Network infrastructure company Vertical Bridge has acquired tower company Eco-Site, in a move that expands Vertical Bridge’s site portfolio to nearly 290,000 sites across the 50 U.S. states plus Puerto Rico and includes more than 20,000 owned towers.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Private-equity backed Eco-Site was founded in 2021 and is based in North Carolina; it has won recognition as a particularly fast-growing company, and offers build-to-suit, co-location and densification services. Eco-Site’s three co-founders will join the leadership team at Vertical Bridge: Eco-Site CEO Dale Carey will move to EVP of strategy and convergence at Vertical Bridge, Bob Glosson will shift from COO of Eco-Site to Vertical Bridge’s SVP of real estate solutions and Rich Stern, who has been EVP and general counsel for Eco-Site, will serve as Vertical Bridge’s SVP of real estate.
“The wireless sector is significantly different than it was just a few years ago and scale matters more than ever when it comes to being able to meet the evolving needs of our customers,” said Carey in a statement. “I’ve known the Vertical Bridge team for many years and am excited to work with them under one banner. Vertical Bridge and Eco-Site are both employee-centric, customer-focused and solutions-oriented firms. Together, we will scale faster, bring more opportunities to our customers and reach new milestones as the country’s largest private owner and operator of wireless infrastructure.”
“Vertical Bridge and Eco-Site share a proven track record of success in build-to-suit, having collectively constructed well over 1,600 new towers in the last five years alone. This is the highest rate of any company in the market, and a testament to our collective capabilities,” said Vertical Bridge CEO Alex Gellman in a statement. “The combination of Vertical Bridge and Eco-Site is truly a case of one plus one equals three, and we are thrilled to welcome Dale, Bob and Rich and their talented team to the Vertical Bridge family. We look forward to working together to continue bringing our fast, friendly and flexible service to customers as they build their 5G networks.
“As a private, at-scale and permanent company, we have the flexibility and capital to be strategic in our growth model and we will continue to identify opportunities to expand our footprint that fit into our pure tower, pure U.S. strategy,” Gellman added.
This is Vertical Bridge’s second recent expansion of its site footprint. In October, the company went through the initial closing of a sale and leaseback transaction worth more than $200 million with radio company Cumulus Media, involving Cumulus’ broadcast communications towers.
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