SBA Communications Corporation (SBAC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Well, good afternoon, and welcome back to Citi's AppsEconomy Conference. For those of you I haven't had a chance to meet yet, I'm Mike Rollins, and I cover the communications services and infrastructure stocks for Citi. Just a few housekeeping items before we get started. You've got disclosures available to the right of your video player as well as under the Citi Disclosures tab if you're viewing this via velocity. Also, for those joining us today, you can ask questions directly to management through our web link. There should be a box that put in the questions. They'll come directly to me, and I'll do the best we can to integrate them into the discussion. So with those housekeeping items out of the way, I want to welcome back to the conference, Brendan Cavanagh, Executive Vice President and CFO of SBA Communications. Brendan, it's great to see you today.

Great, Mike. It's great to be here. Thank you. Thanks for having us.

Well, as we do for each of these conferences, it's been a tradition since it is the start of the year to ask you about your priorities strategically and operationally as you look out into 2022.

Yes. So for us, it's probably not that different than what we've said in previous years. But I think, particularly as we head into this year, the main focus will remain around optimizing efficiency and maximizing the opportunity in this case, particularly around the significant activity levels that we're seeing from our customers in both our leasing and our services business. So whatever we can do to kind of capture that heightened level of activity from them is really where we're going to be focused. And beyond that, it's really on allocation of capital, looking for quality assets at appropriate valuations, continuing to build sites and frankly, opportunistically buying back our stock as part of it, too.

Well, great. Well, one thing we get -- one item we get a question on line is just what the long term looks like. And Brendan, as we talked about before, this is a long-term business model for SBA for the tower business. As you think about it today, is there a simple way to frame how investors should think about that 5-year or 10-year annual growth opportunity for the business model?

Well, I think, first of all, the revenue opportunity will certainly be strong over the coming years, and that's just based on the core of what we do, the critical nature of the assets that we have in terms of delivery of wireless, it's going to remain a necessity. So revenue will, of course, continue to be strong. The question is really around growth opportunities, right? And I think it's a little bit difficult to be too specific when you're looking at 5 or 10 years. And I'm obviously not looking to provide multiyear guidance or even 2022 guidance at this time. But I do think history can be a good guide when you're thinking about the future. If you think about each wave of technology change or the deployment of new spectrum bands is generally required some incremental equipment or at least changes to the existing equipment at the tower sites. And that continuous change along with kind of the built-in escalators that we have, it's ultimately what drives the organic growth. So I think the cycles of higher growth for the tower industry will typically come when all the carriers are busy at the same time. So really, when you're looking at it and trying to say what period is going to be a little busier than another in terms of growth. It's really driven by how many of the carriers are active at a particular point in time. And right now, we're heading into a period where we expect 4 very active carriers in the U.S. And so we should see pretty good growth for the next couple of years.

I think that feeds right into the survey that we'd like to ask the first live survey. So for our audience that's listening in, the responses are anonymous. Even if the survey comes up before we present it, you can vote, and then we'll take a couple of minutes, collect the results and be able to share them real time. So the first question that we're going to reveal today is what will domestic organic revenue growth be for SBA in 2022? And we position this to be without the T-Mobile churn. And Brendan, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think at the midpoint of guidance, reported growth would be like organically in the U.S., like in the mid-3s and without T-Mobile churn for 2021, I think it's about 4%, at least that's what we have. And so the choices for our audience today is less than or equal to 3, 3 to 5, 5 to 7, 7 to 9% or over 9%. And so a lot of choices, but we'll see what people come back with in terms of what the growth rate is. While we're waiting for those results to come in, one of the parts of the capital model for SBA is to expand the portfolio by 5% to 10% annually. How did you end up with that goal in 2021? And how should investors think about that external growth opportunity over the next few years?

