DigitalBridge Group, Inc. (DBRG) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

June 18, 2020

New York Stock Exchange US Financials Capital Markets conference_presentation 31 min

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

Jennifer Fritzsche

analyst
#1

Our next guest, we have Marc Ganzi. Marc is currently the CEO of Digital Bridge, but in, what, 2 weeks, the CEO of Colony Capital. 2 weeks. Okay. So Marc, welcome. Thanks for joining us today.

Marc Ganzi

executive
#2

Thanks. Great to be here.

Jennifer Fritzsche

analyst
#3

Marc, I want to start by asking about Colony. You're in the midst of a big transition right now. You're shifting more of your focus to broadband infrastructure. And just give us a quick update of where you are in the process.

Marc Ganzi

executive
#4

Sure. Well, look, it's an exciting transformation and it's one that the Board of Directors embarked on Q1 last year when they made the announcement over the summer to merge Digital Colony Partners and Digital Bridge Holdings into the Colony investment management platform. And we're now almost a year into that process. And I can say that with a lot of conviction, we're ahead of schedule of where we thought we'd be. Today, we've rotated our assets. About 43% of our assets under management today are digital, we have about $21 billion of assets in the digital business today. And as we continue to rotate, our plan to be 90% rotated by the end of next year remains intact. Despite COVID, we've been able to continue to monetize some of our legacy assets. We posted over $300 million of dispositions through May of this year. We've got another $300 million of dispositions lined up between now and the end of the year. And believe it or not, there still are -- for good real estate assets, there are still plenty of buyers out there, particularly private buyers. So the asset rotation is in flight. A couple of other things that we told The Street that this new management team is very focused on was, one, we'd be very focused on delevering the balance sheet. And as you will see over the next coming quarters, our focus remains fully committed on delevering the Colony corporate balance sheet. The second thing we said is we would continue to prune our G&A. We announced another $45 million in G&A cuts, many of those cuts having already been announced in June, and more cuts to come through the year. But on a run rate basis, we remain on track with our commitment to investors around G&A cuts. The third thing we said we would do is we would continue to grow our digital asset base, and very happy with the coinvestments that we launched in our investment management platform in Q1. We have other coinvestment strategies and new fund products coming, and we're very excited about some of the things that we're doing in digital. We get to talk about that today, of course. So I'll reserve on that, but we're continuing to grow our digital IM. We're continuing to grow our digital IM business, which creates fees and carry for our public investors, and we're going to continue to use the balance sheet. The balance sheet is a big part of what we're doing. And whilst we're deleveraging, we're also growing. So we're looking to put other high-quality assets onto our balance sheet like DataBank, and that was obviously a great acquisition for us, and it's a great edge computing strategy. But we want to continue to put our favorite asset classes onto the balance sheet to give investors what they want, Jennifer, which is predictability in earnings. And as we make that full rotation into a digital REIT, it's making sure that, that predictability of earnings is there for investors, they understand it, they can feel it, they can touch it, and that's where we're going. The last covenant that we made to shareholders is we've changed the entire senior leadership of the company. So effective July 1, new CEO, new CFO, already in place, Severin White, the head of our public-facing capital markets group. Severin has done a great job increasing the dialogue, increasing the transparency with you, our shareholders, our investors, and the analyst community. That's a big, important part of our strategy, is to really develop a great relationship with the analyst community and the investor community to bring more transparency to what we're doing. The big knock we always hear about Colony, Jennifer, is it's complicated. Yes, we get that. It is complicated. But each day, it gets a simpler and simpler story for investors to understand, and that's what this management team is about. It's simplicity, transparency and giving folks predictability about our core FFO, and most importantly, giving predictability around the assets that we own. And so culture is important. We've got some great new leadership at the company, Mike Mazzei, coming over from Ladder Capital to run our mortgage REIT. Colony -- CLNC has done quite well. We've stabilized that portfolio. Mike is a multi-decade industry leader like myself, except he's on the credit side and understands credit, and I understand digital. Ben Jenkins has stepped up to be our CIO of Digital. Ben and I have been partners for over 2 decades. Our guy has got an excellent reputation and strong background. Justin Chang, heading up balance sheet investments. Justin spent 10 years at TPG, now running our balance sheet investing. And then Jonathan Grunzweig, CIO of legacy. So it's an entire new management team. It's a new culture, and we think we're giving shareholders something to be excited about in Colony now.

