Pantheon Infrastructure PLC (PINT) has committed to investing $53 million in German and Austrian digital infrastructure operator GD Towers.

The investment has been made through a co-investment vehicle managed by affiliates of DigitalBridge Group Inc.

GD Towers has a portfolio of 40,000 sites across Germany (c.33,000) and Austria (c.7,000), which provide the infrastructure for operators to offer telecom services to end customers.  

As part of the investment, independent firm GD Towers has been divested out of the infrastructure network owned by Deutsche Telekom (DT).

DT will remain a 49 percent shareholder and anchor tenant through a long-term master lease agreement following the transaction.

Last year, DT sold 51 percent of its tower business, GD Towers, to Canadian investment management company Brookfield and US private equity firm DigitalBridge for $17.5 million.

“We are pleased to announce this latest transaction in a highly attractive asset that enables us to participate in the robust opportunity in European telecommunications with a high-quality counterparty," said Richard Sem, partner at Pantheon, PINT’s investment manager.

"We believe the tailwinds in this sector provide attractive growth opportunities which are underpinned by long-term contracted cash flows that provide strong downside protection."

In June of last year, Pantheon plowed $34.7 million into Digital Bridge's Vantage Data Centers.

Founded in 1982, Pantheon Ventures has more than $70 billion of assets under management. The company floated a new infrastructure fund, Pantheon Infrastructure PLC, in 2021.

Since its listing, PINT has invested in KKR’s take-private of CyrusOne, DigitalBridge’s tower company Vertical Bridge, and an unnamed digital infrastructure company that owns and operates fiber-to-the-home infrastructure in Western Europe.