Yes. I think technically, we're going to end up just under that range. And that, I'd say, technically because the Tanzania acquisition that we announced actually closed in January. So -- or a big chunk of it closed in January. So we would have -- if you pro forma that, we would have been -- we would have hit that target. And a lot of that would have come -- the biggest contributors would have been that deal and the PG&E acquisition that we did early in the year. So sometimes it takes those larger deals as we've gotten bigger, obviously, to get to 5% portfolio growth. It typically is going to require something that stands out in terms of a larger acquisition. But just thinking about going forward, we are still targeting 5% to 10% portfolio growth. For us, it's our target goal, but it's obviously dependent upon the opportunities that we see. It's ultimately a function of the quality and the return thresholds and frankly, the inventory of assets that are out there. So you should expect we'll continue to build and to buy assets as we've always done. And we'll probably prioritize the U.S. But given that there's a limited supply domestically, it will likely come more from international and possibly new markets. Our approach to this is that we generally look at everything, and we'll continue to do that. But given the competitive market and the fact that prices are being driven up in a number of cases, I think we're going to be targeted and selective and try to use our expertise to kind of find opportunities that maybe fly a little under the radar as we've done in the past. And if you think about PG&E, South Africa, Tanzania, I think those are all a little bit out of the norm, the normal flow. And so if we can find opportunities for that kind of thing, that's where we'll focus.

And just in terms of what you're describing in terms of potentially expanding into additional markets or geographically, like how important is it to build scale in a continent like Africa or a market like South Africa relative to just finding the opportunistic places where there's towers available, you like the price, you like the operating environment?

Yes. I mean scale is certainly important to -- at some level, but it doesn't have to be huge. You need to have at least several hundred sites, I would say, to feel like you've got enough scale to support the overhead that you would require in that specific country and that it fits. I mean you don't want to do something where you've only got towers 80 some point, that just doesn't make sense for us. So if we can get to a few hundred towers minimum, usually that's good enough. In terms of our targets and where we look, we are focused on -- we don't rule anything out necessarily. There are certain places that we likely would never go. But generally speaking, we don't rule it out out of hand. We hadn't been in Africa for some time. We don't have any plans to necessarily get much larger in Africa. But if we find a particular opportunity that fits, we feel like we're capable of going anywhere, setting up the necessary operations, making sure we understand that market as well as possible and gaining the expertise to feel comfortable going into that market, wherever it happens to be. And then if we can get to a scale in that particular market that works and it can operate stand-alone, and we think the returns are going to be good, then we're happy to move forward. So I guess the answer is were somewhat flexible, but yet we're targeted in terms of looking for things that we think are going to hit the return profile because at the end of the day, that's what it's really about for us.

And I guess, in your point on the scale is it doesn't take a lot of towers. You said a few hundred to hit that minimum efficient scale point. So it's not like you need thousands of towers in the market to feel like you have that scale?

Yes, that's right. And I think for us, maybe it's a little bit different because the model that we've adopted, which is a little bit different from some of our peers is a much more centralized model. So when you think about how we run back office, we do almost all of the core back-office functions here at our corporate headquarters in Florida, even if it's for South Africa or Brazil or anywhere else, there are some things that have to be in those markets, obviously, we you're talking about sales and marketing and certain specific operational things. But when you're talking about accounting and even some of the legal work HR work, you don't need too much in those markets, we can kind of do a lot of that centralized. And I think that actually allows us to have greater synergies and greater consistency across all of our markets. And so that's a large part of the reason we do it. And as a result, you can stand up a new market and leverage what we already have existing here in many of those cases, I think, more efficiently.

Great. Are you ready for our first live survey results?

I am...

Yes. So of the 5 different choices, our audience chose to focus on 3. So 36% is 3% to 5%. 55% is 5 to 7 and 9% is 7% to 9%. So that's the organic growth for '22 domestic without the T-Mobile churn.

Yes.

So as you think about acceleration in the cycle, you knew this question has been becoming, I'm sure after you heard the question. How do you think about that quantum of opportunity to accelerate growth. Qualitatively, management has been very positive this past year on the leasing volumes.

Yes. I think I'm being hesitant only because we've obviously not given our 2022 outlook, and we will give that with our fourth quarter earnings release in February. So at that time, the answer to this question will be out there as we see it very specifically. But I think if you look even at the results of your survey, people are sort of gravitating towards something a little bit better than what we had in '21, and that's logical given all of our commentary and the fact that we've seen, just based on our last quarter's reports, we've obviously seen increasing operational leasing activity. So -- just to kind of go over the basics real quickly, we've talked about it for a lot of people, but there may be some folks listening who it's new to. When we talk about leasing activity and that it's picked up and we're seeing a lot of stuff happening, we're really talking about applications coming in from carriers for new amendments or new leases, and we're talking about executions in particular, of those agreements. So we're signing up commitments to new rental streams starting. The issue is what's the timing of when it starts, and there's usually a little bit of a lag between when we execute that and when the revenue commences typically tied to when the construction starts at the site or some drop dead date usually. So we're kind of in this phase where we started to see that happen towards the latter part of '21. But all that activity that's happened really over the last 3 quarters, primarily of 2021 is much greater than it was in the same period in 2020. And so we know as we head into 2022 that we're going to see increased revenue. I'm talking domestically primarily here, but we're going to see increased revenue contributions from organic leasing, and that increase is what should drive the percentages that you asked your question about up. So I think that's a reasonable expectation that they will be higher.

