SBA Communications Corporation (SBAC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

All right. Welcome, everybody, to our next session. We are very pleased to be joined by SBA Communications' CEO, Jeff Stoops. Jeff, welcome back to the conference. Great to see you.

Happy to be here, Matt. Would prefer we are seeing each other about 0.5 hour up the road, but that will be next year.

I would love to get back to your neck of the woods, absolutely. And by the way, for the purpose of everyone on the webcast, if you have any questions, type them out, put them through in the web portal. I'll see the questions and make sure they get woven in into the discussion as well.

So maybe just to start, Jeff, can you talk about your top priorities for SBA in 2021?

Well, first and foremost, we'll be bringing us out of COVID-19. We've made a lot of strides to do that already as we've entered the beginning of 2021, more so in the U.S. than some of our international markets, which are still a bit in the throes of it. But very optimistic about how that is going to continue to improve as we move through the year. So we're about 50% today in terms of our physical capacity in most of our U.S. offices. I would expect that we certainly get back to 100% by the fall, if not sooner, as we watch the positivity rates decline and the vaccination counts grow. And while I'm extremely proud, and we did it very, very well working remotely, we are at our best when we're together, and we recognize that, and that's something that we'll be looking forward to. In terms of the business, we're going to stay very focused with what I think will be a very steady increasing level of activity as we move through the year, both domestically and internationally. I'm sure we'll talk a lot about C-band and DISH and what's going on in the international markets, but all those things, we think we'll build as we move through the year. And we want to stay crisp and capture that business, execute well for our customers and continue to improve upon our industry-leading margins. Because we are optimistic about the future, we want to stay fully invested. And for us, that means ending the year within our target leverage range of 7 to 7.5x net debt-to-adjusted EBITDA and use that money, those investment dollars to grow our portfolio, buy our stock back. And now that we've instituted a dividend to continue and then ultimately grow that dividend. So we are expecting a busy and prosperous and fruitful year, Matt.

That sounds great. So why don't we jump into the U.S.? And if I look at your '21 outlook, I think the guide calls for roughly 6% gross growth and about 3% net growth, a little over 3% net growth in the U.S. this year. And so I'm wondering if you can help us think about what's embedded in that outlook in terms of activity levels from your top customers as we go through the course of the year.

We have a lot. Well, in terms of the actual composition of that, I think far and away, the biggest contributor domestically would be T-Mobile. And then you'd have lesser contributions from the rest of our customer base. And the reason for that is we think most of Verizon, certainly DISH, and even to an extent, AT&T, will stay steady, but really ramp up as they are able to begin to deploy in the A category of the C-band, really for the very practical reason that if you know you're going to be out at the site at some point in the next quarter or 2, you're going to push things off until then, if you can. It's the one -- kind of the one truck roll idea that we've heard so much about over the last several years. So that's a very good question because it helps, hopefully, people understand that there is not a lot of operational activity in the numbers that you see because we do expect most of the -- certainly, the C-band activity and the DISH to not pick up until the second half of the year, which will have very little, if any, actual impact in that outlook because that's reported numbers, but that really should set us up extremely well as we move into 2022.

Sounds good. And so as we start thinking about, now activity, based on your commentary, bookings activity and momentum seems to have picked up exiting '20 into '21. Maybe we'll start with T-Mobile, because they have been sort of front and center. Can you talk about how activity from T-Mobile has been trending in recent quarters? And where you're seeing them more active? And I asked it more in terms of the 2.5 deployments. Has their activity been in line with what you expected post merger? Or has there been any sort of variation?

Well, we haven't had a tremendous number of quarters since they really started ramping up their macro tower activities. I mean, that came in the third quarter of last year. So one of our comments that we made on our call was, for the fourth quarter, was our best quarter in terms of operational activity in some time. And very candidly, that's because we had a full quarter of activity coming out of T-Mobile. So yes, they've ramped up very, very well. They're very serious, very driven and very focused on their plan. So I would have to say they've gotten up to certainly cruising speed. Now whether they go more than this, but we're at -- I think we're at multiples of levels higher in terms of T-Mobile activity in the fourth quarter and now than we were, obviously, the first half of last year, where there was very little, if anything, being done, pending the completion of the merger.

