SBA Communications - Q4 2025

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Welcome and thank you all for joining the SBA fourth quarter 2025 results. I'll now turn it over to Louis Friend, Vice President of Finance and Capital Markets. Please go ahead, sir.

Louis Friend (VP of Finance and Capital Markets)

Good evening, thank you for joining us for SBA's fourth quarter 2025 earnings conference call. Here with me today are Brendan Cavanagh, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Marc Montagner, our Chief Financial Officer. Some of the information we will discuss on this call is forward-looking, including, but not limited to, any guidance for 2026 and beyond. In today's press release and in our SEC filings, we detail material risks that may cause our future results to differ from our expectations. Our statements are as of today, February 2026, and we have no obligation to update any forward-looking statements we may make. In addition, our comments will include non-GAAP financial measures and other key operating metrics. The reconciliation of and other information regarding these items can be found in our supplemental financial data package, which is located on the landing page of our Investor Relations website.

With that, I will now turn over the call to Marc to comment on the fourth quarter results and our 2026 outlook.

Marc Montagner (CFO)

Thank you, Louis. The fourth quarter was a solid finish to the year. Results for the quarter were in line with our estimates, even with higher than forecasted bad debt expenses related to EchoStar. In the fourth quarter, the FFO per share was $3.19, with a cash dividend of $1.11 per share, an increase of 13% compared to the fourth quarter of 2024. Operationally, we added approximately $10 million of domestic new leases and abandoned buildings. The bulk of the activity continues to come from new colocations, as carriers both intensify and expand their network footprints. Our service business also continues to perform well, increasing revenue by 13% in the fourth quarter compared to the fourth quarter of 2025. This was mostly due to construction-related projects focused on network expansion.

With respect to churn, we are getting closer to the end of consolidation churn in the U.S., with Sprint-related churn of approximately $17 million in the quarter. Internationally, we continue to see healthy demand, adding approximately $6 million of new leases and abandoned buildings in the fourth quarter. International churn continues to be elevated, we lost approximately $8 million of revenue in the quarter from carrier consolidation, bankruptcy, restructuring, and wireless operators' network optimizations. The team has been working around the clock to integrate the newly acquired sites for Millicom in Central America. We're also ramping up our new build program in the region, setting up our business for future success as a leading independent power producer in Central America. In the quarter, we deployed significant capital to buy back our shares, spending $213 million to retire 1.1 million shares at an average price of $191.07.

In total, in 2025, we spent $500 million to repurchase 2.5 million shares. As of today, we have $1.1 billion remaining on our share buyback authorization. We continue to believe that share buybacks play a significant role in creating shareholder value over time. Today's earnings press release includes our initial 2026 outlook. Domestically, our 2026 outlook reflects a similar level of new revenue growth from carriers' leasing activity to what we experienced in 2025. The outlook also assumes a range of $55 million-$56 million related to Sprint churn, which is slightly higher than we estimated last quarter. The increase is due to timing. We now expect Sprint churn in 2027 and beyond to be less than the $20 million previously provided. In addition, our churn outlook removes all future recurring revenue from EchoStar. We'll continue to pursue legal rights to recover these revenues from EchoStar.

For our international segment, our outlook reflects a full-year contribution from the acquisition of sites from Millicom in Central America. The outlook also assumes steady network investment from our customers in 2026. We're guiding to a range of $19 million-$21 million for new leases and abandonments, up slightly from 2025. Our outlook assumes a range of $36 million-$40 million related to churn. The current churn range includes $14 million related to Oi wireline, which will not continue into 2027. Bearing any unforeseen events, we expect international churn to trend down over the next couple of years. Turning to services, we are guiding to a range of $190 million-$210 million in revenues, higher than our initial outlook for 2025, lower than the extremely strong results we delivered last year. Our services backlogs are supportive of continuous carrier network activity in 2026.

Regarding our balance sheet, in January, we successfully paid off $750 million of ABS debt with our revolving credit facility. Our outlook assumes that we will use our free cash flow to pay down the current outstanding amount on this credit facility over time. We also assume that our $1.2 billion November ABS maturity will be refinanced in November of 2026 by 5.25%. The 40 communities will be community investment grade issuers. We look to make our initial inaugural investment grade bond at some point in 2026, depending on market conditions. During the fourth quarter, we declared a pay of cash dividend of $118.2 million or $1.11 per share. Today, we announced that our board of directors declared our first quarter dividend of $1.25 per share, payable of March 27, 2026, to shareholders of record as of close of business of March 13, 2026.

