Barings has sold its investment in Wireless Infrastructure Group (WIG) to 3i Infrastructure.
Headquartered in Edinburgh, Scotland, WIG is an independent communications infrastructure provider. The Company operates a portfolio of over 2,000 communication towers and is the United Kingdom’s market leader for the deployment of neutral host distributed antenna system networks needed to deliver mobile signals to large public venues. Barings initially made its controlling investment in WIG in December 2012, and the transaction comes as the Company continues to scale up its deployment of high capacity, 5G-ready wireless infrastructure. This includes new communication towers serving rural communities, together with small cells and fibre networks in busy urban centres.
“We are delighted that 3i Infrastructure has extended its investment into WIG,” says Scott Coates, CEO of Wireless Infrastructure Group. “WIG is busy investing in new infrastructure across the United Kingdom, from new towers in the Highlands of Scotland to 5G-ready small-cell networks that will connect self-driving cars in the West Midlands. Barings has been a great partner and WIG is well positioned to continue our scale up.”
“Barings’ five-year investment in WIG has been highly successful, with the company doubling in scale, developing a leading position in small cells, expanding its capabilities and delivering great service to customers,” says Matt Sandoval, Head of Telecom and a managing director in Barings’ Private Equity / Real Assets Group. “WIG is a prime example of the real asset and asset-based private equity investments that Barings targets. With WIG, we early on identified a macro theme that has played out favourably and yielded outstanding results for our clients.”
