Business Analyst and Application Support Analyst 2

SBA Communications (SBAC) wins investment grade while profits slide. Published September 7, 2026 at 1:51 am EDT On August 3, SBA Communications (NASDAQ:SBAC) reported second-quarter results that told two very different stories at once. The tower operator earned its first-ever investment-grade credit rating from S&P, upgrading to BBB, in the same quarter that net income attributable to the company fell 12.9% year over year to $198.8 million. Diluted earnings per share dropped to $1.87 from $2.09 a year earlier. That contrast, a stronger balance sheet against softer per-share profit, sets up everything that follows. Balance sheet gets A makeover. SBA used the quarter to reshape how it borrows. On July 23, the company issued $3.5 billion of senior unsecured notes, split across three tranches maturing between January 2030 and July 2033, at a blended interest rate of 5.113%. It used the proceeds to pay down $1.0 billion drawn on its revolving credit facility and retire a $2.2 billion term loan, then replaced its old secured credit line with a new $2.5 billion unsecured revolving facility running through July 23, 2031. That refinancing helped earn SBA its S&P upgrade to BBB, its first investment-grade rating. Net debt to Adjusted EBITDA finished the quarter at 6.4 times, squarely inside the company's target range of 6.0 to 7.0 times, and $1.1 billion remains available under the stock repurchase authorization. International growth is doing the heavy lifting on revenue. Site leasing revenue outside the US climbed 30.5% year over year to $211.4 million, while domestic site leasing revenue fell 3.7% to $452.5 million. SBA built 109 new towers during the quarter, with construction concentrated in Central America for customers including Millicom, and as of the earnings release date, the company had 58 additional communication sites under contract for $28.8 million, expected to close by the end of the fourth quarter of 2026. The company also nudged its full-year 2026 outlook higher, raising site leasing revenue guidance and lifting the AFFO per share range to $11.95 to $12.40. Where the cracks show. The per-share numbers tell a tougher story than the balance sheet news. AFFO per share fell 3.8% year over year to $3.05, and total AFFO dropped 5.2% to $324.4 million. Tower cash flow margin slipped to 79.5% from 81% a year earlier. Domestic churn is a big reason why: the company's revenue bridge points to $56 million of Sprint consolidation churn and another $56 million tied to EchoStar, both concentrated in the domestic segment, on top of $57 million to $64 million of regular churn. Borrowing more, even at investment-grade rates, has a cost. Net cash interest expense rose 9.5% year over year to $122.1 million in the quarter, and the outlook now assumes refinancing $1.165 billion of tower securities at a fixed 5.25% rate ahead of their November 9 anticipated repayment date. Site development revenue, the smaller of SBA's two segments, dropped 23.5% to $51.4 million. And the updated outlook raised the discretionary capital expenditure range by $25 million to $455 million to $475 million, meaning more cash is going out the door even as per-share profit growth eased. What wall street sees now. Hedge fund ownership of SBA fell from 51 funds to 46 in the most recent quarter, a modest pullback. Short sellers have not piled in behind that retreat, with short interest sitting at just 4.14% of the float, a level suggesting little organized bearish conviction. The stock trades at a forward P/E of 20.00 as of September 4, a multiple that assumes earnings stabilize even after the year-over-year declines in this report. The tension investors face. SBA closed the quarter with a stronger, cheaper-to-service balance sheet and rising international revenue, but also with declining per-share earnings and margin compression in its core leasing business. Investors who lean bullish can point to the BBB rating, the international growth, and $1.1 billion of remaining buyback capacity as evidence that the fundamentals are more durable than the headline earnings decline suggests. Those who lean skeptical will note that AFFO per share, the metric SBA highlights first, fell for a second straight comparison, and that domestic churn from Sprint and EchoStar is not disappearing soon.

Raymond James has highlighted SBA Communications and Somnigroup International as top stock picks for the remainder of 2026, despite both experiencing significant declines this year. SBA Communications, a real estate investment trust owning cellular towers across the Americas and Africa, has been volatile due to slowed carrier network buildouts. The company reported Q2 revenue of $715.3 million, up 2% year-over-year. Analyst Ric Prentiss assigned a Strong Buy rating with a $264 price target, suggesting 41% upside from current levels near $191. Somnigroup International, the world's largest bedding maker with brands including Tempur-Pedic and Sealy, has dropped 30% this year amid integration challenges following its $5 billion Mattress Firm acquisition. Q2 revenue reached $1.82 billion. Analyst Bobby Griffin rates it Strong Buy with a $90 target, implying 44% upside. Both picks represent recovery bets on companies Raymond James believes offer attractive value after market punishment.

