Share the page

Supporting the expansion of Torrecom in Central America and the Andean region

Project

Climate
AktivCo Senegal
Signature date
Location
Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Salvador, Multi-country Latin America and the Caribbean
Financing tool
Loan
Financing amount (Euro)
20000000
Financing details
USD 20m loan
Customer
TORRECOM PARTNERS / GRUPO TORRECOM PANAMA / TORRECOM MEXICO / TORRECOM COLOMBIA / TORRECOM PERU / TORRECOM PARAGUAY / TORRECOM GUATEMALA / TORRECOM EL SALVADOR / TORRECOM PARTNERS / TORRECOM GROUP ECUADOR
Type of customer
Company
Project number
PZZ1630
Environmental and social ranking
B+
Download the report

This information is given at the time of signature, without prejudice to any developments in the operation/project.

Proparco has allocated a loan to Torrecom, one of the leading independent tower companies in Latin America, to support its development plan for the next three years in Central America and the Andean region, where the company is experiencing rapid growth.

Client presentation

Torrecom was founded in 2010 and is one of the leading independent tower companies in Latin America with a portfolio of more than 1,400 wireless infrastructure sites across Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Paraguay and Chile.  Torrecom continues to grow in the region through new tower and distributed antenna system development (BTS) for wireless carriers as well as opportunistic, value-added acquisitions of existing infrastructure portfolios.  Torrecom’s management team has well over 100 years of experience with both tower company and carrier backgrounds. Torrecom is headquartered in Weston, Florida, with local offices in each of the ten countries where it operates.

Project description

The loan will be used to fund Capital Expenditure (“CAPEX”) and other associated costs to build, acquire, maintain and lease telecom cell towers in Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay and Peru. 

The financing will support the deployment of mobile broadband infrastructure while increasing the productivity of existing telecom infrastructure by promoting infrastructure sharing in the region. Torrecom expects to expand its tower portfolio in the region to reach 1,700 towers by 2024 and commercialize available space on existing and new towers with different Mobile Network Operators (“MNOs”) to increase the utilization rate of its tower portfolio. Sharing towers will address the need for hosting more antennas to deal with a higher demand for mobile broadband services. In isolated rural regions, deploying infrastructure is costly because of low density and the extensive areas to be covered.

Project impact

The main development impacts are as follows:

  • New or improved access to mobile broadband services for project end-customers in geographical areas suffering from poor or non-existent networks
  • Support for the maintenance and creation of 1,700 jobs.

The project will contribute to SDGs 8 (Decent work and economic growth) and 9 (Industry, innovation and infrastructure).