Jennifer Fritzsche

analyst
#5

Terrific. Great. Thanks for that, Marc. So maybe just deep diving in our 4 -- the 4 kind of honey paths I always call in that you have your hands into. Starting with towers. We just actually talked to Alex a few -- about an hour ago on the Zoom and some other private CEOs of the tower companies. And I would say the conclusion I came to is short term, maybe not -- a little still unknown or things might not be happening as quickly as hoped, but that longer term, nothing but positive. Is that -- would you share that assessment?

Marc Ganzi

executive
#6

I would. And look, we -- Vertical Bridge is one of the 5 tower businesses we own and operate globally, and Alex's team is best-in-class. And I think thematically, it's a little bit of a different story for each of the geographies that we operate in. And I know you cover everything from Cellnex to Telesites to the 3 publics here in this hemisphere. And so it's an interesting time. And I would say, in different parts of the world, we're seeing higher adaptation rates of 5G than we are in other places. So for example, in our tower business in Helsinki, Digita, in the Nordics, we're seeing very fast adaptation to 5G. So we're in the process of densifying, rolling out 5G, using a lot of IoT technology across those 5G networks to help the government, to help utility companies. What's so great about 5G, Jennifer, is there's so many other applications that we can run across 5G. And as we've migrated from 2 to 3, 4 and 5G, you've seen this firsthand that the network now has much more than just voice and messaging and data and streaming. There are so many other applications we can begin to push through mobile networks. So this, I think, is the ultimate opportunity for carriers in 5G, is whether they can monetize that [ incremental ] opportunities for applications to run where they can get a recovery on their investment because, look, in Europe, it's hard. The MNOs are under enormous pressure. ARPUs have not grown in a long time. The general bill, as I say, for 5G is coming, and it's expensive. So we're having great conversations with our customers in Europe about deeper partnership, getting us deeper into the core of the network. And it's very exciting. So I think Europe has actually been a little bit ahead, at least in the Nordics, has been ahead of the U.S. in terms of 5G deployment. Here in the U.S., you've gotten that readout from Alex. We're very excited about what's happening there. Leasing has been strong through the first 2 quarters, perhaps not as strong as we would have liked, but we were forecasting a pretty big year because of what was happening in terms of 5G overlays and densification. But I still think net-net, it's safe to assume that Alex's business will have sort of 8% to 10% core organic growth this year, which is a pretty good year, by the way. I'll take it 8% to 10% core organic growth [indiscernible].

Jennifer Fritzsche

analyst
#7

Yes. Yes. I think so. Do you think T-Mo, one of the other points was made is they don't underestimate how complicated what T-Mo is trying to do with Sprint really is. And it just might take a measured approach because of that.

Marc Ganzi

executive
#8

Yes. Look, it's hard integrating that network. They've been at it for a year now. So it's not like -- day 0 wasn't a couple of weeks ago. Day 0 was when they signed the merger agreement. So give a lot of credit to Neville Ray and Mike Simpson and the entire engineering team there. It's hard. They're taking a network that, candidly, hasn't been invested in, as you know, for many years. The Sprint network was wildly underinvested. So I think now what we're seeing is some of that is coming home to roost, but they've got a great plan. They're integrating the network -- parts of the network they're keeping. They know the parts of the network they don't wish to keep. They've got some complicated conversations with DISH that they have to work out. And at the same time, they're reinvesting in the core of the network. So what we're seeing in ExteNet and Vertical Bridge is continued reinvestment in 5G overlays, new builds in terms of the rural areas where they've got the roaming overbuild happening, and then certainly, densification in the urban core through small subs at ExteNet. So -- and then indoor coverage. Indoor coverage has been a huge area of focus for T-Mobile. So it's a great relationship. And I know at Zayo, we've got a lot happening there in terms of the fiber buildout. There's a lot of fiber that T-Mobile is going to need to take this network forward. So we've never been busier with them as a customer. We're fortunate that we have 3 great companies that can serve them. And I think we'll be one of their biggest teaming partners as they aim towards 5G. So a lot of conviction and a lot of confidence around what T-Mobile is doing right now.

