SBA Communications Corporation (SBAC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Great. I think we'll get started. Thanks, everyone, for joining our conference. I'm Batya Levi with the UBS Communications team. Our next speaker is Marc Montagner, Chief Financial Officer at SBA Communications. Marc, thank you so much for joining us.

Thanks for having me.

Great. So that -- it's that time of the year. Maybe if you could just talk a little bit about what you're focused on as we head into '26.

Well, I think the focus is really to create long-term shareholder value. And the way to do it, I think, is growing the top line and capital allocation. I think that's the way I think it's going to go. So, on the top line, I think you've recently seen we signed a new MLA with Verizon, 10-year transaction. I think it's a good partnership there. I think we want to make it easier and faster for them to deploy equipment in terms of coverage and densification. And for us, for minimum commitment, we secure, I think, a minimum growth rate. So I think it's a good agreement for both of us. That's one way to take care of the top line. And capital allocation, obviously, I think if you really look, we could talk about it later, but it's $1.9 billion roughly of EBITDA using a rough number, and you see $475 million for the dividend, $435 million for cash interest expenses, $35 million for cash taxes, $50 million in maintenance CapEx, $200 million in growth CapEx and you're left with about $700 million of capital to deploy. And the question is where do you deploy that capital. 2023 in the rising rate environment, we paid down $600 million of debt. We did about $100 million of M&A. Last year, we did about $300 million of M&A, mostly domestic, $200 million buyback. And this year, I think last year, we signed a $1 billion deal with Millicom. We deployed $1 billion of capital in M&A, and we could talk about how this deal is going to create value for us. And as of the end of October, we basically spent $325 million buying back our share. I think at this level, I think we see value in buying back share. It's going to be accretive over the short term and the long term. Capital allocation and growing the top line, really the key priorities.

Since the end of the summer with the DISH announcement, I guess, the sentiment has weakened on the towers and precisely because of the revenue growth opportunity. So two parts to it. Maybe first, DISH, if you could remind us your exposure, how should we think about that? And then we'll talk about the other drivers of revenue growth.

Sure. So DISH for us, it's about $55 million run rate revenue. Lease-up for this year was about $2 million. So it's not a big contributor, mostly short-term contract. The total exposure, if you run the contract to the end is $110 million, and it's about $25 million churn in 2027, $25 million churn in 2028. Limited exposure to DISH.

Right. And I guess, should we expect that you would look -- are they currently paying?

At the end of November, they were current. So I don't ask me to speculate. I have no idea what is going to happen going forward. I think Charlie Ergen is a better poker player than me. So you should ask him what his plan is.

Okay. Makes sense. And then the other part after that announcement was that with more spectrum held by the carriers, is there a pause in terms of the carrier activity? How are towers going to benefit from incremental network activity? So can you just maybe overall frame the narrative in terms of where are we in terms of the 5G cycle? And do you expect the carriers to be active?

Yes. So, first of all, I think we've seen increased level of activity throughout 2025. Level of abandonment is still going up, mostly densification, which is good leads to colos. And I think if you look at on the SBA network, we don't have full visibility on the MNOs deployment. But I think T-Mobile is probably at 85% deployed on the 2.5, they haven't deployed on the C-band yet. Verizon is probably at the 70% mark and AT&T at around 50%. So we still see a meaningful deployment going forward. And if you step back, right, I mean, CapEx as a percentage of revenue for the big three operators, if you go back 15 years or 20 years, it's always between 15% at the bottom to north of 20%. So 2022, 2023 was north of 20%. This year, it's a trough like 14.5%. I think you go back 20 years to see CapEx as a percentage of revenue to be so low. I think when they deployed 5G, they probably got an 8x to 10x increase in capacity, and they were active filling up the capacity, selling fixed wireless access to basically generate more revenue. But I think fixed wireless access is probably a great product, but it is showing a lot of capacity. So we've seen them doing a lot of densification. For us, a bit is a bit is a bit. We run a passive infrastructure. So they put radio up there. We don't really know what it's being used for, but we see increased activity. So we feel good about the long term.

Today, AT&T and T-Mobile CEOs suggested that we're at peak wireless CapEx...

