NEWS PROVIDED BY
Inside Towers
August 06, 2024, 5:45 am
Diamond Communications LLC (Diamond) is one of the leading privately held tower companies in the U.S., owning and managing more than 4,000 tenanted sites and managing more than 400,000 third-party properties that are available for wireless colocation. Diamond sets itself apart through its long-term view and unique problem-solving approach, providing creative solutions to meet its third-party partners’ and customers’ connectivity needs, according to Ed Farscht, Founder and CEO of Diamond.
“Diamond, headquartered in Delray Beach, FL, is a solutions-based company that enhances connectivity, both indoors and outdoors, by developing wireless macro structures, indoor and outdoor DAS and other assets to support the expansion and increasing capacity needs of the wireless carriers. Diamond creates these opportunities by marketing the properties that we own and manage, as well as investing capital to acquire towers and other communications infrastructure assets,” Farscht said.
The company’s long-term perspective and communications infrastructure assets, along with its strong capital position and its proprietary and strategic partnerships, are the keys to its success, according to Farscht.
Beginning without any assets in 2006, Diamond was founded by Farscht, who already had expertise in tower development, principal investments, and investment banking, in partnership with Sculptor Capital Management. Today, Diamond has approximately 140 employees and four regional offices in 18 different states throughout the U.S. The company’s tenanted assets span all 50 states.
Diamond began as a tower acquisition company, but many team members had expertise in other areas of the wireless infrastructure business. The company combined acquisitions with organic initiatives and accelerated growth through new tower development and enhancing its indoor and outdoor DAS and fiber capabilities.
Prioritizing Partnerships
Developing partnerships has allowed Diamond to increase the number of assets it builds and properties it manages, while remaining creative and nimble.
Diamond manages third-party properties for organizations including utilities, municipalities, school districts, highway rights-of-way, master plan communities, national parks, as well as other property owners who are looking to improve connectivity and generate a long-term revenue stream. Diamond’s other relationships include real estate companies, outdoor advertising, parking companies, golf courses, and churches.
Since 2009, Diamond has entered into agreements with 15 utilities, including Ameren, FirstEnergy, Georgia Power, Mississippi Power, and ITC Holdings. “We will do everything we can for our utility partners. We will build a cell tower on their property and market it to carriers, as well as market their communications and other towers. These types of sites help carriers navigate locations with zoning challenges.”
Through relationships with municipalities, Diamond assists jurisdictions with everything from zoning ordinances to public safety networks. “We help municipalities anticipate wireless infrastructure needs in growing areas and help them improve coverage in already developed locations,” Farscht said. “We’ve worked with various governmental entities to market their fiber deployments as well as their communications towers too.”
Diamond began a program with the Texas Association of School Boards in March of this year to encourage investments in cellular infrastructure on school district properties for better connectivity in urban, suburban, and rural school districts and communities.
Similarly, Diamond works with national park authorities to support health and safety objectives through wireless and fiber connectivity. As a matter of course, it designs, develops, and operates communications infrastructure in some of the hardest to zone areas of the country.
Diamond has built approximately 500 towers in the last five years and has hundreds more in development. Its build-to-suit (BTS) team is made up of personnel with 10-30 years of tower development experience and a track record for completing both high volume BTS programs and highly complex single tower projects. Through its Development Partnership Program, Diamond also provides independent developers with funding and management expertise.
Infrastructure Funding
Diamond is backed by a variety of investors including pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, and other institutional investors and individuals. Among them are the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Sculptor Capital Management, and Manulife Investment Management.
“We have a variety of investors that are looking to invest capital for the long term,” Farscht said. “This allows us to achieve our vision of providing long-term solutions for our customers.”
Over the past five years, Diamond and its investors have invested in excess of $2 billion on wireless communications infrastructure assets. Perhaps the most notable purchase occurred in 2021, when Diamond and Sculptor Capital Management, Inc. (NYSE: SCU) invested funds to acquire Melody Wireless Infrastructure. This transaction added approximately 2,300 tenanted wireless communications sites to Diamond’s portfolio at a cost of $1.625 billion.
One thing that sets Diamond apart from others is its long-term approach to owning and operating wireless assets, according to Farscht.
“We have a long-term horizon and capital structure that enables us to take a long-term approach, which is important to our customers and third-party partners,” Farscht said. “They don’t want to partner with a company that’s going to sell its assets after five years, because creating these businesses and developing processes and procedures takes a long time.”
Win-Win
Diamond’s overarching goal is to help its customers and third-party partners achieve reliable wireless connectivity while creating value in a way that serves communities’ needs, its wireless customers and Diamond’s shareholders.
“We create projects that are win-win solutions,” says Farscht. “As the digital communications infrastructure industry evolves, Diamond will keep finding innovative ways to enhance connectivity, putting its capital, know-how, relationships, and owned and managed properties to good use.”
As towers converge with fiber optics and edge data centers in the future, Diamond has and is expanding its reach to provide the infrastructure that enhances network connectivity and the capital that enables it.
For more information:
Erin Payne
(973) 735-6420
[email protected]