American Tower completes acquisition of GTP

American Tower Corp (ATC), the biggest operator of cellular towers in the US, has announced that it has completed its previously announced acquisition of 100% of the outstanding common membership interests of MIP Tower Holdings LLC. MIP Tower Holdings LLC, a closely held real estate investment trust is the parent company of Global Tower Partners (GTP), an owner and operator of communications real estate, and related companies.

On September 6, 2013, the company had entered into a definitive agreement with GTP to acquire for a total purchase price of approximately $4.8 billion, according to the press release.

As consideration for the acquisition, American Tower assumed approximately $1.5 billion of existing GTP debt and paid approximately $3.3 billion in cash.

The company used approximately $2.8 billion of borrowings under its existing revolving credit facilities and approximately $0.5 billion of cash on hand to satisfy the cash portion of the purchase price.

Through this acquisition , ATC is aiming at generating approximately $345 million in revenues and approximately $270 million of gross margin by next year.

GTP was majority owned by Macquarie Infrastructure Partners together with minority partners including Dutch pension fund manager PGGM and management.

GTP owns and operates approximately 5,400 domestic towers, 800 domestic property interests under third-party communications sites, and has management rights to over 9,000 domestic sites, which are primarily rooftop assets. In addition, GTP owns 500 communications sites in Costa Rica.