Got it. And in terms of the other 2 nationals. I mean we hear so much about Verizon focusing more on small cells and millimeter wave. We've heard AT&T saying they're in the later innings of FirstNet. And so I'm wondering if you can give us any color in terms of what you're seeing from those 2 and in terms of your expectations from activity from them in '21.

Well, I think it's -- they're both very good and very smart customers. In Verizon's case, if you were serious, as they have stated now for quite some time about the C-band auction, and the proof, of course, is now in the pudding with their -- the amount of their bids, you would know that you're going to have to go out in a big way to your macro sites. And you would know that would come after you've got the C-band and their first batch is cleared, which is why so much of their activity was focused on the A category because that was the first to be cleared. So if you know all that and you can manage to put other things off, you're going to wait for that opportunity for your one truck roll. So where else are you going to fulfill your needs and spend your CapEx along the lines of your overall long term planning? You're going to go to your urban markets and your millimeter wave. That -- it's a very logical approach that they took knowing that the C-band was going to be opening up in the second half of 2021 to get a lot of other things done pursuant to where their capital was going to be allocated earlier. It makes perfect sense. In terms of AT&T, I think you're going to see a very nice opportunity. As the FirstNet deployments maybe start to wind down, you will see the C-band deployments pick up. AT&T purchased 40% of the available A-band market. They could have chosen to purchase lower-priced B, C category, C-band spectrum. Seems to me, the only reason that you would do that is to take advantage of the faster clearing times, which means that they've got some -- it would certainly indicate that they have some plans to deploy that spectrum as soon as they can. Otherwise, they didn't need to buy that particular category.

So you answered both of my follow-up questions. It sounds as though you don't believe the elevated sum spent in this auction and the higher leverage, particularly for Verizon or AT&T, are going to have any stunting of activity or headwind on growth.

I don't think so. And again, this is not because they've told me so. It's because if you look at where T-Mobile is and how well they are executing, the 2.5G, and then you look at the prices that were paid in the C-band and the choices that could have otherwise been made to buy less expensive but slower-clearing spectrum. I mean when you add that all up, I think any reasonable person would conclude that they're buying that to deploy it sooner rather than later.

Yes, it makes sense. On the C-band, just one other question. So it sounds as though you're sort of anticipating maybe a little bit of a tailwind later in '21, more so contributing to '22. I'm just wondering, what does the activity look like? Are these primarily amendments? Or do you anticipate more colo in the mix given the propagation characteristics relative to what's traditionally been deployed in terms of sub 2.5?

I think you'll get both because for, just as you say, the propagation characteristics will give rise to a fair amount of new co-locations. But if you want speed to market, you're going to clearly go back and touch all your existing sites with amendments because you've got all the existing infrastructure, permitting, fiber, power, all that stuff ready to go. That's the absolute fastest way to bring new spectrum into a network.

Makes sense. Let's talk about DISH. So you recently announced a long-term MLA with DISH a couple of weeks back. I know the answer, maybe it's very limited, but I'm going to ask it anyways. If there's any color you can give on the nature of the deal in terms of how it compares to other MLAs you've signed, any sort of color you can give us in terms of duration, how many sites are covered or so on?

Well, it potentially covers everything we own in the United States, it applies anyway. The commitments -- excuse me, the one thing I was supposed to do, turn off my phone. It does contain thousands of site commitments over the period of the term of the agreement. It is a little different in the sense that all of our other agreements that we've done, Matt, had many provisions, have dealt with amendments and amendment pricing and things. Well, this is not really that. This is all going to be brand-new colocation, given the nature of DISH's build-out. So it's an excellent documentation of what we believe is an excellent relationship that we've had with DISH ever since they really got into this business and started their IoT build. And we continue that. It also includes a fair amount of committed services work to us, mostly on the site acquisition and zoning and consulting side. But -- and it also opens the door and the opportunity for construction as well, which we're optimistic around because I think at the end of the day, nobody's going to be able to get any of our customers, frankly, on our towers, either through amendments or brand-new colocations faster than we can through our services arm. And that's going to matter. And resources are going to matter, too, particularly as everybody really starts to pick up activity levels as we move into the second half of this year and into next year.