And because of DISH entering into this equation, there were some comments last year that there's just a longer kind of book-to-bill cycle that you're processing. So does that mean that the buildup like the improving growth just is more evolutionary that it's going to kind of take through '22 and it might actually make even '23 a better year than '22. So it just kind of builds over time? Or is it like a step function where because of all this activity in the backlog that you're going to actually be able to have a step function increase at some point in '22?

Well, we are definitely going to have a step function to a higher level. There may be some progression or a limited number of quarters and then probably relatively steady for some period of time. I think the question with DISH because of their situation, which is building a brand-new network from the ground up, and therefore, almost all the growth coming in the form of new colocation agreements. It's not adjusting something that exists at a site like a lot of the amendment activity from the incumbents is, there is a little bit more of a delayed time frame there. They're sort of starting from nothing. So the timing there perhaps has a little bit more uncertainty to it just because it's new and it's different. And we haven't experienced it quite the same way, at least not for a very long time. And so there may be a little bit of uncertainty there. But the activity level from them in terms of signing new agreements has been ahead of our expectations, I think, during 2021. And -- Given that, I would expect that we should have a strong 2022 and 2023. I mean really, it's just a matter of do they get to the construction starting and building out faster than we expect as we get into 2022, therefore, pulling more of the incremental year-over-year growth into 2022? Or does it start later in 2022, leaving some for 2023? I can't tell you absolutely today, but based on the amount of activity signing stuff up. I expect there to certainly be higher results in '22 and probably an opportunity for that in '23, if they're a little bit delayed in the construction commencement.

In terms of some of the decommissioning that you're going to see from T-Mobile and Sprint in that merger over the next few years, is there -- I don't know if I called a risk, but is there a feature where they could just choose to pay out sooner and make you a whole or close to whole, but pay you much sooner than they would have otherwise?

There's not really a feature. I mean, I suppose they could always pay us all of the rent that's owed for a remaining term and leave the site now and economically have satisfied their obligation. That has not been their MO to this point, and it doesn't appear that, that's something they want to do. In fact, I would say that it's more likely that they need that they need the sites. And so there's -- it's really driven more by the engineering than it is anything else. And so you have to go through the process of making sure that they've moved all the customers off of that particular installation to wherever they're going to go, maybe at the same site to an existing T-Mobile installation. They've done the upgrades. They've put the 2.5 spectrum on that new site, all these types of things and that they've transitioned those customers over. So I think that's more likely to be the driver, and I don't expect them to advance pay things. I guess they could. That hasn't happened yet. I don't expect that to be the case, but I do think there may be more need to hang on to things a little bit longer in order to get through that transition if they're not ready. So it's probably more likely to shift slightly the other direction. But they seem to be pretty much on top of it. I think they're aware of when their leases are up. They're mapping it all out and they're trying to be as efficient as they can with it.

And just to remind our audience, what does that mean for the revenue churn for SBA that investors should expect over the next few years? What's the cadence to just be mindful of?

Yes. So our best estimate, and this is completely consistent with what we said on the third quarter earnings call because as of today, there's nothing that necessarily changes our view on it is that, well, first of all, for 2021, we figure it's going to be probably about $7 million of annualized churn. 2022 is a little bit bigger year, $30 million to $35 million of churn is our estimate for the year. And then as you get into '23 and '24, it should step down and be somewhere in the $10 million to $20 million range per year in each of those years before kind of getting up to the bigger years that we have, which is '25 and '26, where we would expect it to be in the $40 million to $50 million range, somewhere in that range of those years. And then there'll probably be some residual, I'd say, $10 million to $20 million left that would kind of come after that in the years that follow. So I think that's a reasonable estimate. Obviously, things could change, something different could happen, could be favorable or unfavorable. But based on when we see the leases up, the analysis that we've done around not just overlapping sites, but even proximity locations that we think could have some risk. We figured all that in there. And so I think that's a pretty good estimate...

