Colony Capital's $325M Digital Bridge Takeover Signals Major Shift: From Real Estate to Digital Infrastructure

Colony Capital just made a bold $325 million move that tells you everything about where the real money is flowing right now. The company acquired Digital Bridge Holdings, effectively pivoting from pure real estate investing to becoming a powerhouse in digital infrastructure—and it comes with a leadership shakeup that’s equally significant.

The Deal: More Than Just an Acquisition

This isn’t just another M&A transaction. By bringing Digital Bridge under the Colony umbrella, the firm is essentially merging two complementary visions into one unified force. Digital Bridge brings nearly $20 billion in digital infrastructure assets globally, and when combined with Colony’s existing portfolio, the merged entity will manage approximately $60 billion in assets. That’s a staggering concentration of power in the digital infrastructure space.

Here’s what’s included in Digital Bridge’s portfolio: over 342,000 sites, 39 data centers, and a client roster featuring some of the world’s most profitable companies. We’re talking towers, fiber networks, small cell infrastructure, and colocation services—essentially everything that makes the modern connected world possible.

Why This Matters: The “Connect, Connect, Connect” Philosophy

Thomas J. Barrack Jr., Colony’s executive chairman and former CEO, articulated the strategic rationale in a way that cuts to the chase: the era of “location, location, location” is fading. In its place? “Connect, connect, connect.”

The shift reflects a fundamental market realization—traditional real estate with long-term tenants is facing disruption. Data-driven decision-making, the IoT explosion, cloud computing, and especially the 5G rollout are reshaping which assets generate real value. Companies need connectivity and data infrastructure, not necessarily brick-and-mortar retail or office space in its current form.

Digital Colony, the $4.05 billion fund that Colony and Digital Bridge created back in 2019, is already showing this strategy works. The fund has invested in telecom infrastructure across Latin America, broadcast towers in Finland, UK-based small cell networks, and just signed a deal to acquire Zayo Group Holdings—a bandwidth infrastructure provider spanning the U.S., Canada, and Europe.

Leadership Transition: Marc Ganzi Takes the Helm

This deal also sets up a planned succession at the top. Marc Ganzi, the founder and CEO of Digital Bridge, will become Colony’s CEO over an 18-24 month transition period. Barrack moves to executive chairman, staying involved in strategy but stepping back from day-to-day operations.

Ganzi isn’t a newcomer to this space. He founded Global Tower Partners in 2002, which grew to become the largest privately-held tower company in the U.S. before being acquired by American Tower Corporation in 2013 for $4.8 billion. His track record suggests he’s exactly the person to scale Digital Colony and navigate the digital infrastructure wave.

What’s Next: Scale and Consolidation

The combined entity will focus on several key priorities: growing digital, credit, and investment management platforms; continuing to sell non-core assets; reducing general and administrative costs; and maintaining REIT status with a dividend. It’s essentially a promise to get leaner while getting bigger in the areas that matter—digital infrastructure being exhibit A.

The vision is clear: as more people use more devices, and the explosion of interconnected systems accelerates, the entities controlling the pipes—the towers, the fiber, the data centers—will capture significant value. Colony Capital, now unified under this digital infrastructure thesis through Digital Colony, is positioning itself to be the dominant player capturing that value for investors.

This acquisition represents more than a strategic pivot; it’s recognition that in a world increasingly defined by data and connectivity, the real estate of tomorrow isn’t physical—it’s digital.