And so just in terms of your conversations with them right now, and I would assume we may see a little bit more of a services contribution before we actually see site rental revenues beginning to kick in. What sort of...

Yes.

So what sort of visibility or line of sight do you have in terms of -- just in your ongoing discussions, when at least we may start to see some of those leading indicators show up on the services front?

We're actively engaged now. And I think we should have some more information in terms of services revenue recognition versus leasing revenue recognition, perhaps as early as our first quarter earnings call, but certainly no later than our second quarter earnings call.

Got it. Okay. And just one other one on DISH. I mean oftentimes do we get the question around where does DISH need to go longer term. I think they laid out the ability to be able to get a good amount of coverage with only about 15,000 sites. But many we speak to in the industry say, they, DISH, by their own admission has said in the past, a broader national build over the long-term needs significantly more than 15,000 sites. So I'm just curious to get your take in terms of expectations and where you think they may go over, let's call it, a 7-year time frame.

Yes. I think that's largely going to be a function of the success of their product and the uptake. Just as all of our customers today start with more narrow, thinner coverage and then grow it as demand rises, I don't know why DISH would do anything differently. So I think the answer to your question will become clear. Certainly, they could absolutely build a business that would necessitate that. There's no doubt about that. The question is, will the demand be there for the product that will allow all that to happen, much as it works out for any other national wireless carrier.

Yes. Yes. One other one on the growth side of the U.S. tower business. Oftentimes, we hear about nonwireless or nontraditional players getting involved. Now I'm just wondering if you can update us on any conversations you're having with nonwireless, nontraditional players, or call it, whether it's the tech companies, wireless or fixed wireless players. What sort of use cases and discussions are you having on that front?

Yes. We're having a lot of conversations with a large variety of players from cable to regional wireless carriers to traditional wireline carriers who are using or have been awarded some of the CAF or the RDOF money for fixed wireless into the home. We're in a number of solutions for a variety of local and community governments to bridge the digital divide involving schools. That has, of course, gotten a lot of attention, as it should, during the pandemic, and I think will continue to get that. So there is all kinds of folks that we are talking to. But I think it's useful for folks to keep in mind that it will be hard for any of that to really ever approach materiality given the size of our embedded national wireless leasing base and the fact that the bread and butter for the tower industry comes from the ownership of licensed spectrum. And there's just not a lot of these other folks who have that. Now you do have CBRS, which is a much more universally available spectrum and one that we are involved with a number of different trials, both for traditional wireless players and also the nontraditional ones that you mentioned. And the CBRS solution will, in fact, be, I think, a valuable one in terms of a number of solutions that we're designing and others will be designing to close some of these digital divide issues.

Got it. And so maybe if we'll take in one...

It's very interesting, it's great from a development perspective. But is it going to move the needle materially financially? Certainly not in 2021.

Got it. And if we take the other side, we talked about some of the elements embedded in gross activity. If we take the churn side, obviously, one of the biggest headwinds over the next several years comes from Sprint site decommissioning. And so can you refresh us in terms of how to think about timing and impacts in terms of when this flows through your business? And I'm not necessarily looking for specifics here, but just wondering, expectation for '21 and '22 and maybe when this becomes a more significant headwind over the next several years?

