Carlyle partners with Tillman Infrastructure to push Digital Infrastructure
It was announced recently this month that the Global investment firm Carlyle has committed up to $1 billion to partner with Tillman Global Holdings, a holding company that builds businesses in digital and infrastructure. Current portfolio companies operate by using tower sectors, in-building small cells and fibre assets.
By committing up to US$ 1 billion from the funds managed by its Global Infrastructure platform to partner with Tillman Global Holdings, Carlyle will help Tillman Infrastructure develop further: Tillman Global will use the funds to accelerate growth, by speeding up its investments in their infrastructure portfolio to meet the increasingly high demand for mobile internet infrastructure, and to keep investing in premium mobile infrastructure to maintain its mobile network operator and clients.
The Carlyle Group is no stranger to digital infrastructure investments – they have already committed to two other deals in the past: Carlyle acquired Involta Data Centers, a U.S. data centre firm focused on hybrid IT and cloud infrastructure, and Wyyerd Fibre Group, a regional fibre-to-home platform in the Southwestern United States for which it also completed an add-on fibre acquisition. However, this deal with Tillman Infra really shows how established digital infrastructure is becoming as an asset class, as opposed to just as an added value or bonus.
So much so that Joshua Pang, the Head of Digital infrastructure and Managing Director at the Carlyle Group, stated in Carlyle Group’s press release that: “The tower sector is one of the most stable and resilient sectors globally and has grown through the two recessions – we think it’s a premium, defensible growth industry”.
He also provided some background on how this deal strengthens their ESG strategy: “Tillman is building towers that help narrow the digital divide, by focusing on developing infrastructure in more rural and sparser or suburban markets where communities have been underinvested and underserved”.