AMT All Over the World

American Tower has been tied to a few major deals lately, and Jonathan Schildkraut of Evercore ISI noted how three major news items relate to the tower company. AT&T announced that they would invest $3 billion into its network in Mexico. “We estimate that AT&T’s potential build-out in Mexico could provide AMT with a 77bps annual boost to total revenues (for the next three years),” Schildkraut wrote. American Tower closed their newest tower deal on July 1 with Bharti Airtel, acquiring 4,700 tower sites in Nigeria. “In our post 1Q note, we expected the Airtel acquisition to be immediately accretive to AFFO per share in the $0.05 range, or 1.1% accretive to the implied mid-point of the AFFO per share guidance ($4.90),” Schildkraut explained. “For those expectations, we had assumed a May 31 close. Given the close was one month later, we expect a moderation of the accretiveness of the deal to 2015 numbers.” Finally, it looks like American Tower is considering investing in the Middle East. Bloomberg reported that American Tower might be interested in Etihad Etisalat Co. (Mobily), a Saudi Arabian mobile operator, and their tower portfolio. “TAP Advisors (whom also advised VZ in its tower sale) is advising Mobily and the towers could be worth ~$2 billion,” Schildkraut noted. “While AMT’s leverage is currently above its target zone given its recent transactions (VZ, Airtel, TIM), this deal underscores our belief that international tower portfolios exist and could drive future growth – just like AMT is seeing from recent leasing momentum in India and Ghana (+11% and 23%, respectively).”