SBA COMMUNICATIONS CORP — Call Transcript 2026

Good morning, everyone. My name is Benjamin Soff. I'm an equity analyst here at Deutsche Bank, and I'm very pleased to welcome Brendan Cavanagh, President and CEO, SBA Communications. Welcome, Brendan. Thanks. Nice to be here, Ben. Thanks. You reported Q4 earnings a couple weeks ago. Looking back to 2025, what were some of the highlights, and what are some of the key areas of focus for SBA in 2026? Yeah. Thanks. Well, we had a very solid 2025. A number of good things that happened, engaged with all of our customers who were busy investing in their networks. We saw pretty good organic leasing activity, both domestically and internationally. In particular, we signed a master lease agreement with Verizon late in the year, which we're very pleased with. A long-term agreement that we think is gonna drive meaningful contributions to our organic growth over the next decade. That was something we were excited about. In addition, we closed on over 7,000 towers that we acquired from Millicom in Central America, which improved our positioning in that market. We're in the midst of integrating those, and that was another great accomplishment during the year. The last thing is we finally got to the point where we had two rating agencies rate us investment grade late in the year. It marks a transition period, I think, for SBA in terms of our capital structure and profile. A lot of good things that happened. Seems like the U.S. carriers are entering the later stages of their initial 5G coverage build-outs, and you recently guided to steady levels of leasing this year. What type of activity are you seeing from your customers today, and how would you characterize the demand environment as we think about 2026? Yeah. We're starting to see, Each carrier in the U.S. is in a different place, slightly different place. We've had a very busy last couple of years with T-Mobile. They were focused on a number of things, including meeting regulatory obligations that they had for certain rural coverage, responsibilities associated with the original Sprint merger. That's kept them very busy. They still have some of that they're working on. In addition, fixed wireless access has been a major driver for them and for the industry as a whole, in terms of additional densification of the networks and frankly, expanding the presence out to handle the increased traffic that's driven by that. You've got AT&T, who's recently acquired some additional spectrum from EchoStar. They've been busy deploying that recently. Of course, I mentioned Verizon before, and the agreement we signed with them. We expect to see significant activity around the network going forward in this year from Verizon as they ramp up. They're focused on not only completing their mid-band C-band build-out, but readying themselves for the next phase of technology that we think will come with the new spectrum auctions that are on the horizon. As you mentioned, you signed a 10-year MLA with Verizon recently. Can you talk about the benefits of this deal and what it means for leasing activity in 2026? Yeah. As I mentioned before, we're very excited about this deal that we signed with Verizon. It's a 10-year deal, as mentioned. It includes a minimum number of new lease co-locations over the next ten years, that is at a level that is beyond what we have historically signed up with Verizon. In addition, it provides certainty for them around pricing, but it locks in the ability to monetize all activity associated with new upgrades and amendments at our site. That's a good element as well. It secures the agreements that we have in place in terms of limiting terminations, as well as extending terms on our existing agreements. Overall, we feel like we've locked in a very strong partnership with them for an extended period of time. Helping them meet their network needs and in exchange, they're giving us certainty around our relationship. It's a very good deal. Based on past commentary, it sounds like T-Mobile has been your most active customer recently. Can you talk a bit more about what you're seeing from them currently and what you think could drive further investment there going forward? Yeah. As I mentioned before, they have been our most active customer. We have seen them be active around things like the regulatory obligations that they had. I think the biggest driver is what I mentioned a moment ago around fixed wireless access. If you look at their growth in subscribers, and this applies, by the way, to Verizon as well, the primary and almost entire increase in subscriber growth is coming from fixed wireless customers. What's great about that is that the amount of consumption that affects the network through a fixed wireless subscriber is so much greater than the average mobile user. It's 15-20 times greater. It puts this additional stress and strain on the network, and it requires, frankly, more points of presence, greater densification of the network, and that's good for us because it leads to additional leasing opportunities. There are a handful of moving pieces driving churn in the U.S. this year. Sprint, DISH, UScellular. Can you help frame for investors what your exposure is to each of these situations and how you're thinking about churn overall in 2026? Yeah. We have had elevated churn over the last couple of years, mostly due to consolidation, specifically the Sprint legacy leases. When T-Mobile bought Sprint, obviously, you had a certain amount of overlap that existed in the network. We had fairly lengthy terms to the Sprint leases, and so we've just now gotten to the point where they're starting to hit the end of their terms and non-renewing, basically. This year, 2026, will be the last big year of Sprint churn, and I believe our outlook that we just recently provided at the midpoint was approximately $56 million of churn from Sprint. We will have less than $20 million of churn associated with Sprint left for all future years, and most of that will be next year. In addition, we had the event, which is somewhat of a rarity, with DISH, where they have shut down operations. They've obviously announced that they're selling their spectrum. They've sold, or at least entered into agreements to sell most of it thus far and are basically shutting down their operations as a standalone wireless network. Unfortunately, they've taken the position that they do not have to pay the remainder of their rents that are due, which we vehemently disagree with, and we'll see how that shakes out. Nonetheless, given the fact that they're not paying it and they're ultimately going away anyway, we've basically accelerated the churn associated with DISH. Every dollar of rent that we have with DISH, which is another $55 million or $56 million, we have recorded that as churn in 2026 as well. It was included in our recent guidance. You have these two fairly large items that stand out and are really somewhat one-time in nature. After this year, we will have most of that behind us. I feel like this is kind of the bottom in terms of churn, and we will see significant improvements going forward. The other one you mentioned is UScellular, which T-Mobile bought recently, and that we expect will actually go away over the course of time as the terms end. We have about $20 million of annual leasing revenue with UScellular. Even if all of it went away, I'm not sure that all of it actually will, but even if all of it went away, it would be spread over the next five years relatively evenly over that time period. The good news, now that we've talked about all this negative stuff, is that it's really behind us. We basically have had all the bad things that could happen have essentially happened here in the U.S. market, and we now have three very strong customers that are remaining. We have some additional opportunities, which maybe we'll get to in a moment, with some of the questions you'll ask on the road. I think we're gonna see an improvement starting as we get into next year and in particular, the years that follow on after that. Makes sense. Speaking of, one of the priorities in this administration has been trying to find new spectrum bands to put into use for wireless. How do you view the spectrum pipeline in the U.S., and what could that mean for tower leasing in the future? Yeah. Well, most of the time when you have waves or phases of growth for our business, it starts with spectrum. New spectrum that's come into play, that's in the hands of carriers that they need to get deployed, one, because they have obligations to deploy it, but more importantly because they need it to supplement the new growth in their networks, the new technologies that are being put online, and the amount of capacity that's growing or the capacity needs that they have that continue to grow. As we look forward, we're very pleased that the FCC's auction authority was returned to them. They have, under the recent bill that was passed, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, as it's called, was recently passed, required 800 megahertz of new spectrum to be auctioned, including 100 megahertz of upper C-band spectrum that will be auctioned by the middle of 2027 at the latest. All of that, I think, will be very, very good. In particular, they're looking at spectrum bands that are a little bit higher in frequency than we've traditionally seen in the traditional macro networks. In the 4.5-4.9 range as well as in the 7 GHz range. If those are the spectrum bands that are ultimately cleared and auctioned, they do not propagate as far, and that will require, again, greater densification in the network. I think it's gonna be very, very good for us, and it will be really the foundation for what will ultimately be 6G deployments coming, I think, around the turn of the decade. One of the questions investors have been asking recently is whether satellite broadband could end up competing with terrestrial wireless infrastructure or if it will mainly complement towers. How do you think about this question, and can you share any more detail on your rural tower footprint? Yeah. It's been said by many, including us, that we see satellite service in terms of Direct-to-Cell service as a complementary component to traditional terrestrial networks. We fully believe that, and all research that's been done by us and by others supports that. Because there are so many limitations in terms of what can be provided through satellite as opposed to a terrestrial network. The latency is much greater, the speeds are much slower, and as you start to have more and more traffic and the types of traffic that will come with some of the newer applications, particularly as you get into AI-infused applications, the ability to service that through a satellite is not as great as it is through a traditional macro-based network. Having said that, you don't have to take it from me. It was just recently reiterated at Mobile World Congress by SpaceX, who made it clear that it is complementary, and they are even talking about the potential of an MVNO type of relationship with incumbent carriers, where they would have the carriers there to support them through a traditional terrestrial network that would be hybrid with satellite to cover some of those white spaces that don't easily get covered today because they're just frankly not economical to cover. I think that's the way it's gonna play out. Although it was interesting that just after that, the CEO of T-Mobile mentioned at a conference that they weren't necessarily sure that they wanted to be an MVNO partner, and that could actually be the best of all worlds because if the satellite provider needs to move towards a hybrid solution, which they ultimately would if they wanna compete in that space, and they need to do it on their own as opposed to partnering with the carrier, that's an opportunity that has been untapped and would be a new customer potentially for our industry. Long way to go. We'll see how it plays out, but I actually think there may be more opportunity associated with satellite deployments than risk, which is a reversal of how people used to think about it. When we put all these factors together, how are you thinking about the organic growth outlook in the U.S. over the medium to long term? Well, we have the churn issues that we talked about before, and once we get beyond that sort of overhang, I think we will see ourselves returning to a more normal level of organic growth here in the US. Basically, that's somewhere in the 4-5% range in terms of U.S. leasing just from organic growth. That's basically made up of roughly 3% that we get from fixed escalators that are baked into our contracts today. 2-3% is the typical range for new leasing activity, meaning new leases, new co-locations, and new amendments. You have churn, which once we get beyond some of these outsized events, I would expect it to be closer to 1%. It's been typically in that 1-1.5% range, so somewhere in there. If you had 3 + 2 to 3 - 1, you're basically in a 4-5% range. I think that's a reasonable expectation for the next decade in terms of where we'll come out. Pivoting to your international business, where Brazil makes up the largest component, it sounds like you're pretty constructive on the fundamental outlook in that market. What are the main factors that get you excited about the tower business in Brazil? Well, you know, Brazil, it's interesting. In some ways, Brazil has gotten a bad rap, and I know why, but Brazil has actually performed very, very well for us. We've had pretty good lease up there, good organic growth. We have strong relationships with each of our carrier customers in the market. The challenge in Brazil has basically been two things. One, currency. The FX rate over the time that we've been in there has devalued, and as a result, it's been a headwind to our growth. Although we've seen that settle down, and in fact, it's been a little bit of a tailwind coming into this year. But that item has been one of those items that we've had to work to determine ways to kind of offset it. It's been a challenge because hedging is not cheap, but we've looked at other possible solutions to help mitigate that through some of the structuring that we've done. The other issue is that Oi, one of the large carriers in the market, has essentially been bought out by the other three carriers. It's been divvied up, and so we've had another churn type of situation due to consolidation, as well as their legacy wireline business, which has basically gone bankrupt. As we've had to go through that, it's kept churn elevated over the last year or two in Brazil. Similar to the US, I would expect that as we kind of move beyond that and the carriers are now competing heavily on network quality, you have a stronger market in terms of the health of the three carriers that are there. I think it's gonna actually continue to perform very well for us, and we think that we're gonna see accelerated growth going forward, especially as new spectrum ends up getting auctioned down there, which is soon. Do you have a sense for timing to get through that consolidation churn? Yeah. This year we've projected a lot of it. In fact, the Oi wireline churn, we've basically accelerated all of it into 2026 as well, so that will be behind us. We've worked out arrangements with two of the three carriers to help mitigate the impacts of the consolidation churn with Oi. There's one, Claro is the only one that we have not done any sort of agreement with. I would expect