This dividend represents an increase of approximately 13% over the dividend paid in the first quarter of 2025 and approximately 41% of the midpoint on our full-year FFO outlook. Please also note that our outlook does not assume any further share repurchase or acquisition beyond those which, as of today, are under contract or expected to close by the end of the year. We anticipate that we invest in additional assets or share buyback or both during the year. This will potentially have an impact on our full-year outlook. I will now turn the call over to Brendan.

Brendan Cavanagh (President and CEO)

Thank you, Marc. Good afternoon. Today, I want to share our perspective on SBA's near and long-term outlook and the opportunities ahead, starting with the U.S. market and the key drivers of future growth. For our U.S. customers, in a stabilized three-carrier market, maintaining a high quality end-user experience remains paramount. Offering superior network quality, reliability, and speeds that meet the needs of today and tomorrow requires significant ongoing investment. We've seen this demonstrated in numerous cycles over the last several decades. It is perhaps even more the case today. Mobile data use continues to climb as Americans rely on their devices across everyday experiences. According to CTIA, in 2024, Americans consumed more than 132 trillion MB of mobile data, up 35% compared to the prior year, marking the single largest jump in history. The way to keep up with this level of demand remains relatively unchanged.

It typically starts with a wave of amendments to efficiently upgrade existing towers, deploying new spectrum bands if available, adding or swapping equipment, followed by a shift toward densification. Today, we are still seeing upgrades, but certain customers have seen a clear increase in new colocation activity tied to both densification and expansion. On the amendment side, we've seen new technology upgrades such as Massive MIMO, largely tied to new spectrum, including C-band and DOD, and are starting to see initial Massive MIMO deployments in legacy AWS and PCS bands, significantly increasing network capacity. With regard to colocation activity, our customers work to address coverage gaps in the U.S., meet regulatory requirements, and support 5G use cases like fixed wireless access. On fixed wireless access, growth and adoption have been impressive, with total subscribers of approximately 15 million, initially driven by excess 5G capacity.

Today, it's estimated that more than half of overall wireless network capacity is being used to support fixed wireless access, a figure that could increase over time as carriers look to grow their subscriber base and lean further into convergence, bundling home internet, mobile, and enterprise services. As 5G continues to build out, we expect further support from the upper C-band auction, adding another growth driver for our industry. At least 100 MHz of upper C-band is expected to be auctioned by mid-2027. Looking beyond the near term, we're increasingly excited about 6G. We've already seen legislative tailwinds, including restoring the FCC's auction authority and 800 MHz of spectrum to be studied and eventually auctioned, including the aforementioned 100 MHz of upper C-band in 2027. Other bands currently being evaluated include 2.7-2.9 GHz, 4.4-4.9 GHz, and 7.25-7.4 GHz.

These new bands will require new radios and likely a denser footprint given the higher band properties, creating future growth opportunities for SBA. Beyond spectrum, we see a fundamental shift in the network architecture, most evident in the transition from 5G to 6G. With 5G, traffic follows an 80/20 downlink to uplink mix, as users primarily consume data, streaming videos, shopping, connecting on social media, or gaming online. Looking ahead, we anticipate a more balanced figure with 6G, driving significantly more data upstream to support increasingly AI-driven interactions. Technology that seamlessly integrates into everyday experiences, with data interpreted in real time, is what will truly differentiate 6G. Many of these use cases are likely to emerge first in the home or enterprise using Wi-Fi or private networks, eventually, though, migrating outdoors for a fully mobile experience reliant on the terrestrial network. We expect a wide range of use cases.

Today, we are starting to see the early signs of the preparation for 6G. AI is beginning to move from the core to the RAN. True 6G cannot be done with just software. It will also require physical components. That means more compute at the tower site, with higher capacity radios and denser and more intelligent antenna configurations to send and receive growing volumes of data. With regards to the compute element, the specifics are really still just starting to develop. Rapid advances in AI, particularly as it becomes more performative, we believe will drive the need for compute to be closer to end users, where devices rely on real-time, ultra-low-latency environments. We believe our large distributed U.S. portfolio makes this a real opportunity for SBA. Turning now to our international markets, let me start with Brazil.