Yes. I think to T-Mobile's credit, many thought that the initial focus would be on deploying the 2.5 and the porting over and transitioning over all the Sprint customers and that the decommissioning would wait just given all the different things to accomplish. To T-Mobile's credit, they are unbelievably sharp operators and kind of have all aspects of this figured out upfront. So they know which sites today, I think, within a fairly high degree of certainty, that are going to be long-term in their network and those which will be duplicative and redundant. So that has allowed them to get out of the gates quicker and terminate those leases that they no longer see fitting in the network as their terms come due. Now in our case, we had, had and have agreements with -- well, now Sprint is T-Mobile. But we had agreements going into the merger with both T-Mobile and Sprint, which had provided for a number of benefits for both parties, including length in terms. So we have a fairly long tail in terms of our Sprint leases as they come due over the next 5, 6 years. So this year, we have put into our guidance, I believe it's about $8 million of Sprint decommissioning churn. Now next year, we expect that to actually ramp up to about $30 million and then come back down. And then our probably 2 biggest years, maybe around the $40 million-ish range, we would expect in '25 and '26. So we have a fairly long tail to all this. And I think we have a very good handle on what T-Mobile is going to do.

Makes sense. And so when we think about the puts and takes here, and we're going to assume normal churn is sort of in that 1% to 2% range, ex Sprint. Is that a fair assumption as well?

Yes.

Okay. So as we sort of put these puts and takes together, how should we think about the multiyear outlook for U.S. organic growth? And I guess what I'm getting at is right now, we're sort of guiding to a low 3% growth rate. But if I think about these tailwinds within C-band in DISH and everything that we talked about, and we sort of put that together alongside some of the churn we'll see, how do investors -- or how would you help us sort of guide us around the multiyear outlook for both gross and net organic growth in the U.S.?

Well, I would think gross could go to 7% to 8% and that could go to 5% to 6%. Not this year, but as we move past this year and into '22 and 23.

Okay. Okay. And that sort of assumes a 2-ish percent churn rate? And I just want to make sure I understand this correctly. 7% to 8% and the 5% to 6% net?

Yes. Including the Sprint-T-Mobile churn.

Yes. Okay. And so that's -- I guess implicitly, you're assuming that normal churn will drift from the high 1s or 2%, down to around 1% over time?

I want to be precise on that answer. Based on the churn schedule that I just gave you, I mean, if it's going to be -- no, I would say churn, probably when you include Sprint and T-Mobile, is going to be north of 2 total and probably be 2.5 to 3. So if it's 8, it will be closer to 5 on a net, yes.

Got it. Okay. Yes...

Certainly. Certainly in the year that -- certainly in 2022, where we have that spike up to the $30 million, maybe that drops below that to 2.5 or below when we get back to the $10 million. But if you look at it as a whole, I think it's not going to be 2 in total. It's going to be closer to 3.

Okay. Let's talk about M&A. I mean you recently closed the -- a substantial portion of the PG&E acquisition. I believe that was SBAC's largest acquisition in quite some time. And so wondering if you can talk about the background of the deal. How you got comfortable with the valuation for the assets in terms of looking at both forward growth and upsell opportunity?

Well, the deal, it actually was, I would say, lightly competitively bid, which we like. PG&E was very choosy going in about who they would want as a counterparty, which limited the number of invites. But then once we got in, we saw the Northern California market, which we've known forever as an extremely attractive market, one a very difficult zoning, one of great exclusivity for locations like this. And in fact, we know these sites. We used to work on these sites 20 years ago back when we were helping PacBell, which has since, of course, been assumed into another network, but initially deploy their wireless network. So what we saw was great locations, great demand, but an asset that almost intentionally was undermarketed and underserved because that's not what electric utility companies do. I mean they actually don't think about things that way. They actually look at inviting other folks onto these assets negatively. So there's a cultural issue there, which had shown up, and we were aware of it because we're close to, of course, all the customers in these markets and has shown up historically. So what we saw was a very under marketed, underserved group of assets that conclusion was underscored by a backlog, which had been, in some cases, sitting around for well over a year because it was just slow to move because, frankly, PG&E have just never got tops on the list. It didn't even get to the top 5 on their list. So for us to step in there and be able to bring a greater sense of urgency and understanding of what our customers on the wireless side need, but melt that with our great new found relationship and respect for PG&E and the things that they need to have, we just see the ability to really accelerate and grow the co-location and the amendment work on these sites. So we're pretty excited about it. And we think at 25x relative to what we've seen other postings at in the 30, 35x the quality location and the purity of the customer leasing stream here, this was a fabulous deal. We're very pleased with it.