that over time, that would bleed in as well. I think this is kind of our peak in terms of churn in that market. You're now the largest tower operator in Central America after closing your deal with Millicom last year. What makes Central America an attractive tower market, and what did that acquisition unlock from a business standpoint? Yeah. There were a lot of things that were great about that deal. For those of you that aren't familiar with it, we bought over 7,000 towers from Millicom across Central America, five different countries in Central America. We already had a presence in Central America of roughly 3,000 or so towers. We now have today over 10,000 sites across the Central American region. There are a lot of great things about it. One, we've been operating there for a long time, so we're pretty well established in the market. We have good relationships already today with the customers. But what we recognized is that it was important to have scale, and this applies broadly to our international markets. It's important to have scale and to be relevant to the carriers in the market. By doing this acquisition, we positioned ourselves as by far the most dominant tower company in the region. In addition, it's critical that you have strong relationships with the leading carriers in the market. Millicom is the leading carrier, the number one carrier across most of these markets. So our relationship that we've now established with them is something that solidifies our position there. In addition, it opens up access to sites where they had a lead, frankly, in the market to the customers that are trailing. In particular, Claro, who is the second carrier in many of these markets, has expressed interest in many of these sites. We think the growth will be very good. The fundamentals of the deal itself were very, very strong. We paid a price that we felt was very accretive, around 11 times. We also have U.S. Dollar-denominated contracts across the region, so there's no FX risk at all. It's a 15-year lease back with Millicom, so a long-term arrangement with them. In addition, we entered into a build-to-suit agreement with Millicom to ensure that we can continue to grow our portfolio down there. They've committed to a minimum of 2,500 sites. We've started to ramp up our new builds. We started it last year, but it'll be particularly big this year as we get into the full flow of building sites across the region. A lot of good things about that deal. So far we're actually ahead of schedule. It's a limited amount of time, but actually it's performing better than we expected in terms of the lease-up already. I think it's gonna actually be quite a success. You've been conducting a review of your portfolio for a couple years now and have exited a handful of markets. Can you discuss the goals of this review and how it reflects your priorities as a company? Yeah. The goal in reviewing we reviewed each of our international markets and each of our business lines to basically figure out, okay, what does the future look like for these operations? Where are we gonna be five years from now, 10 years from now, realistically? What can we do to influence that in the most favorable way possible? In particular, when you look at the international markets where we are subscale, we recognize what I mentioned before in talking about Millicom, which is that you need to have scale and be relevant in these markets in order to have improved success for the carriers to even frankly engage with you. In addition, you need to be aligned with the stronger customers, the stronger operators in those markets. As we've looked at each of the markets where we operated, we had to make some decisions. Are we going to be able to achieve that or are we not? In the case of Central America, we determined that we could achieve it through the deal that we did with Millicom, and it changed the whole profile of our makeup there, and I think has put us in a much stronger position to generate outsized returns. On the other side of the coin, we had markets where we didn't see that possibility. In markets like the Philippines and Colombia, Argentina, and even Canada, we made the decision that it was better to exit, monetize what we had. In the case of Canada, we monetized it at a valuation that was much higher than where we trade. We felt that there were ways for us to be opportunistic. We have some remaining operations, both international markets and other businesses that we're in, that we're continuing through this process. There's no rush. There's no absolute timeline that we have to finish something by. We're gonna continue to go through that process with each operation and make sure that we're well set up for the future, and if we're not, then we would look to potentially exit. You recently updated your leverage target from 7-7.5 to now 6-7, and you were upgraded to investment grade by two major agencies, as you mentioned. I know you've already been operating at these lower levels, so what does this change in leverage target and the ratings upgrade mean for the company? Yeah. It signifies a transition in our maturity life cycle. In terms of actual operations, it's very limited in its impact. You just mentioned the fact that we've been operating there. We've been operating in this new target leverage range for the last three-plus years. There's no change in the way that we operate and the way we think about things. What it does though is it opens up for us the potential to access a new financing market that is frankly deeper than the markets that we've had available to us and should be slightly cheaper than even the secured debt that we've accessed in the ABS market traditionally. I would expect that will shift our positioning. What's great about it is that we're still at an adequate leverage level to allow us to continue to invest in the business. Because we produce so much cash flow and we typically grow our EBITDA year-over-year, we're increasing our leverage capacity naturally. If we keep our leverage the same, we'll have well over $1 billion to deploy into the business. Our priorities would be to invest that into new assets, ideally. If we don't see those opportunities because they're either too expensive or they're simply not available, we're more than happy to return capital to shareholders, and we've done that through the fastest-growing dividend in the industry, as well as through share buybacks. Last year alone, we bought back $500 million worth of shares, and it's very accretive. It's immediately accretive to shareholders, to our AFFO per share. Given where we've been trading, which frankly we believe is below intrinsic value, there's an opportunity set there that exists for us, that doesn't exist for some of the private companies, and so we're taking advantage of that. How do you view the M&A environment at this point, and what types of assets and markets might be interesting? Well, the M&A environment, it's really a tale of two stories or a tale of two cities. I messed up my analogy. It's the U.S. market where you've got a limited amount of opportunities. The supply and demand is a little bit imbalanced. There's a lot of demand for tower assets in the U.S. There's a lot of private money that is chasing those assets. Because there's not that many available, the valuations are very, very high. In many cases, while we participate in every deal that comes to market, we've not seen our way clear to be successful in winning a lot of those. There are a few here and there, but for the most part, the price points have just been at levels that we found to be way too dilutive. Again, when you're comparing that against the alternative of buying your own stock back, and it's valued substantially lower, sometimes less than half the value of these assets that are trading in the private market, it's hard not to go that direction. Our preference would be to continue to grow our portfolio because I think we're one of the best operators of these assets, and we can extract the most value. That's what we'd like to do, but we're gonna be disciplined about what we spend. That's the U.S. market. I do think ultimately that should shift, and we've already seen a little bit of a shift. I think some participants have found that their returns have not met the threshold that they've assumed when they went into it, and that's maybe caused a little bit of softening, but not enough yet to make a material difference. Internationally, it's a different story. We've definitely seen a softening in values. There's a lot of assets that are available to purchase, and we are exploring all of those. We're able to be selective. I still think there's a little bit of a disconnect between buyers and sellers on appropriate valuation. You've seen very few deals actually get done. They haven't necessarily happened at low enough prices. They've definitely come down in prices. What's happened is you basically have seen a quieting of the entire ecosystem out there. That will only last for so long. We've tried to be opportunistic. The Millicom acquisition is an example of that. There have been some other smaller deals. We're mostly focused on markets where we currently have a presence, and seeing if there are ways to supplement the portfolios that we already have to improve our positioning. In terms of other markets, we look at other markets all the time, but we're gonna be very selective. We're gonna have to see a lot of things line up in terms of the profile of that market going forward, the risks, frankly, of consolidation. You know, one of the issues internationally has been consolidation, like it was here in the U.S. In places like Central America, that we've seen most of that already happen. Now we're beyond it, and it gives us a good runway going forward. As we look at new markets, we evaluate that, as well. Can you remind us what you're guiding to for AFFO per share growth in 2026, and maybe highlight the important moving pieces to get to that outlook? Yeah. Well, it's actually not growth in 2026 over last year. It's actually a decline. We're basically guiding to roughly around the middle of our range that we've given in our outlook, a little over $12 a share for this year. It's been weighed down because of the churn items that we mentioned before, taking the DISH churn forward, taking the Oi churn forward, and the last big year of Sprint, in addition to financing headwinds. Those are really the two issues. Otherwise, operationally, we're doing fine, and I would expect we'll continue to grow. Our AFFO per share, excluding financing headwinds, will grow high single digits as we get into 2028, 2029. Financing is really the big overhang for us. We had a lot of success with the financings that we put in place over the years. I believe our next three maturities, including the one that just matured in January, all had a one handle on the coupon. You can imagine, as you go to refinance that debt today, it's closer to 5% or 5%+. That's a big difference, when you're talking about $ multiple billions of refinancing. That's where we are in the cycle. We would love to see interest rates come down a little bit quicker, and hopefully we will see that take place. Nonetheless, we'll have to deal with those refinancings, and it will slow the growth. We'll still see growth in AFFO per share. I just think once we get beyond the financing, you'll see it return to the levels it's historically been at. Going back to the U.S. market, it sounds like you're expecting the carriers to start doing some equipment upgrades for certain established spectrum bands. In your view, what are the factors that drive an equipment upgrade cycle, and what does that mean for leasing activity? Well, yeah. The carriers today are sitting on spectrum in some cases that they've not fully deployed, and that has been a driver of some of our organic leasing. We've obviously had the C-band spectrum that's been rolled out by Verizon and AT&T. Verizon is a little further along than AT&T. AT&T's probably upgraded roughly 60% of SBA's sites or leases that they have with us, so there's still some runway for that. T-Mobile, interestingly enough, owns a swath of C-band spectrum as well, and they've not deployed any of it at all. I think that will be a potential driver of additional upgrade activity. Beyond that, the spectrum auctions that we talked about earlier will be a driver, I think, as we move later, the next several years and particularly into the next decade, and will be an underlying factor for 6G. What I really mean by that when we talk about 6G, not everything has been fully defined yet, but 6G will be, in my view, sort of defined by that AI-infused applications, right? Not only will AI affect the way that networks are deployed and the way that they're monitored and managed, it will also obviously affect the way end users are using their devices and using the wireless networks. As that happens, you will see a shift. Today, you have roughly 80% of the traffic over the wireless network is downlink, 20% is uplink. As you move to more of these AI-oriented applications, you'll see a shift towards a greater evening out of that. I think it'll move more towards 50/50 uplink versus downlink. What that means for us is that there's a need for additional equipment at the site, more Massive MIMO antennas or Extreme MIMO antennas, X MIMO antennas, additional radios, different frequency bands so you'll have more FDD type of deployment that allows for a greater definition of uplink and downlink traffic. As that happens, it requires changes at the tower sites. New equipment is being developed today that will be deployed at our sites. We'll have to make changes across the existing footprints that our carrier customers have with us, and that will be a huge driver. That's all predicated on new spectrum being available in order to roll out those new applications. Maybe just to wrap up, you mentioned 6G. The industry is starting to talk about it. Seems a little early to me, but there you go. A little early. You gotta be ahead of the game though, Ben. That's right. Do you have any initial thoughts on what spectrum could get used for 6G and when you'd expect that activity to start picking up more meaningfully? Well, I think it will certainly be the spectrum, at least initially. It will certainly be the spectrum that's been talked about as part of this 800 MHz that's gonna be auctioned off over the next couple of years. We talked about some of those bands earlier, the 4.5-4.9, some of the 7 GHz band spectrum that's being evaluated. We'll have to see what it actually is because a lot of that is being reviewed today. It will have to be cleared. There's some, you know, interdepartmental struggles that take place around that in the government between the DoD and the FAA and others as to what is the appropriate band of spectrum to make available. All that will get worked out. I think one thing that's clear, and it's not a partisan issue, it's bipartisan, is that we need to be a leader when it comes to 6G. I think there's a sense that perhaps we were not the leader that we should have been as it related to 5G relative to the Chinese. I think, as a result, you're gonna see a commitment to doing whatever can be done in order to unleash the American leadership in that space. Ultimately, that's great for us because we're a fundamental component of supporting the development of all those new networks. All right. Thanks, Brendan. Yeah. Thank you, Ben. Appreciate it. Thanks for hosting us. Thank you.