Jennifer Fritzsche

analyst
#9

And how about DISH? I mean you've been preaching that DISH is real long before everyone was really believing that. And you know Dave Mayo very well. Just curious as to your thoughts.

Marc Ganzi

executive
#10

They've got one of the best network builders in the industry. I've known Dave for 2 decades. He's great. But the entire team there is fantastic as well. And Charlie has a vision for where he wants to go. I think they have one of the best opportunities in the market. A clean white sheet 5G network day 1 is a blessing. You don't get encumbered with some of that legacy 3G and 4G infrastructure, and you can really focus on the things that we're talking about that we're seeing in the Nordics: high-part applications; thinking outside of the box versus just looking at consumers; beginning to look at enterprise; beginning to look at how you can deliver OTT content, which I think Charlie has his mind on; and then thinking about IoT applications like working with utility companies and working with big corporates. This is a huge opportunity for DISH. They've got the spectrum. They've got a great head start with some of that Sprint infrastructure. They've got great teaming partners in Zayo, for example, and Vertical Bridge in terms of building that macro infrastructure and that fiber. DISH is already a huge customer at Zayo by example. So we're having great, great dialogue with them, and we're here for them. We want to be as supportive as we can be going forward. And you're right, I do believe in what they're doing because I think this nation is in need of a day 1 5G network. And in addition to that, if you look at what Alton has done down in Mexico, DISH would be wise to look at that and think about how they can host other carriers and perhaps host other cable companies and have a bigger, wider vision of what 5G could be. And if DISH hits it right, they can really monetize that network in other ways that perhaps other carriers can't. So it should be an exciting moment for DISH.

Jennifer Fritzsche

analyst
#11

DISH's initial spend benefits your tower asset or ExteNet first or both simultaneously?

Marc Ganzi

executive
#12

I would say initially, it probably benefits Zayo the most.

Jennifer Fritzsche

analyst
#13

Really? Okay.

Marc Ganzi

executive
#14

Dan and the team already have an existing relationship with DISH that's strong. And the hope is we can continue to help build out their backbone and their long haul and their capacity in terms of where they need to move traffic. I think Vertical Bridge has already been a teaming partner to DISH for a couple of years. So that one is a pretty easy one-dimensional relationship. The question is, can we somehow package that fiber on those towers together where we can bring perhaps a lower cost solution? That's the challenge that of course we'll put to Dave Mayo and his team, is how to rethink the network, and then ultimately, at the end of the day, how do we -- how will DISH think about perhaps decentralizing their ramp? I mean that's kind of a really interesting opportunity. Can they go to a lighter, open RAN architecture where they're not putting loads of base stations at the bottom of the towers, but instead, they're creating a series of clusters of RAN hubs where they can front haul that to different macro sites and small cells in a more efficient way? This is the exciting part, right? I mean as network nerds that we are, we get the chance to think about this and have these conversations with customers. And hopefully, the things, the ideas we put on the table are interesting and can really help our customers lower their total cost of infrastructure and increase the performance of the network.

Jennifer Fritzsche

analyst
#15

Do you think DISH has already signed tower agreements?

Marc Ganzi

executive
#16

I can't speak to what they've done with other folks. I know that we -- we have a master lease agreement with them and Vertical Bridge here and Colony Capital. And we did a lot of business with them last year. We'll do more business with them this year. And the hope is we can continue to do even more business.

Jennifer Fritzsche

analyst
#17

Got it. How about the big 2, AT&T and Verizon. Do you think like DISH and probably, more pressingly, T-Mobile is going to force them to invest more? I mean it's hard to say they have not invested, but curious as to your thoughts.