I've been in the industry for 30 years. I've been hearing this for 30 years. I worked at Nextel and then Sprint Nextel and every single business plan we had showed CapEx going to below 15% of revenue and you look at it 25 years later and we see at peak CapEx. So the future will tell us. I mean, at the end of the day, if you want to survive in their business, it's all about the cost of delivering a bit to your end users, right? Because you start by charging $0.25 a minute for voice and then voice is all you could eat, then you charge $0.10 for text and then text is all you could eat, and then you charge by the megabyte. And now everybody has a limited plan for $55, $60, all you could eat and my kids are watching TikToks and I'm doing all the research I need on my cell phone and I still pay the same rate. So for them, in order to keep getting that $55, $60 amount, they need to lower the cost per bit. And it's a very competitive market for them. So, I think at some point, you're going to see CapEx creeping up. And I think 6G, I mean, the FCC is probably going to auction a C block in 2027 or so. It's probably going to take 18 months to clear. SES Intelsat has 95% of that block. They clear this very rapidly. So probably 6G in 2029 and late '28. So that's going to be the next wave of CapEx, right? Listen, this industry, the tower industry has been around for 35, 40 years. Those towers are going to be around in 50 years, and the world is going wireless. Every single wireless business line I looked at in my last 35 years in the telecom industry always underestimate how much usage people would use, how much penetration you would get and how the world is going wireless. Look I mean now you do fixed wireless access. That was, I mean...

Out of nowhere?

When I was at Nextel, we say, well, one day, we may be able to compete with fixed broadband, and we see the cost per bit is going to get -- reach a price -- a cost point where it's going to be doable to do basically wireless access. And WorldCom had a big plan in 2000. They put the 2.5 spectrum to do just this. They were just ahead of the game. The technology was not there. Now the technology is there and the cost structure allows you to do fixed wireless access. So I think you're just going to see more and more usage on the wireless network. So I feel pretty good about the future of our business.

The near-term future, do you think that we're in a sort of a flattish activity level? Or are you starting to see some inflection?

We have three headwinds. One, for us, it's interest rates, $12 billion of debt. Average cost of debt is around 3%, 3.25% we're going to have to refinance at 5%. That puts pressure on FFO and FFO per share, but that's going to be temporary. Two is churn. You had consolidation in the U.S., consolidation in Brazil, which are two large markets for us. In the U.S. at Sprint it's $50 million of churn this year, another $50 million of churn in 2026, and then it's pretty much gone. And then in Brazil, it's spoil. The market went from four to three. And we're going to see about $35 million of churn internationally this year, probably slightly above next year, and then it's going to come off. So I think if you look at the next three years, I feel really good where we're going to be in two, three years. I think you have those three headwinds for '26 and part of '27. But it doesn't take anything away of the value of the business, the earning power of the business, the growth potential of the business.

Right. You will give guidance in February, but maybe just looking at the new leasing revenue, which is the highest.

I knew you would ask that question.

How should we think about '26? Is it flat, up?

It's too early. We're going to give guidance in February. I think we did in terms of lease-up first quarter, 9, 8 in the second quarter, 10 in the third quarter. You take your guidance for the year, we're between 10 and 11 for the fourth quarter, and it's going to be probably in that type of run rate. I don't know.

And we use 4Q as the run rate to think about next year.

It's too early to say.

Okay. Fair. I tried. You mentioned fixed wireless as a use case that has been emerging. Are you hearing anything else that the carriers are preparing for?

No. But one of your peers published a research report about a month ago showing that at the Verizon, I think it's fixed wireless access maybe 3% of revenue, 50% of capacity.

We published that ahead of that.

You did. Okay. Well, congratulations. So you know more than I do about it. So I think it's definitely driving, capacity is going to drive CapEx. And the more it is bundled with the handset, the more difficult it is going to be for the carriers to choke that capacity and lose that fixed wireless access customer. So, suddenly, you have a $45, $50 fixed wireless access customer with a $60 handset, you want to choke that capacity on that user or spend more CapEx trying to keep those people happy because it's a competitive industry. So [ high ELM ], they have a large balance sheet. They need to manage CapEx and free cash flow. But at the end of the day -- I remember my days on Nextel, the CEO in his office because we're selling mostly to the construction industry at the time. And in his office, he had a 2x4 with a cell phone staple with this like big gun that this construction worker is. And so the nail had gone through the cell phone nailed to the 2x4 and underneath with a black mark guy written no network, no customer. We remember that 2x4 for the rest of my life.

Makes sense. You did mention that the carriers are moving into densification. Do you see activity across all three? Or is it T-Mobile, which has already approached 85% of towers built? Is T-Mobile ahead?

Well, I think they're all busy. I think T-Mobile had, I think, a regulatory requirement by April of '26 to get 50 megs of down to 95% of the pop. So I think that really put them ahead of the game, but I think everybody is busy.

