier to work in difficult regions, have an experienced approach when it comes to Mexican logistics and are very reliable in terms of time to market.

Thanks to this lean and efficient structure, we have both the capacity and resources to build up to 500 new sites per year. And we are able to guarantee our clients a fast and yet high quality service thanks to our long standing expertise and the quality control we do on outsourced partners.

TowerXchange: How do your investors perceive the Mexican market and MTP performance?

Read this article to learn:< How is MTP doing, its future plans, expectations and relationship with investors< AT&T’s potentially disruptive impact on the local market and the opportunity AT&T represents for towercos< Which further regulatory changes are needed in Mexico< Telesites: does anyone know what the towerco is planning to do?< The 700MHz shared LTE network could need 8,000 sites in Mexico

TowerXchange is excited about Mexico like everyone else in the industry. But let’s be realistic. AT&T is likely to be great news for everyone but its network plan is yet to be finalised. Telesites has made international and local headlines but hasn’t been approved yet by IFT (which stated in recent news that the session to discuss the approval isn’t likely to happen in July), and the shared LTE network could mean thousands of new towers, but plans are still unclear. To shed some light on what’s really happening in Mexico, we’ve reached out to two of the most knowledgeable tower people in Mexico: MTP’s CEO José Sola and Marc Ganzi, CEO of MTP’s lead investor Digital Bridge Holdings.

Keywords: 3G, 4G, Americas, América Móvil, American Tower, Americas Insights, AT&T, Build-To-Suit, C-Level Perspective, Capex, Digital Bridge Holdings, IFETEL, IFT, Infrastructure Sharing, Interview, Iusacell, Leasing & Permitting, LTE, Macquarie, Market Entry, Market Forecasts, Market Overview, Mexican Infrastructure Fund, Mexico, Mexico Tower Partners, New License, New Market Entrant, Nextel, North America, Regulation, Telcel, Telefonica, Telesites, Vertical Bridge

Marc Ganzi, CEO, Digital Bridge Holdings and José Sola, CEO, Mexico Tower Partners


José Sola, CEO, Mexico Tower Partners: Digital Bridge created MTP with Macquarie Mexico Infrastructure Partners. Digital Bridge is one of the leading global investors in communications infrastructure with five different investments in tower companies around the globe. Macquarie is an experienced investor here in Mexico with its Mexican Infrastructure Fund and is very familiar with our business model and the tower industry both in Mexico and at an international level. Both Digital Bridge and Macquarie have always seen Mexico as a good opportunity and have been our founding equity partners since day one.

Our investors perceive the changes happening in the Mexican telecom industry as very positive and trust that we are well positioned to make the best out of the entrance of AT&T. On that note, AT&T is a great disruptive element in the telecom landscape. MTP was founded at the end of 2011 and the Mexican market has been pretty quiet since then. Expectations were extremely high in terms of deployments from carriers but in reality most projects have been kept on hold while waiting for the telecom reform to happen. Therefore, I’d say we are coming out of a sequence of disappointing years for the industry in light of the conservative approach carriers took, but the outlook from 2016 looks bright.

The entrance of AT&T has brought a breath of fresh air in the market. Expectations are higher than ever and in general, there has been a change in the mood of investors who are now eager to look at plans for the next three to five years.

TowerXchange: How did the entrance of AT&T and the creation of Telesites change the build to suit dynamics? And what are MTP’s expectations for the future?

José Sola, CEO, Mexico Tower Partners: To date, we only have three clients in the BTS market. On one hand, most of Telcel sites will be built by Telesites so we are left with residual projects with them. Telefónica has been very quiet over the past year and we believe they are now analysing the impact of AT&T on the market before making a concrete plan of action. Their 2015 has been very slow in terms of deployment so we cannot really guess what their plans for 2016-2017 will be.

On the other hand, AT&T is a real potential opportunity for us and we expect to do a significant amount of work with them. They are working very ambitiously and already expect to build 800 towers during the course of 2015. In theory, their 2016 plan should be ready by September and they’ve already launched an RFP for equipment which is clearly a positive indicator.

TowerXchange: Beside the creation of Telesites, are there additional measures being taken by IFT that are easing towercos’ activities?

José Sola, CEO, Mexico Tower Partners: I don’t think there is a real interest in further regulating the industry for now.

One thing we are trying to do is to create an Association among key players to promote certain

regulatory changes and push for infrastructure sharing in Mexico. However, this hasn’t been a priority of the regulator and so far little has been done on this front. I think IFT won’t have an interest in looking at the tower industry in the near future beside deciding on the approval of Telesites.

However, permits can be a significant problem for Mexican towercos and this is something we are trying to address. There is a lot of uncertainty when it comes to the procedure to follow as there isn’t a federal regulation on it. Everything is done at a municipality level and there are as many as 2,438 of them in the country! Each of them has their own

One of MTP’s sites in Mexico


rules and it can be extremely difficult to comply and even find out what the rules are! This is an element that needs to be addressed quite urgently along with clarifying the rules regarding zoning.

Right now, the regulator is very focused on implementing and monitoring various measures of the telecom reform that affect the role of the preponderant player in the wireless space, such as the elimination of interconnection rates, whereas infrastructure is less of a priority, especially since the creation of Telesites.

TowerXchange: What kind of uplift does the 700MHz shared wholesale LTE network provide in terms of organic growth and co-location potential?

José Sola, CEO, Mexico Tower Partners: It is estimated that the shared LTE network will require a minimum of 8,000 sites to operate. This is an ambitious project that will require the joint effort of the managing operator, financial sponsors and OEMs. Whoever wins the project will want to minimise the deployment of new sites by using as many existing sites as possible in order to have the network up and running swiftly. However, it is anticipated that there will be also demand for new sites to complete the project.

TowerXchange: Did the entrance of a new strong player such as AT&T stir the arrival of new towercos in the country?

José Sola, CEO, Mexico Tower Partners: Yes. In fact,

we are now seeing a variety of small, relatively inexperienced players setting up towercos, and they are putting huge pressure on prices. In fact, these companies are offering their services at very low rates which we fear could become the new benchmark carriers use in their selection of BTS partners.

We see these rates as artificially low and honestly, I assume the quality of these projects must be compromised to stick to those budgets! It is critical that carriers understand the difference in quality of work of serious and committed towercos such as MTP.

We believe that carriers do care about quality of service and expertise, especially in a complicated market like Mexico. So our track record is a critical differentiator when it comes to negotiating with them. No one wants to work with a partner that isn’t qualified to execute the project, and which has shaky financial backing.

It’s a fact: everybody loves the tower industry these days. It’s an attractive and profitable business and we all know it. But it’s not for everyone and it’s not easy. As soon as a towerco is granted a project, they have a certain value in their hands. The simple assignment of the project is a huge cheque but then you need to prove yourself and be able to finance the build, contract the right partners, deliver the project within the deadlines and pass a variety of quality control tests. Only towercos with experience succeed after the assignment phase, this is a fact!

MTP is certified under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) which is extremely important, especially for U.S. companies. So we are in a great position to work with the likes of AT&T and can ensure we have strong plans in place to comply with FCPA guidelines. We perform yearly reviews of our standards with our internal committee, we organise workshops with specialised law firms to instruct new team members on FCPA standards, and we perform audits and background checks on vendors and subcontractors. This process is time consuming and yes, could delay our operations, but we see it as an extremely important component of our credibility in the market.

TowerXchange: Thanks for joining us Marc! What is your view on the arrival of AT&T, the shared LTE network and the creation of Telesites both as an expert in towercos, Mexico and as the lead investor in MTP?

Marc Ganzi, CEO, Digital Bridge Holdings: Mexico is really a tale of two cities and the present time demonstrates it more than ever. You have AT&T which is clearly amazing news for everyone in the market and tower companies like MTP, American Tower and Telesites will surely benefit.

AT&T could spend as much as US$3bn in Mexico

The transformation of Nextel and Iusacell into one stronger entity pleases us all. And who wouldn’t be pleased with expected capex by AT&T in Mexico reported in the range of US$3bn? If we translate that figure into macro-sites, we could project as


approved entity yet (from IFT) and the next step is to understand whether they get the green light or not. Our belief is they will be approved to operate. Once they are operational, we will be able to really assess their plans for the future and how they will manage the huge task of upgrading their single purpose tenant sites (that only serve Telcel) to be able to host additional carriers. Running a tower business focused on co-locations is a complicated business, no matter what everyone thinks. The Slim family has a terrific track record in Mexico entering new businesses in the telecommunications industry, so I would not bet against their potential for success.

We look forward to partnering with AT&T

The good news for all tower companies is that AT&T is getting ready with a significant operational plan and is likely to negotiate leasing terms with towercos in the near future. We expect AT&T to be eager to work with towercos that have a proven track like ourselves and American Tower and we have already begun delivering new towers and co-locations for them.

You see, we have been in Mexico and the U.S. for twenty-one years with Apex, SpectraSite, GTP and now with MTP. The reality of this country and sector opportunity seems perfect in press releases and news but often there is a gap between the excitement and reality. We are keen to find out more about all these changing elements, AT&T, Telesites and the Red Compartida project, while still being realistic and focused on getting the job done of providing our carrier partners with site solutions

many as 8,000 new co-locations and towers just to put AT&T at parity with Telcel. We all know that Telcel has been building quite aggressively at a rate of about 1,000 new sites per year. So AT&T has a lot to do if they want to achieve coverage parity.

The 700MHz shared LTE network

In Mexico, we are all eager to find out more about the Red Compartida (or shared LTE network) project for which two separate consortia are bidding. This could be another considerable revenue stream for towercos in the country, since 80% of the sites needed (which could be around 8,000, although some rumours suggest as many as 15,000) would be co-located on MTP, American Tower and Telesites’ existing infrastructure. The rest of the sites will be greenfield and that could result in 1,500 to 2,000 new towers being built.

Mexico still tracks behind compared to regional standards

But as I was saying, Mexico lives a double reality of good and bad news and if we look at the numbers, 51% of Mexican mobiles still work on 2G or 3G. The demand to switch to 4G is growing by the second but we aren’t there yet. And Mexico tracks behind regional standards with regards to most indicators, from SIM penetration (82%) to smartphone penetration (37%). There is so much to be done and things are still moving slower than they should, but all of this is exciting news for the consumer and the towercos.

Let’s not forget that Telesites hasn’t been approved yet

The creation of Telesites has brought lots of speculation to the market, especially since no one really knows what their plans are. They will start with over 11,000 towers, which makes them an overnight dominant force in the market, but we don’t have an indication yet of what their strategy will be. We have heard in the market that they plan to control all of the construction of new Telcel’s towers. This is obviously not great news for the other Mexican tower companies. If this is the case, we will see this towerco growing their tower count pretty quickly… And the market will need to discuss whether some additional restraints are needed from a competition perspective. This will really be a question for the Mexican government to ponder.

In reality, we must remember that Telesites is not an

“ “

Running a towerco is a complicated business, no matter what everyone thinks, so whether Telesites will be able to compete with experienced towercos in the Mexican landscape only time will tell


So much to do, so little timeThe Mexican telecom tower industry could get really busy very soon

América Móvil created its towerco earlier this year with the aim to manage 10,800 Telcel’s sites and develop the operator’s considerable pipeline of build-to-suit projects which has been estimated at around 1,000 sites per year. The creation of Telesites responded to IFT’s request to AMX to limit its dominant position in the National telecom market. But the IFT is yet to decide whether Telesites is the solution they were looking for.

Telesites’ future is currently on hold, pending IFT’s seal of approval and the vote needs a plenary session of the regulatory body which won’t take place before August-September, as recently stated by Gabriel Contreras, President of the IFT. Only then, América Móvil will be allowed to carve out Telcel’s tower portfolio and enable Telesites to operate it.

So as of today, Telesites doesn’t legally operate nor own 10,800 towers and the reported potential deal between AT&T and the towerco to lease space on those sites will need to wait until the approval is actually granted.

Telesites: what could happen after IFT approval

I am inclined to believe that the project will receive the approval of IFT and that Telesites will strike a substantial deal with AT&T, which is eager to start operating in Mexico and whose first and most obvious step will be to utilise existing infrastructure as much as possible to accelerate time to market. However, I am also surprised about the reported current negotiation between the two entities when

Read this article to learn:< Telesites’ status pending IFT approval

< Will the position of Telcel prevent them from accessing further auctions?

< IFT could request further measures from América Móvil

< AT&T is just what Mexico needs and here is why

< The 700MHz shared network: what we know so far

In a recent interview with Marc Ganzi, his first words regarding Mexico were “Mexico is really a tale of two cities” and that concept has been stuck in my mind since, mostly because it is the perfect description I had been looking for. Mexico is a country where opposite realities can coexist in relative harmony and the status of the telecom and tower industries is just another example of that.

Keywords: América Móvil, Telcel, Telesites, American Tower, Mexico Tower Partners, Torrecom, A&T, Telefónica, Mexico, Americas Insights, Editorial, IFT, Regulation, Market Overview, Investment, New License, Capex, Transfer Assets, Market Entry, Build-to-Suit, New Market Entrant, Country Risk

By Arianna Neri, Head of Americas, TowerXchange


in essence, Telesites doesn’t - yet - own any towers. I would also caution about expecting Telesites to have much effect in the near-term; the carve out of towers from other carriers worldwide has illustrated a typical 12-month lag between carve out and tenancy ratio growth, as the initial focus tends to be on auditing assets and establishing governance regimes.