With a portfolio of over 12,000 sites, Brazil remains our second-largest market. We intend to continue to harvest and grow cash flow organically in Brazil. We believe the country itself is very well positioned to be a leader in Latin America over the coming years. It's a commodity superpower with meaningful exports of food, energy, and metals. It has a population of over 200 million and a younger demographic that drives higher mobile data usage. Operationally, we've performed well in Brazil, though we faced elevated churn, largely driven by industry consolidation and network rationalization. In the Brazilian wireless market more broadly, we see several opportunities. As operators continue to rationalize their networks, reducing redundant infrastructure while increasing tenancy, there's a clear opportunity to improve both the carriers and the tower companies' returns through site consolidations and increased colocations.

We're actively working with our customers to find more efficient ways to help them meet their network needs. This is a key focus area for SBA in 2026. Another structural opportunity is network density. According to a UBS research report from October 2025, Brazil has an estimated four sites for 10,000 people compared with roughly 16 sites for 10,000 people in the U.S. We see that gap providing a meaningful opportunity for additional colocations as carriers densify their networks. Lastly, there is spectrum. The government is planning to auction both 450 MHz and 700 MHz spectrum bands. While the timing remains uncertain, recent estimates suggest this could happen in 2027. Each of these factors gives us confidence in the long-term prospects for Brazil. In the meantime, operators continue to invest in advancing 5G coverage.

Beyond Brazil, Central America and Africa offer diverse customer bases, attractive opportunities to deploy capital through new site builds, and organic growth as these markets remain earlier in the 5G deployment cycle. As we've discussed previously, the Millicom transaction has positioned us as the leading independent tower company in Central America, supported by long-term master lease agreements with the leading carrier. We expect that agreement to drive predictable operating results and durable cash flow. Our select African markets have continued to deliver superior risk-adjusted returns as well and our highest return on invested capital across our company. In addition to strong operational and technology indicators, we feel good about the future due to the strength of our balance sheet and capital return profile.

As discussed on our prior earnings call, we have recently achieved investment-grade ratings from two major rating agencies and have operated comfortably between six and seven turns of leverage for the last three years. While investing meaningfully in new assets and share repurchases, we've still delivered the fastest-growing dividend in our industry. We believe the strength of our capital structure will allow us to consistently provide meaningful and growing shareholder renumeration going forward in the form of share buybacks and dividends while also preserving the flexibility and opportunistically invest in U.S. market and minimizing the cost of debt. In summary, SBA is very well positioned to play a meaningful role in future network deployments, helping our customers meet their network needs. Our towers remain the backbone of the network and offer a truly turnkey option with ground space, power, and most importantly, location.

Before opening it up for questions, I'd like to thank our team members. We strive to be the industry's leader in digital infrastructure. It is only possible because of the incredible team members we have at SBA. I'd also like to thank our customers for their trust in us. Lastly, I'd like to thank our shareholders for their ongoing support. With that, operator, we are now ready for questions.

Operator (participant)

If you'd like to ask a question, please dial pound two on your telephone keypad to enter the question queue. When it's your turn to speak, I will announce you by name and organization, and you will hear a notification that your line is unmuted. At that time, you may ask your question. Again, pressing pound two will indicate that you wish to ask a question. Please stand by as we queue up our callers. Okay. Let's go ahead and move on to our first caller, Richard Choe from JPMorgan.

Richard Choe (Executive Director of Equity Research)

Do you expect to see domestic colocation revenue growth through this year? Can you give us a sense of what the carriers are looking for?

Brendan Cavanagh (President and CEO)

Hi, Richard. In terms of our domestic colocation expectations, we obviously gave our outlook for the full year, which assumes $35 million of incremental revenue added through new leases and amendments in the U.S. We would expect that will be contributed perhaps slightly heavier in the beginning of the year, but we would expect activity levels with the carriers in terms of new business being signed up to be pretty steady throughout the year. That's our assumption. Based on the way things are starting, that's what we think will continue to happen. It'll be a mix, as we said in some of our prepared comments, of densification as well as expansion of coverage.