And in terms of auction 110, which we're waiting the results for, is that an incremental amendment opportunity? How does that fit into this leasing environment?

Yes. No, I think it definitely could be an incremental opportunity. Our understanding so far is that the 3.45 spectrum will need to be deployed in a separate unit from C-band basically an integrated -- it will be an integrated unit with an antenna on a radio, I think, in one unit, but it should be a separate piece of equipment from C-band. And so that being the case, whereas C-band would have been one new piece on the sector, now you have the 3.45, if they're going to add both, it would likely be 2 pieces of equipment. So I think it would be incremental. Whether it's an additional amendment or not really is dependent on the timing of when the carrier is able to do it and may be a part of the same amendment, but the dollars would account for the fact that there's multiple pieces of equipment going up as opposed to one...

Go to our next survey question. And with SBA having the -- of the 3 tower companies we cover, having the highest percent of domestic tower revenue, it's always a curiosity to me just what investors think about the international strategy. And so we'll pose this question of should SBA pursue new investments in international markets? And then the choices are, yes, build-to-suits and M&A in the existing international markets, BTS and M&A in both existing and new markets, so a more expansive strategy. No, just focus on the co-location of the existing markets or no, sell the international assets and just be domestic. So we'll see what people come back with that. But while we're getting into this conversation of international, Brendan, can you talk about the international performance that you're seeing and how the pandemic and the different waves have been affecting your performance in those markets?

Sure. Yes. So our international assets, generally speaking, are performing very well as we exit the year. We've actually seen our organic leasing activity improve throughout the year, and I expect 2022 will be a solid year as well. Ultimately, the need for wireless investment in these markets remains very high. And I think you mentioned the pandemic. I mean I think while it created some challenges early on in some of our international markets, I would say the impacts are very limited at this point. But what it did point out in a lot of ways is that there's a greater need or highlighted the greater need, I guess, for wireless connectivity and expansion in all these markets. So I think I think actually, I wouldn't expect COVID, I mean you never know, things change all the time, obviously, very rapidly as we've seen recently. But I don't expect that it will have much of an impact at all on the leasing environment, both in the U.S. and internationally. So overall, though, back to the overall, I guess, the international markets are performing well. I think we're going to have a strong year coming up. There's been some spectrum auctions in some of our markets that I think will be drivers in the future of growth. So we're pretty pleased with how things are going.

Great. So we'll get to the results. And so the results are 43% said yes to build-to-suits in M&A in existing markets, a similar percentage for just both existing and new markets, doing BTS and M&A and 14% thought, no, sell the international assets. As part of your capital allocation process, do you ever think about being a separate domestic and international company? Or are you also thinking about different ways of funding international with just the different competing sources of capital that are now out there?

Yes. I don't think that we would -- I don't see any reason to separate the portfolios between international and domestic. I mean we report a lot of the information separately so people can see that as it is. So I think there's enough transparency. I don't see much -- as long as we can continue to add high-quality international assets which is what we think we've done, I don't believe there's any reason to necessarily separate it out. I mentioned to you earlier some of the synergies that we have and the way that we operate, I think that actually allows us to be more efficient when we add those new markets in. But when we think about expansion and how we fund it, we haven't done anything of a size and scale that's required us to get overly creative and bring other parties into the mix. I think if we did something that was much more substantial in size, that's something that we would think about. But it's not really been our way of going about things historically. I mean I never want to say never just opportunities could arise that would make sense. But generally speaking, we're primarily a domestic macro tower company, and I don't see that definition of who SBA is changing anytime soon. And so to do a deal that's of a size that requires us to bring in other parties, it's possible but not highly likely. And we have pretty good capital today. So I feel confident we can handle things. The things that we would want to do, I feel pretty confident we would have access to the capital to fund those opportunities.

And just maybe taking a step back holistically between domestic and international, how do you look at inflation on the impact operationally and financially to your business?

