Grain Management Acquires 85 Towers from NTELOS Holdings Corp

Company officials at TowerCo have announced the sale of 253 towers and 95 other assets to Grain Infrastructure II, L.P., a private equity firm in Sarasota, Fla., for $244 million. The sale marks the third portfolio of towers and assets sold by TowerCo since 2008 when the company sold 430 towers to SBA Communications for $193.5 million.

The sale elevates Grain’s tower count to approximately 487, making it the 15th largest tower owner in America. Its previous acquisition was last February when it bought 85 towers from nTelos. The original announcement was for a deal of 103 towers for $41 million.

TowerCo was founded in 2004 by Tailwind Capital and industry veterans Richard Byrne and Scot Lloyd.In 2012, TowerCo again turned to SBA with its portfolio of 3,252 towers and sold them for $1.45 billion.
SBA CEO Jeffrey Stoops said at the time the towers averaged 1.8 tenants “with additional tenant capabilities of 2 per tower.”

Managing partner David J. Grain, prior to founding Grain Management was responsible for turning around bankrupt Pinnacle Towers and selling the company to Crown Castle for $5.7 billion.

TowerCo’s portfolio was obtained when the company purchased Sprint Nextel’s 3,300 towers for $670 million in cash in 2008. Byrne had been previously employed as the national director of business development at Nextel.