Speaker 1: Good morning, everyone. My name is Benjamin Soff. I'm an equity analyst here at Deutsche Bank, and I'm very pleased to welcome Brendan Cavanagh, President and CEO, SBA Communications. Welcome, Brendan. Good morning, everyone. good morning everyone My name is Benjamin Soff. my name is benjamin soff I'm an equity analyst here at Deutsche Bank, and I'm very pleased to welcome Brendan Cavanagh, President and CEO, SBA Communications. i'm an equity analyst here at deutsche bank and i'm very pleased to welcome brendan cavanagh president and ceo, sba communications Welcome, Brendan. welcome brendan

Speaker 2: Thanks. Nice to be here, Ben. Thanks. Thanks. thanks Nice to be here, Ben. nice to be here ben Thanks. thanks

Speaker 1: You reported Q4 earnings a couple weeks ago. Looking back to 2025, what were some of the highlights, and what are some of the key areas of focus for SBA in 2026? You reported Q4 earnings a couple weeks ago. you reported q4 earnings a couple weeks ago Looking back to 2025, what were some of the highlights, and what are some of the key areas of focus for SBA in 2026? looking back to 2025 what were some of the highlights and what are some of the key areas of focus for sba in 2026

Speaker 2: Yeah. Thanks. Well, we had a very solid 2025. A number of good things that happened, engaged with all of our customers who were busy investing in their networks. We saw pretty good organic leasing activity, both domestically and internationally. In particular, we signed a master lease agreement with Verizon late in the year, which we're very pleased with. A long-term agreement that we think is gonna drive meaningful contributions to our organic growth over the next decade. That was something we were excited about. In addition, we closed on over 7,000 towers that we acquired from Millicom in Central America, which improved our positioning in that market. We're in the midst of integrating those, and that was another great accomplishment during the year. Yeah. yeah Thanks. thanks Well, we had a very solid 2025. well we had a very solid 2025 A number of good things that happened, engaged with all of our customers who were busy investing in their networks. a number of good things that happened engaged with all of our customers who were busy investing in their networks We saw pretty good organic leasing activity, both domestically and internationally. we saw pretty good organic leasing activity both domestically and internationally In particular, we signed a master lease agreement with Verizon late in the year, which we're very pleased with. in particular we signed a master lease agreement with verizon late in the year which we're very pleased with A long-term agreement that we think is gonna drive meaningful contributions to our organic growth over the next decade. a long-term agreement that we think is gonna drive meaningful contributions to our organic growth over the next decade That was something we were excited about. that was something we were excited about In addition, we closed on over 7,000 towers that we acquired from Millicom in Central America, which improved our positioning in that market. in addition we closed on over 7,000 towers that we acquired from millicom in central america which improved our positioning in that market We're in the midst of integrating those, and that was another great accomplishment during the year. we're in the midst of integrating those and that was another great accomplishment during the year The last thing is we finally got to the point where we had two rating agencies rate us investment grade late in the year. It marks a transition period, I think, for SBA in terms of our capital structure and profile. A lot of good things that happened. The last thing is we finally got to the point where we had two rating agencies rate us investment grade late in the year. the last thing is we finally got to the point where we had two rating agencies rate us investment grade late in the year It marks a transition period, I think, for SBA in terms of our capital structure and profile. it marks a transition period i think for sba in terms of our capital structure and profile A lot of good things that happened. a lot of good things that happened

Speaker 1: Seems like the U.S. carriers are entering the later stages of their initial 5G coverage build-outs, and you recently guided to steady levels of leasing this year. What type of activity are you seeing from your customers today, and how would you characterize the demand environment as we think about 2026? Seems like the U.S. carriers are entering the later stages of their initial 5G coverage build-outs, and you recently guided to steady levels of leasing this year. seems like the u.s carriers are entering the later stages of their initial 5g coverage build-outs and you recently guided to steady levels of leasing this year What type of activity are you seeing from your customers today, and how would you characterize the demand environment as we think about 2026? what type of activity are you seeing from your customers today and how would you characterize the demand environment as we think about 2026

Speaker 2: Yeah. We're starting to see, Each carrier in the U.S. is in a different place, slightly different place. We've had a very busy last couple of years with T-Mobile. They were focused on a number of things, including meeting regulatory obligations that they had for certain rural coverage, responsibilities associated with the original Sprint merger. That's kept them very busy. They still have some of that they're working on. In addition, fixed wireless access has been a major driver for them and for the industry as a whole, in terms of additional densification of the networks and frankly, expanding the presence out to handle the increased traffic that's driven by that. You've got AT&T, who's recently acquired some additional spectrum from EchoStar. They've been busy deploying that recently. Yeah. yeah We're starting to see, Each carrier in the U.S. is in a different place, slightly different place. we're starting to see each carrier in the u.s is in a different place slightly different place We've had a very busy last couple of years with T-Mobile. we've had a very busy last couple of years with t-mobile They were focused on a number of things, including meeting regulatory obligations that they had for certain rural coverage, responsibilities associated with the original Sprint merger. they were focused on a number of things including meeting regulatory obligations that they had for certain rural coverage responsibilities associated with the original sprint merger That's kept them very busy. that's kept them very busy They still have some of that they're working on. they still have some of that they're working on In addition, fixed wireless access has been a major driver for them and for the industry as a whole, in terms of additional densification of the networks and frankly, expanding the presence out to handle the increased traffic that's driven by that. in addition fixed wireless access has been a major driver for them and for the industry as a whole in terms of additional densification of the networks and frankly expanding the presence out to handle the increased traffic that's driven by that You've got AT&T, who's recently acquired some additional spectrum from EchoStar. you've got at&t who's recently acquired some additional spectrum from echostar They've been busy deploying that recently. they've been busy deploying that recently Of course, I mentioned Verizon before, and the agreement we signed with them. We expect to see significant activity around the network going forward in this year from Verizon as they ramp up. They're focused on not only completing their mid-band C-band build-out, but readying themselves for the next phase of technology that we think will come with the new spectrum auctions that are on the horizon. Of course, I mentioned Verizon before, and the agreement we signed with them. of course i mentioned verizon before and the agreement we signed with them We expect to see significant activity around the network going forward in this year from Verizon as they ramp up. we expect to see significant activity around the network going forward in this year from verizon as they ramp up They're focused on not only completing their mid-band C-band build-out, but readying themselves for the next phase of technology that we think will come with the new spectrum auctions that are on the horizon. they're focused on not only completing their mid-band c-band build-out but readying themselves for the next phase of technology that we think will come with the new spectrum auctions that are on the horizon

Speaker 1: As you mentioned, you signed a 10-year MLA with Verizon recently. Can you talk about the benefits of this deal and what it means for leasing activity in 2026? As you mentioned, you signed a 10-year MLA with Verizon recently. as you mentioned you signed a 10-year mla with verizon recently Can you talk about the benefits of this deal and what it means for leasing activity in 2026? can you talk about the benefits of this deal and what it means for leasing activity in 2026

Speaker 2: Yeah. As I mentioned before, we're very excited about this deal that we signed with Verizon. It's a 10-year deal, as mentioned. It includes a minimum number of new lease co-locations over the next ten years, that is at a level that is beyond what we have historically signed up with Verizon. In addition, it provides certainty for them around pricing, but it locks in the ability to monetize all activity associated with new upgrades and amendments at our site. That's a good element as well. It secures the agreements that we have in place in terms of limiting terminations, as well as extending terms on our existing agreements. Overall, we feel like we've locked in a very strong partnership with them for an extended period of time. Yeah. yeah As I mentioned before, we're very excited about this deal that we signed with Verizon. as i mentioned before we're very excited about this deal that we signed with verizon It's a 10-year deal, as mentioned. it's a 10-year deal as mentioned It includes a minimum number of new lease co-locations over the next ten years, that is at a level that is beyond what we have historically signed up with Verizon. it includes a minimum number of new lease co-locations over the next ten years that is at a level that is beyond what we have historically signed up with verizon In addition, it provides certainty for them around pricing, but it locks in the ability to monetize all activity associated with new upgrades and amendments at our site. in addition it provides certainty for them around pricing but it locks in the ability to monetize all activity associated with new upgrades and amendments at our site That's a good element as well. that's a good element as well It secures the agreements that we have in place in terms of limiting terminations, as well as extending terms on our existing agreements. it secures the agreements that we have in place in terms of limiting terminations as well as extending terms on our existing agreements Overall, we feel like we've locked in a very strong partnership with them for an extended period of time. overall we feel like we've locked in a very strong partnership with them for an extended period of time Helping them meet their network needs and in exchange, they're giving us certainty around our relationship. It's a very good deal. Helping them meet their network needs and in exchange, they're giving us certainty around our relationship. helping them meet their network needs and in exchange they're giving us certainty around our relationship It's a very good deal. it's a very good deal

Speaker 1: Based on past commentary, it sounds like T-Mobile has been your most active customer recently. Can you talk a bit more about what you're seeing from them currently and what you think could drive further investment there going forward? Based on past commentary, it sounds like T-Mobile has been your most active customer recently. based on past commentary it sounds like t-mobile has been your most active customer recently Can you talk a bit more about what you're seeing from them currently and what you think could drive further investment there going forward? can you talk a bit more about what you're seeing from them currently and what you think could drive further investment there going forward

Speaker 2: Yeah. As I mentioned before, they have been our most active customer. We have seen them be active around things like the regulatory obligations that they had. I think the biggest driver is what I mentioned a moment ago around fixed wireless access. If you look at their growth in subscribers, and this applies, by the way, to Verizon as well, the primary and almost entire increase in subscriber growth is coming from fixed wireless customers. What's great about that is that the amount of consumption that affects the network through a fixed wireless subscriber is so much greater than the average mobile user. It's 15-20 times greater. Yeah. yeah As I mentioned before, they have been our most active customer. as i mentioned before they have been our most active customer We have seen them be active around things like the regulatory obligations that they had. we have seen them be active around things like the regulatory obligations that they had I think the biggest driver is what I mentioned a moment ago around fixed wireless access. i think the biggest driver is what i mentioned a moment ago around fixed wireless access If you look at their growth in subscribers, and this applies, by the way, to Verizon as well, the primary and almost entire increase in subscriber growth is coming from fixed wireless customers. if you look at their growth in subscribers and this applies by the way to verizon as well the primary and almost entire increase in subscriber growth is coming from fixed wireless customers What's great about that is that the amount of consumption that affects the network through a fixed wireless subscriber is so much greater than the average mobile user. what's great about that is that the amount of consumption that affects the network through a fixed wireless subscriber is so much greater than the average mobile user It's 15-20 times greater. it's 15-20 times greater It puts this additional stress and strain on the network, and it requires, frankly, more points of presence, greater densification of the network, and that's good for us because it leads to additional leasing opportunities. It puts this additional stress and strain on the network, and it requires, frankly, more points of presence, greater densification of the network, and that's good for us because it leads to additional leasing opportunities. it puts this additional stress and strain on the network and it requires frankly more points of presence greater densification of the network and that's good for us because it leads to additional leasing opportunities

