AT&T looks to be the latest domestic operator attempting to raise some quick cash by selling off its tower assets. According to a Bloomberg report, the telecommunications giant is looking to unload between 10,000 and 11,000 towers for around $5 billion.
This is not the first time AT&T has been rumored to be looking at a potential towers sale, with The Wall Street Journal earlier this year reporting the company was interested in moving the assets.
“We’ve seen others in the industry sell non-core assets, and if we wanted additional flexibility, that could be an option for us, too,” AT&T spokeswoman McCall Butler said at that time in a statement to The Wall Street Journal. “The bottom line is we have attractive assets that could be a potential source of cash.”
The most recent report cites financial analyst Phil Cusick with JP Morgan as stating those towers currently provide more than $325 million in revenues generated by other companies paying for leases on the sites.
Potential suitors for the sites included the usual array of tower companies, though Wells Fargo Securities senior analyst Jennifer Fritzsche seemed to think Crown Castle International stood out as the most likely acquirer. Crown Castle last year acquired 7,200 towers from T-Mobile US for $2.4 billion. American Tower was seen as the leading bidder for those assets before Crown Castle swept in and sealed the deal.
Fritzsche noted that American Tower just recently announced plans to acquire smaller rival Global Tower Partners for $4.8 billion and Latin American operator NII Holdings’ towers for $811 million, thus driving up its current leverage.
While SBA Communications has also recently announced tower deals that have driven up its leverage ratio. SBA last year purchased 800 towers in Brazil for $174 million, as well as acquired fellow tower owner TowerCo for $1.45 billion.
As for what AT&T is looking to derive from selling the towers, many pointed to the company’s ongoing $14 billion Project Velocity IP network upgrade as well as recent rumors and comments from management about further international investments.
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