Richard Choe (Executive Director of Equity Research)

One quick one on Brazil. As we look at the buckets of growth that could drive your revenue there, how should we think about the difference between maybe builds, upgrading to, I guess, 5G, densification, and spectrum over the next few years? Where do you expect to see kind of most of the growth come from there eventually?

Brendan Cavanagh (President and CEO)

Yeah. I think we're not building that many sites down there, so most of the growth is going to come organically through new lease-up. In terms of the drivers of that new lease-up, some of that will be just new spectrum that's going to be auctioned off, we believe, over the next couple of years. Some of that's going to be just further expansion and densification of the network. I think if you heard in the prepared comments, one of the things we pointed out was a statistic about the amount of sites per person in Brazil. They're basically four times more in the U.S. than there are in Brazil. With that sort of dynamic, it leads to the need for increased investment in the network and expansion of the network by each of the remaining carriers.

It's been, I'd say, a little bit muted over the last couple of years since the consolidation of Oi into the big three carriers that are remaining there. As they've worked through sort of the rationalization of that's been a big focus. As we kind of get on the back end of that, I would expect significant investment into expanding the network and competing on network quality.

Richard Choe (Executive Director of Equity Research)

Great. Thank you.

Brendan Cavanagh (President and CEO)

Sure.

Operator (participant)

Moving on to the next caller, Batya Levi, UBS.

Batya Levi (Managing Director and Communications, Media, and Infrastructure Analyst)

Great. Thank you. A follow-up on domestic activity. When you look at the range you provided, the low end would suggest a slowdown. Can you provide more color on how much visibility you have for the year ahead versus maybe last year, and what could drive that low end? Also, the Verizon MLA that you recently signed, how does that impact the trend against the lower CapEx that they're guiding to? Thank you.

Brendan Cavanagh (President and CEO)

Sure. On the overall range that we're guiding to, we have pretty good visibility. We obviously give a range because it's not set in stone. There's a certain amount, particularly at the beginning of the year, that we have to see how the first half of the year in particular goes in terms of new business being signed up. That's why we give a range. Obviously, if it's slow out of the gates, you could be towards the low end of the range. We're typically focused on the midpoint as our best estimate of where we expect to be. It's a little bit less than last year. It's about $2 million less than last year, although we did actually have $2 million of lease-up contribution from DISH last year. Excluding that, which is zero now, it's basically flat.

I will say that there's a different sort of mix among the big three carriers in terms of the relative contribution of each that we expect. To kind of pivot to your second question because it's related to that, we do expect to see more of a contribution from Verizon because of the MLA that we signed with them late last year. In terms of their comments around CapEx, I know they have a number of things that they're focused on in terms of controlling costs, but our agreement is pretty well set in terms of minimum commitments that they have. For the most part, our assumptions are built around those minimum commitments as well as existing backlogs that we have with them. Our backlogs have grown quite a bit over the last couple of months, as you might expect, after we signed that agreement.

We feel pretty good that we're going to see increased contributions from Verizon due to that agreement starting this year.

Batya Levi (Managing Director and Communications, Media, and Infrastructure Analyst)

Got it. Thank you.

Brendan Cavanagh (President and CEO)

Sure.

Operator (participant)

All right. Moving on to Ric Prentiss from Raymond James.

Ric Prentiss (Managing Director and Global Head of Telecommunications Research)

Thanks. Good afternoon, everybody.

Brendan Cavanagh (President and CEO)

Hey, Ric.

Ric Prentiss (Managing Director and Global Head of Telecommunications Research)

Hey. A couple of questions. One, thanks for giving the cleanest view with taking DISH out of the guidance. Can you update us as far as what's the process? Did you guys file a lawsuit? Have you terminated the contract? Just how do you see kind of the timeline or how this might play out?

Brendan Cavanagh (President and CEO)

Yeah. We did actually file a lawsuit just recently. As part of that, because of their default lack of payment, we did terminate and accelerate the rents that were due under that contract. I mean, I can't really get into too much in terms of the details around that and what we foresee happening there. The basic gist of it is that they defaulted on the agreements, and we filed suit. We tried to get them to comply with the agreement. They did not. We filed suit. We're going to go after enforcing our rights under the agreement the best we can. We'll see where it all shakes out. For now, we thought the cleanest thing to do in terms of our outlook for this year was to basically just remove them entirely, as it seems like others in the industry are doing.

