Color on Tower Prices

As previously reported, American Tower made two very big international acquisitions sector over the weekend. The company agreed to purchase ~6,480 towers from TIM Celular S.A. in two transactions, as well as agreed to acquire Bharti Airtel Limited’s ~4,800 towers in Nigeria. We reached out to Caleb Stein, an analyst at Wells Fargo, for some color on the valuations. The Brazilian tower transaction was 16.0x gross margin ($75 million) with AMT paying approximately $185,000 per tower totaling $1.2 billion at current foreign exchange rates. The Nigeria towers were ~16.7x EBITDA and other financial terms were not discussed. Stein reported that AMT noted it expects the expansion to contribute to its long-term goal of generating double digit AFFO (Adjusted Funds from Operations)/share growth for shareholders.