Analyst: SBA’s ‘Ferrari Hits Speed Bump, Shares Priced Like A Ford’

If a tower company’s growth rate was compared to a car engine accelerating “zero to 60 mph in six seconds,” then SBA Communications might be a reversal of sorts, like 60-to- zero growth in four quarters. That’s the way Macquarie Securities analyst Kevin Smithen put it in his Friday afternoon research report headlined “Tower ‘Ferrari hits a speed bump but now priced like a ‘Ford.’” He said he and his research team spent the past week and a half researching the company to determine “what happened to SBAC’s premium growth rate.” Finally, he had “a long call with CEO Jeff Stoops yesterday (Thursday, November 19), we are now convinced that SBAC is seeing a pause in 2016 US growth almost entirely due to its lack of an MLA (master lease agreement) with AT&T. This fact also hurts its site augmentation revenue due to a more a compressed D&A schedule on this segment than peers (SBAC at 2.5 years vs. peers at 10 years).” Continue Reading here.