Let's pivot to international. And so maybe just to start with the international business, if you can give us your high-level outlook for that international business for '21 and update us on the latest you're seeing across your top markets.

Yes. International got hit harder by COVID than the U.S. Recall that in the summer, several of our markets were on a fairly tight nationwide lockdown. That impacted, of course, business both for our customers and for us. And in fact, there were some payment moratorium imposed by those governments that allowed consumers to defer paying their wireless bills, which obviously impacted and caused our customers to think about CapEx spending for last year. Now thankfully, in almost all those markets, the fourth quarter results were greatly improved. Trends began to loosen up in terms of CapEx spending. And we're optimistic that will all continue, but they still have some areas of our markets, particularly Brazil and, to a lesser extent, South Africa, that are still quite a bit more in the grips of the virus than the United States is. We will not truly be back to business as usual until those markets begin to fare much better with the virus. And obviously, that's coming with vaccines and things like that. The optimism comes from the clear importance of wireless in these markets as the means of communications and in many cases, the sole means of accessing the Internet. So there's tremendous demand, tremendous built-up need. But the -- unlike in the U.S., where we were able to navigate field activities, tower builds, equipment locations, colocations, not quite as easy as some of these international markets. But we expect it to improve this year. And hopefully, it will be almost entirely, if not entirely, in our rearview mirror by the end of 2021. So we do think things will continue to improve. We do think growth rates will improve, certainly, on a constant currency basis. And we really like the markets that we're in, given their level of maturity, their need for additional infrastructure, the consumer dynamic down there and what we think will be a spring slingshot kind of effect on these economies as they come out of the virus.

And so on sort of a new activity front, have you seen any sort of inflection or improvements maybe to start the year? Or is this more a sort of an anticipation in sort of the back half of '21?

No, we -- things picked up as we ended the year, and they've stayed at a "picked up" level. I don't know that they've accelerated beyond where we were in Q4, but that was coming off of a more difficult time in Q2 and Q3 periods in these markets.

Yes. And then on the churn front, well, I think you referenced some elevated churn this year, more so in some of the Central American markets. Can you talk about those impacts in '21? And whether that's sort of limited to this year? Or that could linger into next year as well?

Yes. There's primarily 2 primary drivers. One is the Claro acquisition of Telefonica in a couple of markets. And this one in particular is Guatemala, where there is a fair amount of overlap, and we're far and away the largest tower owner in that market. The second is work with a particular client in a 1 single market where they're, frankly, looking to bring some new life into their operations and their finances. So we've been working with them to see if we can arrive at something that will help them long term and be acceptable to us over time. I do think there's probably a good chance that you see this level next year as well for the same reasons.

So that $10 million-ish number consistent next year, presumably?

Yes. But then I believe it tails off after that. It won't be a multiyear Sprint-T-Mobile type of process.

Got it. Okay. And then just one last one on the international business, specifically. In terms of Brazil, if you could just refresh us on the investment case. And whether you think -- I mean it sounds based on your commentary, it sounds like you believe growth can reaccelerate. Just wondering if you think growth can get back to those sort of double-digit constant currency year-on-year growth levels we saw pre-COVID in Brazil.

I do. Inflation is going to need to pick up a little bit as people expect it to, because all of those leases are tied to CPI. And that will contribute. But with some pickup -- and I'm not talking about a troubling pickup in inflation, but maybe like 2% to 4%, something like that, something historically averaged in those markets. And the levels of activity normally that you would see, I think, absolutely, you would see that again.

