American Tower Corporation (NYSE:AMT) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

On the balance sheet side, we raised $1.5 billion in senior unsecured notes at a weighted average cost of approximately 5.9% by utilizing the proceeds to pay down revolver balances, we reduced our floating rate debt exposure to approximately $4 billion or less than 11% of our total outstanding debt as of the end of the third quarter down from over 22% at the start of the year. Finally, we’re making significant progress on the strategic review of our India business. As we are in the final stages of this process, we remain committed to communicating the outcome to our shareholders before the end of the year, consistent with our past messaging. In Q3, we recorded $322 million in goodwill impairment charges associated with our India business. This was prompted by indications of value obtained through the process conducted over the past several months, supported by our own interim goodwill impairment test.

We believe this impairment accurately reflects the current market conditions, evolving risk premiums associated with operating in the India market and more generally increases in the cost of capital. With that, please turn to Slide 8, and I’ll review our property revenue and organic tenant billings growth for the quarter. As you can see, consolidated property revenue growth was 7% or 8% on an FX neutral basis. U.S. and Canada property revenue growth was over 5%, which includes a nearly 2% headwind associated with a reduction in straight-line revenue, offset by timing benefits associated with certain non-recurring one-time items in the quarter. International growth was nearly 9% or approximately 11% excluding the impacts of currency fluctuations, which included a 4% benefit associated with the full collection of VIL billings in India in the quarter, as compared to the approximately $48 million revenue reserve in the prior year.

Finally, as I mentioned in my earlier remarks, our data center business revenue increased by over 9% and continues to demonstrate solid outperformance as compared to our initial underwriting plan. As Tom mentioned earlier, we anticipate 2023 to again break the signed new business record just set in 2022, setting up CoreSite to drive sustained attractive levels of growth as the backlog of new business commences over the next several years. Moving to the right side of the slide. Strong performance across each of our segments drove consolidated organic tenant billings growth of 6.3%. Within our U.S. and Canada segment, organic tenant billings growth was 5.3% and greater than 6.5% absent sprint related churn, including another quarter of colocation and amendment contributions of nearly $60 million.

Our International segment saw outperformance across nearly all reported segments, primarily driven by higher new business in Africa and churn delays in Latin America and APAC resulting in organic tenant billings growth of 7.9%. Turning to Slide 9. Adjusted EBITDA grew over 10% to $1.8 billion for the quarter or approximately 11% on an FX neutral basis. As I highlighted in my opening remarks, adjusted EBITDA margin expanded to 64.4%, a 290 basis point improvement compared to the previous year, primarily driven by solid organic growth, effective cost management throughout the business and the one-time revenue items I mentioned. In fact, despite the current inflationary environment, we have managed to maintain a relatively flat year-over-year cash SG&A profile remaining consistent with the themes from the first half of the year, with cash SG&A as a percent of property revenue standing at approximately 6.5% for the quarter, a nearly 70 basis point improvement versus Q3 of 2022.

Moving to the right side of the slide. Attributable AFFO and attributable AFFO per share each increased by over 9%, driven by solid cash adjusted EBITDA growth partially offset by an approximately 5% headwind from financing costs. Now shifting focus to our revised full year outlook. I’ll start by highlighting a few key items. First, as a result of our strong performance in the third quarter and the momentum taking us through the end of the year, we’ve raised our guidance for property revenue, adjusted EBITDA, attributable AFFO and attributable AFFO per share. Next, our revised outlook includes a reduction in U.S. services, resulting in a $20 million decrease in gross margin compared to our previous expectations for the year. As we’ve highlighted in the past, although, quarter-to-quarter variations in tower leasing activity have impacted our services revenue in 2023, our leasing revenue remains unaffected, underpinned by the comprehensive master lease agreements currently in place.

