Tarpon Towers gets $15 Million to Expand Infrastructure
BRADENTON - Tarpon Towers, a wireless communications tower company, today announced it has received a $15 million equity commitment from Spire Capital Partners, a leading private investment fund focused on the communications, business services, information services and media sectors.
As part of the Spire transaction, Andrew J. Armstrong, Jr., Managing Member at Spire Capital, will join Tarpon's Board of Directors.
"Significant wireless infrastructure investment will be made by the wireless carriers over the foreseeable future to address increased wireless subscriber usage, specifically as a result from continued wireless substitution as well as the explosion of wireless data usage and the proliferation of bandwidth intensive wireless applications," said Armstrong. "Spire believes Tarpon is perfectly positioned to take advantage of this increased investment and is excited to partner with Tarpon's talented and highly experienced management team as well as the Company's existing institutional investor, ABS Capital." Together with ABS Capital, Tarpon has secured over $50 million of equity and also has a $30 million bank facility with a prominent regional bank.
Tarpon owns 85 towers located in 14 states including Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Texas, Michigan, Connecticut, New York and California. The Company has over 200 new build sites in development and 25 tower sites under letter or purchase agreement throughout the US. Tarpon plans to continue to work with local tower owners and developers to expand its communications tower portfolio.
"We are excited to have Spire Capital join the Tarpon family as we feel Spire's extensive experience in the tower sector and strong industry relationships will be invaluable to Tarpon as we continue to build our business and create shareholder value," stated Ronald Bizick, Tarpon's Co-founder and CEO. William Freeman, Co-founder and President added, "Growth in our business is dependent on access to capital and we are seeing numerous opportunities to put capital to work at attractive returns. It's great to have partners like Spire and ABS Capital as well as our bank behind us to ensure we are well funded for the foreseeable future."
"Tarpon has experienced significant growth since our initial investment in June 2009 and continues to pursue numerous compelling tower opportunities. The addition of Spire Capital as another source of capital and its strong industry relationships will help Tarpon achieve its business plan," added Deric Emry, General Partner at ABS Capital and a Tarpon board member.