Okay. Got it. And maybe just kind of like talk -- you did mention your MLA with Verizon. Can you talk a little bit about the differences this MLA has versus the AT&T MLA? And what is the opportunity to capture as Verizon puts capacity behind fixed wireless and moves into that densification state?

Well, I think for competitive reason, I can only comment on this. But I think -- I feel really good. We feel really good about the partnership with Verizon. It just makes it very easy and faster for them to deploy on our towers. They no longer have to negotiate lease by lease. They have a rate card and they know how much they're going to pay for and then burn and I think it's just a good partnership.

And in terms of -- to the extent that Verizon gets access to more AWS-3 spectrum, would that be incremental revenues for you? Or would they be allowed to light it up with a software upgrade?

Well, I think AWS-3 is probably a software upgrade may work. But remember, depending on the equipment they have. If they have older equipment, they may not have enough power, they may need to upgrade the equipment. So it's really on a case-by-case basis. And I don't think we have that visibility, that granularity on really what they have up there. So it's really hard to say. I mean it depends when they do it. Our MLA expires mid-2028.

Okay. And with AT&T, AT&T's contribution has been slowing down over the last few years. So to the extent that they deploy the new 600 megahertz spectrum that they get, is that upside? Or is that captured within the MLA?

It depends when and what type of power and equipment they put up. But I think opportunity to monetize it with AT&T is not optimal.

Okay. How long does that contract go...

Mid-28.

Mid-28, that one also. Okay. And maybe you did mention T-Mobile, very active as they go through that deadline. And beyond that, do you anticipate T-Mobile to be more run rate or?

It's -- we don't know, but I think they are very aggressive in terms of capturing market share, having a great quality network. So I think they're going to have to stay ahead of the curve. And they haven't deployed the C-band yet. So at some point, they're going to have to deploy the C-band as well.

Right. What about cable? Are you seeing them deploy -- as they deploy CBRS, is that an opportunity?

Not totally immaterial for us. I think if the FCC is able to repurpose CBRS for high power, that could be used on our macro towers. But unless there's some change on the licensing of that spectrum, we see no material opportunities for us.

Okay. You talk a little bit about potential other tenants that could come to your network. You did say there were very preliminary conversations with Starlink on your earnings call. Is there any more that you could share with us on that and maybe other tenants that you've been talking about.

Not really. I think you know probably as much as I do. It's what we read in the press. I think we welcome Starlink to the industry. I think it's always good to have a well-capitalized player in the industry. I think if you look at it, I talk about hybrid network. I don't know what it means. one analogy I could use is XM Sirius claim that -- I mean, say that it's back, it's a satellite radio company, but they beam the spectrum -- the signal down and they have thousands of repeaters in the U.S. to rebroadcast the signal in urban area in order to have coverage, smaller radio on the cars, better coverage in the garage and underpass and under the tree. So to the extent they say they want to deploy a hybrid network in order to maximize that 40 megahertz of spectrum, the capacity, the coverage, the quality, I assume they may need in the future some terrestrial side, but I'm just speculating. I know as much as you do, but we welcome them to the industry. I think it's going to be interesting to see what they do. And to the extent they want to deploy, I think we'll be more than happy to work with them.

What about -- just sticking to the U.S., but competition from some of the private tower companies. Are you seeing them potentially getting more of that new densification efforts that the carriers are entering? And I think Verizon talks pretty publicly about their desire to diversify the tower portfolio. What does that mean for you?

Listen, we have a footprint. And given zoning laws and cost to build, I think if your carrier -- switching costs are extremely high. The carriers are leasing vertical space on our tower, horizontal space for the power, the fiber routers, the cabinet, the generators, the battery, the fuel tank and so on. It's always easier for them and cheaper to just add another radio to one of our towers than just relocating to another tower. So I think to the extent that the carriers are doing densification and we have a tower there, we have an MLA in place. That's the reason we're doing MLA to make it easier and faster for them to just expand on our existing footprint.

So when you look at kind of like activity over the last maybe couple of years, you haven't really seen a shift to the private.

Not that I'm aware of.

Okay. Network services has been very strong, and it's just from one customer, if I'm not mistaken. Is there an opportunity to grow that business to other tenants? And how should we think about trends in that business?

Well, it's a tough business to forecast. There's little visibility beyond one quarter. Obviously, we index towards one carrier. I think our team, the lady who runs our business does a phenomenal job in terms of quality, speed of execution, and we think we are the best in the business. So to the extent that other carriers want to use our services, we're open to this. But obviously, we also are sensitive on margin. This is a lower-margin business. And we want to do quality business, first-class business, and we need to maintain some margin. So that's the threshold.