Once in charge of Telcel’s capillary infrastructure network, Telesites will compete against the likes of American Tower and Mexico Tower Partners, whose management teams have been involved in the tower game for decades. Towercos, especially in a complex market like the Mexican one, require a deep understanding of the legal, operational and financial context and this is even truer for a company like Telesites that will handle

a considerable portfolio from day one while managing BTS projects for the number one carrier in the country.

One potential challenge is represented by the technical characteristics of Telcel’s assets. It’s not uncommon for carriers to build most of their sites as single-tenant towers and this would mean a greater technical and financial effort by Telesites to upgrade key sites before being able to market them to potential tenants.

Never has a yet-to-be-approved towerco attracted so much interest and press coverage, and understandably so. Telesites and its projected portfolio of assets could change the shape of the Mexican tower game and anyone involved in the local market is speculating about what the future

might hold. But the truth is, until the IFT grants a green light, and until Telesites’ lease rates are revealed, if and when they bring their towers to market, all we have is speculation: nobody knows what impact Telesites will have. TowerXchange understands lease rates range from US$800-1,500 in Mexico, with the range reflecting load and the application of escalators. A study by local brokerage firm Accival Casa de Bolsa claimed Telcel would pay Telesites MXN 3.7bn per year, suggesting Telesites lease rates would be around $1,700, at the top end of the market, although the source of the firm’s figures were not given.

Telcel likely to be allowed in new spectrum auction

In the meantime, IFT is planning a spectrum auction whose dates and characteristics will be announced later this year. The auction is likely to take place before the end of 2015 and IFT has recently confirmed that Telcel will be allowed to bid.

Alejandro Navarrete, Director of the Spectrum Unit (Unidad de Espectro Radioeléctrico) within IFT, recently stated that “Telcel is part of the preponderant economic agent in telecoms and our laws state that its participation to spectrum auctions can be limited. However, this valuation is referred to the Economic Competency Unit (Unidad de Competencia Económica)… An analysis is needed but in theory they can participate.”

In separate comments, IFT executives explained that the most important goal of spectrum auctions

An aerial view of Mexico City


is to improve coverage across Mexico and that any company able to support the development of the local telecom sector should be considered for new auctions. That said, March 2016 will mark the second year since the issuance of anti-dominance rules against América Móvil and that is the deadline that IFT has in mind to review market conditions and, if necessary, formulate new rules to improve competitiveness even further.

AT&T is the news towercos were waiting for

So one of the country’s faces is dominated by questions and expectations related to América Móvil and what the future holds for the group. What will Telesites do? Will IFT regulate further? Can Telcel access spectrum auctions? The other side of Mexico

is about AT&T and its potentially game-changing effect on each and every carrier and towerco in the country.

With announced plans to invest as much as US$3bn in its high-speed network, AT&T is the ideal catch for every towerco active in Mexico and a good reason for a few start ups to try and enter the market. The carrier’s plans include covering 40 million people within the first six months of operations and its final goal would be to reach out to 100 million by the end of 2018.

AT&T brings to Mexico more than just capital. Its expertise and track record is likely to push other carriers beyond their comfort zone and this is particularly true for Telefónica, who hasn’t been

very active over the past few months in terms of BTS and is likely to fine-tune its future moves in light of AT&T soon to be released plan of action.

If AT&T represents a threat and an incentive for carriers to improve their service, strengthen their brand and expand their network even further, the U.S. carrier’s entrance in Mexico is great news for the tower industry as a whole.

In fact, as José Sola, CEO of MTP shared with us in a recent interview, the Mexican BTS market has been slow over the past couple of years as a result of carriers’ reluctancy to heavily invest in greenfield projects ahead of the telecom reform. Now that the reform has taken place, the carriers’ landscape has shrunk considerably but this isn’t necessarily bad news.

With the creation of Telesites, towercos have technically lost Telcel as a substantial client. Additionally, Iusacell and Nextel have now become one entity. However, AT&T has brought capital, expertise and an appetite for growth South of the border which is just what the industry needed. And the volume of business they are expected to develop in Mexico could be enough to keep AMT, MTP, Telesites, IIMT, Conex and Torrecom quite busy for the next couple of years.

In a recent statement, AT&T’s Mexico CEO, Thaddeus Arroyo, stated that it will take approximately two years to get the business where the company wants and we hope this includes a strong push in terms of BTS projects, which is just

“ “

With the creation of Telesites, towercos have technically lost Telcel has a substantial client. Additionally, Iusacell and Nextel have now become one entity. However, AT&T has brought capital, expertise and growth cravings South of the border which is just what the industry needed. And the volume of business they are expected to develop in Mexico could be enough to keep AMT, MTP, Telesites, IIMT, Conex and Torrecom quite busy for the next couple of years.


what Mexican towercos are hungry for.

AT&T’s immediate focus is to unify the acquired networks of Iusacell and Nextel, each of which consists of approximately 4,000 towers, of which around 90% are owned by American Tower. Forecasts suggest AT&T could add between 5,000 and 8,000 new sites to their network over the next three years, including both co-location and BTS, and a mix of capacity infill and coverage extension, 3G overlays and 4G modernisation. TowerXchange expect this to significantly accelerate organic growth within the American Tower and MTP portfolios in particular.

The uncertainty behind the 700MHz wholesale network

The last tale in Mexico is represented by the 700MHz shared network whose plan was included in the telecom reform and whose construction could require an investment of as much as US$7bn.

The goal of setting up a shared wholesale network has been considered of high relevance for quite some time now and was originally included in the constitutional reform of 2013 and subsequently in the 2014 Telecoms Act. However, details of the plan are yet to be fully defined by the Secretariat of Communications and Transport (SCT).

To date, a few elements are clear. SCT received thirty-nine expressions of interest to participate in various aspect of the development of the 700MHz shared network. Of them, 54% came from

Mexican companies and the remaining 46% from international entities. 58% expressed interest in one aspect of the project whereas the remaining 42% would be available to cover multiple elements of it.

The number one priority for most applicants is to fully understand the nature of the relationship between the Mexican government and the companies that will be in charge of running the shared network. Specifically, SCT received requests to clarify the role of the public administration in the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) that will manage the wholesale network, as reported by Telesemana.

Other aspects highlighted in the expressions of interest include the commercial viability of the project, in light of the ambitious coverage goals, as well as the required upfront investment especially since the actual demand for the network is uncertain. SCT stated that interested parties asked for “sufficient flexibility to the administrative body in charge of the network with the goal to plan and execute a rollout in line with market conditions and technical standards” which would also mean that the government should limit its participation to the network design and technology selection processes.

Next steps will require SCT to review these requests and publish tender documentation before the end of August. The actual tender should be open for bids around October with the goal to assign the project during the first half of 2016 and start rolling out in the second half of the year.

Telesemana published a non-exhaustive list of

interested parties which include Accenture, Cisco, Ericsson, Huawei, Motorola Solutions, Qualcomm, Nokia, Alestra, Axtel, China Telecom, MVS, Pegaso PCS, SES, Total play and associations such as the Ibero-American Association of Investigative Centres and Telecommunications Companies (ASIET), the Mexican Internet Association and PCIA.

Whilst this uncertainty makes it difficult to forecast the implications of Mexico’s 700MHz wholeseale network, TowerXchange has spoken to some towercos in the country who forecast that the project may need anything from 8,000-14,000 sites, of which half to two thirds could be co-locations with the rest greenfield - driven by the project’s remit to provide wholesale coverage to areas with no coverage.

Conclusion

Players in the Mexican telecom industry, whether they are towercos, carriers, OEMs or solution providers, could get really busy very soon but there is a catch. Way too often Latin American countries find themselves stuck in tedious bureaucratic processes that slow down the development of any type of project. Therefore, my hope is that Mexico steps it up over the next few weeks and reaches crucial decisions with regards to a variety of key telecom issues such as the approval of Telesites and clarification of the 700MHz shared network. These decisions will enable various players to tailor their strategies and get started with the most exciting year for the Mexican telecom industry to date


TowerXchange’s guide to the Central American tower marketTower counts, towerco penetration and baseline data on Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama

SBA Communications leads the Central American market with 2,050 towers, 1,982 of which are included in this analysis as a product of their inclusion in SBA’s current site list (at 22 April 2015). SBA has built their Central American portfolio through sale and leaseback transactions, primarily with Telefónica but also with Digicel, through trade acquisitions including from Mobilitie and Centennial, and through organic growth. The number two towerco in Central America is Continental Towers. It is difficult to estimate Continental Towers’ tower count as the company is very guarded about releasing data or site lists. While our most recent research suggests Continental’s total tower count is around 1,000, just over 300 may be in Colombia, with 690 in Central America, their largest market being Honduras where they have ~200 towers. All other Continental Towers counts included in this analysis are estimates. American Tower has 498 sites in Central America, all now in Costa Rica, which formed part of their acquisition from Global Tower Partners (GTP), which also absorbed Centennial’s towers in the same country. American Tower recently divested their 58 towers in Panama to Phoenix Tower International, a new towerco managed by several GTP alumni, including CEO Dagan Kasavana. In addition to Phoenix, several ‘middle market towercos’ operate in Central America, including Torrecom (with 93 towers in Nicaragua and 86 in Guatemala), TOCSA (105 in Costa Rica), NMS with

Read this article to learn:< How many towers are in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama, and who owns them?< Which MNOs have retained towers, which have sold to towercos?< Which towercos are active in each country?< What is the progress of 4G rollouts in each country?

Independent towercos own and market 3,681 of the 10,971 towers in Central America, representing penetration of 34%. Towercos building rather than buying will drive growth in the region, with the majority of “low hanging fruit” sale and leaseback transactions already complete. Potential inorganic growth is more likely to come from consolidation within the tower industry, with several ‘middle market’ towercos active in Central America and both SBA Communications and ‘new kids on the block’ Phoenix Tower International acquisitive.

Keywords: Editorial, MNOs, Towercos, Market Overview, 4G, LTE, Capex, Tenancy Ratios, Build-to-Suit, New Market Entrant, Carve Out, Sale & Leaseback, Infrastructure Sharing, Central Americas, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, kölbi, ICE, Claro, América Móvil, Movistar, Telefónica, Tigo, Millicom, Digicel, Hondutel, Xinwei, Cable & Wireless, SBA Communications, American Tower, TOCSA, Continental Towers, Catalina Inc, Torrecom, Message Center Management, NMS, Phoenix Tower International, Torres de Panama

Estimated tower counts, Central America


Guatemala3,408

Costa Rica 2,759

Panama 1,529

El Salvador 1,200

Honduras 1,200

Nicaragua875


around 75 in Nicaragua, Catalina Inc, a recent startup in Costa Rica, and Torres de Panama (60). Potential for MNO-led carve-outs? TowerXchange don’t think there is much potential for the Central American MNOs who retain their towers to spin them off into “operator-captive” towercos in the short to medium term. However, we note that Claro is present in all six Central American tower markets, and has to date retained all of its estimated 2,000+ towers in the region. If the Telesites towerco venture in Mexico achieves positive results, it is conceivable that Claro’s Central American towers could be rolled into América Móvil’s new towerco. Similarly, it is also conceivable that Telesites could be divested,

Guatemala

Costa Rica

Panama

El Salvador

Honduras

Nicaragua

10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%

before or after the injection of the América Móvil’s Central American passive infrastructure, although we doubt either strategy will play out in the near future. An even further “out of left field” thought is that Denis O’Brien’s satisfaction with Digicel’s inaugural towerco venture in Myanmar might persuade the entrepreneur to spin-off towercos from his existing assets, although such a venture would have more impact on the Caribbean than Central American markets. However, we must emphasise that the most likely scenario is that the Central American tower market remains led by independent towercos, with SBA Communications consolidating their leadership position.

Central American tower market snapshots Let’s take a closer look at each of the six Central American mobile network operator and tower markets:

Costa Rica Government-owned ICE, trading under the kölbi brand, dominates the market with Claro and Telefónica (Movistar) for competition. Telefónica entered the market using 100% co-location and BTS, so own few if any towers. The rollout of LTE is progressing steadily for all three MNOs, hence Costa Rica has one of CALA’s highest levels of broadband penetration, driving healthy tenancy ratios and

Towerco penetration



Who owns Costa Rica’s towers?

ICE (kölbi) Claro SBA

American Tower TOCSA Continental Towers

Phoenix Tower International

~1000

450

501

498

105180

25

21%

17%

20%

48%

47%

60%


amendment revenue. Sutel has not ruled out the possibility of enabling a fourth operator to enter the market during the second phase of spectrum auctions.

Tenancy ratios in Costa Rica are generally in the 1.7 to 2.0 range, with the tower market led by SBA and American Tower, each with around 500 towers, American Tower having acquired their Costa Rican assets in the GTP transaction, which apparently also absorbed Centennial’s assets in the country. Like SBA and American Tower, local towerco TOCSA is growing fast, joined by new entrant Catalina Inc, run by GTP’s former Country Manager and the former head of TOCSA, José Escobar. Phoenix Tower International recently acquired 25 towers from TOCSA. Continental Towers also has a footprint in

Costa Rica.

El Salvador Tigo and Claro vie for market leadership in the healthily competitive El Salvador market. Tigo plan to upgrade from US$50mn in 2014 to US$70mn investment in their network in 2015. Digicel El Salvador, which uses HSPA+, plans to invest US$50mn in network expansion in 2015. Telefónica had recently completed a three-year US$100mn upgrade. Given the presence of four credit-worthy tenants, it is perhaps surprising that El Salvador is the least penetrated tower market in Central America at 17%. SBA Communications and Continental Towers

appear to be the only towercos active in El Salvador, SBA having acquired the majority of Telefónica’s sites.