Speaker 1: There are a handful of moving pieces driving churn in the U.S. this year. Sprint, DISH, UScellular. Can you help frame for investors what your exposure is to each of these situations and how you're thinking about churn overall in 2026? There are a handful of moving pieces driving churn in the U.S. this year. there are a handful of moving pieces driving churn in the u.s this year Sprint, DISH, UScellular. sprint dish uscellular Can you help frame for investors what your exposure is to each of these situations and how you're thinking about churn overall in 2026? can you help frame for investors what your exposure is to each of these situations and how you're thinking about churn overall in 2026

Speaker 2: Yeah. We have had elevated churn over the last couple of years, mostly due to consolidation, specifically the Sprint legacy leases. When T-Mobile bought Sprint, obviously, you had a certain amount of overlap that existed in the network. We had fairly lengthy terms to the Sprint leases, and so we've just now gotten to the point where they're starting to hit the end of their terms and non-renewing, basically. This year, 2026, will be the last big year of Sprint churn, and I believe our outlook that we just recently provided at the midpoint was approximately $56 million of churn from Sprint. We will have less than $20 million of churn associated with Sprint left for all future years, and most of that will be next year. Yeah. yeah We have had elevated churn over the last couple of years, mostly due to consolidation, specifically the Sprint legacy leases. we have had elevated churn over the last couple of years mostly due to consolidation specifically the sprint legacy leases When T-Mobile bought Sprint, obviously, you had a certain amount of overlap that existed in the network. when t-mobile bought sprint obviously you had a certain amount of overlap that existed in the network We had fairly lengthy terms to the Sprint leases, and so we've just now gotten to the point where they're starting to hit the end of their terms and non-renewing, basically. we had fairly lengthy terms to the sprint leases and so we've just now gotten to the point where they're starting to hit the end of their terms and non-renewing basically This year, 2026, will be the last big year of Sprint churn, and I believe our outlook that we just recently provided at the midpoint was approximately $56 million of churn from Sprint. We will have less than $20 million of churn associated with Sprint left for all future years, and most of that will be next year. this year 2026 will be the last big year of sprint churn and i believe our outlook that we just recently provided at the midpoint was approximately $56 million of churn from sprint. we will have less than $20 million of churn associated with sprint left for all future years and most of that will be next year In addition, we had the event, which is somewhat of a rarity, with DISH, where they have shut down operations. They've obviously announced that they're selling their spectrum. They've sold, or at least entered into agreements to sell most of it thus far and are basically shutting down their operations as a standalone wireless network. Unfortunately, they've taken the position that they do not have to pay the remainder of their rents that are due, which we vehemently disagree with, and we'll see how that shakes out. Nonetheless, given the fact that they're not paying it and they're ultimately going away anyway, we've basically accelerated the churn associated with DISH. Every dollar of rent that we have with DISH, which is another $55 million or $56 million, we have recorded that as churn in 2026 as well. In addition, we had the event, which is somewhat of a rarity, with DISH, where they have shut down operations. in addition we had the event which is somewhat of a rarity with dish where they have shut down operations They've obviously announced that they're selling their spectrum. they've obviously announced that they're selling their spectrum They've sold, or at least entered into agreements to sell most of it thus far and are basically shutting down their operations as a standalone wireless network. they've sold or at least entered into agreements to sell most of it thus far and are basically shutting down their operations as a standalone wireless network Unfortunately, they've taken the position that they do not have to pay the remainder of their rents that are due, which we vehemently disagree with, and we'll see how that shakes out. unfortunately they've taken the position that they do not have to pay the remainder of their rents that are due which we vehemently disagree with and we'll see how that shakes out Nonetheless, given the fact that they're not paying it and they're ultimately going away anyway, we've basically accelerated the churn associated with DISH. nonetheless given the fact that they're not paying it and they're ultimately going away anyway we've basically accelerated the churn associated with dish Every dollar of rent that we have with DISH, which is another $55 million or $56 million, we have recorded that as churn in 2026 as well. every dollar of rent that we have with dish which is another $55 million or $56 million we have recorded that as churn in 2026 as well It was included in our recent guidance. You have these two fairly large items that stand out and are really somewhat one-time in nature. After this year, we will have most of that behind us. I feel like this is kind of the bottom in terms of churn, and we will see significant improvements going forward. The other one you mentioned is UScellular, which T-Mobile bought recently, and that we expect will actually go away over the course of time as the terms end. We have about $20 million of annual leasing revenue with UScellular. Even if all of it went away, I'm not sure that all of it actually will, but even if all of it went away, it would be spread over the next five years relatively evenly over that time period. It was included in our recent guidance. it was included in our recent guidance You have these two fairly large items that stand out and are really somewhat one-time in nature. you have these two fairly large items that stand out and are really somewhat one-time in nature After this year, we will have most of that behind us. after this year we will have most of that behind us I feel like this is kind of the bottom in terms of churn, and we will see significant improvements going forward. i feel like this is kind of the bottom in terms of churn and we will see significant improvements going forward The other one you mentioned is UScellular, which T-Mobile bought recently, and that we expect will actually go away over the course of time as the terms end. the other one you mentioned is uscellular which t-mobile bought recently and that we expect will actually go away over the course of time as the terms end We have about $20 million of annual leasing revenue with UScellular. we have about $20 million of annual leasing revenue with uscellular Even if all of it went away, I'm not sure that all of it actually will, but even if all of it went away, it would be spread over the next five years relatively evenly over that time period. even if all of it went away i'm not sure that all of it actually will but even if all of it went away it would be spread over the next five years relatively evenly over that time period The good news, now that we've talked about all this negative stuff, is that it's really behind us. We basically have had all the bad things that could happen have essentially happened here in the U.S. market, and we now have three very strong customers that are remaining. We have some additional opportunities, which maybe we'll get to in a moment, with some of the questions you'll ask on the road. I think we're gonna see an improvement starting as we get into next year and in particular, the years that follow on after that. The good news, now that we've talked about all this negative stuff, is that it's really behind us. the good news now that we've talked about all this negative stuff is that it's really behind us We basically have had all the bad things that could happen have essentially happened here in the U.S. market, and we now have three very strong customers that are remaining. we basically have had all the bad things that could happen have essentially happened here in the u.s market and we now have three very strong customers that are remaining We have some additional opportunities, which maybe we'll get to in a moment, with some of the questions you'll ask on the road. we have some additional opportunities which maybe we'll get to in a moment with some of the questions you'll ask on the road I think we're gonna see an improvement starting as we get into next year and in particular, the years that follow on after that. i think we're gonna see an improvement starting as we get into next year and in particular the years that follow on after that

Speaker 1: Makes sense. Speaking of, one of the priorities in this administration has been trying to find new spectrum bands to put into use for wireless. How do you view the spectrum pipeline in the U.S., and what could that mean for tower leasing in the future? Makes sense. makes sense Speaking of, one of the priorities in this administration has been trying to find new spectrum bands to put into use for wireless. speaking of one of the priorities in this administration has been trying to find new spectrum bands to put into use for wireless How do you view the spectrum pipeline in the U.S., and what could that mean for tower leasing in the future? how do you view the spectrum pipeline in the u.s and what could that mean for tower leasing in the future

Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, most of the time when you have waves or phases of growth for our business, it starts with spectrum. New spectrum that's come into play, that's in the hands of carriers that they need to get deployed, one, because they have obligations to deploy it, but more importantly because they need it to supplement the new growth in their networks, the new technologies that are being put online, and the amount of capacity that's growing or the capacity needs that they have that continue to grow. As we look forward, we're very pleased that the FCC's auction authority was returned to them. Yeah. yeah Well, most of the time when you have waves or phases of growth for our business, it starts with spectrum. well most of the time when you have waves or phases of growth for our business it starts with spectrum New spectrum that's come into play, that's in the hands of carriers that they need to get deployed, one, because they have obligations to deploy it, but more importantly because they need it to supplement the new growth in their networks, the new technologies that are being put online, and the amount of capacity that's growing or the capacity needs that they have that continue to grow. new spectrum that's come into play that's in the hands of carriers that they need to get deployed one because they have obligations to deploy it but more importantly because they need it to supplement the new growth in their networks the new technologies that are being put online and the amount of capacity that's growing or the capacity needs that they have that continue to grow As we look forward, we're very pleased that the FCC's auction authority was returned to them. as we look forward we're very pleased that the fcc's auction authority was returned to them They have, under the recent bill that was passed, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, as it's called, was recently passed, required 800 megahertz of new spectrum to be auctioned, including 100 megahertz of upper C-band spectrum that will be auctioned by the middle of 2027 at the latest. All of that, I think, will be very, very good. In particular, they're looking at spectrum bands that are a little bit higher in frequency than we've traditionally seen in the traditional macro networks. In the 4.5-4.9 range as well as in the 7 GHz range. If those are the spectrum bands that are ultimately cleared and auctioned, they do not propagate as far, and that will require, again, greater densification in the network. They have, under the recent bill that was passed, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, as it's called, was recently passed, required 800 megahertz of new spectrum to be auctioned, including 100 megahertz of upper C-band spectrum that will be auctioned by the middle of 2027 at the latest. they have under the recent bill that was passed the one big beautiful bill act as it's called was recently passed required 800 megahertz of new spectrum to be auctioned including 100 megahertz of upper c-band spectrum that will be auctioned by the middle of 2027 at the latest All of that, I think, will be very, very good. all of that i think will be very very good In particular, they're looking at spectrum bands that are a little bit higher in frequency than we've traditionally seen in the traditional macro networks. in particular they're looking at spectrum bands that are a little bit higher in frequency than we've traditionally seen in the traditional macro networks In the 4.5-4.9 range as well as in the 7 GHz range. in the 4.5-4.9 range as well as in the 7 ghz range If those are the spectrum bands that are ultimately cleared and auctioned, they do not propagate as far, and that will require, again, greater densification in the network. if those are the spectrum bands that are ultimately cleared and auctioned they do not propagate as far and that will require again greater densification in the network I think it's gonna be very, very good for us, and it will be really the foundation for what will ultimately be 6G deployments coming, I think, around the turn of the decade. I think it's gonna be very, very good for us, and it will be really the foundation for what will ultimately be 6G deployments coming, I think, around the turn of the decade. i think it's gonna be very very good for us and it will be really the foundation for what will ultimately be 6g deployments coming i think around the turn of the decade

Speaker 1: One of the questions investors have been asking recently is whether satellite broadband could end up competing with terrestrial wireless infrastructure or if it will mainly complement towers. How do you think about this question, and can you share any more detail on your rural tower footprint? One of the questions investors have been asking recently is whether satellite broadband could end up competing with terrestrial wireless infrastructure or if it will mainly complement towers. one of the questions investors have been asking recently is whether satellite broadband could end up competing with terrestrial wireless infrastructure or if it will mainly complement towers How do you think about this question, and can you share any more detail on your rural tower footprint? how do you think about this question and can you share any more detail on your rural tower footprint

