Recently Peppertree Capital Management, Tom Remillard and Jim Rech, revealed Blue Sky Towers, LLC. Blue Sky will focus on the development and management of wireless infrastructure including cell towers and rooftops throughout the country. Peppertree has commited $80 million equity and debt financing to Blue Sky. CEO Remillard was formerly principal of Wireless Realty Advisors (WRA), and president Rech was formerly vice president development at Global Tower Partners (GTP), which was recently purchased by American Tower.
Remillard is a seasoned industry entrepreneur with more than 20 years of experience in the wireless real estate business. As the principal of WRA for the past seven years, Remillard has been involved with all aspects of the cell tower business including development, management and mergers and acquisitions.
While at WRA, Remillard developed a proprietary database of "cell site-friendly landlords" in major metropolitan markets throughout the U.S., which has simplified the site acquisition process for wireless carriers and their real estate vendors for procuring both new tower and rooftop sites. This database will be licensed to Blue Sky and made available to carriers and site acquisition firms to help expedite the development process of both macro and small cell sites. Additionally, WRA has over 900 sites under agreement for development and several pending installations that will also be conveyed to Blue Sky.
"Our industry is experiencing a period of unprecedented growth of new site builds, driven by the surge of new applications and the popularity of these new products. We are extremely excited to be partnering with Peppertree Capital in this timely venture. We feel their depth of investment experience and direct knowledge of the cell tower business will be a huge asset to the success of Blue Sky," said Remillard.
Rech brings more than 19 years of experience in developing towers and wireless communication networks. Rech spent most of his professional career as an entrepreneur having owned, managed and developed multiple tower portfolios throughout the United States. In his most recent role, Rech served on the management team with GTP as vice president development and was responsible for all development sales and implementation for the company's new tower efforts throughout the U.S. and Puerto Rico. Previously, Rech served as the vice president development for TCP Communications, a private equity-backed tower company that built and acquired 243 towers and exited in a successful sales transaction to GTP in 2006. As co-founder and president of National Tower, LLC, Rech developed towers throughout the Northeast and subsequently sold to GTP in June 2008. Prior to National Tower, Rech held key tower network development positions at SBA Communications and as contractor for T-Mobile USA.
"We will continue to partner with and serve the development needs of wireless carriers through build to suit arrangements, in addition to growing our strategic development relationships with 'in market' developers throughout the U.S.," said Rech.
Peppertree Capital managing director Ryan Lepene said, "Tom and Jim have unparalleled experience and relationships within the wireless industry. We are extremely excited to begin our partnership with them."