NEW YORK-Tower stocks are slightly down in value despite strong earnings reports from American Tower Corp. and Crown Castle International Corp. earlier this week.
Analysts from Raymond James & Associates Inc. point to Cingular Wireless L.L.C.’s suggestion yesterday that they would trim back on cell site deployment and capital expenditures following their merger with AT&T Wireless Services Inc.
Raymond James analysts point out, however, that if Cingular/AWS do cut back, other wireless carriers “will be licking chops as they are poised to make network quality a key differentiator.” Nextel, for example, said it expects cell-site deployment and capital expenditures to go up and is planning a three-year program to make its network a competitive advantage.
At press time, American Tower was trading down 3 percent at $11.08 per share, Crown was down slightly at $12 per share, SBA Communications Corp. was slightly down at $4.17 per share and SpectraSite Inc. was down 3 percent at $35.90.
Raymond James rates American Tower, Crown Castle and SpectraSite as Strong Buys. “Bottom line, we would be buyers of tower stocks here,” read today’s analyst note.