This is kind of a consistent issue across the industry. For us, the relative size of that exposure is less than others. Nonetheless, it's all out.

Ric Prentiss (Managing Director and Global Head of Telecommunications Research)

Great. Great. Okay. Second question for me. I think Marc mentioned I believe it was Marc with a C instead of Mark with a K here. Marc mentioned that you're closer to I think probably the U.S., closer to carrier consolidation trend being done. There is one more maybe in progress, right? T-Mobile, USM. Can you update us as far as how much T-Mobile USM churn might be when you're thinking it might affect you guys?

Brendan Cavanagh (President and CEO)

Yeah. Louis can correct me on this if I'm wrong. I believe somewhere around $1 million-$2 million of our churn estimate for this year covers specifically USM churn associated with that. There's a little bit in there. The total amount of revenue that we have under those UScellular leases is $20 million. We've had a very small amount of that realized already, plus we've incorporated, as I said, $1 million-$2 million in our numbers for this year. Somewhere less than $20 million. I don't know that it will all necessarily churn. There may be some that are kept, I would think. We've kind of assumed that over the next five years, you'll see all of it go away kind of evenly over that period of time.

Ric Prentiss (Managing Director and Global Head of Telecommunications Research)

Okay. Related to USM, we obviously get the question a lot on what does direct-to-device satellite mean for terrestrial wireless terrestrial towers? I'll admit I'm in the camp that thinks it's complementary. It maybe fixes whitespace. Help people understand, are there any sites on the fringe of where you have sites or how you're thinking of direct-to-device and what it might mean to terrestrial wireless and terrestrial towers?

Brendan Cavanagh (President and CEO)

First of all, we agree with the premise that you just mentioned, which is that it is largely a complementary solution, and it is best suited in some of those harder-to-reach areas, those areas that maybe aren't economic to cover with a traditional terrestrial solution. I don't see it having a huge impact on our business because even when we have sites that you would classify as slightly more rural, they're still in population centers or they're covering areas where there's a concentration of people. We typically don't have sites that are in the middle of nowhere. Those don't last for very long. I don't think it's going to have much of an impact, Ric.

There are clearly limitations, both financial and just physical properties, in terms of the ability to deliver speeds and latency levels at the level that it's going to be required, particularly with the newer technologies that are coming. I think as we move towards 6G and there's greater uplink, it's going to be much harder to provide anywhere close to the same solution through a satellite product. That'll all play out over time. For now, we haven't seen anything that indicates a threat from that.

Ric Prentiss (Managing Director and Global Head of Telecommunications Research)

Great. Thanks, guys. See a couple of you next week then.

Brendan Cavanagh (President and CEO)

Sounds good. Thanks, Ric.

Operator (participant)

Our next caller is Eric Luebchow from Wells Fargo.

Eric Luebchow (Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Great. Thanks for taking the question. Brendan, now that we have effectively a stable three-carrier market in the U.S. going forward, maybe you could just update us on kind of longer-term expectations where you think net organic growth can get to domestically, especially once you wash out some of the consolidation churn that you've talked about on this call.

Brendan Cavanagh (President and CEO)

Yeah. Sure. I would expect I'll give you a little bit of range because I think at any given period, any given quarter, we don't know for sure. It's probably in that 4%-5% range. It's basically made up of 3% roughly from escalators. I think the long-term domestic churn is around 1%. I think what we guided to for this year is slightly higher than that. We have the UScell stuff and a couple of other things in there that I think will ultimately wash out. Long-term, I think that's in the 1% area. That leaves the organic lease-up as kind of the question mark. I think 2%-3% for that item is a reasonable expectation over time, especially when you get back to more of a network-driven, competitive environment, which we tend to thrive in.

I think there will be quarters where we do something towards the higher end of that range, and there will be quarters where we do something towards the lower end. I think that's the best reasonable assumption going forward.