Speaker 2: Yeah. It's been said by many, including us, that we see satellite service in terms of Direct-to-Cell service as a complementary component to traditional terrestrial networks. We fully believe that, and all research that's been done by us and by others supports that. Because there are so many limitations in terms of what can be provided through satellite as opposed to a terrestrial network. The latency is much greater, the speeds are much slower, and as you start to have more and more traffic and the types of traffic that will come with some of the newer applications, particularly as you get into AI-infused applications, the ability to service that through a satellite is not as great as it is through a traditional macro-based network. Having said that, you don't have to take it from me. Yeah. yeah It's been said by many, including us, that we see satellite service in terms of Direct-to-Cell service as a complementary component to traditional terrestrial networks. it's been said by many including us that we see satellite service in terms of direct-to-cell service as a complementary component to traditional terrestrial networks We fully believe that, and all research that's been done by us and by others supports that. we fully believe that and all research that's been done by us and by others supports that Because there are so many limitations in terms of what can be provided through satellite as opposed to a terrestrial network. because there are so many limitations in terms of what can be provided through satellite as opposed to a terrestrial network The latency is much greater, the speeds are much slower, and as you start to have more and more traffic and the types of traffic that will come with some of the newer applications, particularly as you get into AI-infused applications, the ability to service that through a satellite is not as great as it is through a traditional macro-based network. the latency is much greater the speeds are much slower and as you start to have more and more traffic and the types of traffic that will come with some of the newer applications particularly as you get into ai-infused applications the ability to service that through a satellite is not as great as it is through a traditional macro-based network Having said that, you don't have to take it from me. having said that you don't have to take it from me It was just recently reiterated at Mobile World Congress by SpaceX, who made it clear that it is complementary, and they are even talking about the potential of an MVNO type of relationship with incumbent carriers, where they would have the carriers there to support them through a traditional terrestrial network that would be hybrid with satellite to cover some of those white spaces that don't easily get covered today because they're just frankly not economical to cover. I think that's the way it's gonna play out. It was just recently reiterated at Mobile World Congress by SpaceX, who made it clear that it is complementary, and they are even talking about the potential of an MVNO type of relationship with incumbent carriers, where they would have the carriers there to support them through a traditional terrestrial network that would be hybrid with satellite to cover some of those white spaces that don't easily get covered today because they're just frankly not economical to cover. it was just recently reiterated at mobile world congress by spacex who made it clear that it is complementary and they are even talking about the potential of an mvno type of relationship with incumbent carriers where they would have the carriers there to support them through a traditional terrestrial network that would be hybrid with satellite to cover some of those white spaces that don't easily get covered today because they're just frankly not economical to cover I think that's the way it's gonna play out. i think that's the way it's gonna play out Although it was interesting that just after that, the CEO of T-Mobile mentioned at a conference that they weren't necessarily sure that they wanted to be an MVNO partner, and that could actually be the best of all worlds because if the satellite provider needs to move towards a hybrid solution, which they ultimately would if they wanna compete in that space, and they need to do it on their own as opposed to partnering with the carrier, that's an opportunity that has been untapped and would be a new customer potentially for our industry. Long way to go. We'll see how it plays out, but I actually think there may be more opportunity associated with satellite deployments than risk, which is a reversal of how people used to think about it. Although it was interesting that just after that, the CEO of T-Mobile mentioned at a conference that they weren't necessarily sure that they wanted to be an MVNO partner, and that could actually be the best of all worlds because if the satellite provider needs to move towards a hybrid solution, which they ultimately would if they wanna compete in that space, and they need to do it on their own as opposed to partnering with the carrier, that's an opportunity that has been untapped and would be a new customer potentially for our industry. although it was interesting that just after that the ceo of t-mobile mentioned at a conference that they weren't necessarily sure that they wanted to be an mvno partner and that could actually be the best of all worlds because if the satellite provider needs to move towards a hybrid solution which they ultimately would if they wanna compete in that space and they need to do it on their own as opposed to partnering with the carrier that's an opportunity that has been untapped and would be a new customer potentially for our industry Long way to go. long way to go We'll see how it plays out, but I actually think there may be more opportunity associated with satellite deployments than risk, which is a reversal of how people used to think about it. we'll see how it plays out but i actually think there may be more opportunity associated with satellite deployments than risk which is a reversal of how people used to think about it

Speaker 1: When we put all these factors together, how are you thinking about the organic growth outlook in the U.S. over the medium to long term? When we put all these factors together, how are you thinking about the organic growth outlook in the U.S. over the medium to long term? when we put all these factors together how are you thinking about the organic growth outlook in the u.s over the medium to long term

Speaker 2: Well, we have the churn issues that we talked about before, and once we get beyond that sort of overhang, I think we will see ourselves returning to a more normal level of organic growth here in the US. Basically, that's somewhere in the 4-5% range in terms of U.S. leasing just from organic growth. That's basically made up of roughly 3% that we get from fixed escalators that are baked into our contracts today. 2-3% is the typical range for new leasing activity, meaning new leases, new co-locations, and new amendments. You have churn, which once we get beyond some of these outsized events, I would expect it to be closer to 1%. It's been typically in that 1-1.5% range, so somewhere in there. Well, we have the churn issues that we talked about before, and once we get beyond that sort of overhang, I think we will see ourselves returning to a more normal level of organic growth here in the US. well we have the churn issues that we talked about before and once we get beyond that sort of overhang i think we will see ourselves returning to a more normal level of organic growth here in the us Basically, that's somewhere in the 4-5% range in terms of U.S. leasing just from organic growth. basically that's somewhere in the 4-5% range in terms of u.s leasing just from organic growth That's basically made up of roughly 3% that we get from fixed escalators that are baked into our contracts today. 2-3% is the typical range for new leasing activity, meaning new leases, new co-locations, and new amendments. that's basically made up of roughly 3% that we get from fixed escalators that are baked into our contracts today 2-3% is the typical range for new leasing activity meaning new leases new co-locations and new amendments You have churn, which once we get beyond some of these outsized events, I would expect it to be closer to 1%. you have churn which once we get beyond some of these outsized events i would expect it to be closer to 1% It's been typically in that 1-1.5% range, so somewhere in there. it's been typically in that 1-1.5% range so somewhere in there If you had 3 + 2 to 3 - 1, you're basically in a 4-5% range. I think that's a reasonable expectation for the next decade in terms of where we'll come out. If you had 3 + 2 to 3 - 1, you're basically in a 4-5% range. if you had 3 + 2 to 3 - 1 you're basically in a 4-5% range I think that's a reasonable expectation for the next decade in terms of where we'll come out. i think that's a reasonable expectation for the next decade in terms of where we'll come out

Speaker 1: Pivoting to your international business, where Brazil makes up the largest component, it sounds like you're pretty constructive on the fundamental outlook in that market. What are the main factors that get you excited about the tower business in Brazil? Pivoting to your international business, where Brazil makes up the largest component, it sounds like you're pretty constructive on the fundamental outlook in that market. pivoting to your international business where brazil makes up the largest component it sounds like you're pretty constructive on the fundamental outlook in that market What are the main factors that get you excited about the tower business in Brazil? what are the main factors that get you excited about the tower business in brazil

Speaker 2: Well, you know, Brazil, it's interesting. In some ways, Brazil has gotten a bad rap, and I know why, but Brazil has actually performed very, very well for us. We've had pretty good lease up there, good organic growth. We have strong relationships with each of our carrier customers in the market. The challenge in Brazil has basically been two things. One, currency. The FX rate over the time that we've been in there has devalued, and as a result, it's been a headwind to our growth. Although we've seen that settle down, and in fact, it's been a little bit of a tailwind coming into this year. But that item has been one of those items that we've had to work to determine ways to kind of offset it. Well, you know, Brazil, it's interesting. well you know brazil it's interesting In some ways, Brazil has gotten a bad rap, and I know why, but Brazil has actually performed very, very well for us. in some ways brazil has gotten a bad rap and i know why but brazil has actually performed very very well for us We've had pretty good lease up there, good organic growth. we've had pretty good lease up there good organic growth We have strong relationships with each of our carrier customers in the market. we have strong relationships with each of our carrier customers in the market The challenge in Brazil has basically been two things. the challenge in brazil has basically been two things One, currency. one currency The FX rate over the time that we've been in there has devalued, and as a result, it's been a headwind to our growth. the fx rate over the time that we've been in there has devalued and as a result it's been a headwind to our growth Although we've seen that settle down, and in fact, it's been a little bit of a tailwind coming into this year. although we've seen that settle down and in fact it's been a little bit of a tailwind coming into this year But that item has been one of those items that we've had to work to determine ways to kind of offset it. but that item has been one of those items that we've had to work to determine ways to kind of offset it It's been a challenge because hedging is not cheap, but we've looked at other possible solutions to help mitigate that through some of the structuring that we've done. The other issue is that Oi, one of the large carriers in the market, has essentially been bought out by the other three carriers. It's been divvied up, and so we've had another churn type of situation due to consolidation, as well as their legacy wireline business, which has basically gone bankrupt. As we've had to go through that, it's kept churn elevated over the last year or two in Brazil. It's been a challenge because hedging is not cheap, but we've looked at other possible solutions to help mitigate that through some of the structuring that we've done. it's been a challenge because hedging is not cheap but we've looked at other possible solutions to help mitigate that through some of the structuring that we've done The other issue is that Oi, one of the large carriers in the market, has essentially been bought out by the other three carriers. the other issue is that oi one of the large carriers in the market has essentially been bought out by the other three carriers It's been divvied up, and so we've had another churn type of situation due to consolidation, as well as their legacy wireline business, which has basically gone bankrupt. it's been divvied up and so we've had another churn type of situation due to consolidation as well as their legacy wireline business which has basically gone bankrupt As we've had to go through that, it's kept churn elevated over the last year or two in Brazil. as we've had to go through that it's kept churn elevated over the last year or two in brazil Similar to the US, I would expect that as we kind of move beyond that and the carriers are now competing heavily on network quality, you have a stronger market in terms of the health of the three carriers that are there. I think it's gonna actually continue to perform very well for us, and we think that we're gonna see accelerated growth going forward, especially as new spectrum ends up getting auctioned down there, which is soon. Similar to the US, I would expect that as we kind of move beyond that and the carriers are now competing heavily on network quality, you have a stronger market in terms of the health of the three carriers that are there. similar to the us i would expect that as we kind of move beyond that and the carriers are now competing heavily on network quality you have a stronger market in terms of the health of the three carriers that are there I think it's gonna actually continue to perform very well for us, and we think that we're gonna see accelerated growth going forward, especially as new spectrum ends up getting auctioned down there, which is soon. i think it's gonna actually continue to perform very well for us and we think that we're gonna see accelerated growth going forward especially as new spectrum ends up getting auctioned down there which is soon

Speaker 1: Do you have a sense for timing to get through that consolidation churn? Do you have a sense for timing to get through that consolidation churn? do you have a sense for timing to get through that consolidation churn

Speaker 2: Yeah. This year we've projected a lot of it. In fact, the Oi wireline churn, we've basically accelerated all of it into 2026 as well, so that will be behind us. We've worked out arrangements with two of the three carriers to help mitigate the impacts of the consolidation churn with Oi. There's one, Claro is the only one that we have not done any sort of agreement with. I would expect that over time, that would bleed in as well. I think this is kind of our peak in terms of churn in that market. Yeah. yeah This year we've projected a lot of it. this year we've projected a lot of it In fact, the Oi wireline churn, we've basically accelerated all of it into 2026 as well, so that will be behind us. in fact the oi wireline churn we've basically accelerated all of it into 2026 as well so that will be behind us We've worked out arrangements with two of the three carriers to help mitigate the impacts of the consolidation churn with Oi. we've worked out arrangements with two of the three carriers to help mitigate the impacts of the consolidation churn with oi There's one, Claro is the only one that we have not done any sort of agreement with. there's one claro is the only one that we have not done any sort of agreement with I would expect that over time, that would bleed in as well. i would expect that over time that would bleed in as well I think this is kind of our peak in terms of churn in that market. i think this is kind of our peak in terms of churn in that market