Guatemala The most populace country in Central America, Tigo and Claro vie for market leadership in Guatemala, with Telefónica (Movistar) in third place and fourth operator Intelfon (Red) licensed but apparently inactive. Movistar invested US$100mn to launch 4G in October 2014 on the 1900MHz band, Tigo is scheduled to launch in Q2 2015.

SBA has the largest towerco-owned portfolio in Guatemala, with 498 sites listed in their last site directory, having acquired the majority of

Who owns Guatemala’s towers?Who owns El Salvador’s towers? Who owns Honduras’s towers?

Source: TowerXchangeSource: TowerXchange Source: TowerXchange

Tigo Claro Telefónica

SBA Continental Towers Torrecom

Operator-captive Continental TowersTigo Claro Digicel

Telefónica SBA Continental Towers

2000

500

200

498

~10086

400

300

250

50

177

23

800

200


Panama Four operator market, led by Cable & Wireless and Telefónica (Movistar) but with aggressive new market entrants Digicel and Claro claiming market share and driving tenancy ratio growth. Digicel sold all their towers, now relying entirely on co-location and BTS, enabling aggressive tariffs, whilst chasing down Movistar for second place. The towerco market is led by SBA Communications and their 521 towers, acquired from Digicel, Telefónica and Centennial, who are believed to have exited the market. SBA are joined by Phoenix Tower International, who were surprise winners when American Tower sold their 58 towers in Panama, plus Continental Towers and Torres de Panama.

Telefónica’s towers in the country. Torrecom claim to have 86 sites in Nicaragua, and we estimate Continental has around 100.

Honduras Honduras remains a duopoly, with subscribers split between Tigo (Millicom) and Claro, who represent around 800 towers between them. Both incumbents are in the early stages of rolling out LTE. A prospective third mobile operator, state-backed Hondutel, has been making headlines in their search for investors, with an oft-delayed launch currently scheduled for Q3 2015. Continental Towers are believed to be the only active towerco in Honduras, with around 200 sites.

Nicaragua Nicaragua is another near-duopoly, with Claro and Telefónica (Movistar) dominating the market and new entrant Xinwei making little impression on the market. Telefónica sold the majority of their Nicaraguan towers to SBA, Claro has retained ~300, and Xinwei have used 100% co-location to date in a very limited launch restricted to a handful of isolated settlements in the North Atlantic Region. Nicaragua is the most penetrated tower market in Central America, with towercos owning 60% of the country’s towers. SBA lead the Nicaraguan tower market with 285 sites listed in their last site directory. Torrecom claim to have 93 sites in Nicaragua, and we estimate Continental has around 74.

“

“

There isn’t much difference between the tower cash flow in Brazil and Central America. In fact, the spread between the ground rent and the tenant rent is the biggest driver and pretty similar in both areas. Opex isn’t significantly different either – Kurt Bagwell, President, International, SBA Communications

Who owns Panama’s towers?Who owns Nicaragua’s towers?

Source: TowerXchangeSource: TowerXchange

Cable & Wireless Claro Telefónica SBA

Continental Towers Torres de Panama

Phoenix Tower International

Claro Telefónica SBA

Torrecom Continental Towers NMS

550

150

521

90

~100

6058

300

50

285

93

~74

75


Central American tower market data summary

Country

Honduras

Source

Est tower count

1200

TowerXchange Q2 2015

Towerco penetration

20%


Active MNOs

Tigo, Claro,(Hondutel?)

TowerXchange

Active towercos

Continental


Population SIM penetration Mobile broadband penetration

8.3mn 101% 20%

GSMA Intelligence, Q4 2014



Costa Rica

Nicaragua

2759

879

47%

60%

kölbi, Claro, Movistar

Claro, Movistar, (Xinwei?)

SBA, AMT, TOCSA, Continental, Catalina

SBA, Torrecom, Continental, NMS

5mn 152% 55%

6.2mn 120% 23%

Guatemala

El Salvador

Panama

3408

1200

1555

21%

17%

48%

Tigo, Claro, Movistar, (Red?)

Tigo, Claro, Digicel, Movistar

Cable & Wireless, Movistar, Digicel, Claro

SBA, Continental, Torrecom

SBA, Continental

SBA, Continental, Phoenix, Torres de

Panama

16.1mn 111% 18%

6.4mn 140% 17%

4mn 143% 26%

Conclusions

Central America is the fifth largest tower market in CALA (effectively the fourth largest as Argentina effectively doesn't yet count). Most of the "low hanging fruit" sale and leasebacks with the likes of Telefónica and Digicel have been closed in Central America. Remaining operator-captive towers are generally trapped on balance sheets by complex ownership structures, or by América Móvil’s reluctance to divest tower assets. However, there are no

shortage of strategic acquisition opportunities, with SBA Communications and Phoenix Tower International likely to bid on most quality portfolios.

Towercos are well established in the region and are building the vast majority of new towers in Central America, fuelled by the need for infill sites driven by data demand. The rollout of 4G is in early stages across the region (slightly ahead in Costa Rica), promising to create amendment revenue in addition to co-location revenue.

Investing in Central American towers has been a very fruitful endeavour for SBA Communications, attracting Tower Cash Flow comparable to Brazil, and healthy tenancy ratio growth. Efficiencies are created as resources are shared across operations in the six Central American countries, so in the long term we foresee Central American tower portfolios consolidating on the balance sheets of SBA, Phoenix Tower and (perhaps) American Tower. In the meantime, Central America remains a great environment for middle market towercos to execute a 'build and flip' strategy


Why Colombia is so attractive to towercosPerspectives on the Colombian and Peruvian markets according to Torres Andinas

TowerXchange: Eric, we’ve spoken about a year ago about the status of the markets where Torres Andinas operates. Can you give us a quick run-through what has changed and what is Torres Andinas’ current footprint in each of them?

Eric Ensor, COO, Torres Andinas: Torres Andinas remains active in Colombia and Peru. In Colombia, we now have contracts with all the operators whereas when we last spoke, I believe we had three in place. This is a major step forward for us as we are finally able to develop projects for all five operators.

The Colombian market is moving on quite well. It’s still a game of trial and error with carriers as we both adjust to the BTS and co-location model. But it’s part of the process and we are satisfied with where we are now.

To date, we have 200 sites either built or in the pipeline in Colombia with an average of about ten sites built a month or more, depending on the flow of activities from carriers. We tend to build in coastal areas mostly, plus some sites in major cities like Bogotá and Cali.

In Peru, we are now at the search ring stage on a number of sites for two carriers. In the meantime, we are working to establish a stable relationship with the others. Our business has definitely progressed since last year but we have noticed that some carriers in Peru are more interested in second tenancies rather than BTS so will jump on board once the towers are up and running.

Read this article to learn:< Torres Andinas: what has changed since last year and where the company is heading< Why is Colombia such an attractive market for towercos?< Peruvian carriers: less BTS and more second tenancies in future< Are there too many towercos in Colombia? And are more towers likely to be sold in the future?< The regulatory environment and the community relations challenge in Colombia< Colombia vs Peru: comparing the pros and cons

TowerXchange spoke to Eric Ensor, COO of Torres Andinas, back in August 2014 and ten months later he agreed to speak with us again to give us an update on what is happening in Colombia and Peru, where his towerco is active. Since last year, the Colombian tower industry has been expanding at a swift pace and the Peruvian market has been steadily growing. In this interview, Eric shares his views on the considerable opportunities presented by Colombia and the positive growth pattern of the Peruvian market.

Keywords: 3G, 4G, Acquisition, Americas, Americas Insights, Avantel, Build-To-Suit, C-Level Perspective, Capex, Claro, Co-Locations, Colombia, DirecTV, Ecuador, Insights, Interview, Investment, Leasing & Permitting, LTE, Market Entry, Market Overview, Millicom, Movistar, Network Rollout, New License, Peru, Regulation, Sale & Leaseback, South America, Telefonica, Tigo, Torres Andinas, Urban Vs Rural, Valuation

Eric Ensor, COO, Torres Andinas


Last year, Entel was the most active carrier we’ve worked with, but business has slowed down from them lately. Entel is now assessing what’s next and we expect their BTS activity to pick back up in a few months. On the other hand, DirecTV has entered the market, creating an additional potential business stream for towercos.

We have 50 to 60 sites in development in Peru and we’ve received two thirds of those orders over the past few weeks so I can definitely say things are moving in the right direction. However, downward pricing pressure is huge in Peru. I am sure this is a positive factor for carriers especially with the rumoured entrance of an additional towerco into the country but for us, it’s definitely a risk factor.

TowerXchange: Specifically, we’d like to speak about Colombia. And why is Colombia such an attractive market for towercos?

Eric Ensor, COO, Torres Andinas: After Brazil, I believe Colombia is the most exciting telecom market in the region. With five licensed carriers for 4G and plenty of activity scheduled for all of them, many towercos saw the great potential of the country and decided to launch their operations here.

Claro has been able to outbuild all the other carriers, leaving both Telefónica and Tigo behind in terms of coverage. However, Claro agreed to build sites in as many as 1,000 small towns and villages as part of its 4G license package and now has to step it up and work with towercos as well as developing

its own projects. Moreover, Avantel and DirecTV are new entrants who are starting to build as well.

With quite a few large cities where connectivity isn’t yet up to standard and very stringent rural coverage requirements, Colombia is now witnessing a huge volume of activity.

TowerXchange: Do you think there’s enough BTS opportunities in the Colombian market for more towercos, or will some of the existing companies will end up being squeezed out of business in the country?

Eric Ensor, COO, Torres Andinas: Most towercos in the country are involved in BTS projects. However, I believe Colombia is getting pretty crowded. My prediction is that some towercos might gain some initial work in the country but will end up moving

on as the market gets too tough for them. Right now, it seems that everyone is winning some business but the question is whether this trend will continue or not as carriers start to work steadily with one towerco or another.

Carriers do need a lot of sites and there are great expectations for the two years to come. However, the process of building a tower in Colombia is long and time consuming, starting with extensive search rings all the way to land leases and permitting. Most of the success of a project depends on the ability of a carrier to approve projects in a timely manner. For instance, we do have a number of sites waiting for approval and it’s in the hands of carriers to make them happen at this point.

TowerXchange: How many towers do you think are still operator-captive in Colombia, and do

“ “Last year, Entel was the most active carrier we’ve worked with, but business has slowed down from them lately. Entel is now assessing what’s next and we expect their BTS activity to pick back up in a few months. On the other hand, DirecTV has entered the market, creating an additional potential business stream for towercos


you have a sense of the potential for sale and leasebacks?

Eric Ensor, COO, Torres Andinas: Right now, I don’t see the potential for considerable sale and leaseback transactions in Colombia. Claro does own a large portfolio but as we all know, they aren’t typically a seller. On the other hand, after having sold most of their towers, Telefónica and Tigo are now developing some projects themselves which is quite interesting. I think they might look at monetising them but it’s not imminent. I would estimate they could make a move over the next couple of years. Recently Telefónica organised a bid for a BTS project but there was no talk whatsoever about any tower sale.

There has been some speculation about Claro and what they might do with their towers in the region, in light of the creation of Telesites. However, I haven’t heard anything with regards to Colombia and actually, the only rumour I heard was regarding Costa Rica! In any case, I’d be surprised if they sort out their Mexican operations before the next couple of years. Plus, regulators in other countries might not be as open to the model as the Mexican one. What was great news in Mexico would still be seen as a dominant position in other parts of the region.

TowerXchange: Last year, you mentioned that Torres Andinas’ goal was to build an average of 20-25 new sites per month. Is that still the case?

Eric Ensor, COO, Torres Andinas: Yes, the goal is still to build as many as 20-25 sites per month.

To date, we haven’t reached that goal simply because we don’t have enough work from the carriers. However, we do have the capabilities and resources in place to achieve that volume.

Our investors are still very positive about our activities in Colombia and Peru and we are confident we can build a good-sized portfolio in both countries.

TowerXchange: How would you characterise the regulatory environment for towercos in Colombia? Has the National Law to ease permitting been implemented and had much effect at local level?

Eric Ensor, COO, Torres Andinas: With regards to the National Law, we believe it’s a good starting point but much depends on how fast local municipalities embrace it. The situation is similar to Brazil with its Antenna Law. However, in Colombia we deal with very strong local communities, and civil disturbances protesting against new towers can be a real issue.

The telecom industry is well aware of the problem and we get involved in socialisation projects to educate the population to our business, its characteristics and the safety of radiation emissions. It’s key to get a well organised educational plan in place to avoid getting stopped along the way.

Any towerco that doesn’t think the socialisation process is necessary is short lived in the country.

TowerXchange: How mature is the 3G rollout in Colombia, have the early 4G rollouts on the AWS band had any effect on demand for towers and tenancies, and what effect do you feel the 700 MHz auction will have?

Eric Ensor, COO, Torres Andinas: Things are very intense right now and the ramp up of new service is extremely demanding. Legacy carriers such as Tigo and Telefónica need to build sites in areas that will allow them to compete with Claro. In the meantime, urban networks are getting overwhelmed, particularly for data, and carriers are building quite a few infill sites in major cities in an attempt to offload existing sites. Then we deal with a third variety of players with a niche approach, such as Avantel and DirecTV, who have identified certain areas they want to cover and who are concentrating on those.