Maybe shifting to Central America and the recent deal with Millicom. Can you just provide an update on how that has been going? And how do you think about its contribution to LatAm growth later?

Yes. I think that was a very -- it took us a long time to get to the agreement with Millicom. But once again, it's a partnership, 15-year contract, all U.S. dollars. And we bought 7,000 towers, a commitment from them to give us 2,500 BTS and really attractive transaction for us and for them. Because obviously, we bought it for 11x. We're trading at 5x or 5.5x. So it's accretive for them accretive for us. And we have locked in a high single-digit growth rate in U.S. dollars for the next 15 years. So I think we like that transaction, and it's working very well. It's a very good relationship with Millicom. Our team have done a great job in the region, five countries in Central America. And the other thing we like about those markets, they have been fully consolidated already. There are no consolidation churn there. It's basically Millicom and Claro very stable.

Right. And I think Millicom also has some operations in South America. Would you be interested in expanding that relationship to other regions?

They have operation, but I don't believe that they own the towers in those other regions. So I don't see an M&A opportunity there.

Got it. And you mentioned churn has been sort of putting pressure on overall growth in LatAm. But can you talk a little bit about what you're seeing in terms of new leasing in maybe Brazil or some of the other regions?

Yes. So, first of all, I have 30-plus years of experience in Brazil now. And I think it's a fantastic country, largest market in Latin America, large population, high GDP per capita for an emerging market, huge exporter of oil, grain, commodities, minerals. So I think Brazil is the country of the future is going to -- Brazil is going to do very well over the long term. I think inflation was an issue last year. I think the Central Bank has done a phenomenal job getting inflation under control. I think it's below 5% now. Issues that interest -- short-term interest rate on over 14%. We're collecting close to 15% on a checking account in Brazil. So just mean that the cost of capital, the hurdle rate for building towers in Brazil is very high. So we really took down the number of sites we build in Brazil. We are extremely, I think, disciplined on the rate of return we see in Brazil. And I think our competitors have done the same thing. So now if you are an operator and you need a BTS in Brazil, it's -- I think we are having more constructive dialogue with the carriers there. The issue really is that Oi, that Oi wireline has gone bankrupt, is probably going to be liquidated at some point in the next few years and Oi wireless is being carved out to the other three operators. That's a lot of churn for us in '26, '25, '26 and a little bit in '27. But long term, 5G is less than 50% deployed. And I think given the growth in the economy, the growth in population, 5G should generate, I think, colos and lease-up for us in Brazil. So long term, I feel good about Brazil. The next two years will be challenged.

Right. In terms of the new lease-up opportunity, absent new BTS, do you have enough maybe capacity on your existing towers to benefit from...?

I believe so. We just need to do some -- I think just fortify the towers a little bit, but we have room.

Okay. And maybe shifting to Africa. How do you see the opportunity there?

With two markets in Africa, Tanzania, which is really a growth market, double-digit growth. The government is really pushing the operators to expand coverage. So we're building almost 200 sites in Africa this year. It's growth market doing very well. I mean there's a little bit of turmoil in the last month past election, but long term, we have been in the region for a while and very happy with Tanzania. I think it's going to do very well. And South Africa, I think if you look at return on invested capital, it's our best performing market outside of the U.S. and has done well until now. So it's -- once again, it's a growth area. I think it's -- there's still too many tower company in South Africa. At some point, it is going to consolidate. But so we're doing well in South Africa.

Right. And would you like to gain more scale in the region?

I don't think so. I think if you look at us now, 80% of our revenue, EBITDA are U.S. denominated. And I think that's probably the right mix. I don't see us expanding in emerging markets at this stage.

And maybe on the flip side, in the beginning of the year, you had mentioned that you will rationalize the portfolio. Are there still some opportunities to improve the U.S.-denominated revenue mix?

When Brendan Cavanagh became our CEO in January of 2024, first earnings call, I think we announced our portfolio optimization, which is always ongoing. And the goal was really to increase scale in every single market. And if we couldn't get scale, just exit. So we sold Argentina, we sold Colombia, we sold Philippines, and we exited Canada just because we have a few hundred towers that we couldn't get to scale. And right now, I think we like where we are. We operate subscale in three markets in Latin America, Ecuador, Chile, Peru, but we are harvesting those markets, building very few BTS, and we have staying power, very happy with the cash flow coming out. And the bulk of it is with Ecuador, which is in U.S. dollars. So there's no FX risk. So we're happy to keep those forever.