Eric Luebchow (Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Great. Thanks for that. Just one follow-up. I think you said that the bulk of your activity was coming from new colos this year. If you could just remind us if you have any split between colos and amendments? I guess some of the spectrum options that have been talked about, like upper C-band, do you think we're still kind of two to three years away from seeing amendment activity from new spectrum pick up again? Or what do you think the timeline is from when we really start to see new spectrum actually hitting your sites where you can monetize it?

Brendan Cavanagh (President and CEO)

We still have a heavy amount of contribution from colocations. I can't give you the specific percentage because there's some nuances in the way that the master agreements are set up. It's definitely more in terms of dollars coming from colocations than from amendments. From a spectrum implication standpoint, the upper C-band piece likely will be several years away. I mean, I would think that's somewhere around the turn of the decade before that starts to impact us, even though it is expected to be auctioned by mid-year next year. By the time it's cleared and actually starts getting deployed, it's probably going to be 2029 to 2030. There is spectrum-driven activity that we expect will be taking place prior to that with spectrum that's currently in the hands of the carriers that they haven't yet deployed. There's a mix of those things.

A lot of them for instance, some of the carriers have with their AWS and PCS spectrum, the need to deploy Massive MIMO antennas and, in particular, radios in order to maximize the benefit of that. You have C-band that's sitting with T-Mobile that has not been deployed at all yet, that at some point, we would expect them to start to deploy. There's still going to continue to be activity with the spectrum that's currently in the hands of the carriers and some of the new spectrum that they've acquired. For instance, AT&T has acquired from DISH. Those will all be drivers. The new spectrum auctions will be helpful to start to fill the coffers back up so that as they get through those cycles, you start to see the next wave of activity with those newer bands.

Eric Luebchow (Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Good. Thanks, Brendan.

Brendan Cavanagh (President and CEO)

Sure.

Operator (participant)

Okay. Moving on to Michael Rollins from Citi.

Michael Rollins (Managing Director of Communications Services and Communications Infrastructure)

Thanks and good afternoon. Just thinking about some of the comments you were providing about leasing, if organic lease annually should be 2%-3% a year, and I think this year it's calculating at the midpoint to be slightly below that, do you view 2026 as the bottom? What you're just describing in terms of factors that contribute to activity, just collectively driving more activity over the next few years. Then secondly, I was just curious, as you're getting through carrier consolidation and you're pulling out customers that aren't customers that haven't paid you, what's left? What's left in terms of remaining consolidation churn that we need to be mindful of both in the U.S. and internationally? Is there anything else that gets them to a way of a kind of smoother organic path from here?

Brendan Cavanagh (President and CEO)

Okay. Thanks, Mike, for the questions. On the organic leasing question and whether 2026 is the bottom, basically, I think it's definitely right at the bottom. I think it probably is the bottom. I mean, obviously, I have to see how things play out. The reason that it's a little bit below the range that I gave is you see a little bit of cyclicality. While we're seeing a pickup with Verizon, we had some pretty heavy leasing activity with one of the other carriers, T-Mobile, and that has slowed. Those go in cycles a little bit more. I expect that we'll start to see that pick up again, which will help move the total back up. With regard to AT&T, I think we've discussed before the structure of our MLA, which was a little bit front-end loaded in terms of payments associated with activity.

Because it was front-end loaded, it's a little bit slower now. The actual amount of activity is more even than the actual revenue recognition was for us. Given that dynamic, that agreement will be up in a couple of years. I would expect that in a normalized environment, if you normalize for that, we would definitely be within the range that I mentioned. I'm pretty comfortable that that is an appropriate range going forward. On the consolidation question in terms of what's left, I think there's not much left. I mean, certainly, all the big things have happened or are in the process of happening right now.

We're in the last year of well, we're taking all the DISH, and we're in the last big year of Sprint, although there is still some amount of Sprint left, less than $20 million of that left over time, over the next couple of years. You had the UScellular churn in the U.S. that we talked about earlier. Outside of those items, it's really miscellaneous cats and dogs. There's nothing that I would think would be overly material in terms of its impact. Internationally, we've also faced most of the big items, particularly in Brazil with Oi. We've actually pulled forward into this year all of that Oi wireline system churn. There won't be any more of that after this year. There may be some continued nuances. We still have overlapping sites there between Claro and Oi and between Claro and Nextel, even.

