Having just added 215 sites to his growing tower portfolio in February, Dagan Kasavana, Chief Executive Officer of Phoenix Tower International(PTI) is hungry for more. But then it takes an aggressive mergers and acquisitions plan to build up a tower inventory list of 4,000 in less than five years. Inside Towers caught up to the man, appropriately, at TowerXchange’s MeetUp Americas on Wednesday in Boca Raton.
The former Global Towers exec is undaunted by the hurdles of buying wireless infrastructure in other countries given taxes, shifting political winds and labor, in fact, he welcomes “la difference” as the French would say. “That makes it fun to learn,” Kasavana said. “When purchasing towers internationally we try to approach due diligence efforts through the same lens we have traditionally used to perform diligence on towers in the United States. This includes understanding the regulatory environment, ensuring long term, protected real estate rights under the towers, inspecting structural capacity availability and of course inspection of cashflow from strong counterparties,” he said, “this strategy ensures portfolio value and quality are kept as the center of every transaction.” Regarding PTI’s growth strategy in the U.S., they keep the same parameters in place looking for strong structures with long term real estate rights. “That hasn’t changed,” he said. The company’s U.S. portfolio consists of over 600 towers and another 300+ managed assets.
With clusters of sites in Costa Rica, Panama, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, French West Indies, Peru, Columbia, and, oh yes, the U.S.A., Phoenix Tower’s global team has become adept at handling a growing tower business in any language. The company has 20 employees alone in the Dominican Republic and 140 worldwide, more than half of them based in their headquarters in Boca Raton, FL. He said his company stresses a code of ethics and safety that transcends any native tongue and has found safety standards among tower crews in the southern hemisphere equal to that of their northern counterparts.
“We understand it takes people with different ideas, strengths, interests and multi-cultural backgrounds to make our company unique and successful,” Kasavana said.
A pillar of the company’s values includes giving back to the communities served through their philanthropic program, WINGS which supports a variety of causes such as JDRF – Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, The Salvation Army, UNICEF, Boca Helping Hands and others. Kasavana believes in a more connected local and global community stating, “As an infrastructure provider, we believe it is important for PTI to be a responsible local and global citizen.”
What does the future hold for Phoenix Tower International? The company is focused on the stable growth of its wireless infrastructure portfolio – expanding into new international markets as well as further development in the eight markets they currently serve. With their unique multi-cultural approach to tower ownership and operation, the sky is the limit for this rising tower company.
For more information about Phoenix Tower International or to contact a representative, visit http://www.phoenixintnl.com.
By Jim Fryer, Managing Editor, Inside Towers
June 22, 2018
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