Latin America's tower sector: who's expanding, who's pulling back and who's exiting. Bnamericas Published: Monday, August 17, 2026 Second-quarter 2026 results and recent moves by the leading telecom tower companies operating in Latin America show a regional industry split between consolidation and expansion, with performance, site counts and investment plans varying widely among players. While SBA, Sitios Latam and Torrecom step up construction and raise funds to grow, American Tower continues to shrink its site base in the region. IHS Towers, meanwhile, completed its full exit from Latin America, selling tower and fiber assets to Macquarie and TIM. A common thread, despite the slowdown in some markets, is that 5G remains the main investment driver cited by nearly all of them; SBA, Sitios Latam and Atis Group are betting on increasing colocation on existing towers, on top of building new sites. América Móvil, Millicom, Telefónica, TIM and AT&T keep coming up as the main clients across these companies, and Brazil remains the anchor market for most of them. Carrier consolidation is also a source of churn and contract-renegotiation pressure for most of them, as seen with American Tower in Brazil, SBA with Vivo and TIM, and Atis Group in Argentina. American Tower The sector leader closed the second quarter with 46,576 sites in Latin America, a net loss of about 1,220 towers versus the 47,794 recorded a year earlier, with sales and portfolio adjustments outpacing new builds in every quarter of the period. Brazil remains the company's largest market, with 22,297 towers, followed by Mexico (8,938), Colombia (4,824), Peru (4,389), Chile (3,779), Paraguay (1,449), Costa Rica (713) and Argentina (508). Organic tenant billings growth in the region fell 2.4% in the quarter, with delinquency in Brazil as the main driver, and guidance for 2026 points to a decline of about 3% for the year. Even so, property revenue in Latin America grew 13.4% year-on-year, to US$442 million (mn), lifted by a more favorable exchange rate and by energy cost pass-throughs. The region accounts for just 15% of the company's global discretionary capex plan for 2026, versus 20% for the US and Canada, 25% for Europe and 40% for US data centers. For the full year, the company projects regional property revenue of US$1.79 billion (bn) to US$1.81bn, and expects a recovery in the Brazilian market and a return to organic growth in Latin America in 2027. SBA Communications SBA, for its part, plans to build around 600 new towers in 2026, most of them in Central America, where it closed the second quarter with 10,948 sites, up from 10,905 in the first. The company's global portfolio totaled 46,390 sites, while South America edged down slightly, to 14,326. Combining both markets, SBA closed the quarter with 25,274 sites in Latin America. The company is integrating roughly 7,000 towers acquired from Millicom in Central America and has committed to building at least 2,500 new sites in the region over five years. In the first quarter, SBA had acquired ten sites and land rights under about 3,900 towers in Guatemala for US$133 million (mn). On the client mix, Tigo's (Millicom) share of international leasing revenue jumped to 19.6%, from 6.7% a year earlier, while Telefónica's share fell to 18.7%, in line with the Spanish carrier's divestments in the region. Read also: Millicom: Argentina, Brazil and Mexico "not on the radar" Sitios Latam Controlled by América Móvil, Mexico's Sitios Latam (Sites Latam) added 364 new sites in the second quarter, nearly double the 186 built in the first, driven mainly by Brazil and the Andean region. The consolidated portfolio reached 37,989 towers across 15 countries, up from 37,625 in the prior quarter. Brazil remains the largest market, with 12,490 towers (a third of the total), followed by the Andean region (9,814), Central America (8,407), the Argentina-Uruguay-Paraguay bloc (5,636, up 116% over twelve months) and the Caribbean (1,642). Quarterly revenue totaled 4.1 billion Mexican pesos (about US$235 million), a 2.4% nominal decline hit by the peso's appreciation, but a 21.3% increase in constant currency. Net debt, for its part, remains elevated, though it eased to 5.21 times adjusted EBITDA over the last twelve months. The company's target is to reach 5.0 times by year-end. IHS Towers Having already exited Peru, IHS Towers completed the sale of its tower operations in Brazil and Colombia (about 9,000 structures) to Macquarie Asset Management, for an enterprise value of US$952 million (mn), ending its presence in Latin America. The tower deal follows the May sale of IHS's 51% stake in Brazilian fiber operator I-Systems to TIM, a deal with an enterprise value of US$452.6 million (mn). Together, the two deals total around US$1.4 billion (bn) in divested enterprise value in the region. The company now plans to focus on its home markets in Africa and the Middle East, where it still operates more than 28,000 towers. As IHS exits, Torrecom is moving forward. The Miami-based tower operator focused on Spanish-speaking Latin America secured financing of US$140 million (mn) led by IDB Invest, with participation from DEG, Proparco, the Allianz Credit Emerging Markets Fund, ILX Fund and BAC. The company, which currently operates more than 1,700 sites, plans to expand its portfolio to 2,550 towers across Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay and Peru - growth of more than a third. Its main clients include América Móvil, Millicom, AT&T, Digicel, Entel and Bitel. Atis Group In the Southern Cone, also betting on growth, Atis Group projects growing at least 10% a year in tower count. The company operates more than 1,000 sites in Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay and is banking mainly on 5G rollouts in those three countries. Atis holds long-term contracts with Millicom, Telecom Argentina, Claro and Antel - clients that account for 99.9% of its revenue - and is looking to raise its average colocation rate, currently at 1.3 tenants per tower. Phoenix Tower International Outside the group of companies with results disclosed in the period analyzed, Phoenix Tower International (PTI) also maintains a significant operation in the region. The company, headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida, reported a global portfolio of more than 25,000 towers at the end of the third quarter of 2025, of which BNamericas estimates around 12,000 are in Latin America and the Caribbean. PTI's regional footprint was built mainly through acquisitions in recent years, such as the purchase of 3,800 towers from Chilean operator WOM, for an enterprise value of approximately US$930 million (mn), and the acquisition of about 1,300 towers from Liberty Latin America in Panama, Jamaica, the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, Barbados and the British Virgin Islands - a deal that also included a commitment to build 500 new sites over five years. (The original version of this content was written in Portuguese)