First State Investments has entered into a binding agreement to sell Digita Oy to Digital Colony, a joint venture between Digital Bridge Holdings LLC and Colony NorthStar, Inc.
Digita is the owner and operator of the sole nationwide digital terrestrial television and radio broadcasting tower infrastructure network in Finland. Founded in 1999 as a spin off from national broadcaster Yle, Digita is Finland’s leading TV and radio broadcasting network and the only platform with the ability to reach nearly 100% of the Finnish population. The company is also Finland’s largest independent tower network owner, providing infrastructure solutions to the country’s largest mobile network operators. Digita will continue to be led by CEO Juha-Pekka Weckström and the existing management team.
“I am grateful for the support First State has provided to Digita over the years,” said Weckström.
“Together with First State we have invested more than €40 million into Digita to upgrade our network and to start new business lines including data centers and internet of things (“IoT”) services. Partnering with Digital Colony will help Digita continue to enhance its network and facilitate a first class customer experience.”
“We are pleased to have reached an agreement to sell Digita to Digital Colony,” said Niall Mills, Partner Infrastructure Investments at First State.
“Under our ownership, Digita has successfully refocused on its core competencies, extended all of its key broadcasting contracts, led the transition to high definition DTT and secured all six ultra-high frequency DTT Multiplex licenses in 2017. This secures Digita’s role as Finland’s nationwide TV broadcast infrastructure provider over the long-term. We are confident that under Digital Colony’s ownership, Digita will continue to be well positioned to further develop as Finland’s leading tower network company.”
“Digita is well positioned to extend its business model into adjacent markets as the deployment of 5G will increase demand for new macro towers, rooftop sites, small cell deployments, and data centers,” said Ben Jenkins, Managing Partner at Digital Colony.
“We look forward to partnering with Digita’s highly experienced team to ensure that the company’s processes and systems remain best in class to provide customers state-of-the-art solutions across the entire value chain.”
The transaction, which is subject to customary regulatory approvals, is expected to close in Q2 2018. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
