Macquarie Mexican Infrastructure Trust I (MMIT I) yesterday announced the formation of Mexico Tower Partners (MTP), a joint venture that owns and manages a portfolio of wireless telecommunications towers with operations across Mexico. Based in Mexico City, MTP manages more than 550 towers and is Mexico's second largest independent telecommunications tower business.

MTP is a 50/50 joint venture between Macquarie Mexican Infrastructure Fund (MMIF) and Digital Bridge, an independent tower operator. MMIF and Digital Bridge have merged their existing telecommunications tower portfolios to create MTP.

Jonathan Davis Arzac, Chairman, MMIF, said:

"We are pleased to be partnering with Digital Bridge to form MTP. Digital Bridge's strong expertise and capabilities in the tower space are complementary to our own. The combination of our existing portfolios creates greater scale and enables us to further penetrate the market and to diversify our customer base. Digital Bridge management is comprised of experienced industry veterans who will manage our combined portfolios and seek further opportunities to expand our operations in Mexico. We look forward to working with them."

MMIF's tower business was formed in October 2011 when MMIF and Global Tower Partners (GTP) acquired a portfolio of 199 towers in Mexico from Telefonica. GTP was sold to American Tower in September 2013. GTP's Mexican towers were carved out of that transaction.

Davis Arzac added:

"We believe that the wireless tower industry in Mexico presents attractive opportunities for investors given the low levels of current coverage, increasing demand driven by the popularity of smart phones and other data-intensive wireless devices and current plans of local carriers to continue to deploy newer wireless technologies. Further, Mexico's telecommunication reforms are expected to result in more opportunities and a more competitive environment for new entrants. We are confident that MTP is well placed to capitalize on these trends."

Macquarie Mexican Infrastructure Fund (MMIF) is Macquarie Group's first managed fund in Latin America, and is the first peso-denominated fund focused solely on investment opportunities in Mexican infrastructure projects. MMIF targets investments across infrastructure asset classes.

MMIF comprises two trusts, Macquarie Mexican Infrastructure Trust I and Macquarie Mexican Infrastructure Trust II, and is managed by Macquarie México Infrastructure Management, S.A. de C.V. which operates within the Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets division of Macquarie Group.