Marc Ganzi

executive
#18

Yes. Well, look, Verizon has been such a steady and great partner. I mean they have a great network, and they continue to densify that network. We see activity across all 3 verticals, whether it's [indiscernible] them a small cell infrastructure or building new macro infrastructure for them or densifying their macro network. It's going to continue to be busy work with Verizon for at least the next 2 to 3 years in terms of the macro side. I think the small cell side will continue to be very steady with them for the next 10 years. The small cell infrastructure is a big part of what Verizon does in terms of their 5G architecture. I think in addition to that, there's also the opportunity to continue to team with them on fiber. I know their One Fiber initiative is so important. But we've got a great relationship with Verizon at Zayo. And Jack Waters and Dan have done a great job there. Whenever Verizon has needed capacity, we work with them, we either sell them fiber or they sell us fiber. But it's a long, long relationship that's going to go for the next 20 years. So it's important that we continue to help Verizon where we can, where they need us to deploy and deepen their fiber network. And thankfully, we're getting some of those opportunities to do that with them.

Jennifer Fritzsche

analyst
#19

I mean I'm right in saying that Zayo kind of created the fiber-to-the-tower mold initially with Verizon as the anchor tenant. Is that a fair statement?

Marc Ganzi

executive
#20

That would be a fair statement, yes. And we'll continue to be a strong key partner to them. And they -- the old days, it was selling [indiscernible] circuits and backhauling the network and let turn to dark and dark backhaul turn into front haul all. It's a relationship that continues to evolve. It's a good relationship.

Jennifer Fritzsche

analyst
#21

So one of the questions I asked at the earlier panel was do you -- we have 2 spectrum auctions coming up. I know you're enthusiastic about both, but CBRS, especially, I think. And -- but do you think that for some of the wireless carriers, there could be like a lull before those spending starts? Is they -- I mean Chairman Pai, who we'll be interviewing later, put a $35 billion net number on that earlier this week. That's a lot of money. I mean how do you think about it? Could that be a lull before the coming of the storm for wireless infrastructure?

Marc Ganzi

executive
#22

Well, I think it's always dangerous to put a price tag on something before we [ sell ] it. But look, all the -- I think the conundrum here, to a certain degree, is the big 3 carriers are pretty spectrum-rich at the moment. I mean one could make the argument they could all take a pass on the spectrum. They won't, but you could make the argument that they could make do with what they have today. My assumption is they'll all be active bidders. And the question is, who ends up buying the spectrum and for what purposes? I don't think it really impacts deeply the infrastructure spend. I think as we think about the knitting that sits in front of AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile today, it's -- right now, it's about overlays, and it's about densifying the network and working within their existing spectrum bands. I think as we push further down the road a year or 2 now, and you think about the spectrum that is being auctioned off, it's good spectrum. It could be very useful in an urban setting, particularly in low latency environments where you're really trying to push high-powered applications, right? So this is the conundrum. And it's the same conundrum that carriers face, Jennifer, not just in the U.S., but it's the same conundrum carriers are facing in Europe, and they're facing in Asia. What is the right cost for spectrum? And as the governments continue to auction the spectrum off at incredibly high prices, there has to be the right risk reward for the carriers. And I think each carrier will take their own decision around it. Can we wait on CBRS? We could wait. But certainly, the faster it moves along, the faster we're able to proliferate that spectrum and be able to give carriers the benefit of it. And I am excited about some of the developments, particularly in an indoor setting.

Jennifer Fritzsche

analyst
#23

I was just going to say for ExteNet, this has to be a huge boon, CBRS.

