Press Releases

Monroe Capital Opportunistic Private Credit Group, Oak Hill Advisors, and Barclays Bank, PLC Support Vertical Bridge and Eco-Site Merger and its Future Build-to-Suit Tower Development

Chicago, IL, May 18, 2021

Monroe Capital LLC (“Monroe”), Oak Hill Advisors L.P. (“OHA”) and Barclays Bank, PLC (“Barclays”), acting as administrative agent, today announced the closing of a $325.0 million credit facility to support Vertical Bridge REIT, LLC’s (“Vertical Bridge”) merger with Eco-Site, LLC (“Eco-Site”) and the combined company’s future development of build-to-suit locations throughout the country.

Based in Boca Raton, Florida, Vertical Bridge is the nation’s largest private owner and operator of communications infrastructure. The Eco-Site merger increases Vertical Bridge’s owned and master-leased tower portfolio to over 20,000 sites and its entire portfolio to more than 307,000 sites located in all 50 states and Puerto Rico. Together, Vertical Bridge and Eco-Site lead the build-to-suit market with more than 1,700 towers constructed over the past five years.

“We are appreciative of Monroe, OHA and Barclays’ efforts to close on a complex transaction on an accelerated time-table,” said Mike Romaniw, Chief Financial Officer of Vertical Bridge. “The lending group was able to mobilize quickly with their sector and structuring expertise to get the transaction closed efficiently.”

“We are excited to partner with Vertical Bridge as a world-class owner and operator of communications towers, and look forward to supporting its continued growth and its leading build-to-suit program,” said Ted Koenig, President and CEO of Monroe.

“We are also pleased to partner with Oak Hill and Barclays as co-lenders on this transaction,” said Kyle Asher, Co-Head of Opportunistic Credit Group at Monroe. “While many competitors were impacted by COVID, our Opportunistic Private Credit group has continued to identify and execute on opportunities in niche, specialized areas like real estate, specialty finance, and litigation finance.”

“We are pleased to partner with Vertical Bridge and are excited about growing our relationship with its impressive team,” says Greg Leveto, Portfolio Manager, OHA. “This transaction highlights OHA’s expertise in providing unique and flexible financing solutions in private credit and real asset markets. We look forward to expanding our relationships with high-quality communications infrastructure companies like Vertical Bridge as we continue to capitalize on the evolving market opportunity.”

About Monroe Capital
Monroe Capital LLC (“Monroe”) is a premier boutique asset management firm specializing in private credit markets across various strategies, including direct lending, asset-based lending, specialty finance, opportunistic and structured credit, and equity. Since 2004, the firm has been successfully providing capital solutions to clients in the U.S. and Canada. Monroe prides itself on being a value-added and user-friendly partner to business owners, management, and both private equity and independent sponsors. Monroe’s platform offers a wide variety of investment products for both institutional and high net worth investors with a focus on generating high quality “alpha” returns irrespective of business or economic cycles. The firm is headquartered in Chicago and maintains offices in Atlanta, Boston, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco.

Monroe has been recognized by both its peers and investors with various awards including Private Debt Investor as the 2020 Lower Mid-Market Lender of the Year, 2020 Lender of the Year, and 2020 CLO Manager of the Year, Americas; Creditflux as the 2020 Best U.S. Direct Lending Fund; Pension Bridge as the 2020 Private Credit Strategy of the Year; and Global M&A Network as the 2020 Small Middle Markets Lender of the Year. For more information, please visit www.monroecap.com.

About Oak Hill Advisors, L.P.
Oak Hill Advisors, L.P. (“OHA”) is a leading alternative investment firm with approximately $51 billion of capital under management across distressed and performing credit investments. The firm’s investment activities are concentrated in North America and Europe. OHA manages multi-strategy and single strategy credit funds, distressed funds, collateralized loan obligations and other customized mandates. The firm’s investment activities are driven by a fundamental value-oriented philosophy focused on credit analysis, relative value analysis, risk-adjusted return generation, loss avoidance and active risk management that has been in place for more than three decades. The firm invests on behalf of a diverse, global investor group. OHA employs more than 300 people globally and is headquartered in New York, with primary offices in London, England; Fort Worth, Texas; San Francisco, California; Sydney, Australia; Hong Kong and Luxembourg. For further information about OHA, please visit www.oakhilladvisors.com.

About Vertical Bridge REIT, LLC
Vertical Bridge REIT, LLC is the largest private owner and operator of communications infrastructure and locations in the United States, with a portfolio of more than 307,000 sites, including over 20,000 owned and master-leased towers and the nation’s largest and tallest collection of broadcast tower sites. The Company’s portfolio spreads across all 50 states and Puerto Rico and is comprised of towers, rooftops, billboards, utility attachments, convenience stores and other locations in support of wireless network deployments. In addition to colocation, Vertical Bridge offers build-to-suit, edge data centers and in-building wireless network solutions.

Based in Boca Raton, Florida, Vertical Bridge was founded in 2014 and is led by a senior management team with more over 300 years of collective experience in tower infrastructure and related sectors. Vertical Bridge is certified CarbonNeutral® and in 2020, became the first tower company in the world to reach net-zero emissions. For more information, please visit www.verticalbridge.com