There's a little bit of that. In terms of things of scale and size, I think we've really seen all of them. I would expect to see a market improvement as we get through this next year or two. Then there's just not that much left.

Michael Rollins (Managing Director of Communications Services and Communications Infrastructure)

Very helpful. Thanks very much.

Brendan Cavanagh (President and CEO)

Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Jim Schneider, Goldman Sachs.

Jim Schneider (Senior Equity Analyst)

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. Just wrapping up the past couple of questions into a broader long-term question for you, Brendan. I was just kind of curious, do you think that there's a clear path with domestic getting back to 4%-5%, international hopefully better than that? You can get the entire business back to sort of that 5% range. Is something that could happen as early as 2027, or could it be 2028 or later? Thank you.

Brendan Cavanagh (President and CEO)

Sure. Well, the answer is yes. I think we can get back there. I think the timing will be moving partially back there in 2027 and I think more fully there as you get into 2028 and 2029 because there will be some hangovers of some of these remaining churn items that we're dealing with. Yeah, I would expect definitely that we should get there. International should grow faster. That's the idea of why we're there. They're less mature markets. They have a lot more to do in terms of network buildout. I think as we've seen some of these rationalizations take place, which is the challenge of the international markets, we're getting many of them behind us. Growth should definitely improve in those markets in the coming years.

Jim Schneider (Senior Equity Analyst)

Thank you. Maybe specifically, I think you mentioned some activity among your specific domestic carriers. Relative to Verizon, I think on their prior conference calls, they've talked about sort of finishing up their C-band deployments and adding more small cells. Is that consistent with the business trends that you're seeing from them right now?

Brendan Cavanagh (President and CEO)

Yeah. We've seen them get— it's consistent in the sense that they have done a lot of the C-band upgrades. There may be some we still have a small percentage of sites where I would expect to still see a little bit of activity there. It's consistent in that respect. I think when they talk about the small cells, they're talking about those upgrades with that spectrum or deploying that spectrum through small cells. That piece, we have not a lot to do with because we're not a small cell company. What we do have is a very significant embedded base with them. Under our agreement, it's clear that they have expectations for really expanding out their network through new colocations. Plus, we would expect to see some of their existing AWS and PCS deployments be upgraded with massive MIMO radios. That should drive some amendment activity as well.

Jim Schneider (Senior Equity Analyst)

Thank you.

Brendan Cavanagh (President and CEO)

Sure.

Operator (participant)

Before we move on to our next caller, a reminder to our audience, if you want to ask a question, please dial pound two. Our next call is from David Barden, New Street Research.

David Barden (Partner and Senior Telecommunications and Digital Infrastructure Equity Analyst)

Hey, guys. Thanks so much for taking the question. I guess I had two. One was just maybe for you, Louis or Marc, on the Brazilian real forecast, American Tower made an assumption that the real for 2026 is going to be BRL 5.5. You guys made an assumption it's going to be BRL 5.2, and it's trading at BRL 5.13. I would love to kind of understand how you guys come to your assumption so we can kind of figure out maybe who's right. The second question, if I could I've asked this of others and Brendan. If DISH is not paying their bills, filing a lawsuit is one thing. Why are you not sending guys out in the field with a pair of snippers and just turning off the network and tearing down the gear and selling it for scrap metal?

I'm fairly sure if you asked Jeff to go do that for you, he would volunteer. What's the strategy around this, and why would you not do that? Thank you.

Brendan Cavanagh (President and CEO)

Well, David, first of all, you don't know what we're doing and what we're not doing. Okay? Second of all, we follow the law. Jeff is busy right now, so I don't have to call him about it. Yeah, I mean, we obviously have been fully as I'm sure our peers have, been fully evaluating all of our rights and opportunities to enforce our position. I can't really say much more about it. Your other question, I mean, I can let Marc answer the one on the BRL.