Marc Ganzi

executive
#24

It is. It is. And we've had great, great success in trial testing. And to be clear, we've only trial tested it in enterprise environments right now. So we've got a very successful trial test in CBD office buildings. We've got a great trial test in large municipal port setting, which was an enterprise case study. We've had a large manufacturing case study with an automaker. And so we're going through this, Jennifer, in a very surgical way in thinking about, first and foremost, CBRS has to be enterprise-facing 5G. I mean while I'm excited about what we can do for carriers and help them bring down their total cost of indoor deployments, the real benefactors of CBRS will be the enterprise. This is a massive value unlock for enterprises that are doing sophisticated things, whether you're manufacturing cars, whether you're doing e-commerce and you're trying to figure out how to deploy your resources and make sure that deliveries are on time or whether you're a utility company. There's so many case studies for CBRS that the future is quite bright. And it's very bright for ExteNet, and it'll be bright for other people that choose to make the investment in that space.

Jennifer Fritzsche

analyst
#25

Got it. I mean as you look -- I think there were like 350 bidders who came -- registered to be there. Could you look in your crystal ball and say, "Wow, we actually could have a lot of different type of customers between -- beyond AT&T, Verizon and DISH and T-Mobile."?

Marc Ganzi

executive
#26

Well, I think some of the CBRS spectrum is actually going to end not in the big 3's hands. I think the opportunity here is for CBRS to be used in other ways and other applications. I mean, ultimately, we'll see where the auction comes out. We'll see where the price tags are, but this is one of the more unique spectrum auctions we've seen, Jennifer, in over 20 years because of the range of outcomes and the case studies and the use applications for CBRS are just so totally different than anything else we've ever seen.

Jennifer Fritzsche

analyst
#27

You've mentioned Zayo a few times, and you closed right as COVID laid in. How is it going? I mean I actually really missed that stack. It was my favorite stack to follow.

Marc Ganzi

executive
#28

Well, I could probably say the management team doesn't miss the public [indiscernible]. But no, it's going incredibly well, actually far better than we had expected. And certainly, some of that has to do with COVID in terms of customers looking for more capacity and more bandwidth. Some of it is non-COVID-related. Just the notion of being able to go back to being a private company and being able to make decisions for the long term and not managing quarter-to-quarter, I think it's lifted a burden off that management team's shoulders. And it's a great, great long-term infrastructure business and one that was hard, Jennifer, for public investors to understand on a quarter-to-quarter basis because, remember, there's 2 sides to the house at Zayo. There's the enterprise side and then there's the wholesale side. And the wholesale side, you're making very, very long-term investments where you're helping everything from data center connectivity, long-haul routes, being a carrier's carrier. And so those types of decisions require very long-term thinking and require patient capital. And as you know, sometimes public markets are not particularly patient. And so half of Zayo's business is that type of business. And so that's where we saw the value. We see the future of Zayo being that -- the most critical infrastructure to provide that wholesale infrastructure for carriers and for data center operators and for the FAANGs and other folks that need that high bandwidth, high intensity, dark fiber, long-haul capabilities and metro capabilities as well on the dark side. So Zayo really has come out of the blocks here firing in the first quarter. They had the best quarter they've had in 5 years. I know that's not going to make public investors too happy, but COVID was certainly helpful in that regard. I think Q2 is shaping up incredibly well in terms of net bookings, net installs. Churn has been lower than we'd expected in COVID as folks have sort of held on to their IT purchasing decisions for the time being. So, so far, very good start. Management team is performing well. We've got a series of initiatives that are in play to continue to create value there. And it's been just absolutely a blast working on that company. It's one of the boards that I could just sit on and -- what a great team. I learned so much every day at Zayo. It's a lot fun for me.

Jennifer Fritzsche

analyst
#29

It's a great team. Yes. Just curious, in your M&A wish list, I mean there's been some fiber deals. We saw one announced earlier this week with IPI. Are you seeing any other kind of areas you want to tuck in with Zayo in the U.S. and maybe then more broadly?