Okay. Let's pivot to portfolio growth. It's a topic I know I've asked about in the past, a lot of people tend to ask. But I'm curious to get your thoughts right now. And I guess maybe more in light of coming off of the PG&E deal with leverage where it is, and I'll dig into leverage a little later on. But I'm wondering how you're thinking about incremental portfolio growth in the U.S. and internationally. And maybe if you can update us on the latest you're seeing, both in terms of valuations and number of opportunities.

Yes. Last year was the first year in -- as long as I can remember, I'm sure there's one in there. But we did not hit the 5% portfolio growth level. We were working on a number of things and continue to be working on a number of things, one of which, of course, was the PG&E deal. So given the opportunity set that we see moving into this year, feel very comfortable once again, setting a minimum of 5% portfolio growth as our goal and believe that we will get there. I think we will spend probably less money than we spent in PG&E internationally to buy more towers. So you may see a numeric shift in balance to the international. But I don't think we will spend another -- well, I don't know. We'll see. Because we look at every opportunity, which I would think you would expect us to. But I don't know that it's likely that we will do billion dollars of acquisitions internationally this year. But I do feel comfortable that when you add up what we've done, what we've announced and what we think is ahead, we feel very good about at least hitting the 5% portfolio growth level.

And so wondering also, the PG&E deal, pretty unique, but very interesting in the sense of the comparability to traditional macro sites. So I'm wondering maybe as we look forward, are there similar deals you envision like PG&E? So non-macro, but pretty similar attributes in terms of exclusivity, colocation, economics, that you would consider? And then also, are these primarily with utilities? Or are there other entities we and the investment community should be considering?

Well, you say similar. It's almost exactly like a macro site deal. I mean that's their macro site installations. They are -- let me get this camera a little better. There we go. They're macro site installations. They are the same types of deployments that we see in our own towers. So it's not as unusual as folks think. It's the same business we've always been in. It just happened to be owned by somebody other than wireless carriers. So I do think there are other opportunities there. I do know -- I believe every utility has, on occasion, put macro sites on some of their transmission and distribution poles. Now whether those have the same attributes and characteristics and attractiveness to us that the PG&E deal had would remain to be seen. And whether or not that's something that the utilities are interested in because it does -- they're heavily regulated industry, and there are a lot of bells and whistles that PG&E work through to be able to do this transaction with us. But it's all doable, as this demonstrates, and it is certainly something that I think you might see some more of. And this was not the first. I mean there have been some private transactions in the utility area that have been done, certainly that we're familiar with. And there's probably others that we're not familiar with.

One other sort of similar question, but more in terms of newer revenue opportunities. I think in the past, you've talked about some of the early work SBA is doing on the edge. And you recently invested in some smaller data center assets. So I'm wondering if you can update us in terms of the revenue opportunity do you see. And when -- if there is a tipping point in terms of when the edge becomes a more meaningful driver for SBA?

Yes. I think the edge is defined differently by different people. For us, for the edge to really be material and something that it's interested in, it means computer, power and shelters at the tower site -- at our tower sites. And that's what we've been gearing up for. That hasn't happened yet in large-scale necessity or need. And that won't happen, Matt, until there's enough 5G network out there and enough applications and business cases to truly demonstrate and require the computing power be right at the cell site for purposes of latency and all the other things that true 5G is supposed to provide. So we'll see. It -- we've pursued it because it's such a built-in advantage for us. We already have the real estate. We already have 17,000 sites in the U.S. So for very little additional investment, we're getting ourselves smart around what ultimately should be a very big opportunity for us. But if the edge stops at the central office, for example, in a wireless network, then that opportunity will not be nearly as big for us. Most people, though, who believe that they're seeing the future clearly think the edge is going to go all the way to the tower site.

I want to touch on some capital allocation questions. So -- and you kind of kicked this off initially. You said you want to remain fully invested, but I want to maybe dig in a little bit more because leverage is slightly above your 7 to 7.5 target range post the PG&E deal. So I'm wondering how we should think about your capital allocation priorities and the deleveraging path from here.