Speaker 1: You're now the largest tower operator in Central America after closing your deal with Millicom last year. What makes Central America an attractive tower market, and what did that acquisition unlock from a business standpoint? You're now the largest tower operator in Central America after closing your deal with Millicom last year. you're now the largest tower operator in central america after closing your deal with millicom last year What makes Central America an attractive tower market, and what did that acquisition unlock from a business standpoint? what makes central america an attractive tower market and what did that acquisition unlock from a business standpoint

Speaker 2: Yeah. There were a lot of things that were great about that deal. For those of you that aren't familiar with it, we bought over 7,000 towers from Millicom across Central America, five different countries in Central America. We already had a presence in Central America of roughly 3,000 or so towers. We now have today over 10,000 sites across the Central American region. There are a lot of great things about it. One, we've been operating there for a long time, so we're pretty well established in the market. We have good relationships already today with the customers. But what we recognized is that it was important to have scale, and this applies broadly to our international markets. It's important to have scale and to be relevant to the carriers in the market. Yeah. yeah There were a lot of things that were great about that deal. there were a lot of things that were great about that deal For those of you that aren't familiar with it, we bought over 7,000 towers from Millicom across Central America, five different countries in Central America. for those of you that aren't familiar with it we bought over 7,000 towers from millicom across central america five different countries in central america We already had a presence in Central America of roughly 3,000 or so towers. we already had a presence in central america of roughly 3,000 or so towers We now have today over 10,000 sites across the Central American region. we now have today over 10,000 sites across the central american region There are a lot of great things about it. there are a lot of great things about it One, we've been operating there for a long time, so we're pretty well established in the market. one we've been operating there for a long time so we're pretty well established in the market We have good relationships already today with the customers. we have good relationships already today with the customers But what we recognized is that it was important to have scale, and this applies broadly to our international markets. but what we recognized is that it was important to have scale and this applies broadly to our international markets It's important to have scale and to be relevant to the carriers in the market. it's important to have scale and to be relevant to the carriers in the market By doing this acquisition, we positioned ourselves as by far the most dominant tower company in the region. In addition, it's critical that you have strong relationships with the leading carriers in the market. Millicom is the leading carrier, the number one carrier across most of these markets. So our relationship that we've now established with them is something that solidifies our position there. In addition, it opens up access to sites where they had a lead, frankly, in the market to the customers that are trailing. In particular, Claro, who is the second carrier in many of these markets, has expressed interest in many of these sites. We think the growth will be very good. The fundamentals of the deal itself were very, very strong. By doing this acquisition, we positioned ourselves as by far the most dominant tower company in the region. by doing this acquisition we positioned ourselves as by far the most dominant tower company in the region In addition, it's critical that you have strong relationships with the leading carriers in the market. in addition it's critical that you have strong relationships with the leading carriers in the market Millicom is the leading carrier, the number one carrier across most of these markets. millicom is the leading carrier the number one carrier across most of these markets So our relationship that we've now established with them is something that solidifies our position there. so our relationship that we've now established with them is something that solidifies our position there In addition, it opens up access to sites where they had a lead, frankly, in the market to the customers that are trailing. in addition it opens up access to sites where they had a lead frankly in the market to the customers that are trailing In particular, Claro, who is the second carrier in many of these markets, has expressed interest in many of these sites. in particular claro who is the second carrier in many of these markets has expressed interest in many of these sites We think the growth will be very good. we think the growth will be very good The fundamentals of the deal itself were very, very strong. the fundamentals of the deal itself were very very strong We paid a price that we felt was very accretive, around 11 times. We also have U.S. Dollar-denominated contracts across the region, so there's no FX risk at all. It's a 15-year lease back with Millicom, so a long-term arrangement with them. In addition, we entered into a build-to-suit agreement with Millicom to ensure that we can continue to grow our portfolio down there. They've committed to a minimum of 2,500 sites. We've started to ramp up our new builds. We started it last year, but it'll be particularly big this year as we get into the full flow of building sites across the region. A lot of good things about that deal. So far we're actually ahead of schedule. We paid a price that we felt was very accretive, around 11 times. we paid a price that we felt was very accretive around 11 times We also have U.S. we also have u.s Dollar-denominated contracts across the region, so there's no FX risk at all. dollar-denominated contracts across the region so there's no fx risk at all It's a 15-year lease back with Millicom, so a long-term arrangement with them. it's a 15-year lease back with millicom so a long-term arrangement with them In addition, we entered into a build-to-suit agreement with Millicom to ensure that we can continue to grow our portfolio down there. in addition we entered into a build-to-suit agreement with millicom to ensure that we can continue to grow our portfolio down there They've committed to a minimum of 2,500 sites. they've committed to a minimum of 2,500 sites We've started to ramp up our new builds. we've started to ramp up our new builds We started it last year, but it'll be particularly big this year as we get into the full flow of building sites across the region. we started it last year but it'll be particularly big this year as we get into the full flow of building sites across the region A lot of good things about that deal. a lot of good things about that deal So far we're actually ahead of schedule. so far we're actually ahead of schedule It's a limited amount of time, but actually it's performing better than we expected in terms of the lease-up already. I think it's gonna actually be quite a success. It's a limited amount of time, but actually it's performing better than we expected in terms of the lease-up already. it's a limited amount of time but actually it's performing better than we expected in terms of the lease-up already I think it's gonna actually be quite a success. i think it's gonna actually be quite a success

Speaker 1: You've been conducting a review of your portfolio for a couple years now and have exited a handful of markets. Can you discuss the goals of this review and how it reflects your priorities as a company? You've been conducting a review of your portfolio for a couple years now and have exited a handful of markets. you've been conducting a review of your portfolio for a couple years now and have exited a handful of markets Can you discuss the goals of this review and how it reflects your priorities as a company? can you discuss the goals of this review and how it reflects your priorities as a company

Speaker 2: Yeah. The goal in reviewing we reviewed each of our international markets and each of our business lines to basically figure out, okay, what does the future look like for these operations? Where are we gonna be five years from now, 10 years from now, realistically? What can we do to influence that in the most favorable way possible? In particular, when you look at the international markets where we are subscale, we recognize what I mentioned before in talking about Millicom, which is that you need to have scale and be relevant in these markets in order to have improved success for the carriers to even frankly engage with you. In addition, you need to be aligned with the stronger customers, the stronger operators in those markets. Yeah. yeah The goal in reviewing we reviewed each of our international markets and each of our business lines to basically figure out, okay, what does the future look like for these operations? the goal in reviewing we reviewed each of our international markets and each of our business lines to basically figure out okay what does the future look like for these operations Where are we gonna be five years from now, 10 years from now, realistically? where are we gonna be five years from now 10 years from now realistically What can we do to influence that in the most favorable way possible? what can we do to influence that in the most favorable way possible In particular, when you look at the international markets where we are subscale, we recognize what I mentioned before in talking about Millicom, which is that you need to have scale and be relevant in these markets in order to have improved success for the carriers to even frankly engage with you. in particular when you look at the international markets where we are subscale we recognize what i mentioned before in talking about millicom which is that you need to have scale and be relevant in these markets in order to have improved success for the carriers to even frankly engage with you In addition, you need to be aligned with the stronger customers, the stronger operators in those markets. in addition you need to be aligned with the stronger customers the stronger operators in those markets As we've looked at each of the markets where we operated, we had to make some decisions. Are we going to be able to achieve that or are we not? In the case of Central America, we determined that we could achieve it through the deal that we did with Millicom, and it changed the whole profile of our makeup there, and I think has put us in a much stronger position to generate outsized returns. On the other side of the coin, we had markets where we didn't see that possibility. In markets like the Philippines and Colombia, Argentina, and even Canada, we made the decision that it was better to exit, monetize what we had. In the case of Canada, we monetized it at a valuation that was much higher than where we trade. As we've looked at each of the markets where we operated, we had to make some decisions. as we've looked at each of the markets where we operated we had to make some decisions Are we going to be able to achieve that or are we not? are we going to be able to achieve that or are we not In the case of Central America, we determined that we could achieve it through the deal that we did with Millicom, and it changed the whole profile of our makeup there, and I think has put us in a much stronger position to generate outsized returns. in the case of central america we determined that we could achieve it through the deal that we did with millicom and it changed the whole profile of our makeup there and i think has put us in a much stronger position to generate outsized returns On the other side of the coin, we had markets where we didn't see that possibility. on the other side of the coin we had markets where we didn't see that possibility In markets like the Philippines and Colombia, Argentina, and even Canada, we made the decision that it was better to exit, monetize what we had. in markets like the philippines and colombia argentina and even canada we made the decision that it was better to exit monetize what we had In the case of Canada, we monetized it at a valuation that was much higher than where we trade. in the case of canada we monetized it at a valuation that was much higher than where we trade We felt that there were ways for us to be opportunistic. We have some remaining operations, both international markets and other businesses that we're in, that we're continuing through this process. There's no rush. There's no absolute timeline that we have to finish something by. We're gonna continue to go through that process with each operation and make sure that we're well set up for the future, and if we're not, then we would look to potentially exit. We felt that there were ways for us to be opportunistic. we felt that there were ways for us to be opportunistic We have some remaining operations, both international markets and other businesses that we're in, that we're continuing through this process. we have some remaining operations both international markets and other businesses that we're in that we're continuing through this process There's no rush. there's no rush There's no absolute timeline that we have to finish something by. there's no absolute timeline that we have to finish something by We're gonna continue to go through that process with each operation and make sure that we're well set up for the future, and if we're not, then we would look to potentially exit. we're gonna continue to go through that process with each operation and make sure that we're well set up for the future and if we're not then we would look to potentially exit

Speaker 1: You recently updated your leverage target from 7-7.5 to now 6-7, and you were upgraded to investment grade by two major agencies, as you mentioned. I know you've already been operating at these lower levels, so what does this change in leverage target and the ratings upgrade mean for the company? You recently updated your leverage target from 7-7.5 to now 6-7, and you were upgraded to investment grade by two major agencies, as you mentioned. you recently updated your leverage target from 7-7.5 to now 6-7 and you were upgraded to investment grade by two major agencies as you mentioned I know you've already been operating at these lower levels, so what does this change in leverage target and the ratings upgrade mean for the company? i know you've already been operating at these lower levels so what does this change in leverage target and the ratings upgrade mean for the company