What about appetite to enter some new markets? Europe comes up a lot. There are -- you've looked at potentially some portfolios there. How do you think about the region?

Well, whenever a portfolio is for sale, anywhere in the world, you could assume that we sign an NDA and we take the towers. I think in Europe, it's a great place to visit. I love to do durations in Europe every month. But let's be honest, it's -- taxes are high. When you're a REIT and you pay no taxes that needs to be factored in. Two, most of the markets are still a four carrier market. SFR in France is probably going to get carved out to Bouygues, Orange and Free. We know that when the market goes from four to three, you have five years of churn on the tower. And if you're a private equity buyer, you factor that into your valuation and your IRR calculation. When you're a publicly traded company, even if you buy it at the right level, like every quarter, every year, you're going to report churn, you dilute your top line growth rate, it is very, very difficult. And so I think the U.K. going from four to three, France eventually, Italy is going to do the same thing. So it's really difficult for us to justify going into Europe just because of the low growth rate, the consolidation risk and the fact that it's taxable. Yes. So hopefully, there will be more portfolio for sale, so I could travel there, but, just kidding.

And you still think that the private versus public market differential is there.

Well, I think if you're a private equity owner, you could probably finance the debt at very low rate and you take a long-term view, we signed wireless is for 10 years, go through the consolidation churn over the next three or five years and then it's a more stable market, I take advantage of the growth and you sell it in 10 years, makes perfect sense. I think you could do very well as a private equity owner. As a publicly traded company, you may be stepping in front of a lot of churn that makes it very difficult as a public company to manage.

Got it. And as you look through your portfolio of assets, what kind of appetite do you have to enter some adjacent verticals?

I said at this stage, we are a tower company. I would say that the tower business after the Google search engine business is probably the best business that I know. So I think we're probably going to keep focusing on towers, yes.

Okay. And we talked a lot about like different parts of the business, putting it all together, and you did mention in the -- from the start how to think about AFFO growth. Maybe if you could just summarize how we should think about AFFO growth? How much of a pressure should we bake in for that -- just looking at '26 in terms of the incremental interest that you could have and the churn element of it? And then maybe stripping those apart, how do you think about the underlying growth?

I'm not going to talk about '26. We'll do that in February. But long term, I think you -- Brendan and I always talk about the 3 plus 3 minus 1, right? So in the U.S. 3% growth from the escalator, about 3% for lease-up and normalized churn, excluding Sprint, it's about 1%. So about mid-single-digit top line growth rate. And then through leverage, operating leverage, you probably get to mid- to high single-digit FFO per share growth. And, so right now, I think the other thing you haven't talked about is the move to investment grade. So, last July, S&P changed the methodology for tower company, given the fact that we have all moved to MLAs, long-term agreement with our customers. Our customers are all investment grade. They have revised the methodology and below 7 turns of leverage, you could be investment grade. So we are upgraded to investment grade at the corporate level. We have been running below 7 for the last three years. So for us, it's really a guess really and moving to investment grade, I think, makes sense given the fact that investment-grade bond now probably help us save about 75 basis points versus high-yield bond and financing in the ABS market versus the investment-grade market, investment grade prices slightly beyond ABS bond. So I think it makes total sense from a purely cost standpoint, cost of capital standpoint to go investment grade. And when the next, I think, cycle of very low interest rates comes, we'll have the opportunity to issue a 15-year bond, a 30-year bond and isolate ourselves from the interest rate cycle. So I think we feel pretty good about that.

Okay. And as you look at capital allocation, and you mentioned that upfront, what's the main priority right now in the near term?

The priority is creating value for the long term, shareholder value for the long term. So if there's attractive M&A like Millicom 11x U.S. dollars, high single-digit growth rate, 15-year contract, it's a no-brainer. Given the way our stock trades today, I think buyback is definitely very accretive. You've seen that as of the end of October, we spent $325 million in buying back our shares. Buying back share at this level, if you really believe that past those headwinds of churn, interest rates and the CapEx wave in two or three years, you're back in a higher growth rate environment, buying back share creates FFO per share accretion over the long term. So at this level, it's accretive.

That's great. Any final thoughts before we end?

No, I think I feel really bullish about the tower industry for the long term. I think we need to see past the next, I think, a year, 18 months, two years, but it has been a great business for the past 35 years. And I visited some of those sites and you look at these sites and you see, well, you'll never be able to replicate this because of the zoning law and so build up all around it and the population growth in the businesses and now fixed wireless access. You just know that whoever want those towers as basically, I think, a great mousetrap.

That's great. Thank you so much Marc.

Okay. Thank you for having me.