Marc Ganzi

executive
#30

Well, look, I think it's about value, right? In every asset category we see today, Jennifer, at Colony, we're very focused on value. I think M&A pricing in fiber in certain situations sometimes doesn't make a lot of sense to us because we see people paying 2 to 3x replacement cost for stabilized fiber assets with weighted average duration contracts less than 3 years. And so from my perspective, I'd rather go greenfield in a leading platform like Zayo here in the U.S. and continue to build for our customers. Our backlog is massive. So the opportunity to build high-strand, high-density dark fiber versus going in and doing tuck-ins where it's low capacity, older network, older customer base, shorter-term contracts, we don't see value in that. And other private investors may see value in that because they're trying to put capital to work, and they're trying to gain scale and get the foot in the door on fiber. But fiber is arguably, Jennifer, one of the most trickiest assets to acquire and the ability to really think carefully through those 4 different pieces that you and I have talked about all the time, which is location quality, asset quality, engineering quality and contract quality, right? And in fiber, none of these assets are the same, right, particularly around the duration of contract and exposure to investment-grade versus non-investment-grade. So we really have spent a lot of time. We've got a great M&A team at Zayo. We're looking at everything that comes across the desk, including the deal that you mentioned that we looked at. And we just really haven't found anything that's been as compelling as building. And we can continue to build at much better returns where we control the network, we control the strand on day 1. We're not buying legacy issues. We're not buying other people's problems where we have to go and either over rush or overbuild that network to create the right amount of capacity. I'd rather build greenfield at 1/3 of the cost at the end of the day.

Jennifer Fritzsche

analyst
#31

Got it. Okay. Data centers. The last honey path, as it were. How do you -- you mentioned you have your -- you have both the hyperscale wholesale -- what am I trying to say? Hyperscaler with Vantage and then DataBank and more of on the kind of a unique mini Equinix edge play. Is that a fair assessment?

Marc Ganzi

executive
#32

Yes. Well, look, we've got 96 data centers around the world now. I think if you aggregated all of our data center assets, we'd be the third largest owner of data centers behind Equinix and DLR now. So we've made a lot of strides in this sector. And for us, there's 4 core verticals to this business today. Hyperscale being one; edge compute being second; colocation being third; and hybrid IT services, managed cloud. And so we get to play across all 4 of those verticals. And they're all performing very differently, actually. So on the hyperscale side, we've seen enormous growth. We've seen a lot of pressure on pricing. It's very competitive. Returns are being compressed very fast, and a lot of capital flowing into the space from the private side, once again, putting pressure on returns. And so challenger brands are looking to get market share. And the only way they can get market share is by dropping price. So that's happened in Ashburn. There's been a lot of value degradation in Ashburn from challenger brands. There's been a lot of value degradation in Europe from challenger brands, and we've just got to be careful on pricing. You never want to repeat what happened in '06, '05, '07 when the data -- when the sector went through a massive, massive glut of supply and very, very little demand. And what inevitably ends up happening is there's a lot of value destruction when you've got challenger brands trying to figure out the business and trying to learn the business as they go and infrastructure GPs trying to invest in the space and not really having the depth to understand how to invest in the space. So hyperscale is the -- was everyone's bright, shiny toy last year. It attracted a lot of attention, a lot of capital. And the sector just needs to be careful because what we're going to have is pricing compression and overbuilding, and that can really destroy a lot of value, particularly to the public guys and particularly the big players like us and Vantage.

Jennifer Fritzsche

analyst
#33

Are you seeing some firming of price, though? Firming of price this year? Starting the year, we've heard that.