Speaker 2: Yeah. It signifies a transition in our maturity life cycle. In terms of actual operations, it's very limited in its impact. You just mentioned the fact that we've been operating there. We've been operating in this new target leverage range for the last three-plus years. There's no change in the way that we operate and the way we think about things. What it does though is it opens up for us the potential to access a new financing market that is frankly deeper than the markets that we've had available to us and should be slightly cheaper than even the secured debt that we've accessed in the ABS market traditionally. I would expect that will shift our positioning. Yeah. yeah It signifies a transition in our maturity life cycle. it signifies a transition in our maturity life cycle In terms of actual operations, it's very limited in its impact. in terms of actual operations it's very limited in its impact You just mentioned the fact that we've been operating there. you just mentioned the fact that we've been operating there We've been operating in this new target leverage range for the last three-plus years. we've been operating in this new target leverage range for the last three-plus years There's no change in the way that we operate and the way we think about things. there's no change in the way that we operate and the way we think about things What it does though is it opens up for us the potential to access a new financing market that is frankly deeper than the markets that we've had available to us and should be slightly cheaper than even the secured debt that we've accessed in the ABS market traditionally. what it does though is it opens up for us the potential to access a new financing market that is frankly deeper than the markets that we've had available to us and should be slightly cheaper than even the secured debt that we've accessed in the abs market traditionally I would expect that will shift our positioning. i would expect that will shift our positioning What's great about it is that we're still at an adequate leverage level to allow us to continue to invest in the business. Because we produce so much cash flow and we typically grow our EBITDA year-over-year, we're increasing our leverage capacity naturally. If we keep our leverage the same, we'll have well over $1 billion to deploy into the business. Our priorities would be to invest that into new assets, ideally. If we don't see those opportunities because they're either too expensive or they're simply not available, we're more than happy to return capital to shareholders, and we've done that through the fastest-growing dividend in the industry, as well as through share buybacks. Last year alone, we bought back $500 million worth of shares, and it's very accretive. What's great about it is that we're still at an adequate leverage level to allow us to continue to invest in the business. what's great about it is that we're still at an adequate leverage level to allow us to continue to invest in the business Because we produce so much cash flow and we typically grow our EBITDA year-over-year, we're increasing our leverage capacity naturally. because we produce so much cash flow and we typically grow our ebitda year-over-year we're increasing our leverage capacity naturally If we keep our leverage the same, we'll have well over $1 billion to deploy into the business. if we keep our leverage the same we'll have well over $1 billion to deploy into the business Our priorities would be to invest that into new assets, ideally. our priorities would be to invest that into new assets ideally If we don't see those opportunities because they're either too expensive or they're simply not available, we're more than happy to return capital to shareholders, and we've done that through the fastest-growing dividend in the industry, as well as through share buybacks. if we don't see those opportunities because they're either too expensive or they're simply not available we're more than happy to return capital to shareholders and we've done that through the fastest-growing dividend in the industry as well as through share buybacks Last year alone, we bought back $500 million worth of shares, and it's very accretive. last year alone we bought back $500 million worth of shares and it's very accretive It's immediately accretive to shareholders, to our AFFO per share. Given where we've been trading, which frankly we believe is below intrinsic value, there's an opportunity set there that exists for us, that doesn't exist for some of the private companies, and so we're taking advantage of that. It's immediately accretive to shareholders, to our AFFO per share. it's immediately accretive to shareholders to our affo per share Given where we've been trading, which frankly we believe is below intrinsic value, there's an opportunity set there that exists for us, that doesn't exist for some of the private companies, and so we're taking advantage of that. given where we've been trading which frankly we believe is below intrinsic value there's an opportunity set there that exists for us that doesn't exist for some of the private companies and so we're taking advantage of that

Speaker 1: How do you view the M&A environment at this point, and what types of assets and markets might be interesting? How do you view the M&A environment at this point, and what types of assets and markets might be interesting? how do you view the m&a environment at this point and what types of assets and markets might be interesting

Speaker 2: Well, the M&A environment, it's really a tale of two stories or a tale of two cities. I messed up my analogy. It's the U.S. market where you've got a limited amount of opportunities. The supply and demand is a little bit imbalanced. There's a lot of demand for tower assets in the U.S. There's a lot of private money that is chasing those assets. Because there's not that many available, the valuations are very, very high. In many cases, while we participate in every deal that comes to market, we've not seen our way clear to be successful in winning a lot of those. There are a few here and there, but for the most part, the price points have just been at levels that we found to be way too dilutive. Well, the M&A environment, it's really a tale of two stories or a tale of two cities. well the m&a environment it's really a tale of two stories or a tale of two cities I messed up my analogy. i messed up my analogy It's the U.S. market where you've got a limited amount of opportunities. it's the u.s market where you've got a limited amount of opportunities The supply and demand is a little bit imbalanced. the supply and demand is a little bit imbalanced There's a lot of demand for tower assets in the U.S. there's a lot of demand for tower assets in the u.s There's a lot of private money that is chasing those assets. there's a lot of private money that is chasing those assets Because there's not that many available, the valuations are very, very high. because there's not that many available the valuations are very very high In many cases, while we participate in every deal that comes to market, we've not seen our way clear to be successful in winning a lot of those. in many cases while we participate in every deal that comes to market we've not seen our way clear to be successful in winning a lot of those There are a few here and there, but for the most part, the price points have just been at levels that we found to be way too dilutive. there are a few here and there but for the most part the price points have just been at levels that we found to be way too dilutive Again, when you're comparing that against the alternative of buying your own stock back, and it's valued substantially lower, sometimes less than half the value of these assets that are trading in the private market, it's hard not to go that direction. Our preference would be to continue to grow our portfolio because I think we're one of the best operators of these assets, and we can extract the most value. That's what we'd like to do, but we're gonna be disciplined about what we spend. That's the U.S. market. I do think ultimately that should shift, and we've already seen a little bit of a shift. Again, when you're comparing that against the alternative of buying your own stock back, and it's valued substantially lower, sometimes less than half the value of these assets that are trading in the private market, it's hard not to go that direction. again when you're comparing that against the alternative of buying your own stock back and it's valued substantially lower sometimes less than half the value of these assets that are trading in the private market it's hard not to go that direction Our preference would be to continue to grow our portfolio because I think we're one of the best operators of these assets, and we can extract the most value. our preference would be to continue to grow our portfolio because i think we're one of the best operators of these assets and we can extract the most value That's what we'd like to do, but we're gonna be disciplined about what we spend. that's what we'd like to do but we're gonna be disciplined about what we spend That's the U.S. market. that's the u.s market I do think ultimately that should shift, and we've already seen a little bit of a shift. i do think ultimately that should shift and we've already seen a little bit of a shift I think some participants have found that their returns have not met the threshold that they've assumed when they went into it, and that's maybe caused a little bit of softening, but not enough yet to make a material difference. Internationally, it's a different story. We've definitely seen a softening in values. There's a lot of assets that are available to purchase, and we are exploring all of those. We're able to be selective. I still think there's a little bit of a disconnect between buyers and sellers on appropriate valuation. You've seen very few deals actually get done. They haven't necessarily happened at low enough prices. They've definitely come down in prices. What's happened is you basically have seen a quieting of the entire ecosystem out there. That will only last for so long. We've tried to be opportunistic. I think some participants have found that their returns have not met the threshold that they've assumed when they went into it, and that's maybe caused a little bit of softening, but not enough yet to make a material difference. i think some participants have found that their returns have not met the threshold that they've assumed when they went into it and that's maybe caused a little bit of softening but not enough yet to make a material difference Internationally, it's a different story. internationally it's a different story We've definitely seen a softening in values. we've definitely seen a softening in values There's a lot of assets that are available to purchase, and we are exploring all of those. there's a lot of assets that are available to purchase and we are exploring all of those We're able to be selective. we're able to be selective I still think there's a little bit of a disconnect between buyers and sellers on appropriate valuation. i still think there's a little bit of a disconnect between buyers and sellers on appropriate valuation You've seen very few deals actually get done. you've seen very few deals actually get done They haven't necessarily happened at low enough prices. they haven't necessarily happened at low enough prices They've definitely come down in prices. they've definitely come down in prices What's happened is you basically have seen a quieting of the entire ecosystem out there. what's happened is you basically have seen a quieting of the entire ecosystem out there That will only last for so long. that will only last for so long We've tried to be opportunistic. we've tried to be opportunistic The Millicom acquisition is an example of that. There have been some other smaller deals. We're mostly focused on markets where we currently have a presence, and seeing if there are ways to supplement the portfolios that we already have to improve our positioning. In terms of other markets, we look at other markets all the time, but we're gonna be very selective. We're gonna have to see a lot of things line up in terms of the profile of that market going forward, the risks, frankly, of consolidation. You know, one of the issues internationally has been consolidation, like it was here in the U.S. In places like Central America, that we've seen most of that already happen. Now we're beyond it, and it gives us a good runway going forward. The Millicom acquisition is an example of that. the millicom acquisition is an example of that There have been some other smaller deals. there have been some other smaller deals We're mostly focused on markets where we currently have a presence, and seeing if there are ways to supplement the portfolios that we already have to improve our positioning. we're mostly focused on markets where we currently have a presence and seeing if there are ways to supplement the portfolios that we already have to improve our positioning In terms of other markets, we look at other markets all the time, but we're gonna be very selective. in terms of other markets we look at other markets all the time but we're gonna be very selective We're gonna have to see a lot of things line up in terms of the profile of that market going forward, the risks, frankly, of consolidation. we're gonna have to see a lot of things line up in terms of the profile of that market going forward the risks frankly of consolidation You know, one of the issues internationally has been consolidation, like it was here in the U.S. you know one of the issues internationally has been consolidation like it was here in the u.s In places like Central America, that we've seen most of that already happen. in places like central america that we've seen most of that already happen Now we're beyond it, and it gives us a good runway going forward. now we're beyond it and it gives us a good runway going forward As we look at new markets, we evaluate that, as well. As we look at new markets, we evaluate that, as well. as we look at new markets we evaluate that as well

Speaker 1: Can you remind us what you're guiding to for AFFO per share growth in 2026, and maybe highlight the important moving pieces to get to that outlook? Can you remind us what you're guiding to for AFFO per share growth in 2026, and maybe highlight the important moving pieces to get to that outlook? can you remind us what you're guiding to for affo per share growth in 2026 and maybe highlight the important moving pieces to get to that outlook

Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, it's actually not growth in 2026 over last year. It's actually a decline. We're basically guiding to roughly around the middle of our range that we've given in our outlook, a little over $12 a share for this year. It's been weighed down because of the churn items that we mentioned before, taking the DISH churn forward, taking the Oi churn forward, and the last big year of Sprint, in addition to financing headwinds. Those are really the two issues. Otherwise, operationally, we're doing fine, and I would expect we'll continue to grow. Our AFFO per share, excluding financing headwinds, will grow high single digits as we get into 2028, 2029. Financing is really the big overhang for us. Yeah. yeah Well, it's actually not growth in 2026 over last year. well it's actually not growth in 2026 over last year It's actually a decline. it's actually a decline We're basically guiding to roughly around the middle of our range that we've given in our outlook, a little over $12 a share for this year. we're basically guiding to roughly around the middle of our range that we've given in our outlook a little over $12 a share for this year It's been weighed down because of the churn items that we mentioned before, taking the DISH churn forward, taking the Oi churn forward, and the last big year of Sprint, in addition to financing headwinds. it's been weighed down because of the churn items that we mentioned before taking the dish churn forward taking the oi churn forward and the last big year of sprint in addition to financing headwinds Those are really the two issues. those are really the two issues Otherwise, operationally, we're doing fine, and I would expect we'll continue to grow. otherwise operationally we're doing fine and i would expect we'll continue to grow Our AFFO per share, excluding financing headwinds, will grow high single digits as we get into 2028, 2029. our affo per share excluding financing headwinds will grow high single digits as we get into 2028 2029 Financing is really the big overhang for us. financing is really the big overhang for us We had a lot of success with the financings that we put in place over the years. I believe our next three maturities, including the one that just matured in January, all had a one handle on the coupon. You can imagine, as you go to refinance that debt today, it's closer to 5% or 5%+. That's a big difference, when you're talking about $ multiple billions of refinancing. That's where we are in the cycle. We would love to see interest rates come down a little bit quicker, and hopefully we will see that take place. Nonetheless, we'll have to deal with those refinancings, and it will slow the growth. We'll still see growth in AFFO per share. We had a lot of success with the financings that we put in place over the years. we had a lot of success with the financings that we put in place over the years I believe our next three maturities, including the one that just matured in January, all had a one handle on the coupon. i believe our next three maturities including the one that just matured in january all had a one handle on the coupon You can imagine, as you go to refinance that debt today, it's closer to 5% or 5%+. you can imagine as you go to refinance that debt today it's closer to 5% or 5%+ That's a big difference, when you're talking about $ multiple billions of refinancing. that's a big difference when you're talking about $ multiple billions of refinancing That's where we are in the cycle. that's where we are in the cycle We would love to see interest rates come down a little bit quicker, and hopefully we will see that take place. we would love to see interest rates come down a little bit quicker and hopefully we will see that take place Nonetheless, we'll have to deal with those refinancings, and it will slow the growth. nonetheless we'll have to deal with those refinancings and it will slow the growth We'll still see growth in AFFO per share. we'll still see growth in affo per share I just think once we get beyond the financing, you'll see it return to the levels it's historically been at. I just think once we get beyond the financing, you'll see it return to the levels it's historically been at. i just think once we get beyond the financing you'll see it return to the levels it's historically been at

Speaker 1: Going back to the U.S. market, it sounds like you're expecting the carriers to start doing some equipment upgrades for certain established spectrum bands. In your view, what are the factors that drive an equipment upgrade cycle, and what does that mean for leasing activity? Going back to the U.S. market, it sounds like you're expecting the carriers to start doing some equipment upgrades for certain established spectrum bands. going back to the u.s market it sounds like you're expecting the carriers to start doing some equipment upgrades for certain established spectrum bands In your view, what are the factors that drive an equipment upgrade cycle, and what does that mean for leasing activity? in your view what are the factors that drive an equipment upgrade cycle and what does that mean for leasing activity

Speaker 2: Well, yeah. The carriers today are sitting on spectrum in some cases that they've not fully deployed, and that has been a driver of some of our organic leasing. We've obviously had the C-band spectrum that's been rolled out by Verizon and AT&T. Verizon is a little further along than AT&T. AT&T's probably upgraded roughly 60% of SBA's sites or leases that they have with us, so there's still some runway for that. T-Mobile, interestingly enough, owns a swath of C-band spectrum as well, and they've not deployed any of it at all. I think that will be a potential driver of additional upgrade activity. Well, yeah. well yeah The carriers today are sitting on spectrum in some cases that they've not fully deployed, and that has been a driver of some of our organic leasing. the carriers today are sitting on spectrum in some cases that they've not fully deployed and that has been a driver of some of our organic leasing We've obviously had the C-band spectrum that's been rolled out by Verizon and AT&T. we've obviously had the c-band spectrum that's been rolled out by verizon and at&t Verizon is a little further along than AT&T. verizon is a little further along than at&t AT&T's probably upgraded roughly 60% of SBA's sites or leases that they have with us, so there's still some runway for that. at&t's probably upgraded roughly 60% of sba's sites or leases that they have with us so there's still some runway for that T-Mobile, interestingly enough, owns a swath of C-band spectrum as well, and they've not deployed any of it at all. t-mobile interestingly enough owns a swath of c-band spectrum as well and they've not deployed any of it at all I think that will be a potential driver of additional upgrade activity. i think that will be a potential driver of additional upgrade activity Beyond that, the spectrum auctions that we talked about earlier will be a driver, I think, as we move later, the next several years and particularly into the next decade, and will be an underlying factor for 6G. What I really mean by that when we talk about 6G, not everything has been fully defined yet, but 6G will be, in my view, sort of defined by that AI-infused applications, right? Not only will AI affect the way that networks are deployed and the way that they're monitored and managed, it will also obviously affect the way end users are using their devices and using the wireless networks. As that happens, you will see a shift. Today, you have roughly 80% of the traffic over the wireless network is downlink, 20% is uplink. Beyond that, the spectrum auctions that we talked about earlier will be a driver, I think, as we move later, the next several years and particularly into the next decade, and will be an underlying factor for 6G. beyond that the spectrum auctions that we talked about earlier will be a driver i think as we move later the next several years and particularly into the next decade and will be an underlying factor for 6g What I really mean by that when we talk about 6G, not everything has been fully defined yet, but 6G will be, in my view, sort of defined by that AI-infused applications, right? what i really mean by that when we talk about 6g not everything has been fully defined yet but 6g will be in my view sort of defined by that ai-infused applications right Not only will AI affect the way that networks are deployed and the way that they're monitored and managed, it will also obviously affect the way end users are using their devices and using the wireless networks. not only will ai affect the way that networks are deployed and the way that they're monitored and managed it will also obviously affect the way end users are using their devices and using the wireless networks As that happens, you will see a shift. as that happens you will see a shift Today, you have roughly 80% of the traffic over the wireless network is downlink, 20% is uplink. today you have roughly 80% of the traffic over the wireless network is downlink 20% is uplink As you move to more of these AI-oriented applications, you'll see a shift towards a greater evening out of that. I think it'll move more towards 50/50 uplink versus downlink. What that means for us is that there's a need for additional equipment at the site, more Massive MIMO antennas or Extreme MIMO antennas, X MIMO antennas, additional radios, different frequency bands so you'll have more FDD type of deployment that allows for a greater definition of uplink and downlink traffic. As that happens, it requires changes at the tower sites. New equipment is being developed today that will be deployed at our sites. We'll have to make changes across the existing footprints that our carrier customers have with us, and that will be a huge driver. As you move to more of these AI-oriented applications, you'll see a shift towards a greater evening out of that. as you move to more of these ai-oriented applications you'll see a shift towards a greater evening out of that I think it'll move more towards 50/50 uplink versus downlink. i think it'll move more towards 50/50 uplink versus downlink What that means for us is that there's a need for additional equipment at the site, more Massive MIMO antennas or Extreme MIMO antennas, X MIMO antennas, additional radios, different frequency bands so you'll have more FDD type of deployment that allows for a greater definition of uplink and downlink traffic. what that means for us is that there's a need for additional equipment at the site more massive mimo antennas or extreme mimo antennas x mimo antennas additional radios different frequency bands so you'll have more fdd type of deployment that allows for a greater definition of uplink and downlink traffic As that happens, it requires changes at the tower sites. as that happens it requires changes at the tower sites New equipment is being developed today that will be deployed at our sites. new equipment is being developed today that will be deployed at our sites We'll have to make changes across the existing footprints that our carrier customers have with us, and that will be a huge driver. we'll have to make changes across the existing footprints that our carrier customers have with us and that will be a huge driver That's all predicated on new spectrum being available in order to roll out those new applications. That's all predicated on new spectrum being available in order to roll out those new applications. that's all predicated on new spectrum being available in order to roll out those new applications

Speaker 1: Maybe just to wrap up, you mentioned 6G. The industry is starting to talk about it. Seems a little early to me, but there you go. Maybe just to wrap up, you mentioned 6G. maybe just to wrap up you mentioned 6g The industry is starting to talk about it. the industry is starting to talk about it Seems a little early to me, but there you go. seems a little early to me but there you go

Speaker 2: A little early. You gotta be ahead of the game though, Ben. A little early. a little early You gotta be ahead of the game though, Ben. you gotta be ahead of the game though ben

Speaker 1: That's right. Do you have any initial thoughts on what spectrum could get used for 6G and when you'd expect that activity to start picking up more meaningfully? That's right. that's right Do you have any initial thoughts on what spectrum could get used for 6G and when you'd expect that activity to start picking up more meaningfully? do you have any initial thoughts on what spectrum could get used for 6g and when you'd expect that activity to start picking up more meaningfully

Speaker 2: Well, I think it will certainly be the spectrum, at least initially. It will certainly be the spectrum that's been talked about as part of this 800 MHz that's gonna be auctioned off over the next couple of years. We talked about some of those bands earlier, the 4.5-4.9, some of the 7 GHz band spectrum that's being evaluated. We'll have to see what it actually is because a lot of that is being reviewed today. It will have to be cleared. There's some, you know, interdepartmental struggles that take place around that in the government between the DoD and the FAA and others as to what is the appropriate band of spectrum to make available. All that will get worked out. Well, I think it will certainly be the spectrum, at least initially. well i think it will certainly be the spectrum at least initially It will certainly be the spectrum that's been talked about as part of this 800 MHz that's gonna be auctioned off over the next couple of years. it will certainly be the spectrum that's been talked about as part of this 800 mhz that's gonna be auctioned off over the next couple of years We talked about some of those bands earlier, the 4.5-4.9, some of the 7 GHz band spectrum that's being evaluated. we talked about some of those bands earlier the 4.5-4.9 some of the 7 ghz band spectrum that's being evaluated We'll have to see what it actually is because a lot of that is being reviewed today. we'll have to see what it actually is because a lot of that is being reviewed today It will have to be cleared. it will have to be cleared There's some, you know, interdepartmental struggles that take place around that in the government between the DoD and the FAA and others as to what is the appropriate band of spectrum to make available. there's some you know interdepartmental struggles that take place around that in the government between the dod and the faa and others as to what is the appropriate band of spectrum to make available All that will get worked out. all that will get worked out I think one thing that's clear, and it's not a partisan issue, it's bipartisan, is that we need to be a leader when it comes to 6G. I think there's a sense that perhaps we were not the leader that we should have been as it related to 5G relative to the Chinese. I think, as a result, you're gonna see a commitment to doing whatever can be done in order to unleash the American leadership in that space. Ultimately, that's great for us because we're a fundamental component of supporting the development of all those new networks. I think one thing that's clear, and it's not a partisan issue, it's bipartisan, is that we need to be a leader when it comes to 6G. i think one thing that's clear and it's not a partisan issue it's bipartisan is that we need to be a leader when it comes to 6g I think there's a sense that perhaps we were not the leader that we should have been as it related to 5G relative to the Chinese. i think there's a sense that perhaps we were not the leader that we should have been as it related to 5g relative to the chinese I think, as a result, you're gonna see a commitment to doing whatever can be done in order to unleash the American leadership in that space. i think as a result you're gonna see a commitment to doing whatever can be done in order to unleash the american leadership in that space Ultimately, that's great for us because we're a fundamental component of supporting the development of all those new networks. ultimately that's great for us because we're a fundamental component of supporting the development of all those new networks

Speaker 1: All right. Thanks, Brendan. All right. all right Thanks, Brendan. thanks brendan

Speaker 2: Yeah. Thank you, Ben. Appreciate it. Thanks for hosting us. Thank you. Yeah. yeah Thank you, Ben. thank you ben Appreciate it. appreciate it Thanks for hosting us. thanks for hosting us Thank you. thank you