I’d say there are three different demand drivers which vary from carrier to carrier and create plenty of activity for all of us in the tower industry.

TowerXchange: On a side note, are you currently active in Ecuador or still assessing a possible move there?

Eric Ensor, COO, Torres Andinas: Yes, we are still looking at Ecuador but have been so busy in Colombia and Peru that simply didn’t have time to do much there.

Claro’s dominant position doesn’t help the towerco model spreading in Ecuador and we are still trying


towerco acquiring a carrier portfolio knows they’ll need to inject capital into those assets.

Another problem is that most of these towers have 2G, 3G and 4G antennas spread over various heights and aren’t maximising the use of space. Therefore, it’s hard to put additional equipment on them even if structurally speaking, the tower could support it.

Legally speaking, much of the consideration regarding the value of a tower depends on the permitting, the length of the land lease and the existence of renewal clauses. These are factors that a towerco will always take into consideration, whether they are building from scratch or buying an existing site, and will have a huge impact on the valuation.

In some areas, carriers have been very precise with these bureaucratic aspects but we’ve also seen towers built without permits and which are basically illegal. I don’t know of one single towerco that would accept to buy them except at a significant discount - this reflects how much they are worth.

So, if you consider that a tower acquired from a carrier may not have much spare load capacity, what space it does have might be sub-optimally used, and it may not come with a full set of documentation, you can see why a tower built by a towerco is typically worth so much more given its ample structural capacity, with space sold to maximise use of space, and with a full, clean set of permits with a long lease term and sensible renewal terms

to understand how to position ourselves there. So far, we haven’t been able to answer that question entirely as we aren’t sure about how much business we can get there.

TowerXchange: Can you a draw a comparison between Colombia and Peru?

Eric Ensor, COO, Torres Andinas: We definitely have more activities in Colombia as we started earlier and the country is host to a larger carrier base. We entered Peru at a later stage and we aren’t as developed in terms of carriers’ relationship. As previously mentioned, we don’t have contracts with everybody yet but we are getting there.

In both countries we were able to build strong core teams and can acquire local steel, which is a great price factor. Plus we’ve done a good job identifying quality contractors we are working with on the construction phase.

Torres Andinas has a good reputation in both Peru and Colombia and our sites are delivered up to standards. We aren’t the lowest price player in these markets but we aren’t interested in that. We provide quality services which is appreciated by our customers.

Geographically speaking, Peru is harder than Colombia with less cities and lots of smaller, rural communities to serve, where the potential for second and third tenancies is lower. In Colombia, there are a lot of large cities which makes it very attractive for BTS firms.

TowerXchange: Finally, whether it’s in Colombia, Peru, Ecuador or Brazil, why is a tower built for sharing and built by an independent towerco generally worth more when sold than a tower built by a carrier?

Eric Ensor, COO, Torres Andinas: Generally speaking, it’s harder to forecast a straightforward way to create revenue from a second or third tenant when we deal with a tower acquired from a carrier. Most of these towers are built for one, or a maximum of two tenants and in order to meet their full co-location potential they might have to be reinforced if not rebuilt from scratch. So any

“

“

if you consider that a tower acquired from a carrier may not have much spare load capacity, what space it does have might be sub-optimally used, and it may not come with a full set of documentation, you can see why a tower built by a towerco is typically worth so much more


Chile tower market heats upEntel holds the key to the Chilean tower market achieving scale

Current state of Chile’s mobile market and network By most metrics, Chile is the most mature mobile market on the Pacific Coast of South America, boasting 147% SIM and 51% mobile broadband penetration (Source: GSMA Intelligence, Q4, 2014). Chile is host to three credit-worthy prospective BTS / co-location / sale and leaseback counterparties in Movistar, Entel and Claro, and features a well-balanced competitive environment to stimulate capital investment. Having recently come through a spate of legal challenges, Chile’s operators are now selecting equipment providers to rollout 4G on newly acquired 700MHz spectrum, spectrum which came with extra coverage obligations including connecting 1,281 remote regions. This supplements the 2.6GHz band which all three operators have utilised to launch 4G. Participants in the Chile round table at the TowerXchange Meetup Americas expected 4G to drive a surge in lease ups (often at lower tower heights than existing tenancies), and large scale new build programmes within 24-36 months. In terms of prospective non-traditional MNO tenants, there is not much outside Chile’s core urban areas, where a public safety group has some tenancies, while Santiago is home to the usual smattering of local USPs, fixed wireless and last mile players.

Read this article to learn:< An overview of Chile’s carriers and their spectrum

< How Chile’s Towers Law has suppressed BTS and increased the value of existing towers

< The shareability and investibility of Chile’s broadcast towers

< Macro economic factors which suggest Chilean telecom towers are a safe haven for investment

< Who owns Chile’s telecom towers, who could be selling, who could be buying?

The CALA tower land grab is gravitating toward the three countries on the Pacific Coast; Chile, Colombia and Peru. How investible is the Chilean tower market? With the ‘Towers Law’ having stifled many tower build programmes, at the same time increasing the value of existing towers, what are the prospects for a substantial sale and leaseback in Chile? This analysis combines TowerXchange’s own research and commentary with insights learned from the Chile round table at the recent TowerXchange Meetup Americas.

Keywords: TowerXchange Research, Americas Research, Construction, 4G, Valuation, Tenancy Ratios, Co-locations, Network Rollout. Build-to-Suit, Bankability, Pass-Through, Densification, Leasing & Permitting, Regulation, DAS, Sale & Leaseback, Infrastructure Sharing, Americas, Chile, American Tower, Torres Unidas, Torres Andinas, SBA Communications, Claro, América Móvil, Movistar, Telefónica, Entel


Macro economic factors Economic headwinds, which suppressed foreign investment into Chile in 2014, appear to be easing. Chile is host to a very modern economy and capital city, generating the kind of disposable incomes that facilitate consumer investment in mobile devices. Smartphone penetration will pass 50% in 2015, and Chilean users are sophisticated users. With pricing in UF (Unidad de Fomento, a unit

Broadcast infrastructure Chile’s broadcast infrastructure assets are not really “in play” as prospective telecom co-location sites. Chile’s broadcast network typically consists of large towers perched on Chile’s mountains overlooking the big cities – while a handful may be of use for telecom co-location, most are too distant and too high to be of much to RAN planners and, with decent fibre connectivity in Chile, broadcast assets would be unlikely to be used for backhaul. There might be a “cash flow opportunity” rather than a “growth opportunity” associated with Chile’s broadcast infrastructure, and that probably means the assets are of minimal interest to towercos. Regulatory environment A tower entrepreneur with recent experience of the licensing regime in Chile reported that a towerco license was required, that fees were reasonable, but that the process took considerable time. In some ways, a licensing barrier to entry can be a good thing – keeping out players too small to add significant value. However, the principle topic of conversation around Chile’s regulatory environment concerns Law No. 20.599, commonly known as the ‘Towers Law’. The Towers Law has suppressed Chile’s build to suit market with its onerous restrictions on building in saturated or sensitive areas, its somewhat heavy-handed attempt to mandate infrastructure sharing, and its requirements both to invest in camouflage,

and at times to compensate local communities. While the ‘Towers Law’ has stifled tower build rates in the short term (market leading towerco American Tower reported a net increase in their Chilean tower count of <1% over the last two years), strict zoning rules tend to have an aggregate positive impact on the tower industry as they force network planners to share existing structures, even at sub-optimal locations, rather than build their own. Another effect of the Towers Law has been to reward local knowledge; as one independent developer put it “getting a tower built in Chile is no more challenging than it is in the wealthy suburbs of the US, demanding a similar sensitivity to aesthetics. While it’s tough to permit large volume BTS programmes, strict zoning protects and adds value to the tower once built.” Most commentators agree; if you can prove a tower is needed in Chile, you can get it built, although you may have to be prepared to invest in camouflage. In TowerXchange’s experience there are four priorities for the healthy regulation of tower markets – here’s how Chile fares against each: < Fair, fast licensing of towercos: average< Permitting regime that protects the zone around existing towers yet expedites new builds, ideally incorporating a ‘shot clock’ or similar: below average< Regulator should not interfere with market pricing of tenancies: above average< Clearly defined real estate law with online land registry: above average

Source: Quarterly reports

Mobile subscriber market share, Q4 2014

37.3%

21.4%

39.5%

1.8%

Entel Claro

Movistar Others


of account indexed daily against inflation), investments in Chile are insulated against inflation and currency risk. Independent tower companies are generally recognised as an established business model, so local commercial debt availability is good, with round table participants reporting debt could be sourced in Chile with interest rates in high single digit percentages. Using the words of one Chile round table participant to sum up: “as long as you have more conservative expectations for growth, Chile is a safe place to park capital and from which to repatriate capital.” Chile’s tower market At first glance at a map of Chile, the simple

observation occurs: this is a long, skinny country, with lots of terrain to cover and lots of sites needed. There are currently around 8,000 towers in Chile, but the majority are concentrated in Santiago, Viña del Mar, Antofagasta and Valparaíso – thousands more towers are needed, particularly in rural areas. All-in, a green field, ground based tower is reported to cost US$90-120,000 in Chile, depending on location and logistics, while lease back rates are reportedly in the US$800-1,300 range, depending on what equipment is being hung. Treat those costs and lease back rates as “back of envelope” estimates – such data is both confidential and subject to huge variation depending on circumstances, so it is always difficult to elicit hard numbers. Ground leases and energy costs are both a pass through to the operator, and grid power is both extensive and reliable.

American Tower is the largest of Chile’s towercos, with 1,159 towers reported in Q1 2015, followed by Torres Unidas with around 480 on their current tower map, and Torres Andinas. TowerXchange are tracking a couple of prospective new entrant independent developers. There have been a couple of tower deals in Chile, although too long ago to set a meaningful valuation precedent today. In early 2012, American Tower announced the acquisition of 558 towers from Movistar for US$96mn (US$172k per tower), while later that year Torres Unidas acquired a further 400 towers from Movistar in a deal whose terms were not disclosed. Informed estimates suggest the tenancy ratio on the Movistar towers acquired in 2012 was very close to one at acquisition, with just a few bi-lateral swaps to convert, and might be as high as 1.5 today (Q2, 2015), although it should be noted that neither American Tower nor Torres Unidas would verify that number. While co-location revenues have reportedly grown steadily, the Chilean tower build market is about to emerge from a period of relative stasis. For example, the largest towerco in Chile, American tower, made zero net additions to their Chilean tower count in the twelve months to April 2015, and added just nine towers in the preceding twelve months. Despite the challenges presented by the Towers Law, no-one expects this building hiatus to continue – Chile simple needs a lot more towers for 4G – indeed the regulator has required the


Who owns Chile’s ~8,000 towers?

~6,250

1,159

480~111

American tower

Torres Unidas

Torres Andinas and others

Operator-captive


most recent spectrum auction winners to make commitments to connect 1,281 remote regions. Quoting Jake Grant of BMI in a recent edition of the TowerXchange Journal (my italicisation): “In order to meet these commitments, the three main operators will need to invest heavily in infrastructure, expanding their current portfolios by three to four times their current size. With higher costs of construction due to the Towers Law, operators could look to divest non-core tower assets to third parties in order to fund this heavy capex burden”. Inorganic growth opportunities in Chilean towers So which stakeholders are most likely to sell Chilean towers, thus offering the most obvious path to scale for any aspiring new entrant towerco? Claro has no history of divesting towers and, with the formation of Telesites, seems more likely to transfer Chilean tower assets to their own towerco rather than auction them on the open market. It is believed that Movistar Chile has a few tower assets remaining on their balance sheets, having divested almost 1,000 towers in 2012, with subsequent builds largely undertaken by their towerco partners. Telefónica has a long history of tower sales, so a further modest tower transaction from Movistar would not be a surprise. This leaves Entel as the most likely counterpart in any substantial Chilean tower transaction. Entel are still building their own towers sometimes, at other times issuing search rings and having towercos build new sites, although

they are not working exclusively with any apparent preferred partner. In terms of strategic acquisitions, American Tower is almost always a buyer not a seller, especially in an attractive market like Chile, so don’t hold your breath for their 1,159 towers to become available. The management team at Torres Andinas have a successful track record of “building to flip”, so their assets could probably be acquired for the right price, albeit their Chilean portfolio remains small. Torres Unidas have the backing of Berkshire Partners, which gives them access to capital to drive to scale, although they may be more likely to seek to exit in around three to five years. With an estimated 1,080 towers in the three most attractive West Coast tower markets, and with towers permitted and built with co-location in mind from the outset, the Torres Unidas assets are already looking attractive! Finite opportunities for DAS Chile round table participants felt there were opportunities to deploy more DAS in Chile, but not at scale. One of the three leading MNOs reportedly has only 20 robust DAS in shopping centres. TowerXchange’s verdict on the Chilean tower market Investment in Chile is a priority for American Tower, and potentially for SBA Communications, which means it’s also a fertile market for independent developers to build-and-flip. But SBA is not going to achieve scale in Chile, nor are American

