SBA Communications Corporation

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the SBA second quarter earnings results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode, and later we will conduct a question and answer session. Instructions will be given at that time. If you should require assistance during the call, please press star, then zero. And I would now like to turn the conference over to our host, Vice President of Finance, Mark DeRossi. Please go ahead.

Good evening, and thank you for joining us for SBA's second quarter 2023 earnings conference call. Here with me today are Jeff Stoops, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Brendan Cavanaugh, 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 2023 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, July 31st. We have no obligation to update any forward-looking statement 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 it over to Brendan to discuss our second quarter results.

Thank you, Mark. Good evening. We had another steady quarter in Q2 with solid financial results that were slightly ahead of our expectations. Based on these results and our updated expectations for the balance of the year, we have increased our full year 2023 outlook for site leasing revenue, tower cash flow, adjusted EBITDA, AFFO, and AFFO per share. Total GAAP site leasing revenues for the second quarter were $626.1 million, and cash site leasing revenues were $618.7 million. Foreign exchange rates represented a benefit of approximately $1.9 million when compared with our previously forecasted FX rate estimates for the quarter, and a headwind of $4.2 million when compared to the second quarter of 2022. Same tower recurring cash leasing revenue growth for the second quarter, which is calculated on a constant currency basis, was 4.3% net over the second quarter of 2022, including the impact of 3.9% of churn. On a gross basis, same tower recurring cash leasing revenue growth was 8.2%. Domestic same tower recurring cash leasing revenue growth over the second quarter of last year was 7.8% on a gross basis and 4.2% on a net basis, including 3.6% of churn. Domestic operational leasing activity, or bookings, representing new revenue placed under contract during the second quarter, declined from the first quarter. While all major carriers remained active with their networks, agreement execution levels in the second quarter from several of our customers were below our prior expectations. Longer term, we continue to see significant runway for new 5G-related leasing activity based on the number of our sites that remain to be upgraded with mid-band spectrum deployments by the major mobile network operators. In addition, today we announced that we have entered into a new long-term master lease agreement with AT&T. This comprehensive agreement will streamline AT&T's deployment of 5G solutions across our tower portfolio, while providing us with committed future leasing growth from AT&T for years to come. Based on this MLA, we have increased our projected contribution to 2023 leasing revenue from domestic organic new leases and amendments by $6 million from the full year projections we provided last quarter. During the second quarter, amendment activity represented 42% of our domestic bookings and new leases represented 58%. The big four carriers of AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, and DISH represented approximately 89% of total incremental domestic leasing revenue that was signed up during the quarter. Domestically, churn was slightly elevated during the quarter, primarily due to faster decommissionings of legacy Sprint leases than we had projected, which is the opposite of our experience last year. Based on our current analysis, we expect Sprint-related churn for 2023 to be at the high end of our previously stated range for this year of $25 to $30 million, resulting in a change to our full year domestic churn outlook of $4 million. Our views around the ultimate multi-year cumulative impact of Sprint merger related churn have not changed, although we continue to update our outlook around timing as more information becomes available. We now project 2024 Sprint related churn to be in a range of $20 to $30 million. 2025 to be between 35 and 45 million dollars, 2026 to be 45 to 55 million, and 2027 to be 10 to 20 million dollars. Just as last year ended up being well below our initial churn expectations, and 2023 will likely be a little above our initial expectations, we anticipate that the exact timing will continue to be somewhat fluid, but in line with our provided projections. Non-sprint related domestic churn was in line with our prior projections. Moving now to international results, on a constant currency basis, same-tower cash leasing revenue growth was 4.8% net, including 4.9% of churn, or 9.7% on a gross basis. International leasing activity was strong in the second quarter and ahead of our internal expectations. These positive results and our solid backlogs have allowed us to increase our projected contribution to 2023 leasing revenue from international organic new leases and amendments by $1 million. Inflation-based escalators also continue to make steady contributions to our organic growth. However, decreases in actual and projected Brazilian CPI rates have caused us to moderate our outlook for international escalation contributions for the full year by approximately $1 million. Overall, Brazil, our largest international market, had another very good quarter. The same tower organic growth rate in Brazil was 5.7% on a constant currency basis, including the impact of 5.6% of churn, which amount was significantly impacted by our previously discussed TEM agreement. While international churn remains elevated, it continues to be in line with expectations and our previously provided outlook. As a reminder, our 2023 outlook does not include any churn assumptions related to the OY consolidation other than that associated with the TAM agreement. However, if during the year we were to enter into any further agreements with other carriers related to the OY consolidation, that would be expected to have an impact on our current year. We would adjust our outlook accordingly at that time. During the second quarter, 77.5% of consolidated cash site leasing revenue was denominated in U.S. dollars. The majority of non-U.S. dollar denominated revenue was from Brazil, with Brazil representing 16.2% of consolidated cash site leasing revenues during the quarter and 13.1% of cash site leasing revenue excluding revenues from pass-through expenses. Tower cash flow for the second quarter was $503.5 million, Tower cash flow in the quarter benefited by approximately $7.3 million in accounting-driven cost reclassifications. Our tower cash flow margins remain very strong, with a second quarter domestic tower cash flow margin of 85.5% and an international tower cash flow margin of 70.3% or 92.3%, excluding the impact of pass-through reimbursable expenses. Adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter was $471.7 million. The adjusted EBITDA margin was 70.3% in the quarter. Excluding the impact of revenues from pass-through expenses, adjusted EBITDA margin was 75.9%. Approximately 98% of our total adjusted EBITDA was attributable to our tower leasing business in the second quarter. During the second quarter, our services business had another strong quarter, with $52.4 million in revenue and $13.1 million of segment operating profit. While off year-ago activity levels, our carrier customers remained busy deploying new 5G-related equipment during the quarter, and we have retained our full-year outlook for our site development business due in part to the strength of our first-half results. Adjusted funds from operations, or AFFO, in the second quarter was $352.7 million. AFFO per share was $3.24, an increase of 6.2% over the second quarter of 2022 on a constant currency basis. During the second quarter, we continued to invest in additions to our portfolio, acquiring nine communication sites for total cash consideration of $7.2 million and building 64 new sites. Subsequent to quarter end, we have purchased or are under agreement to purchase 134 sites, all in our existing markets, an aggregate price of 72.9 million dollars we anticipate closing on these sites under contract by the end of the year in addition to new towers we also continue to invest in the land under our sites and during the quarter we spent an aggregate of 10.1 million dollars to buy land and easements and to extend ground lease terms at the end of the quarter we owned or controlled for more than 20 years the land underneath approximately 70 percent of our towers And the average remaining life under our ground leases, including renewal options under our control, is approximately 36 years. With that, I will now turn things over to Mark, who will provide an update on our balance sheet.