Communications & Digital Infrastructure
Essential Connectivity
As virtually all aspects of our lives become increasingly digitised, there is a significant need for new and upgraded digital infrastructure to provide these essential services.
Even in established markets like Germany and the US, the availability of full fibre connections to homes and businesses remains nascent, lagging behind the demands of modern economies and requiring substantial capex investment to upgrade. As growth in new technologies, particularly mobile, allows us to use data in more sophisticated ways and on the move, the need for more distributed digital infrastructure, such as mobile towers and edge data centres, will only increase.
The Covid pandemic highlighted the criticality of the networks that connect us and shone a light on many areas requiring further investment – particularly, but not exclusively, in rural and remote areas. This gap in both fixed and wireless provision has led to investor-friendly government interventions to ensure consistent national coverage: subsidies, legal rights for operators, tax reforms, amongst others.
The scale of the infrastructure required is enormous, however finding value in this sector requires expertise.
Full sector coverage
Our digital infrastructure practice is active across all three pillars of the sector – fibre, towers and data centres – for both our value-add and core strategies. Our highly experienced team includes a number of industry specialists bringing valuable insights into the sector and extensive origination reach.
A discerning approach
Many communications and digital assets are acyclical and benefit from inflation protection, which we believe makes it a resilient asset class. But in order to benefit, a discerning approach to asset selection is critical. Due to the quantities of infrastructure required to keep up with the demands of modern life, we are able to be highly selective in our approach.
Driving value creation
In a sector where finding value remains difficult, we’re able to leverage our extensive greenfield and operating experience. Having invested in communications and digital infrastructure from the ground up, we’ve acquired a deep understanding of the intricacies and disciplines required to scale networks and achieve operational excellence. We apply these standards across both our value-add and core strategies.
At the vanguard of change
In an area that is growing exponentially, there is also an increasing need for investment into new or related areas. Our position in the market affords early visibility of emerging assets and technologies that will be critical to realising the connectivity of our societies and drive the next wave of digital investment.
Case study
Other areas
* Our communications & digital infrastructure portfolio as at May 2023
