Steers Luminaries 2026: A Fireside Chat with Marc Ganzi on Powering the Digital Economy

Why It Matters

Ganzi’s playbook shows how real‑estate expertise can unlock scalable, capital‑efficient infrastructure, making digital connectivity a mainstream asset class for investors and a critical driver of economic growth.

Key Takeaways

• Ganzi built Global Tower Partners into a leading tower REIT.
• Early 1990s cell tower demand surged, creating a real‑estate gold rush.
• Innovative CMBS financing lowered tower debt costs, reshaping industry.
• Strategic exits from Apex and Eureka generated $800M+ returns.
• DigitalBridge now invests globally in digital infrastructure, powering the economy.

Summary

The Steers Luminaries 2026 fireside chat featured Marc Ganzi, the founder of Global Tower Partners and current head of DigitalBridge, discussing how digital infrastructure has moved from a niche real‑estate niche to a cornerstone of the modern economy.

Ganzi traced his career from a 1995 startup that anticipated the explosion of 1900 MHz spectrum, through Apex and Eureka—companies that turned tower sites and office‑building fiber into billion‑dollar assets—and highlighted the industry‑wide shift toward REIT structures and securitized debt.

He recalled rolling up 12,000 towers in a decade, pioneering a private‑letter‑ruling REIT classification, and engineering the first CMBS deals for tower owners, which lowered borrowing costs from 8% to roughly 4.5% and set a template followed by American Tower, Crown and SBA.

These innovations have turned towers, fiber and data‑center sites into liquid, high‑yield investments, attracting institutional capital and enabling the rapid rollout of 5G and edge‑computing networks that underpin today’s digital economy.

Original Description

For over a decade, the Steers Luminaries Series has convened leaders of the industry to discuss how to navigate shifts in the real assets landscape.

The 2026 luminary was Marc Ganzi (P’23), CEO at DigitalBridge. Ganzi has been an investor and operator in the digital infrastructure sector for more than 30 years and has led DigitalBridge’s transformation to become a premier platform for digital infrastructure and real estate investment.