Tower going to defend their market leadership, by rolling up a few hundred independent towers – the next sale and leaseback deal may well define which towerco leads the Chilean market. Entel’s need to raise capital for 4G, and their need to deleverage after the acquisition of Nextel Peru, could provide the impetus to monetise their Chilean towers, particularly whilst the Towers Law has inflated the value of existing assets. American Tower and SBA Communications may seem to be jockeying for position in a race to 5,000 Chilean towers, but both have the discipline to walk away from overpriced deals. Chile may be an attractive market, but there are bigger fish to fry, so if the price isn’t right, AMT will stand pat and SBA will invest elsewhere. TowerXchange simply don’t see the compatibility of Chile’s current Towers Law with the country’s need for over 10,000 towers to densify networks for 4G and to meet the obligations to connect 1,281 remote regions set out in the recent spectrum auction. The regulator cannot fine Chile’s operators if the main reason they struggle to meet coverage obligations is because they cannot permit enough new builds fast enough, nor build economically. Whether or not the Towers Law is amended, with the Chilean carriers’ 700MHz spectrum supplementing the 2.6GHz already rolled out, the country’s towercos are posed for a surge in co-location sales and amendment revenue in 2016-17, so there is pressure on a sale and leaseback taking place sooner rather than later


Peruvian tower market primed for significant growth in next three yearsRecord breaking BTS, potential SLB, and 4G rollout under way, although regulatory amendments have met with a mixed reception

Entel shakes up mobile market Peru was effectively a comfortable, relatively slow growth duopoly between Movistar and Claro with Nextel only active in the big cities, but Entel’s acquisition and nationwide vision has stimulated network investment. One towerco suggested that their biggest concern was that carriers were spending aggressively on customer acquisition at the expense of investing in the networks – certainly the incumbents operators were reportedly nervous about competing with the new entrants. It is clear that there is plenty of room for tower market growth in Peru, which has one of CALA’s lowest SIM penetration rates (101% according to GSMA Intelligence, Q4 2014). There is currently a fledgling 4G market, but the three market leaders all have launched. Claro, Movistar and Entel’s 4G services already account for over 4% of subscribers. Movistar and Entel secured spectrum in AWS band and, although Claro bid unsuccessfully, they cleared spectrum in the 1900MHz band which had become largely redundant in the delivery of 2G services. More spectrum is coming with a 700MHz auction imminent. In terms of infrastructure sharing; Movistar has been the most inclined to share but Viettel have to date remained reluctant, while Claro is also less motivated. RANsharing has been observed

Read this article to learn:< Who owns Peru’s towers?

< Entel’s market entry stimulates network investment, Olo and DirecTV also drive demand for

towers and tenancies

< Record breaking build to suit activity in 2014 may slow in 2015, before accelerating again

< Insights into the tower structures and fibre being deployed in Peru

< Regulator seeks to ease permitting, but concerns expressed over potential interference with

lease rates

Some of the critical stakeholders in the development of the Peruvian telecom tower market assembled for the annual round table at the TowerXchange Meetup Americas in May 2015. Here we share insights from their conversation, plus TowerXchange’s own analysis of a tower market poised for transformational growth in the next three years.

Keywords: 4G, Active Infrasharing, American Tower, Americas, Americas Insights, AT&T, Build-To-Suit, Capex, Claro, DirecTV, Entel, Fibre, Infrastructure Sharing, Innovattel, Insights, Leasing & Permitting, Market Forecasts, Market Overview, Masts & Towers, Movistar, New Market Entrant, NMS, Off-Grid, Olo, Pass-Through, Peru, Regulation, Rooftops, SLA, Tax, Telefonica, Tenancy Ratios, Torres Andinas, Torres Unidas, TowerXchange Meetup Report, Viettel


Telefónica (Movistar) have already sold 468 towers to American Tower back in 2010. Torres Unidas now claims to have over 600 sites in Peru, having acquired 350 from Telefónica. Torres Unidas has the right of first refusal to buy the Olo portfolio. In terms of growth potential, one towerco stated that “tenancy growth is huge, we’re building tremendously”. Over a three to four year horizon all the towercos were bullish about average tenancy ratios reaching around two, although, much of the predicted growth rates depend on whether AT&T is behind DirecTV. The Ministry of Transport and Communications has called for an increase from 9,000 to 22,000 cell sites over the next three years, an increase of almost 2.5x in tower stock.

in Colombia, although not yet in Peru, although it may only be a matter of time until RANsharing is undertaken the country. Non-traditional tenants could play important role Peru has a good crop of non-traditional carrier tenants, including WiMAX provider Olo, which plans to rollout 1,000 LTE BTS. ISP Movilmax was also launched in early 2015. DirecTV also plans to launch an LTE fixed-wireless service on top of their content delivery systems, but may enter the mobile market in future. This raises the issue of what the implications will be if and when AT&T acquires the company. DirecTV tends to be taking tenancies at 120’, typically in clusters within cities, particularly in Lima. DirecTV had previously issued search points instead of search

rings, but they have since changed their outlook. Viettel is only building a fixed network; they’ve announced mobile services but were yet to launch at Q1 2015. Their tender requires deployment within one year. When they first entered the market, Viettel’s declared intent was to discount mobile rates by 25%, but rates have since reduced regardless. Viettel puts an emphasis on low cost, accelerated deployment, and has used a similar strategy in other countries such as Mozambique. At least one towerco in the region reported that they had sold co-locations to Viettel.

Stakeholders bullish about Peru’s tower market

Towercos currently own a little over 14% of Peru’s 9,000 towers. Ground rent is a pass through pro rata.

Who owns Peru’s ~9,000 towers?

Torres Unidas

American Tower

NMS, Torres Andinas and Innovattel

Operator-captive


600

7,700

578 ~122

“

“

one towerco stated that “tenancy growth is huge, we’re building tremendously”. Over a three to four year horizon all the towercos were bullish about average tenancy ratios reaching around two, although, much of the predicted growth rates depend on whether AT&T is behind DirecTV


Record breaking build to suit American Tower added a greater percentage of new sites in Peru than anywhere else worldwide in Q4 2014. Last year 1,300 new sites were deployed by Entel, which were all outsourced to towercos. There has also been plenty of capex deployed already, for instance carrier announcements suggest:< Claro is investing just under US$1bn to extend coverage and capacity between 2015-17< Telefónica is spending US$1.8bn between 2014-16; Telefónica added 1,432 new sites in 2014 alone< Entel is deploying capex of US$1.2bn between 2014-19< Viettel is spending US$400mn installing 2,000 towers and laying 15,000km of fibre Whilst one towerco suggested they anticipated a substantial build in Peru to continue steadily over the next two to three years, another towerco suggested that there would be fewer builds this year. They suggested that of the DirecTV search rings, 95% of rings could be served with one of their existing towers, summing up that they felt that around 200-250 new towers would be built this year in Peru. Two of the other towercos felt that estimate was pessimistic, one suggesting that Entel were likely to issue ~280 new search rings, requiring both GBTs and rooftop sites, albeit that permitting of many the required greenfield sites would be challenging as many are sites Entel were unable to secure and construct themselves. In summary, there was consensus that 2015 was likely to be slower than 2014, with 2016 likely to

be a better year for new site builds in Peru. But in general, Peru remains one of CALA’s fastest growing tower markets. Rooftops, masts and towers Quality contractors for rooftops, masts and towers are hard to find in Peru, and can be more expensive than other countries. One towerco suggested that most build-outs consisted of rooftops, typically with 6-9m structures, for which they had to reinforce a large number of roofs, complicated by the fact that a lot of neighborhoods didn’t have a registry of plans. The most in demand structures seemed to be 24-30m towers and 6-9m poles. Regulations require the use of particularly strong bases. Participants report that, to date, there there has been enough steel available locally to meet demand for telecom structures. Urban and rural fibre Peru has fibre all along the coast and in the big cities. A ‘National Fibre Backbone’ has been launched with a focus on connecting farther-flung regions where it hadn’t been economic to deploy fibre to date. Therefore, most round table participants didn’t see the National Fibre Backbone project having much impact on their more urban-centric activities. Meanwhile, it seemed that Viettel had been installing fibre all along the coast, typically hung

from electrical poles. Regulation; permitting eased, but looming spectre of regulator interference in pricing Peru’s previously notorious permitting regime should be eased by new legislation coming into law this year which creates a uniform administration process. The new regulation tries to regularise all towers before 2012. These regulations mean that if a tower operator applies to a municipality for a permit, and if that municipality doesn’t respond, then the tower operator has a de facto license. The new regulation creates exact parameters of how a permit application filing needs to look. As a result a file cannot be rejected unless there is a genuine failure in the filing. However, the municipality has up to two years to respond, but if they find an error in your application they can make you take the site down. The regulation also includes some common elements from the Chilean ‘Tower Law’, such as some potentially expensive guidance on concealment. This regulation was approved by the President a couple of weeks prior to TowerXchange Meetup Americas 2015, and is retroactive. Whilst the regularisation of permitting process is seen as positive, Peru’s tower regulation has not been universally welcomed due to a requirement to submit Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and lease


rates quarterly. The regulator also claims they have the right to “implement measures”. One towerco is working to modify the law and has refused to comply, suggesting that Ospitel cannot regulate the unregulated tower industry, and that “intrusion into lease rates is something none of us need.” The same towerco called for support from his peers in lobbying the Peruvian regulator: “it’s important all towercos sing from same songsheet”. As the conversation at the Peru round table evolved, it became apparent that Peru’s tower regulation is not enshrined by an Act of Congress, meaning the regulators are able to regulate only licensed operators. They cannot regulate an unlicensed operator. So companies are only required to comply if they register in national registry of tower operators. The incentive to register is that you get to use the new law to get permitting law. Alternatively, at least one tower operator has declined to register and be regulated, forgoing the new permitting law, using the old processes, but avoiding the obligation

to share SLAs and lease rates, and thus minimising the risk of the regulator interfering with lease pricing. It is reportedly more difficult to build under old regulations. While it should be easier to secure build permits under the new regulations, once you gain a permit you may still have to overcome community objections. No property tax is applicable in Peru unless you own the site, even then it’s relatively small Power and security Power in Peru is generally reliable, and backup gensets remain the responsibility of operators. Torres Unidas has nine off grid sites among over 600 sites, although there may be more needed as they move further inland. Connection to the national grid is usually undertaken pretty fast. There is also not much theft

reported in Peru. While one towerco had had a couple of sites attacked by drug traffickers, and like most countries there are a few small pockets where infrastructure builders would be reluctant to go, in general the security situation in Peru is good. Conclusions TowerXchange are bullish about the prospects for the tower market in Peru. Claro and Movistar’s comfy duopoly is already being challenged by the acquisition of Nextel by Entel, in particular their ambition to scale from an urban to a nationwide footprint. Entel could monetise their passive infrastructure in Peru to fund the nationwide expansion and 4G rollout. In addition Viettel and, in particular, Olo and DirecTV (potentially with AT&T) represent the potential for further builds and tenancies. There are good opportunities for organic growth in a market where the government has called for an increase from the current 9,000 to 22,000 towers. There have also been efforts to create an enabling regulatory environment, in part welcomed by towercos, intrusion into lease rates notwithstanding. Peru is now a priority market in the CALA tower land grab. Torres Unidas and American Tower are expected to face increased competition in 2015 from other acquisitive towercos. This will create investment and sale opportunities for independent developers

“ “Whilst the regularisation of permitting process is seen as positive, Peru’s tower regulation has not been universally welcomed due to a requirement to submit Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and lease rates quarterly


The top ten challenges facingthe Brazilian tower industryPermits, standards, capacity… what’s keeping the leaders of the Brazilian tower industry up at night?

1. Permitting Brazil is notorious for the complexity and amount of time it takes to progress from permit application to permission to build. “I wouldn’t call permitting a challenge because there’s nothing fundamentally wrong, but the biggest opportunity is to fast track permitting,” said one towerco. Brazil’s Antenna Law, the Lei das Antennas, recently came into force, creating a standard approach to permitting across all municipalities, and introducing a 60 day ‘shot clock’. Even before the Lei das Antennas takes effect, another towerco suggested “It’s a myth that it’s almost impossible to permit green field sites in Brazil. As long as you understand the path you must follow, it’s not necessarily more difficult than permitting anywhere else – in fact, I’ve found permitting in the Northeast of Brazil, which is relatively under-developed, easier than in the US.” If securing a permit for a new site is not as complex as one might fear, there seems little doubt that fixing the legacy of permitting shortcuts remains Brazilian towercos’ number one challenge: “The rock you we most often fall on is permitting,” said one towerco. “Brazilian cell sites fall into three categories; fully permitted (which we call unicorns!) Permittable – sites that are compliant but for which a full set of permits were never attained. And unpermittable sites. The biggest challenges arise if the law changes and a site which was once permittable becomes unpermittable!”

Read this article to learn:< What are the REAL challenges in site permitting in Brazil?

< How unrealistic timelines put pressure on maintaining standards and best practices

< The criticality of revenue assurance to value creation

< The challenges raising capital at a rate that enables local developers to compete with US firms

The growth opportunities and the cash flow generated by Brazilian towers more than justify tower companies’ investment. However, on the Brazil round table hosted by David Porte, SVP of Operations for SBA Communications, the conversation turned to what was broken, and what needs fixing in the Brazilian tower market. Here the top ten challenges identified by an illustrious audience featuring five Brazilian towercos, as well as former tower strategists from Vivo, Oi and ON Telecom.