Well, first of all, in the U.S., most of our tenant leases have fixed escalators. Those average a little more than 3% per year is the average. Those generally cannot be adjusted. So if you were to see very high inflation, it certainly has an impact in that regard. Of course, historically, the last 20 years or so, that 3-plus percent has been higher than inflation. And so we've been on the winning side of that, I guess, for the last couple of decades. But however, having said that, on the expense side, our largest direct expense is our ground leases. Those are also almost entirely subject to fixed escalators. So our expense control is very strong in terms of our ability to match that off. And in addition, when we're pricing new amendments and leases, we can make adjustments, obviously, in the pricing of the incremental growth, and we expect to see a decent amount of that over the coming years, if necessary, to take into account inflation. On the international side, most of our contractual escalators are tied to a local CPI type of index. So they generally will adjust with inflation. So I don't expect it to have much impact there.

We're getting some questions from our audience. And one question is in relation to the FAA concerns regarding C-band and there's an agreement that was disclosed over the last couple of days. Have you seen any activity changes from the carriers because of these issues or the potential challenges of upgrading C-band closer to airports?

Yes. We have not seen any impact from this at all. The reality is these delays are relatively short term in the world in which we operate. I mean the fact that it's a month or 1.5 months now delay really doesn't have much impact at all when you're thinking about a much longer-term leasing cycle that the carriers are going through. So we haven't seen anything as a result of that. I suppose if it were to drag on for an extended period of time, it would probably have some influence on what the carriers are doing. But it doesn't seem like anybody thinks that's going to be the case right now, and the carriers certainly aren't behaving in that fashion.

We're getting some questions also about your thoughts on the edge. So maybe this is a great opportunity to introduce our third live survey question. And this one is how do you view the edge opportunity for SBA? Interesting, but unlikely to be material for at least the next 3 years. Interesting that SBA will need to partner or merge with a data center provider to take full advantage, exciting and should be meaningfully added into revenue within the next 3 years regardless of what, there's data center partnerships or just not that interesting and unlikely to materialize really into anything. More words that are going to be on the survey that our audience will see, but that's the gist of it. And so we'll hit the pause button on that for a moment while we let the responses accrue, and then we can talk about the edge. Just ahead of that, maybe a quick question for you on capital structure. So how is SBA thinking about net debt leverage? And as you evolve the dividend payments as part of a REIT, what should investors expect in terms of the flow where net debt leverage should end up for the company?

Well, that we target, and we have for many years now, a range of 7 to 7.5 turns of net debt to the last quarter's annualized EBITDA. That remains our target as of today. I don't see any near-term situation in which we would necessarily be changing that. We -- sometimes, as we did with PG&E, temporarily have increased the leverage with the intent to come back down quickly to that range. But if we see the right opportunity and need to temporarily increase it, we've done that. On the reduction side of it, it's not something we plan to do any time in the near term because we think being fully invested has created a lot more value for our equity holders. I think the equity has benefited from the extra leverage and our reinvestment of that capital. But over time, things will shift. You mentioned the dividend. Obviously, as the dividend grows or if we see a material increase in interest rates going forward, things like that, I would expect that it would start to have an impact on our leverage targets. And just as we get bigger and more mature. But that's not something that we're looking at any time in the near term. We don't think...

And so we have the results of our surveys, so we'll go to that. I'll just read it off. So 55% interesting but unlikely to materialize for at least the next 3 years; 9% interesting, but SBA will need to partner or merge with a data center provider; 0% for exciting and should meaningfully add to revenue within the next 3 years and 36%, not that interesting and unlikely to materialize. So Brendan, you've been -- SBA as a company has been testing some of the strategy out with, I think, 1 or 2 data centers that you bought? What's your take so far on the edge? Is it interesting, exciting or not that interesting?

