SBA Communications reports Q3 FFO $3.30, consensus $3.19

Reports Q3 revenue $732.3M, consensus $715.3M. “Today we are pleased to announce another positive quarter of financial and operating results,” commented Brendan Cavanagh, President and Chief Executive Officer. “Our carrier customers continued to invest meaningfully in the third quarter, leasing space on our sites as they expand and densify their networks. The results in our services business also reflected significant network investment, primarily from construction projects focused on network expansion. Internationally, we benefited from solid leasing demand, inflation-linked escalators and stronger foreign currency rates than previously assumed. In addition, we closed our Canadian tower sale in October, earlier than expected, and we completed the final closings of all of the remaining Central American sites purchased from Millicom, also in October. The timing of these events negatively impacted our updated full year outlook but represent another meaningful step in our portfolio review. Also, today we are officially revising our stated target leverage range to 6.0x to 7.0x net debt to LQA Adjusted EBITDA, although we have been operating within this range for nearly three years. This new target range will allow SBA to transition into an investment-grade Company, unlock access to the deepest debt market available, strengthen our balance sheet even further, and reduce borrowing costs over the long term, all while maintaining our ability to deploy capital towards acquisitions and share repurchases. Speaking of share repurchases, we were active during and subsequent to the third quarter, spending $194 million to repurchase and retire nearly a million shares. And lastly, we are very excited to announce our newly signed long-term master lease agreement with Verizon. We look forward to partnering with Verizon over the next decade to accelerate the rollout of next generation wireless services to their customers through their use of SBA’s vast portfolio to achieve their network advancement goals.”