OMERS Infrastructure, Australian firm Stilmark and US telecommunications company ATN International have teamed up to jointly pursue opportunities in Australian telecommunications infrastructure.

The trio have formed the Symphony Consortium, a partnership believed to be planning to buy a A$2bn (€1.2bn) portfolio of towers from Optus as the consortium’s first deal.

The towers, owned by the Australian subsidiary of Singapore’s SingTel, have already attracted a strong field of contenders.

The consortium has appointed James Eisenstein, co-Founder of American Tower Corporation, and former Vodafone NZ CEO Russell Stanners as special advisors.

The partners said: “Symphony brings together one of Canada’s largest defined-benefit pension plans and a prominent global infrastructure investor in OMERS, with net assets of A$116bn, and the fast-growing Australian tower company Stilmark, supported by one of the largest US neural host wireless network operators in ATN International.”

The partnership adds to OMERS Infrastructure’s existing and growing presence in Australia which includes its most recent 19.9% stake in electricity transmission company TransGrid.

ATN has also been active in Australia. It first invested in Stilmark in 2017.

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