Phoenix Tower International (PTI) acquired 600 wireless tower sites from T-Mobile US. The deal is expected to close before the end of this year.
T-Mobile sold most of its towers to Crown Castle in a $4.2 billion deal that was announced in September 2012. However, these remaining sites were acquired by T-Mobile when it purchased MetroPCS.
In an interview with FierceInstaller, PTI CEO Dagan Kasavana said that part of the motivation for the deal was so PTI could gain scale in the U.S. Currently, PTI has fewer than 50 towers in the U.S.
Historically, the tower company has primarily focused its efforts on Latin America and the Caribbean, where PTI currently has more than 600 towers, including its work in Brazil with an affiliated company.
In addition to towers, PTI assets include land parcels and rooftop rights. The company is not currently working in the small cell space.
Kasavana said that this deal will help increase PTI's stature as a major multi-national owner and operator of towers. He signaled that the company was looking to grow via a combination of deal-making as well as organic growth. PTI has been more active since it received an investment in July 2014 from Blackstone Group.
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