Keywords: Asset Register, Bankability, Brazil, Build-To-Suit, Debt Finance, Fencing, Foundations, Health & Safety, Insights, Leasing & Permitting, Masts & Towers, MLA, MNOs, South America, Stakeholder Buy-In, Towercos, Transfer Assets


industry to standardise best practices. For example, the majority of towercos would love to standardise on a principle that no-one builds towers without permits, but if aggressive competitors are going to cut corners with permitting to accelerate time to market and secure build to suit contracts, those standards and best practices can be sacrificed as people try to build market share. Long term revenue assurance is critical. This is why the robust MLAs of the established towercos are so important, and why it is critical that independent developers don’t deviate too far from the established business model. For example, if a carrier is granted a zero cost cancellation in their MLA, there’s zero revenue assurance, and that can be tremendously value destructive. Only a little less value destructive are cases where the carrier can

2. Poor standards of record keeping The poor standard of record keeping for the sites the towercos have acquired in Brazil has created a backlog of paperwork. Even where sites are fully permitted, documentation is not always complete, and municipalities seldom have duplicate copies. Whilst clearing the paperwork backlog remains a work in progress, a many of Brazil’s cell sites are not fully permitted. As a legacy of forgotten bi-lateral swaps, the paperwork for which may have been lost, it is not unusual for a carrier to not be aware that they had an operating BTS at a third party site until the towerco tells them (and sends them a bill!) Likewise, tenants seeking co-location report frustration that the towerco’s asset register might suggest that capacity is available, yet when they get to the site unregistered, often unused, equipment hanging on the tower means capacity is not readily available. 3. Standards One towerco complained that carriers pressing unrealistic timelines forced towercos to deviate from tower permitting and building best practices and standards. It was agreed that it was critical to adhere to common standards governing the capacity of structures and installation of fencing, standards for safe practice when working at height, and general standards for tower building. The standards challenge is accentuated when the original drawings of an acquired site have been lost.

We’ve heard of instances where a tower portfolio was offered for sale with no site drawings at all, which obviously makes it more complex to evaluate the structural quality of a portfolio. “We’ve acquired 35 year old sites where we don’t even know the rebar,” said one towerco. “So we have every level of standards compliance from fixing those kind of scenarios to green field sites which we’ve built to our own high standards from the outset.” 4. Competition leading to deviation from best practice As a function of the sheer amount of building and buying of towers in Brazil, and overheated competition, it again becomes difficult for the tower

Top ten challenges facing the Brazilian tower industry

1 Permitting

2 Poor standards of record keeping

3 Standards

4 Competition leading to deviation from best practice

5 Lack of visibility into medium term capex plans

6 “Still our towers” mentality

7 Access to capital

8 Lack of build capacity

9 Lack of network capacity

10 Uncertain future of Oi and TIM


cancel with payment of 20-30% of the remaining lease value. Even granting swap provisions, where a tenant has the right to swap 10% of their tenancies to other sites, adversely affects additional revenue potential. 5. Lack of visibility into medium term capex plans License obligations require that Brazilian carriers build in new areas, yet the towercos report that they have very little visibility into the medium term network capex deployment plans of carriers – the issuance of new search rings will often be the first towercos hear about network extensions. The Brazilian government has identified 5,570 ‘cities’ (municipalities) which must be served by mobile operators in the coming years, yet the operator with the greatest coverage, Vivo, provides coverage in only 67% of those municipalities, with the other carriers lagging even further behind. While market-driven network extensions are always going to be

unpredictable, extensions driven by compliance with ANATEL’s coverage obligations should be more predictable than they are. This lack of visibility implications for finance too, with a comparison to the US market made by one round table participant: “AT&T deployed huge capital in the US last year, but this year they’re buying DirecTV instead. When a big carrier hits the brakes, there’s a risk that the towercos can go out the window. Whilst it remains difficult to predict carrier’s capex over the medium term, the financiers always ask for a five year prediction.” 6. “Still our towers” mentality In the early stages of towercos participating in a market there is an immature, undefined relationship between towercos and carriers. We heard anecdotes where carrier’s staff had cut the towerco’s locks off a site and replaced them with their own – “they are still our towers” remains the

attitude of some carriers’ employees, even after the CFO has sold them! Attitudes change over time. Carriers come to understand that towercos are not just another supplier, they are a partner and landlord. “I’ve been into meetings where the carrier would slide their MLA across the table to us and demand we agree to their lease terms,” said one towerco. “It just cannot work like that. Because we share infrastructure, everyone has to be subject to same rules.” 7. Access to capital How can we structurally improve access to long term capital for the domestic Brazilian tower market? Securing debt financing at reasonable rates was highlighted as a particular challenge, and one which continues to make it difficult for Brazilian towercos to compete with US firms with access to low cost capital and cheaper interest rates; “it’s hard to borrow at 13% and make money in the long term,” complained one local developer. One round table participant reported that the BNDES (Brazilian Development Bank) loan programme could be accessed but that it only covered new build sites, and it required that BNDES own first title on the steel. 8. Lack of build capacity Despite the aforementioned overheated competition, voracious demand for new sites suggests that Brazil may have capacity for two to three times as many build-to-suit towercos

“ “Securing debt financing at reasonable rates was highlighted as a particular challenge, and one which continues to make it difficult for Brazilian towercos to compete with US firms with access to low cost capital and cheaper interest rates


as currently operate in the market. Certainly the sources TowerXchange have spoken to have suggested Brazil’s carriers would build more towers if they could! The Brazil round table discussion highlighted Brazil’s particular deficiency of transmission sites. 9. Lack of network capacity There is plenty of room for improvement in QoS in Brazil. Networks are maturing to the point where the carriers will compete less on coverage and more on capacity and QoS, which will improve medium term planning as networks densify. 10. The uncertain future of Oi and TIM Continuing speculation about the future of struggling #4 carrier Oi continues to create uncertainty. Oi reportedly has a negligible capex budget, has built very few new towers, and acquired no spectrum in recent auctions. The future of TIM Brasil also remains uncertain, although they have not been as hamstrung in terms of deploying capital. If consolidation in Brazil is inevitable, it can’t come soon enough. Conclusions Claro notwithstanding, Brazil’s carriers have sold almost all their towers. As with any industry where non-core activities are outsourced, the reality is that the carriers didn’t care as much about their towers as they did about their subscribers, so

improvement capex must be deployed. The costs of bringing towers acquired from Brazil’s carriers up to standard are embedded into towerco’s business plans – and accelerating the process of bringing those towers up to standard represents a critical opportunity for towercos to add value. Carriers are gradually learning how to co-operate better with their towerco partners, giving them better visibility into medium term plans, and therefore more time to deliver according to standards and best practices, ultimately delivering a better quality of service to both tenants and to their subscribers. Permitting remains Brazil’s number one challenge. It is critical that the Lei das Antennas be implemented swiftly and consistently by all municipalities to facilitate a predictable, accelerated permitting process, unlocking the carriers and towerco’s maximum investment in Brazilian telecoms infrastructure. Brazil has a legacy of short-cutting cell site permitting, and towercos are ideally positioned to clean that up. Amid a fiercely competitive market for build to suit opportunities, it is critical that Brazil’s independent tower builders don’t resume short-cutting permitting, or offer cancellation clauses within their MLAs, otherwise they risk harming or destroying the capital value of their sites. Some US investors have a view of the tower business based on 25 years of doing business in their domestic market – they turn their noses up at emerging markets because “it’s not the way it’s

done.” The reality is that there are sites in US with structural problems, and corners are cut when it comes to permitting everywhere in the world, the US included. The top ten challenges faced by the Brazilian tower industry are not greatly different from the top ten facing the US market, and if this article’s attempt to explain “everything you always wanted to know about the Brazilian tower market*” (*but were afraid to ask) has made you less bullish about the opportunity in Brazil, then that was not our intent. The Brazilian tower industry is lead by an accomplished group of people with an acute understanding of these challenges, and I believe the best way to overcome such challenges in any market is to hand the towers over to a professional tower company and let them clean them up

“

“

The Brazilian tower industry is lead by an accomplished group of people with an acute understanding of these challenges, and I believe the best way to overcome such challenges in any market is to hand the towers over to a professional tower company and let them clean them up


How PTI grew from startup to 1,608 towers in six countries in under a yearUnderstanding the unique vision and energy of Phoenix Tower International

TowerXchange: For readers unfamiliar with PTI, please re-introduce yourself, your team, PTI’s portfolio and the capital structure of the business.

Dagan Kasavana, CEO, PTI: Phoenix Tower International is devoted to helping its wireless infrastructure partners – customers, sellers, landlords and communities – achieve their goals. Focused on the principles of unwavering hard work and integrity, we demonstrate this mission every day through our dedicated operation of the wireless infrastructure sites we own and operate, and the fair and collaborative manner in which we work with our business partners, helping them achieve their goals and thereby creating long lasting business relationships with PTI. Most of the team behind PTI previously worked together at Global Tower Partners (GTP) prior to the US$4.8bn sale to American Tower. I met PTI’s co-founder Natalya Kashirina working together in M&A at GTP, PTI’s Chairman Tim Culver was SVP and General Counsel at GTP and a partner of mine for ten years now, PTI’s CFO Orlando Porras was an advisor to GTP with EY and PTI’s VP of Operations, Shylesh Moras was an advisor to GTP with Morrison Hershfield. This core team has been working together for years in the tower space and represents the engine of growth for PTI. PTI will own over 1,600 towers across the Americas upon the closing later this year of our announced deal to acquire 600 towers in the U.S. from T-Mobile. By the end of 2015 we anticipate having 600-700

Read this article to learn:< PTI’s vision, management team and tower count across six countries< Combining BTS, acquisition and developer partnerships to drive growth in Brazil< Why PTI invested in the Dominican Republic< How build to flip tower entrepreneurs can increase valuation< How to create a multinational towerco from day one: the three P’s

In a little under a year Phoenix Tower International (PTI) has accelerated from launch to owning 1,608 towers across six countries in North, Central, South America and the Caribbean. CEO Dagan Kasavana, his team and his backers at Blackstone have written a new playbook for the creation of a towerco that combines acquisition with developer partnerships and BTS to create a new proposition for carriers, sellers and communities across the Americas.

Keywords: Acquisition, Altice, Americas, Americas Insights, Amzak Capital Management, Asset Register, Brazil, Build-to-Suit, C-Level Perspective, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Due Diligence, Insights, Multi-Country Partner, New Market Entrant, Operational Excellence, PTI, Panama, Phoenix Tower International, Sale & Leaseback, Stakeholder Buy-In, T4U, Teletower Dominicana, Towercos, USA, Who’s Who

Orlando Porras, CFO, Natalya Kashirina, VP, Mergers & Acquisitions and Dagan Kasavana, CEO, PTI


towers in Brazil, plus a further 400,500 in the rest of CALA including in our current territories of Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia and the Dominican Republic. PTI could not have achieved this phenomenal growth without the support of Blackstone through their Tactical Opportunities business, who are bullish on the tower sector, and who have shown tremendous confidence in our business plan, enabling us to build a unique new towerco. TowerXchange: Where will that forecast growth in Brazil come from – all organic or another acquisition in addition to the recent acquisition of T4U? Dagan Kasavana, CEO, PTI: Blackstone’s Brazilian footprint owned through the affiliated company to

Brazil

Costa Rica

Panama

Colombia

U.S.*

100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800

PTI, Phoenix Tower do Brasil (“PTB”) includes the 529 towers acquired from T4U, other small developer acquisitions we have in the pipeline, plus substantial build to suit (BTS) activity. We have a pipeline of 250 BTS towers in Brazil, with 15-20 new towers going up every month since the closing and for the foreseeable future. TowerXchange: Was the acquisition of T4U in Brazil primarily an asset acquisition, or have you drawn substantially from their team and experiences to launch Phoenix Tower do Brasil? Dagan Kasavana, CEO, PTI: One of the things that we and our colleagues at Blackstone were excited about in the T4U acquisition is that we acquired a platform in Brazil, not just assets. We were impressed by T4U’s large portfolio of well-located towers, many with multiple co-locations already, and the management

team in Brazil is fantastic. We knew we needed a strong operational team to manage those assets and realise our aggressive growth plans in Brazil, so we took our existing management team and merged it with T4U’s strong team and employee base to run the business in Brazil. We have a significant team of tower professionals and a management team based locally in São Paulo and across the country that can manage the assets and the carrier relationships professionally and grow the business significantly which allows us to look at opportunities of all sizes in Brazil in the future with confidence. We also believe that by leveraging the local team’s experience building and operating hundreds of towers in Brazil we can better control the messaging to and experience of our customers, and we can better control vendor relationships – we want our employees and management team to develop direct relationships working with our customers and provide a unique relationship to our business partners in Brazil.

TowerXchange: What’s your vision for Phoenix Tower do Brazil, leveraging the T4U acquisition as a starting point? Do you have appetite to acquire more assets from Brazilian tower builders?

PTI tower count

Source: PTI, September 2015*pro forma for signed T-Mobile transaction

DominicanRepublic

556

189

125

107

616

15


Dagan Kasavana, CEO, PTI: When we look at the tower market in Brazil, we think we’re one of the few companies with significant appetite both for acquisitions and for significant BTS with carriers. PTB is the new entrant in Brazil, but we have significant capital and are seeking the right opportunities to grow, through a combination of BTS, acquisition and developer partnerships. There are a lot of developers looking for capital in Brazil and the carriers are looking for BTS partners that can execute in a challenging environment. We understand the tower financing market and offer a wide palette of alternate forms of financing to developers. We can provide anything from full financing to enabling developers to provide a greater inventory to carriers with PTI behind them to help them grow and be successful. Different developers need different models to be successful in different markets – we like to find out what they want and need, and form a proposal to meet those needs.