I think it's interesting from the perspective that if it does materialize where tower sites are logical locations for edge expansion, we're obviously very well-positioned as it relates to that. And so there's an opportunity to leverage the existing investment and the existing assets that we have to create an entirely incremental revenue stream. And so it obviously is interesting in that regard. There's certainly a lot of talk out there. There's a lot of folks that are creating an ecosystem of an industry. But at this point, I probably would be in the same camp as the people who answered, I think, the first option that you mentioned, which is that it is interesting, but it's unlikely to be material in the next 3 years. I think that was the answer. I think it's basically the bottom line is, I think it's a little bit early still to have a strong opinion on how it all plays out. At a minimum, I think there clearly will be edge deployments. If you just think about the introduction of 5G stand-alone architecture and open RAN, it's definitely created the need to deploy IT infrastructure at the edge. For a variety of reasons, the obvious one being that it will provide densification in order to lower latency between the cell phone and cloud service. So it makes a lot of sense that you will have that happening. And because of that efforts, what I just mentioned about the cell phone being a part of it, locating edge data centers at tower sites is certainly a reasonable possibility. And that's why we're spending time on it. There's still a question mark though about whether it actually has to get -- has to be at the tower sites or not. And I think there are some key questions that need to be answered in that regard. And I think there are reasonable responses that would suggest that it should be or could be, but I don't think that's a definite. And because that's a reasonable possibility, we're spending some time on it. We do have a few edge data centers at a few of our tower sites today. We're having modest success with them at this point. What we found is that the connection back to our larger data centers, you mentioned we bought 2. That's been an attractive selling point for the edge centers so far. So that kind of hub-and-spoke structure that we've discussed in the past seems to have value and be effective. And I think it's worth us exploring that a little bit further, but we'll see. I mean, it's hard to imagine that a year from now, we're sitting here saying, wow, this is just a totally exploded thing because the carriers are focused so heavily right now on the stuff we talked about earlier, their macro build-outs and their 5G rollouts, rollouts of C-band, et cetera, that I think that's going to be their focus. And so then it really comes down to other parties who need it and do they need to be at the tower side or not. So we'll see how it plays out.

Well, It raises a lot of interesting questions. And as you're talking about that hub-spoke possibility in the future, does it make sense to partner with other tower companies, so you have more places on a combined basis that you can off of a single hub can drive more spokes? Does it make sense to partner with a data center company so you can create your own portfolio of hub and spoke? Or does it make sense to be standalone? Is there a leaning or an acceleration of this exploration that SBA wants to do, just as everyone is just trying to figure out what this is going to look like in the future?

Yes. I don't think I can really answer that question for sure yet. I mean we are open to partnering with other people, a larger data center company or somebody, if it makes sense for both parties, obviously, that's what everybody would expect with the time that you partner. But given the lack of definition around what this ecosystem is going to look like and what are the most important attributes. So it's very hard to really have that arrangement nailed down and feel comfortable that you haven't struck a deal that's not good for you. So we're definitely open to it, but I think, again, we're still sort of in the learning and development phase. And if that makes the most sense, then that's what we'll do. But I don't know whether it makes the most sense.

And just taking a step back to the domestic business again. Are you working on any CRAN hubs or ORAN hubs or working with the carriers in different ways to deploy their infrastructure to your towers?

Not really. There may be situations where those sites where individual sites are suited for that. But I've not seen it really necessarily making a meaningful impact when you think -- when we think about it in terms of leasing revenue contribution, it's not meaningfully changing what we're seeing in terms of growth. That's not the driver of it. But to the extent that a particular site, they require some additional ground space, that kind of thing because it becomes more of a hub from an ORAN standpoint, we benefit. But it's really around the margins, I would say, at this point.

And in terms of -- Just going through one more question that we received about the African expansions that you've done. How do you view the growth of that market? How does growth in that market compare to maybe a Brazil or Latin America broadly?

Well, it will be -- we'll have to see, first of all, because -- so if you think about our expansion into Africa, it basically consists of 2 things: South Africa several years ago and just recently Tanzania. Tanzania is obviously brand-new. I can't speak to the growth there yet because it's brand new. But when we look at South Africa, where we've got a pretty good track record now and some experience there, we've been really happy with the results there. It's actually been one of our best performing markets. And has one of the highest returns on invested capital in any of our markets despite actually its limited lifespan. So it's been very good. Now our expansion in South Africa was primarily through new tower builds that we did as part of a joint venture. So almost all the sites there, the majority of the sites there, we have constructed ourselves. They were built for the carriers. And so they were very targeted and oftentimes, the returns can be better on new builds because we obviously aren't paying any sort of premium to somebody else when you buy them later on. So it's been very good. The returns have been very good. If we could do more of that, that would be our goal. In Tanzania, we're entering through an acquisition, an initial acquisition from Airtel as one of the carriers in the market. But I would expect that we'll grow our presence there through new tower builds in a similar way. And so I'm hopeful that we'll see similar results in Tanzania, what we've seen in South Africa, comparing the growth rates I mean South Africa had a higher organic growth rate in the last few years than our Latin American markets. Although in the early days of a lot of our Latin American markets, they were higher, too. So it's really a function of maturity, I think, of the individual assets as much as anything.

