Crown Castle International CorporationCCI

Morningstar Rating

Stock Research and Analysis

by Imari Love

In a dismal economy, visibility is a valuable asset. Tower companies like Crown Castle are some of the few that can deliver just that. The firm has more than 97% of the coming year's revenue projections already under contract. These contracts are not Read more

Bulls Say

Integrated handsets such as the iPhone now constitute nearly 30% of the Big Four's subscriber base. Carriers thus have an increased need for spectrum capacity to relieve the burden on their networks. Leasing applications rose by 26% over the last 12 months.

Crown has done a good job of improving its balance sheet by lowering its leverage. Management has positioned itself to be able to buyback shares and make tower acquisitions in 2010.

The tenants/tower ratio has shown steady improvement over the past couple of years even though the portfolio more than doubled. Read more

Bears Say

Investments in new business initiatives that stray from the company's core competencies are not in the best long-term interest of shareholders. Investors would be best served if Crown Castle allocated capital solely to its traditional tower leasing business and returned all remaining cash to shareholders.

Debt is harder to obtain and more costly to finance than it has been in the past. The firm wants to refinance its debt before it matures, so interest expenses are sure to rise.

Revenues are largely driven by a few major wireless carriers. Any disruption in infrastructure investment by the major players will hurt sentiment for the industry. Read more

Strategy

One focal point of Crown Castle's strategy is to internally increase revenue and cash flows from towers by maximizing its tenant/tower ratio. Management also seeks to allocate capital efficiently by Read more

Management

W. Benjamin Moreland was named president and CEO last summer after spending eight years as vice president and CFO. Moreland has a strong corporate finance background and has already made significant progress is cleaning up the firm's balance sheet and Read more

Profile

Crown Castle is the largest independent operator of wireless tower communication sites in the United States. The company owns more than 22,000 tower sites in the U.S. and Read more

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