Finally, the updated midpoints include revised FX assumptions that have resulted in outlook to outlook headwinds of approximately $28 million for property revenue, $14 million for adjusted EBITDA and $5 million for attributable AFFO. With that, let’s dive into the numbers. Turning to Slide 10. We are increasing our expectations for property revenue by approximately $60 million as compared to our prior outlook. Our revised expectations are driven by $31 million in core property revenue outperformance, along with approximately $45 million and $12 million in additional pass-through and straight-line revenues, respectively. Our revised guidance includes $10 million in outperformance associated with VIL collections with roughly half included in our core property revenue and the balance in the pass-through outperformance illustrated.

Growth was partially offset by $28 million of negative FX impacts. Turning to Slide 11. We are increasing our expectations for organic tenant billings growth across nearly all segments. In the U.S. and Canada, we are increasing our guidance to greater than 5% or approximately 6.5% excluding Sprint churn, now with an expectation for approximately $230 million in colocation and amendment growth contributions. Growth is further benefiting from non-Sprint related churn delays, which we now anticipate occurring in 2024. In Latin America, we have increased our outlook from approximately 4% up now to approximately 5%, largely driven by continued delays in anticipated consolidation-related churn. Next, we’re increasing our Africa outlook from greater than 11% to approximately 12%, primarily due to a continued uptick in colocation and amendment demand.

In APAC, we are increasing our guidance from approximately 4% to about 5% supported by a combination of strong new business in delayed churn. Moving on to Slide 12. We are raising our adjusted EBITDA outlook by $60 million. This reflects the strong conversion of the incremental property revenue highlighted earlier, coupled with prudent cost controls, resulting in an incremental $67 million in cash property gross margin outperformance along with an additional $14 million in cash, SG&A savings and $30 million of straight line. This growth was partially offset by a reduction of $20 million associated with our U.S. services business and a negative FX impact of $14 million. Turning to Slide 13. We are raising our expectations for AFFO attributable to common stockholders by $40 million at the midpoint or approximately $0.09 on a per share basis, moving the midpoint to $9.79 per share.

Our performance was driven by the cash adjusted EBITDA increase of $61 million partially offset by $16 million of other items, including an acceleration of certain maintenance projects in cash taxes, along with incremental minority interest due to outperformance in our JV businesses, partially offset by improvements to net interest. As I noted earlier, FX caused a headwind of approximately $5 million. Moving on to Slide 14. Let’s review our capital allocation plans for the full year. Consistent with the expectations set at the beginning of the year, we are planning to distribute approximately $3 billion in common stock dividends which represents a year-over-year growth rate of 10% on a per share basis, subject to board approval. Our full year CapEx spend also remains consistent at $1.7 billion with the acceleration of certain non-discretionary projects that I mentioned earlier, offset by lower discretionary spend, which includes a reduction in development CapEx associated with lower anticipated new build volumes.

As always, our goal is to execute a capital deployment strategy that maximizes total shareholder returns. In line with my earlier remarks, we’re focused on creating incremental value through solid organic growth and quality of earnings optimizing global operational efficiency and expanding cash margins, all while strengthening our financial position by further reducing balance sheet risk and enhancing financial flexibility. As it relates to capital allocation and against the current economic backdrop, we believe it’s optimal to prioritize balance sheet strength and keep discretionary spend focused on select capital expenditure projects that yield the best risk-adjusted returns and quality of earnings. Additionally, decoupled from our current line of sight to its attributable AFFO growth for next year, we anticipate maintaining a dividend per share profile in 2024 that closely aligns with our 2023 expectation of $6.45 per share resuming growth in a manner supportive of our REIT taxable income thereafter, all subject to Board approval.

By focusing on the above priorities, we believe American Tower is positioned for sustained and compelling total shareholder returns supported through balance sheet strength over the long term. Consistent with our historical practice, we’ll discuss our 2024 plans in more detail on our next earnings call. Moving to the right side of the slide and as highlighted earlier, as a result of the successful execution of our financing initiatives in the third quarter, we reduced our floating rate debt balance to below 11%, increased our liquidity to $9.7 billion, and our average maturity remains over six years. We closed the quarter with net leverage of approximately 5 times, which benefits from certain non-recurring items in the quarter, as I mentioned earlier, and we expect to close the year slightly above 5 times.