Additionally we are constantly discussing and understanding the needs of our customers and how we can best help them. Domingos Almeida, PTB’s VP of Sales and Development promotes this collaborative approach with each of our customers as we grow in Brazil through direct BTS arrangements. While others may be under-capitalised given the challenging market, PTB is able to meet the significant network demands of our carriers and we believe this helps differentiate us from some of the other developers.

TowerXchange: Tell us about PTI’s entry into the

“ “Phoenix Tower Dominicana is a great business with a strong management team and a great customer base. Our main counterparty in the Dominican Republic, Altice, is a strategic partner with whom we want to do more business with in the future and we value the relationship with them and the other operators in the Dominican Republic

Caribbean. Is there an opportunity to create a towerco of scale in the Caribbean, or is Dominican Republic one of a few markets that offer the right scale?

Dagan Kasavana, CEO, PTI: We acquired 189 towers through the acquisition of Teletower Dominicana from majority investor Amzak Capital Management in June 2015. The Dominican Republic is a very attractive market with no other independent towercos – we see a lot of opportunities there. Teletower Dominicana, which has since been renamed Phoenix Tower Dominicana is a great business with a strong management team and a great customer base. Our main counterparty in the Dominican Republic, Altice, is a strategic partner with whom we want to do more business with in the future and we value the relationship with them and the other operators in the Dominican Republic. There are some other markets which we like in the

Caribbean. Generally we’re looking for markets with at least three wireless carriers and some existing adoption of co-location. We are able to leverage our operations in the Dominican across the Caribbean which is interesting and allows us to be more opportunistic to execute other tower transactions across the Caribbean given our close proximity in the Dominican Republic. In every market PTI has local representation that carriers know and trust – one of the hallmarks of our growth structure is that we always have local business strategies with people on the ground who carriers and vendors can call. Of course there are certain resources and operational aspects of the business we can centralise and leverage to oversee other markets. For example our Central America and Caribbean land acquisition programme, whereby we partner with carriers and landlords to acquire land and related rights under wireless infrastructure, is based in Costa Rica but we have local people in Panama and the Dominican Republic executing the


programme locally – we never want the customer to feel they don’t have local people in each country who can help with any infrastructure problems.

TowerXchange: PTI has completed several acquisitions from BTS towercos – what advice would you give a ‘build to flip’ tower entrepreneur – how can they make it easier for companies like PTI to acquire them? Dagan Kasavana, CEO, PTI: My advice to the build to flip tower entrepreneur would be to focus on the details that make the sale process easier. Where developers have accrued significant value they have had a robust approach to permitting,

entitlements and ground leases. They use high quality steel to build strong towers with capacity for additional tenants. Having a thorough approach to site files and recordkeeping makes the due diligence and sale process immeasurably easier and ultimately increases valuations. Having done hundreds of tower transactions with some developers who were organised and some who were less organised, I’ve found that those who focused on replicating the U.S. tower business model attracted the highest valuations and encountered less surprises. That means negotiating long term ground leases, investing in high capacity towers, and acquiring all the necessary permits to the extent that they are able – and organising site files in a cohesive

manner. We have closed deals and will continue to with sellers that have less than 100% of the required site files and through our diligence process will focus on improving the portfolios both pre-closing and post-closing through various creative solutions and hard work. However, I would recommend sellers focus on both obtaining and organising their required site files to make the process as smooth as possible. TowerXchange: In terms of organisational structure and governance, how do you separate the complexity of overlapping small to medium sized acquisitions whilst still investing in substantial organic growth? Dagan Kasavana, CEO, PTI: Our business plan was to create a multinational towerco from day one. This challenge is to grow and scale and operate as a best in class tower company while retaining the energy of an entrepreneurial start-up – that energy that carriers, developers and landlords love. It comes down to the three P’s: process, people and passion. We need processes, and supporting IT, that can be scaled and customised to meet the needs of each market. A one size fits all approach will not work – every region has different norms, different regulations and different guidelines to be a good partner to our customers, sellers and communities. When a carrier gives us a co-location or BTS order, we need to fulfil it quickly and efficiently. When a carrier expresses interest in a site location we

The new office of Phoenix Tower International


need to get them on that tower as quickly as possible. When undertaking a new transaction, we use a process driven formula we’ve been using for years and years to push through negotiation, due diligence and integration but also which is customised to each country we do business with, relying on local expertise with our local operations teams and transaction advisors. We’ve hired great people who are well versed with significant experience in towers. We have tremendous transaction experience and provide oversight and process support from our HQ in Boca Raton. Our M&A team, led by Natalya Kashirina, focuses on opportunities and transactions in the U.S. and Latam overseeing multiple opportunities in various stages of vetting, diligence and closing with a unique mix of professionalism and a friendly honest approach which really resonates with our business partners. We have separate legal teams for the U.S. and Latam – each market has its own General Counsel. Our Finance team led by Orlando Porras is overseeing tax structuring and compliance, collections, payables and cash management across all six of our markets. Our operations team, led by Shylesh Moras has resources in country overseeing various BTS implementations and the maintenance of our existing sites. Lastly, our local teams in each market have been in the tower business in these countries for a long time – that experience has been critical to us scaling appropriately and professionally.

Lastly but most importantly: passion. You can’t replicate it or fake it. Our team works long nights,

tireless hours on behalf of customers, sellers, landlords and communities. We are professional, hard-working, and we genuinely passionate about what we are building together with the various partners we do business with. There are no shortcuts in this industry – we have to hire the right people who buy in to an energy that the management team has established and which has enabled us to rollup 1,600 sites in just under a year. That passion drives us, and I’m very proud of the management team and regional teams we have hired and the unique relationship we have developed with our business partners. TowerXchange: Congratulations on entering into a contract to acquire 600 towers from T-Mobile in the U.S. Do you have a specific vision, or remit from your investors, in terms of the balance between PTI’s domestic and international portfolios? Dagan Kasavana, CEO, PTI: We have a clear business plan, but there is no specific vision concerning the balance of U.S. and international assets. Our focus has always been to first simply build a bigger sandbox – to seek out the best transactions across a wider geography – that could be a BTS in Brazil, a developer investment in Central America, a ground lease buyout in Colombia or a carrier sale and leaseback in the U.S. The tower industry is a global industry – if we were focus on one or two tower markets we feel we’d be doing ourselves, our customers and our investors a disservice.

We don’t need to raise new capital every time we see a new market opportunity – this enables us to be a more flexible partner to support carriers in the markets they want to develop, or to partner with developers to help carriers in a different more strategic way. The publics are doing many of the same things of course but at a larger scale. PTI is able to be a more flexible, entrepreneurial partner for our customers. We can help with a 100 tower BTS – that will have my full attention. We can help a local developer secure the capital he needs to drive to scale. We’ll buy five towers in Panama! We will work with a landlord in Costa Rica to monetise their ground lease payments that they can use to pay off their mortgage! We’ll do what publics don’t have time to do, or what smaller, geographically restricted towercos don’t have the remit to do. We saw a vacuum in the market – an opportunity to build a towerco that does things differently. We wanted to focus on building partnerships with carriers, landlords, vendors and developers. We want to provide lawful support of our communities by obtaining all the appropriate entitlements. And at the same time we want to execute the best possible transactions across the region. If we stick to that original business thesis, we will continue to grow organically and inorganically in a way that is logical and well balanced over time

Dagan Kasavana is the latest tower industry leader to join the TowerXchange ‘Inner Circle’ Informal Advisory Board.


TORRESEC is the first towerco into ArgentinaBTS contract may be first of many as Argentina needs 4-5,000 additional towers for 4G

TowerXchange: Congratulations on TORRESEC becoming the first Towerco in Argentina! What has attracted you to invest in Argentina? Juan Cueria, COO, Innovattel / TORRESEC: Argentina has potential beyond precedent. The recent LTE licenses awarded to the three mayor players, the need for growth in numbers of sites and in the capacity in the country for each of the carriers exceed any other territory in LatAm (not including Brazil). There is sufficient demand for the four operators to grow and compete in the country. DIRECTV is aggressively growing as well. Our management has extensive experience in the country. Argentina has no shortage of professionals and a well trained labor force; the demand for services will continue to catch up with the rest of the world. TowerXchange: Please tell us a bit about the Argentinian tower market – how big / how mature is the tower network? What is driving growth? Juan Cueria, COO, Innovattel / TORRESEC: I don’t have specifics on the number of sites, but you can imagine how large the territory is; with over 2.7mn km2, Argentina is the second largest country in LATAM, is virgin to the concept of tower leasing and BTS, yet familiar with co-location strategies among the operators. There is substantial demand for sites: both capacity and coverage, new technology

Read this article to learn:< The drivers and scale of the tower build in Argentina< Infrastructure sharing to date in Argentina< Real estate costs in Argentina< Site acquisition and permitting challenges< TowerXchange estimates of the number of towers and SIMs per tower in Argentina

The hitherto untapped Argentinian tower market welcomes its first independent towerco in Innovattel / TORRESEC, which has secured their maiden build to suit contract in Argentina, and which is already hiring a full time staff in-country. Innovattel/Torresec is a build-to-suit (BTS) towerco with over 350 towers across Puerto Rico (Innovattel Properties), Ecuador (Torresec Ecuador), Peru (Torresec Peru), and Colombia (Torresec Colombia). TowerXchange caught up with COO Juan Cueria in an airport departure lounge for a snapshot interview to get some insight into TORRESEC’s launch in Argentina.

Keywords: 4G, Argentina, Build-to-Suit, CALA, CALA Insights, Construction, Country Risk, Greenfield, Infrastructure Sharing, Innovattel, Insights, LTE, Leasing & Permitting, Market Entry, Market Forecasts, Network Rollout, New Market Entrant, News, QoS, Regulation, Small Cells, TORRESEC, Towercos, Who’s WhoJuan Cueria, COO, Innovattel / TORRESEC


deployments with 4G spectrum recently allocated, and big requirements for small cells. TowerXchange: What can you tell us about the build to suit (BTS) contract you have secured? Juan Cueria, COO, Innovattel / TORRESEC: We have closed one and we are negotiating three more. The carriers welcome very much the concept of an independent tower company to facilitate infrastructure sharing and they are very positive about having an additional source to help in the deployment of sites. The BTS market will work like any other: they will give us search rings, we will

build and own the sites.

We don’t see any appetite for Argentina’s carriers to sell their tower assets at the moment. TowerXchange: What level of new tower building are you anticipating in the Argentinian market as a whole? Juan Cueria, COO, Innovattel / TORRESEC: From the conversations we’ve had, I foresee Argentina’s carriers needing 4-5,000 new sites in the next two to three years. Argentina has been in a holding pattern pending the award of 4G licenses at the beginning

of the year, so deployment has only recently begun for the country’s fiercely competitive three main carriers. As well as new coverage obligations, there is also an urgent need for capacity – it’s hard to place a call in Buenos Aires – so Argentina’s carriers need to build and they need to build fast. TowerXchange: Is there an existing culture of infrastructure sharing? For example have there been many bi-lateral swaps between carriers in Argentina? Juan Cueria, COO, Innovattel / TORRESEC: As in many other territories, Argentina’s carriers

Recent spectrum allocations in Argentina With licenses valid for 15 years, incumbent carrier Movistar received frequencies in the 703MHz-713MHz and 758MHz-768MHz bands; Telecom Personal received spectrum in the 713MHz-723MHz and 768MHz-778MHz bands; and Claro acquired spectrum in the 723MHz-738MHz and 778MHz-793MHz bands. New entrant Arlink (Grupo Uno) received 3G spectrum plus nationwide 4G concessions incorporating the 1745MHz-1755MHz, 2145MHz-2155MHz, 738MHz-748MHz and 793MHz-803MHz spectrum bands. Within five years, recipients of 4G spectrum are obligated to provide coverage to all localities with a population greater than 500, representing around 98% population coverage

Buenos Aires


have swapped sites one by one, but large scale infrastructure sharing agreements between carriers have proved impossible to date. Nextel has been doing a lot of co-location on their ~600 sites to generate income, so Argentina’s towers have been commercialised on a limited basis. TowerXchange: How savvy are Argentina’s landlords to the value of real estate to carriers and towercos? Juan Cueria, COO, Innovattel / TORRESEC: Land is expensive so rent is expensive in Argentina. The majority of land owners request at least one year in advance rent, or some rent in U.S. dollars, so the price structure is higher than some countries in LatAm. Landlords in metropolitan areas are pretty slick and smart – they know the need for telecom sites, and negotiate tough deals. We’re often able to find better sites and negotiate better agreements in rural areas. TowerXchange: How have you been able to get comfortable with country risk? Juan Cueria, COO, Innovattel / TORRESEC: The private sectors and the government agencies are cooperating well with new business and job creation opportunities. You still need to have a conservative approach, but so far we are very optimistic with the country and the opportunity. TowerXchange: What is your impression of the regulatory environment, for example is there an

established licensing regime for towercos and how is site permitting governed? Juan Cueria, COO, Innovattel / TORRESEC: This is the area that requires a lot of changes; the site acquisition and permitting process is very challenging. Like any other countries some municipalities’ restrictions apply and you need to be creative and work with them and with the process, you cannot force the entrance. But it can be a long process to acquire permits. There is no real regulation applying to the tower industry, although the government is facilitating that now. TowerXchange: What is your strategy for raising capital to invest in Argentinian towers? Juan Cueria, COO, Innovattel / TORRESEC: You may be surprise how many equity funds are interested in Argentina; everybody recognises that this is a sleeping market, ready to awaken. We see this as a long term opportunity therefore we are comfortable with our financial plan. TowerXchange: How do you foresee the future of the tower market in Argentina? Juan Cueria, COO, Innovattel / TORRESEC: Argentina is a virgin territory for the concept of tower leasing. The demand growth can make this the second largest player in the LatAm territory. Overall we see this market becoming the largest focus in the LatAm tower industry in the next three years

TowerXchange estimates the size of the Argentinian tower market While we haven’t yet studied the Argentinian tower market in detail, we have solicited estimated tower counts from several stakeholders, giving us a weighted mean suggesting there are ~13,700 towers in Argentina. This suggests Argentina has 4,577 SIMs per tower, comparable to Brazil at 5,625 but still distantly lagging the most mature tower market in the Americas, the U.S. with 1,220 SIMS per tower. The country’s three leading MNOs (Claro, Personal and Movistar), head a well balanced competitive mobile market with 30%-35% market share each. Each MNO has a tower portfolio of around 4,000 sites. Nextel, subject to exit rumors, has 3% market share and ~600 towers


Our sponsors and exhibitors

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20SBA Communications

SBA Communications Corporation is a first choice provider and leading owner and operator of wireless communications infrastructure in North, Central and South America. By “Building Better Wireless,” SBA generates revenue from two primary businesses - site leasing and site development services.