Marc Ganzi

executive
#34

Yes. I think, look, it's patchy, right? Santa Clara has been pretty good. Pricing is holding well because there's no inventory. It's very hard to assemble land and get the will serve letter from the utility companies. I think in other markets we operate, just outside of Seattle and Quincy, that's been a pretty rational market. Pricing is very competitive there. It's a low cost of power. We go toe to toe with CyrusOne there, and it's a fairly rational market. I'd say in the Northeast part of Canada, we've got 3 or 4 challenger brands in those markets. Pricing was pretty good last year, a little more under pressure this year, but it's been a good market. That pricing has held in reasonably well. Ashburn has been -- we started to see signs of price codification, and then we've seen a couple of recent RFPs where we've seen the pricing just go to literally returns where we just don't make money. And so that's dangerous. And I think Ashburn could be one of those markets that could rebound and perform quite well. But if you've got private capital in there underwriting to low single-digit returns, it's really hard to remain competitive. And I think in Europe, at Vantage Europe, we've had a lot of success there so far. But once again, very competitive market. The customers have the leverage and the pricing power. There's a lot of capacity coming online, and there's a lot of RFPs out there for new megawatts. And so we'll see. I think the rules haven't been written yet in Europe, Jen. I think it's early days in Europe in terms of -- to tell you whether pricing is under pressure or not, but we do see a lot of folks wanting to get into the space in Europe, but it's hard. Europe is much, much harder than the U.S. You've got a lot more regulation. The permitting process is a lot more difficult. And probably the most precious commodity in Europe is power, which is really difficult to get good low-cost power. Colocation has been okay. It's fine. We've got a business inside of Zayo called zColo. It's done reasonably well and had a very good first quarter. Colo, I would say, demand has been probably a little lower than I would have expected, but churn has been a lot lower than we would have expected. So from a core colocation perspective, I would say at zColo, we've been happy with the results so far. I would say, as you mentioned on DataBank, which we own on our balance sheet at Colony, and that is our edge computing business, we've got 21 data centers in there. Great first quarter. A lot of demand on the edge. And these are these workloads, Jen, between 0.25 megawatt and under 1 megawatt. So anything from 800 KW, 600 KW and just doing a lot of work with some of the FAANG providers and some of the application providers where they're starting to push applications to the edge. And so we're seeing those workloads shift, and we're getting a lot of leasing activity on the perimeter of the network. So that's actually been one of the real bright spots in our data center business, has been DataBank and U.S. edge computing. And I think you're going to hear more about them throughout the course of the year. And then last in hosting. We had a business called Aptum Technologies in Canada. It's one of Canada's largest managed IT platforms, providing hybrid cloud and hybrid services to enterprise customers. They had a very good first quarter, about 7.4% growth. And hosting continues to be a good business. You can make money in it. It's a hard business. You don't get those 15-year, 17-year investment-grade leases that investors like, but there's still a lot of money to be made there. And churn is quite high, but we've got a great sales team there and a great CEO. And Susan Bowen has done a great job, and we're continuing to build that platform, and we're excited about it.

Jennifer Fritzsche

analyst
#35

And I guess my last question -- we have like 30 seconds left. If you had to pick your 4 silos, small cell, towers, data centers, fiber, which one has this -- I know you love all the kids equally, but who has the strongest demand drivers in the back half of this year and who has the strongest demand drivers in 2021?

Marc Ganzi

executive
#36

I have to say, for the back end of this year, it's got to be small cells. Between FreshWave and ExteNet, FreshWave being our Europe small cell business and ExteNet being U.S., there's been a massive surge in leasing backlog. ExteNet's leasing backlog doubled in the last 90 days. So we went from having about $30 million in leasing to about $68 million in leasing in our backlog. So I haven't seen that in towers. I haven't seen that in hyperscale data centers, fiber. It's a pretty enviable place. Now they got to close, right, close the business. But as you and I've always talked about for the last 15 years, your pipeline is always a pretty good predictor about what's going to happen in the future. And also, we like what's happening in towers down in Latin America. There's been a lot of resurgence in demand in Colombia, in Chile and Brazil. And I have some optimism for that for 2021.

Jennifer Fritzsche

analyst
#37

Great. Marc, thank you so much. It's always great to see you. Take care.

Marc Ganzi

executive
#38

Thanks, Jen. You all be safe. Thanks for the time. Take care.

Jennifer Fritzsche

analyst
#39

Thank you.

This call discussed

For developers and AI pipelines

Programmatic access to DigitalBridge Group, Inc. earnings transcripts and 32,000+ others is available through the EarningsCalls.dev REST API. Plans from $24.99/month — full transcripts, speaker segments, full-text search, and the recently-added /api/v1/transcripts/recent polling endpoint for ETL pipelines.