Lendlease sells US telco towers to consortium led by Apollo Global Management

Lendlease had invested about $291m in the business and had earlier flagged it was under contract, with the deal now quietly going through to Apollo.

Global property developer and builder Lendlease appears to be making good on its promise to simplify its sprawling operations by quietly tying up the sale of its telco towers business in the US to a consortium of investors led by Apollo Global Management.

Lendlease had invested about $291m in the business and had earlier flagged it was under contract, with the deal now quietly going through to Apollo. Morgan Stanley advised Lendlease while JPMorgan tended to Apollo.

The US-based purchaser said its funds had picked up the portfolio of operating cell towers and a pipeline of contracted towers that were under development.

The business, which grew to about 450 towers, will be rebranded as Parallel Infrastructure, which it was called before being acquired by Lendlease in 2017, and it will be led by the Lendlease executive, Yannis Macheras, who was running it.

The business is a top build-to-suit tower operator with nearly 500 macro cell towers across the US and several hundred more under contract or in late-stage development. The company counts all major US wireless carriers as customers, including AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, which lease space on towers under long-term contracts.

The capital will be poured into Lendlease’s growing US development and investment businesses, which are winning major projects. Investors are keen to reap the benefits of deals like its just unveiled plans for a $1bn build-to-rent project in New York, where it brought in superannuation giant Aware Super to back the scheme.

Lendlease is trading well ahead of levels in August when it outlaid plans to shift more into investments alongside its development empire.

But there is still some uncertainty about the future of residential developer Stockland, which has its annual meeting on Tuesday.

Investors are awaiting an update on its shopping centre unit and looking for evidence of a prolonged rebound in its residential division on the back of federal and state government stimulus packages.

The meeting will be the last for departing chief executive Mark Steinert and investors are also eager for an update on its search for a new head, with names including Lendlease’s Kylie Rampa and Mirvac’s Brett Draffen considered contenders.

Stockland also has internal candidates, including residential boss Andrew Whitson.