In our site leasing business, SBA leases antenna space on our multi-tenant towers to a variety of wireless service providers under long-term lease contracts. SBA owns and operates over 24,000 towers across North, Central and South America. We build our towers at the request of wireless carriers, leveraging our in-house experience in site acquisition, zoning and construction. Our ability to offer carriers a comprehensive portfolio of communication sites is complementary to our tower ownership business. Currently, SBA manages approximately 5,000 communication site locations on behalf of third-party landlords.

Through our site development services, SBA offers wireless service providers assistance in developing their own networks. Our services include site identification and acquisition as well as obtaining zoning approvals and permitting for networks representing all technologies. SBA also provides a broad range of cell site equipment installation, optimization and integration services. Our extensive site development experience includes participation in the development of more than 45,000 communication sites.

www.sbasite.com or call 800.487.SITE

DIAMONDSPONSOR:


Our sponsors

Acsys

Acsys is a specialized towerco security and field service management software provider. Recognizing the telecom industry’s relentless drive to efficiency, we design solutions to accelerate you forward. Our software and mobile applications in combination with military-grade access control hardware form a 4 tiered tool for: Flexibility, Efficiency, Productivity, and Security. Our solutions are designed to improve your site operations through the near elimination of theft, reduced inefficiencies, vendor and ticket auditing, and real-time remote control of field technicians. In the age of Big Data, Acsys gives you the intel you need to offer your tenants a better experience while reducing your OPEX. Our expert team of mechatronic security, software development, and telecom professionals represent 14 nationalities and have combined their expertise to deploy the Acsys solutions in nearly 50 countries around the globe. Acsys is ISO 9001 certified and a preferred supplier of many of the biggest names in the telco industry. Acsys - solutions built to improve your bottom line.

www.acsys.com

Siterra, An Accruent Product

Siterra, an Accruent Product, addresses the software needs of tower companies to sell co-locations, upgrade capacity, build-to-suit, maintain accurate asset registers, manage maintenance, and collaborate with vendors operationally as well as consolidate and integrate tower-related software technically. Sixteen of the towercos and infracos that TowerXchange tracks are current Siterra customers, spanning 18 countries and five continents. The first version of the Siterra site management platform was released in 2001. 100,000 users later, Siterra has become the industry standard, must-have operating software for tower companies today. Accruent works with its leading towerco customers to jointly develop new features that are deployed regularly through the SaaS platform to constantly improve customer value. Accruent has developed global process standards with local flexibility to pair with best-in-class software functionality.

Accruent’s telecommunications division serves some of the world’s largest mobile network operators and service providers in addition to tower companies, helping link employees from different organizations in the industry to collaborate to projects. Accruent is the largest independent provider of commercial property management software, serving the telecom, retail, education, healthcare, and corporate markets with over 4,400 customers in 120 countries.

www.accruent.com

Invendis

Founded in 2007, Invendis Technologies India Private Ltd.

is an M2M/IOT company based out of Bangalore. Invendis

designs and delivers IOT technology-enabled business

solutions for Telcos & Towercos to provide seamless

services to their clients.

Our core products and services include front end

equipment, sensors, transducers, business applications,

systems integration, product engineering, installation,

maintenance and 24X7 Global Monitoring & IT

infrastructure services. Invendis also specialises in

deploying complete range of Remote Monitoring &

Energy Optimization services for the data sensitive

infrastructures.

Invendis pioneered customizable IOT enabled Front End

Monitoring & Controlling equipment, which empowered

Towercos with access to real-time Monitoring & Energy

optimization solutions in shortest possible time.

In a span of 8 years, Invendis has set a global footprint

with over 1 lakh remote assets across Asia, Middle-East,

Africa & Europe.

www.invendis.com

SILVER SPONSOR: SILVER SPONSOR: SILVER SPONSOR:


Our sponsorsNexsysone’s all-encompassing software platform is used

by some of the largest technology upgrade roll-outs in the

USA, as well as some of the largest greenfield deployments

in Asia such as in Myanmar where operators and tower

companies use nexsysone to enable the sharing of network

infrastructure.

The nexsysone’s advance software module ‘towerone’

is specifically tailored to make easy the tower sharing

process that tackles the typical technical, contractual and

commercial complications that ultimately stop the common

objective of reducing operational costs via site sharing.

www.nexsysone.com

Vinson & Elkins RLLP

Vinson & Elkins is one of the oldest and largest

international law firms, with approximately 700 lawyers

located in 15 offices around the world.

Our global telecommunications team has extensive

experience advising on international telecoms and

telecoms infrastructure transactions. We have significant

industry experience, advising on telecoms transactions

in numerous countries. Our telecommunications advice

includes acquisitions and disposals, debt and equity

financing, infrastructure development, operational

arrangements, regulatory matters and dispute resolution.

We also have significant experience in the negotiation and

drafting of sale and purchase, debt and equity financing,

master lease, build-to-suit, site management and service

level arrangements; and have played a prominent role in

complex fibre transactions.

www.velaw.com

PHOENIX TOWER INTERNATIONAL and PHOENIX TOWER DO BRASIL

Phoenix Tower International (“PTI”) and Phoenix Tower

do Brasil (“PTB”) own and operate towers and other

wireless infrastructure and related sites throughout Latin

America, the Caribbean and the United States. PTI and

PTB currently own and operate wireless infrastructure in

Costa Rica, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Colombia,

the United States and Brazil.

PTI and PTB are devoted to helping our wireless

infrastructure partners—customers, sellers, landlords,

and communities—achieve their goals. Focused on the

principles of unwavering hard work and integrity, we

demonstrate this mission every day through the fair and

collaborative manner in which we deal with our business

partners and the dedicated operation of the wireless

infrastructure sites we own and operate.

www.phoenixintnl.com


AUSONIA

AUSONIA provides specific power solutions for any typical

telecom application (STANDBY GENSETS, OFF GRID BTS

POWER UNITS, HYBRID SOLUTIONS, MOBILE POWER

STATIONS, NO-BREAK POWER SYSTEMS, etc.), successfully

certified by 12 YEARS on FULL OPEX model.

Thanks to its unique technology, based on VARIABLE SPEED

DC GENSETS with mechanical efficiency, AUSONIA offers

a wide portfolio of modular HIGH EFFICIENCY ENERGY

SOLUTIONS, specifically designed to power off-grid / bad-

grid BTS sites and totally monitored and controlled by

remote through a dedicated web-based system. Such power

solutions are designed to significantly reduce the OPEX and

TCO of the Telecom Operators and Tower Companies.

www.ausonia.net

nexsysone

Nexsysone is your one-stop solution that harnesses the

power of its advance software modules through a single

unified interface to address the needs of operators and

tower owners in planning, efficiently maintaining and

effectively sharing their infrastructure, thereby saving huge

operational costs and enhancing ROI on their CAPEX.

Bronze Sponsor:

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Our exhibitors

GS Yuasa

GS Yuasa is a Japanese company formed in 2004 by the merger of two large 100 year old battery manufacturers, Japan Storage Battery and Yuasa. At US$3.2B in sales, GS Yuasa is one of the worlds largest battery manufacturers.

GS Yuasa manufactures a full line of technologies including lithium, lead acid, nickel metal hydride, and nickel cadmium for the automotive, industrial, and specialty battery markets. Especially for Telecom market, we have developed a 48V lithium ion battery module that has outstanding cyclic life and charge acceptance that can reduce the runtime of generators and the total cost of ownership of telecom base stations.With 36 affiliates in 16 countries, GS Yuasa has a worldwide presence operating under the GS Yuasa, GS, and Yuasa brands.

www.gs-yuasa.com (GS YUASA)

Abloy

ABLOY secures business operations on land, at sea, and in the air – in all circumstances. Abloy has a proven history of telecommunication business for decades. Along with the new technology in telecom business Abloy has introduced new methods and systems to create value and fast pay-back time to telecom customers. Abloy provides a complete solution including project management. Combining mechanical and electromechanical features ABLOY PROTEC2 CLIQ offers double security with wide internationally tested and approved product range. Remotely controlled PROTEC2 CLIQ system

enables to control sub-contractors activities on sites reducing management costs and providing traceability. Several telecom customers have chosen ABLOY solutions to be leaders in fast developing telecommunication world.

www.abloy.com

NorthStar

NorthStar is an industry leader in designing and manufacturing high performance lead-acid batteries and high efficiency telecom cabinets. The company has state-of-the-art facilities in the USA and Sweden, and their products are used in more than 120 countries worldwide. NorthStar premium thin plate AGM batteries deliver long life at elevated temperatures, with faster recharge and superior PSOC cyclic performance. NSB Blue Batteries are today reducing 85% of diesel generator run time in offgrid telecom applications. The newly launched NorthStar Academy program will help customers to prolong their battery life and save energy in their telecom network.

www.northstarbattery.com/1/2/3.php

Metalogalva

TELECOM TOWERS MANUFACTURER

Quality products at fair prices. Company with 42 years

experience. Young and flexible team. 400 employees; 30

engineers. 100 000 tons galvanizing capacity (year). 14 welding

and plasma robots. 6.6M€ Investment on new equipments.

Qualifications:

- QUALITY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM ISO 9001

- RDI MANAGEMENT SYSTEM CERTIFICATE NP 4457

- ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEM ISO 14001

- MANAGEMENT SYSTEM CERTIFICATE

- OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY OHSAS 18001

- SPECIAL CERTIFICATION FOR GALVANIZATION for German

- Norm DASt – GUIDELINE 022

Verification:

- QUALIFICATION OFMANUFACTURES TO WELD STEEL

STRUCTURES according to DIN 18800-7 Level “E” <EC

CERTIFICATE FACTORY PRODUCTION CONTROL (FPC) EN 1090

– 1/2 – EXC3

http://www.metalogalva.pt/pt/

Cotech Tower Services

COTECH was incorporated in 2006. We specialize in the

provision of ROPE ACCESS Inspection Repair and Maintenance

Services. Skills ideally suited to the vertical tower industry.

Our qualified, trained and highly skilled work force can

address your next project with safety, practicality and speed

to market. IRATA Industrial Rope Access * SPRAT -Rope Access

Approved * Comtrain Approved.

* Rope Access- For Safety, Speed and Cost Effectiveness

http://www.cotechtowerservices.com


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Our exhibitors

Now in its third year, the TowerXchange

Meetup Americas will gather an audience

of 200+ CALA tower industry leaders.

Leading turnkey infrastructure service

providers, tower manufacturers, RMS and

site management platform developers and

energy equipment providers have selected

the TowerXchange Meetup Americas as

their preferred platform to showcase their

solutions and expertise. and expertise. If

you’d like to find out more and request a

bespoke proposal, please contact Annabelle

on +44 7423 512588 or email

[email protected].

Does your company provide products and services to the CALA telecom tower industry


Mer Group

MER Group is a global leader in wireless infrastructure. We supply cutting edge turnkey projects for cellular sites, from the design stage, tower manufacture and supply, site commissioning and installation. MER Group’s tailor-made solutions meet all the needs of a modern operator, and specializes in the growing need for rural low-cost sites supporting hybrid solar energy.

Established in 1948 Mer Group (TASE: CMER), has a substantial global footprint with approximately 30 subsidiaries (10 in Africa), and over 1,200 employees. The Group maintains a diversified portfolio focusing mainly on telecom, security and the CleanTech sectors.

www.mer-group.com/solutions/wireless-infrastructure

Redflow

Redflow Limited is an energy storage specialist that has developed the world’s smallest flow batteries. Redflow’s unique flow batteries are designed for stationary energy storage applications ranging from its ZCell home battery to its ZBM battery range for commercial, telecommunications and grid-scale deployment with installation globally. Redflow is a publicly-listed company (ASX: RFX) that operates R&D

facilities in Australia, as well as offices in the US and Europe. Produced in North America by Flex, one of the world’s largest manufacturing companies, Redflow’s high energy density batteries are sold, installed and maintained by a global

network of system integrators.

www.redflow.com

Meetup Americas 201616-17 June, Boca Raton Resort and Club, Boca Raton

A unique networking opportunity with 250 leaders of the

CALA telecom and broadcast tower industry

www.towerxchange.com/meetups/meetup-americas

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thursday 16 and friday 17 june, boca raton resort and club ... · thursday 16 and friday 17 june,...

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