The Wall Street Journal: SoftBank plans joint venture to build or manage thousands of U.S. cellular sites

Japanese telecom giant SoftBank Group Corp. plans to form a joint venture with Australia’s Lendlease Group to build or manage about 8,000 cellular sites across the U.S., challenging tower operators that dominate the industry.

Most of the infrastructure will initially come from Sprint Corp.

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 , which plans to shift its leases for rooftop transmitters and other sites to the joint venture, according to the companies. SoftBank, which owns about 80% of Sprint’s outstanding shares, has struggled to turn the carrier into a profitable business since it took a controlling stake in the company in 2013.

SoftBank

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  and Lendlease

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  will each initially contribute $200 million toward the new infrastructure company, called Lendlease Towers, with plans to snap up $5 billion of telecom assets “over the medium term” as the venture grows, a Lendlease spokesman said. The new company also plans to strike agreements with more wireless carriers.

“Our intention is to become sizable in this arena,” said Denis Hickey, chief of Lendlease’s business in the Americas.

An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.

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