Marc Montagner (CFO)

Yeah. Thanks, David. I think the only thing I could tell you is that those BRL 5.15 and BRL 5.20 will probably be the wrong answer. We debated that internally a lot. I'll give you one data point. The Central Bank of Brazil is forecasting BRL 5.50. Economists forecast to have anything between BRL 5.50 and below BRL 5. The spot is at BRL 5.14. I could tell you that Brazil basically exported an export of over $4 billion just in January. They were exporting more than importing. Everybody's buying reals and the short-term interest rates of 15%. Based on this, we think the real is going to be strong and probably closer to BRL 5.0 than BRL 5.50 by the end of the year. We have to take a shot. This is the best shot we have, BRL 5.20. I'm sure it's going to change.

We expect the real to be strong in 2026 just because short-term interest rates are high and the country is a next exporter.

Brendan Cavanagh (President and CEO)

Yeah. David, at the end of the day, we're giving you an estimate, and we're telling you exactly what it is. If you think it's something different, you can come to your own conclusions on that. That's why we tell you what we're assuming. As Marc said, neither of us is going to be right. We just don't know which one of us is further off, though.

David Barden (Partner and Senior Telecommunications and Digital Infrastructure Equity Analyst)

That was super helpful, guys. I really appreciate it. Thank you.

Brendan Cavanagh (President and CEO)

Sure.

Operator (participant)

All right. Our next caller is David Guarino from Green Street.

David Guarino (Managing Director and Head of Global Data Center and Tower Research)

Thanks. Thanks. The land in Guatemala you purchased, we don't really get comps or valuations for land underneath tower sites. It'd be great just to hear how you underwrote the deal, whether it was from a multiple perspective or an IRR perspective. Are there any other large land portfolios underneath your site that you guys might look to acquire in the future?

Brendan Cavanagh (President and CEO)

I mean, we have a constant program to look at the land under our towers, first of all, just generally speaking. We do that in the U.S. and internationally and look for opportunities to buy land where we can for two reasons. One, because typically, we're able to negotiate deals that are very accretive. There's a financial reason. The other reason is that it secures those properties and removes a risk that could exist at some point as they near the end of terms. For both of those reasons, we do that. In the case of the Guatemala deal, it was kind of a special opportunity because it was so concentrated together so that we could do one transaction and essentially buy in the land under 3,900 sites. This was part of the pool of sites that we bought in the Millicom transaction.

That's why that opportunity arose. We bought it at a high single digits or actually mid-single digits multiple. The valuation was very, very good. It was immediately accretive to us. As I said before, on the overall strategy, it also de-risked any concerns around those properties and those assets that we have on them.

David Guarino (Managing Director and Head of Global Data Center and Tower Research)

All right. That's helpful. Make sure to color on the multiple on that. Maybe switching gears on the data center side. I know in the past, you've made some, let's call it, smaller R&D-like investments, but obviously, nothing needle-moving for the company. Should we think about SBA looking to invest more heavily in the data center space going forward based on what you've learned, or do you still think towers are the best ownership model for the company?

Brendan Cavanagh (President and CEO)

Yeah, we do. I mean, obviously, data centers are hot these days. The data centers that we own were helpful to us in becoming educated around how to run that type of operation with the idea that we were looking at more edge computing type of solutions down the road that would largely be based at our tower sites. That was the thesis and why we spent the money on it. They've performed fine standalone operations, but it's not our intention to continue to add those types of data centers. However, I do think that the development of incremental edge compute opportunities is starting to advance more than it has in the past. I mean, this has been something we've been talking about for a decade, and we haven't really seen much of it.

I would say in recent times, we're starting to see more indicators that that may become something that's a little more prevalent with pushing out AI-based solutions further to the edge. Compute needs to be a little bit closer. I think we're going to be a player in that space that will be able to help people just because we have such a large set of assets and locations all across the country. That element will definitely be participating in, and I'm excited about what it might bring. In terms of the bigger standalone data centers, we don't think we need to have those to support that effort. I wouldn't expect to see us invest anymore there.

David Guarino (Managing Director and Head of Global Data Center and Tower Research)

All right. Thank you.

Brendan Cavanagh (President and CEO)

Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Okay. There are no further questions in the queue.

Brendan Cavanagh (President and CEO)

Well, great. Well, thank you, everybody, for joining. We appreciate it. We look forward to sharing our first quarter results with you in a couple of months. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you to our speakers and everyone in the audience for joining us today. The call has concluded. You may now disconnect.