Zayo reportedly outbid TPG for the Crown Castle assets, which would include its fiber and small cell businesses
According to reports from Reuters, fiber network owner Zayo Group is the frontrunner in the bid to acquire assets valued at more than $8 million from Texas-based Crown Castle.
Crown Castle operates more than 40,000 cellular towers and approximately 90,000 route miles of fiber across the U.S. Zayo, owned by Sweden’s EQT and DigitalBridge, reportedly outbid TPG for the assets, which would include the tower company’s fiber and small cell businesses.
Last January, Crown Castle CFO Dan Schlanger said the company saw a 6% growth in its small cell business last year resulting from 8,000 new nodes; an additional 2,000 nodes were built last year and will begin generating revenue in the first quarter of 2024, he said. The company’s Interim CEO Tony Melone said further that the ongoing need for network densification will continue to “drive not only robust tower growth but also significant demand for small cells.” On fiber, the company reported a 3% growth in the first quarter of 2023, and Schlanger said it expected to grow another 3% in 2024.
In general, fiber broadband in the U.S. growing rapidly, making infrastructure providers an attractive target for accusation, even as they struggle financially amid an ongoing pullback in capital expenditures by mobile network operators. Crown Castle’s reported profits for Q2 2024, for instance, were $251 million, down 45% from the same period last year
Zayo and Crown Castle did not respond to request for comment.
