Kenny Gunderman, president and CEO of Uniti Group Inc. (NASDAQ: UNIT), joined REIT.com for a video interview at REITWeek 2017: NAREIT’s Investor Forum at the New York Hilton Midtown.
Uniti, previously known as Communications Sales & Leasing, focuses on the acquisition and construction of mission-critical communications infrastructure such as fiber optics, wireless towers and ground leases.
Gunderman described fiber as an increasingly important asset in the wireless infrastructure system, pointing out that macro towers are all connected back to the internet by fiber.
“Wireless broadband is far and away the biggest growth driver for our industry,” Gunderman said. He noted that 85 to 90 percent of the economics required to build small cell assets comes from fiber optics.
As the only fiber REIT that exists today, “we think we’re really well-positioned with that trend,” Gunderman said.
Meanwhile, Gunderman noted that mergers and acquisitions (M&A) remain “very active” in the segment.
“For us, there’s a tremendous amount of opportunities,” Gunderman said. “There’s billions of dollars of fiber that’s in the ground today, and there’s billions of dollars of fiber that’s being built.”