Tillman Infrastructure is not your typical tower company. It’s young – just about 6 years old – and it’s building its assets from scratch.
Privately held, the company boasts more than 2,500 assets built and under its management across the U.S.
Earlier this year, Suruchi Ahuja, 35, was appointed CEO after having served as CFO since the company was established in 2016. Tillman Infrastructure is a subsidiary of Tillman Global Holdings, which was founded by her father, Sanjiv Ahuja, a former CEO of Orange and LightSquared.
In early August, global investment firm Carlyle announced that funds managed by its global infrastructure platform committed up to $1 billion to partner with Tillman Global Holdings to accelerate its investments in Tillman Infrastructure.
Ambitious buildout plans
Tillman Infrastructure is ambitious: It plans to double its nationwide footprint over the next couple of years.
A big part of Tillman Infrastructure’s focus is providing long-term sustainable infrastructure to mobile operators, in the most cost-effective way, and it’s particularly focused on rural and suburban America, where there’s a ton of white space still left to be covered and densified, she said.
“We’re actually really unique in the market in that we are an organic growth story,” she said. “We have built all of our assets in the last six years. We build entirely on order, we don’t build on specs, so we partner with mobile operators,” as well as wireless internet service providers (WISPs) and regional carriers. “We are the most prolific builder of new macro tower assets in the country today.”
Tillman works with all the major U.S. service providers – AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon – and it’s been a partner to Dish Network as well over the past 18 months or so. “We’re seeing a big focus on network expansion from all of our partners,” she said.
Bridging the digital divide is a big part of it. “We build for a variety of reasons,” she said, including where carriers have no coverage as well as areas where they have assets but want to densify.
How much is driven by C-band? “It is definitely a driver of the work that we’re doing, but really every site can have a variety of reasons that the carriers need coverage,” she said. In some cases, the existing assets are overloaded and they need to augment them.
New kid on the block
American Tower, Crown Castle and SBA Communications are the big three publicly traded tower companies in the U.S.
What’s it like coming in as the new kid on the tower block? The U.S. is home to one of the most mature tower industries in the world, and she gives credit where due to the larger established companies that have been at it for several decades now.
It helps that Tillman Infrastructure has a lot of seasoned executives with industry experience, she said. The former CEO, Bill Hague, is now vice chairman; he previously was with AT&T and before that, held positions at Pacific Northwest Cellular/Western Wireless Communications.
It also doesn’t hurt that it’s bringing a slightly different take on the business model, which is “how do we provide our customers with a fair, transparent and long-term solution,” she said. “We really came with a partnership approach,” and a long-term view that includes making sure carriers have enough space on structures in case future equipment gets larger or heavier.
The company says on its website that it doesn’t require costly amendments for equipment changes and doesn’t charge administrative fees when carriers swap out equipment.
“We really focus on future-proofing both the physical and the financial business model so that the customers have a solution that works for them over the coming decades,” she said.
It’s certainly not an easy market to break into, she acknowledged. But they entered the market at what looks to have been the right time. “We’ve been excited about it,” she said. “I love this business.”