Yes. You should think that through the strength of our organic ability to generate AFFO that we will have additional ability to invest in either portfolio growth, first choice or stock repurchases, but either one, so more, and still end the year with a leverage ratio between 7 and 7.5x net debt-to-EBITDA.

Okay. And would you -- I mean given where you sort of came out of the quarter, having closed the deal, I think you were about 7.7 on my math in terms of leverage. Are you comfortable sort of staying there if the right acquisition opportunity, if your stock gets cheap enough? Or is it sort of priority one is get back within 7.5 and then take it from there?

No. We are comfortable. We're always been opportunistic, and we're always -- a believe -- well, always opportunistic and a believer today that while rates have ticked up 50 basis points on the 10-year, that there is a limit and an end to that increase that we've seen and additional reason why we're very comfortable with the balance sheet where it is today. And given our ability to access capital and reception, very positive reception that we get in the debt markets, we would, for the right opportunity, stay at the higher end or even slightly exceed our leverage targets. But I mean that would be an opportunistic result and not a change in strategy.

Got it. Got it. And it sounds as though -- one of my follow-ups, and I actually got this from a couple of investors from the Q&A coming in is how you think about leverage in light of rising interest rates. And I think you sort of gave us some color in your previous response, but then also in terms of inflation risk and how you manage that for the business.

50 basis points is not enough for us to change our strategy. I mean given the movement and the growth that we see in the business, I mean, obviously, affect stock prices and DCFs and things like that. But it does -- it's not -- it just doesn't affect our strategy. We can withstand that and can and should continue to do what we have done historically. Because I think over time, we've proven that the levered equity model and the results that we produce for our shareholders have been superior and that the approach that we've taken is the right one. In terms of inflation, again, if you paint a case where inflation goes to 5%, then I think it's a different conversation. But we don't believe that. Our U.S. -- our international contracts are pegged to changes in CPI. And in the U.S., our average escalator is about 3.25%. So we've always been on the benefited side of that. And it's hard to believe that we're going to see anything that causes that to change. We look at that when we price each individual asset or amendment. But from an escalator perspective, that's not particularly troubling. Again, if investors want to look at different investment, it's at -- that's much more of a relative type issue than it is something that, again, would affect the way that we run our business or our strategy.

And so as we sort of put together what we discussed around U.S., international and the capital allocation dynamic, how should investors think about SBA's AFFO per share growth over the next several years? And I ask it more in the context of -- I think the midpoint this year is somewhere in the 8-ish percent range year-on-year growth for '21. I'm just wondering how we should think about the forward outlook and whether you think the business can produce sort of sustainable double-digit bottom line growth.

Yes, I do. We're at 8.5 for this year's outlook. That includes some FX-type headwinds, which month in, it looks like those actually are at least here. Hopefully, they reverse themselves. I think they will as these markets come out of COVID, but it also doesn't include all the additional investment spending that we talked about earlier that we have the capacity and the appetite and the desire to do. It doesn't include some refinancing opportunities. And it really doesn't include any of the C-band work or DISH in 2021. If any of that stuff starts to come in and be recognized as revenue sooner, that's going to all be very positive. So -- and then as you start to move forward, you're going to have years in 2022 and 2023 that, on a comparable basis, I think, are going to look very strong, given particularly the levels of U.S. activity across the board.

Okay. So it sounds as though -- I mean not to put you on the spot, but I do think double-digit bottom line growth is sort of -- you've got visibility to that coming out of '21.

Yes. I mean obviously, without any guarantees. And FX was our single biggest variable on that last year. Had things turned out -- had we ended the year on FX the way we started, we would have been perhaps a percentage or 2 even higher. So I mean as long as everyone understands what are the things that we can control and one of the things we can't, the answer to your question is yes.

Okay. I think we'll end it on that note. We've just run out of time. So Jeff, on behalf of myself, everyone at DB, we appreciate you taking the time. And again, hope we can do this in person down in Palm Beach next year.

Looking forward to it, and thanks for having us, Matt. Take care.

Take care.