And then in terms of -- there's 2 other questions domestically that we've received. So one is in terms of market share with DISH, do you feel like you're getting your fair share of the DISH business? And is there anything to highlight in terms of the timing of that coming through? We talked a little bit about it earlier, but just anything else that you want to highlight that's unique about that transaction?

No. Well, certainly, I feel that we're getting our fair share at a minimum, when we look back at the deal that we struck with them at the time, I think we announced that we had a master lease agreement that we entered into with DISH earlier this year or actually technically last year now, earlier 2021. And that they had committed under that agreement to signing thousands of new lease agreements with us. And the pace at which they've been going through that here in the, say, last 3 quarters of 2021 has been beyond what we would have expected at the time that we signed the agreement. So -- We're certainly pleased in that regard and the fact that we're having that kind of activity level with them. I can't speak to exactly what's happening with our peers, obviously. But based on our interactions with them, not only on the leasing side, but our services division as well, I feel like we're at a minimum, getting our fair share, if not doing better. And I think in some cases, they're actually prioritizing us as I think we've made it easy to do for them. So we're pretty excited about the opportunity that it presents. It's now just a matter of helping them get to that next phase of construction, which they've started to do. And I think they're going to have great success. So we're excited about the contribution they represent.

And then lastly, before we get to our rapid fire, the PG&E deal that you did, how is that going? And are there other opportunities similar to that deal that you could pursue in the future?

Well, the deal itself is going very well. We've had pretty good success. I mean, as you would imagine, moving it from the hands of PG&E to a company like SBA, there's not a knock on PG&E. They have their core business that they focus on. It wasn't wireless deployments on their infrastructure. That's what we do. And so I think our ability to kind of open that portfolio up to some of the carriers to ease the ability to get on to those sites to work through some of the issues that sometimes come up when you have a regulated utility is using their infrastructure for this use that wasn't the designed use. We've been able to make significant improvements there. And I think, frankly, our timing with DISH starting to speak pick up now is pretty good timing in the C-band rollout, all these things that are general drivers to our business and the leasing environment are obviously good for PG&E as well. So that's going very well. And whether there's other opportunities, I think there could be, but not every utility is in the same situation with the same -- the regulatory environment is different for everyone, the types of structures they have. There are just so many factors that go into it that I wouldn't expect it to be kind of a widespread thing that you see. But there could be individual opportunities out there, but I don't think this will be something that just becomes a routine type of investment.

Are you ready for our rapid fire, 3 questions inside of 3 minutes.

I think I am. Yes. You're telling me the rate...

Well, so our first one is we'll go with what sets SBA apart from your peers?

I think, Mike, the answer to that is probably the quality of our AFFO per share. Our AFFO per share contains the most recurring cash that is distributable. And so I think from that standpoint, it's the best. And the other thing is that we provide the highest exposure to the domestic macro tower business. So that's probably the main differentiator.

And then the second one, since we already talked about the inflation, why don't we ask in this second question, the impact of rising rates on SBA. You talked a little bit about it earlier in the context of the leverage decisions that the company may make. But are there any other factors on rising rate impacts on SBA that people should be mindful of?

Yes. I mean I think obviously something that people focus on a lot given what our leverage is compared to most companies in general, while it's makes a lot of sense within our existing structure, our particular business to carry the leverage that we do. It causes our equity to be somewhat sensitive to interest rate movements. But I think if you -- for those people that step back and actually look at our capital structure and look at our existing interest rates and structure, they should actually take comfort that when you take into consideration our recent refinancings and our maturity schedule, there should really be little to no impact over the next several years. And in fact, our average interest rate or cost of debt today is the lowest it's ever been in our entire history. So there's a lot of room there for us. So we -- I feel pretty good about it, that it won't actually be as impactful as some might think in the next several years.

And since this is the Apps Economy conference, is there an application that you believe can fundamentally change demand for connectivity and data consumption over the next 2 years?

Yes. You're asking somebody who's not qualified to answer that question probably. You should probably be asking some of our customers that one. But I think I'll give you my layman's response to that, and this is based mostly on having teenagers, but I think gaming is probably the application that will most quickly drive the uptake of 5G and will be the biggest driver of these new technology deployment. So that would be my guess.

Great. Well, Brendan, it's great to see you. Thank you for joining us today.

Absolutely. Thanks for having me Mike.

Thank you.