MACQUARIE INVESTING IN PHIL-TOWER

Australian financial conglomerate Macquarie has debuted on the Philippine telecom infrastructure space with a deal to invest in Phil-Tower Consortium Inc. (PhilTower), one of the country’s fastest-growing independent cellular tower companies with a current pipeline of 1,000 sites.

The investment was made through Macquarie Capital, the advisory, capital markets and principal investment arm of Macquarie Group. The amount of investment and the percentage of economic interest were not disclosed.

PhilTower is a shared digital infrastructure provider, enabling mobile network operators to rapidly and cost-effectively expand their network coverage and meet growing demands for 4G and 5G services.

“We are excited to work with PhilTower’s highly experienced management team and look forward to supporting PhilTower as it responds to the growing infrastructure and connectivity needs of the Philippines,” Ivan Varughese, senior managing director at Macquarie Capital, said in a statement.

Devid Gubiani, president of PhilTower, said: “With Macquarie Capital’s investment, we will increase the momentum of our aggressive rollout as well as expand geographically. We are very bullish on the growth potential of the shared infrastructure industry and we continue to support the DICT’s (Department of Information and Communications Technology) vision for a connected Philippines.”

“PhilTower is very proud to be at the forefront of nation-building initiatives that will improve the lives of Filipinos,” Gubiani added.