American Tower Corporation (REIT)

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the American Tower Corporation Second Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, today's conference is being recorded. Following the prepared remarks, we will open the call for questions. If you'd like to ask a question, please press one and zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Igor Kieslowski, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir. Good morning,

and thank you for joining American Tower's Second Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call. We've posted a presentation, which we will refer to throughout our prepared remarks under the Investor Relations tab of our website, .americantower.com. Before the rest of my comments, I'll note that due to COVID-19, all of us on the call this morning are again dialing in remotely from different locations. So to the extent that there are any minor technical difficulties, we would ask that you bear with us. Our agenda for this morning will be as follows. First, I'll quickly summarize our financial results for the second quarter. Next, Tom Bartlett, our President and CEO, will provide an overview of our international business and the associated key trends and returns. And then finally, Rod Smith, our Executive Vice President, CFO, and Treasurer, will discuss our second quarter results and updated 2020 outlook. After these comments, we will take your questions. I'll remind you that this call will contain forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Examples of these statements include our expectations regarding future growth, including our 2020 outlook, capital allocation, and future operating performance, our expectations regarding the impacts of COVID-19, our expectations regarding the impacts of the AGR decision in India, and any other statements regarding matters that are not historical fact. You should be aware that certain factors may affect us in the future and could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in these forward-looking statements. Such factors include the risk factors set forth in this morning's earnings press release, those set forth in our form 10K for the year ended December 31st, 2019, as updated in our form 10Q for the three months ended March 31st, 2020, and in other filings we make with the SEC. We urge you to consider these factors and remind you that we undertake no obligation to update the information contained in this call to reflect subsequent events or circumstances. Now, please turn to slide four of our presentation, which highlights our financial results for the quarter. During the quarter, our property revenue increased .4% to nearly 1.9 billion. Our adjusted EBITDA also grew by .4% to over 1.2 billion, and our consolidated AFFO and consolidated AFFO per share increased by 1.6 and .5% respectively to ,002.07. On an FX-neutral basis, growth rates for property revenue, adjusted EBITDA and consolidated AFFO per share would have been 8.6, 7.6, and .4% respectively. Finally, net income attributable to American Tower Corporation common stockholders increased by roughly 4% to $446 million or $1 per diluted common share. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Tom.

Hey, thanks, Igor. Good morning, everyone. I hope that you're all healthy and well. You know, as we navigate the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, our number one priority continues to be the health and safety of our employees, their families, our tenant suppliers, and surrounding communities. The remote work policies I mentioned on our last call continue to service well throughout our global footprint. I'm pleased to say that there are even a few geographies where certain employees have been able to return to the office with numerous incremental safety measures in place. I'm also happy to report that our business continues to perform well as we work closely with our tenants to preserve and enhance mobile connectivity when it is needed the most. And outside of FX impacts, which have moderated slightly over the last few months, we have to this point not seen material impacts from COVID-19 on our operations. As we move forward, we believe we're well positioned to continue to provide high levels of service and drive solid results. The rest of my remarks today, similar to prior second quarter calls, will center on the key trends and return profiles we are seeing across our international business and what we expect in the future. Since we entered Brazil and Mexico back in the late 1990s to provide geographic diversification to our foundational US business, we've added nearly 140,000 communication sites in 19 countries outside of the United States, focusing on partnering with large multinational wireless carriers and select markets with strong property rights, rules of law, and vibrant wireless industries. Since day one of our international expansion strategy, our mandate has been clear, build and acquire multi-tenant exclusive franchise real estate assets that will generate attractive organic growth rates while driving margin expansion and growing returns on invested capital over the long term. And do so with an emphasis on building leading market positions in the largest democracies across the world with the goal of positioning ourselves as either the top one or two tower company in each market. This strategy has been underpinned by our proven risk underwriting profits, including among other things, contemplating FX movements and local country inflation trends. As we've discussed with you before, all of our investments are evaluated using a 10-year unlevered DCF model with varying IRR hurdles due to the inclusion of appropriate risk adjustments to account for the specific local country risk, the type of asset, counterparty, and a host of other factors. These hurdles range from the mid to high single digits in markets like the United States and Western Europe to the mid to high teens and some of our more nascent African markets to ensure that our shareholders are being appropriately compensated for the level of risk being assumed. This balanced approach to market risk has enabled us to evaluate each individual investment opportunity in the context of its risk-adjusted return profile, long-term AFFO accretion potential, and the NPV expected to be generated rather than utilizing a specific cap as to how big any market or region can get or should get in relation to the United States. Operationally, we are also executing a number of risk mitigation strategies. For example, our MLAs include primarily local CPI-based escalators. Our overall portfolio has significant diversification and we selectively issue local currency debt where it makes sense. Further, the vast majority of our local country-generated net cash flows are denominated in the local currency and we are generally reinvesting those same cash flows back into those very same markets. Lastly, we have mechanisms in place through which we are able to pass through the cost of land to our tenants in Latin America and the cost of fuel and power to our tenants across India and Africa, helping to further de-risk significant portions of our operating expenses across these regions. Taking all of these items into account, we believe we have a risk evaluation and mitigation framework that will enable us to continue to be successful internationally over the long-term. Within this context, the primary thesis underlying our global strategy has always been and continues to be that the evolution of network technology that we've seen in the United States will be replicated internationally, likely at an accelerated pace, given the lack of fixed line penetration in many areas. Our US business model and international model are effectively the same. The sites look the same, the structures are comparable, and the MLAs are fundamentally similar, but include the risk mitigation terms I discussed earlier. At the core, our international expansion serves as a way to significantly increase our total addressable market. As consumers gain access to advanced smartphone handsets and mobile data usage increases, mobile network operators continue to deploy meaningful wireless capex. Service providers in the international markets where we have a presence are expected to spend approximately $30 billion on their networks in 2020, in essence doubling the TAM of our US market alone. With mobile broadband penetration growing, we continue to expect to generate higher organic growth rates internationally than in the United States over the long-term, while driving meaningful expansion in our international return on invested capital. Fundamentally, we are utilizing our international strategy to increase and extend our overall global return profile. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has served to further highlight the criticality of wireless connectivity internationally, particularly in markets where fixed line penetration is minimal. Unlike in the United States, where most of us are plugging into our -Fi-enabled fixed line connections as we work from home, mobile networks serve as the backbone of virtually all -from-home functions in these international locations. And as you can imagine, broad-based -at-home orders and other restrictions that have been implemented in these markets over the last several months have led to additional strain on existing mobile networks. For example, Vodafone Idea in India noted that they experienced a year's worth of data traffic across their network in a single week following the implementation of lockdown measures. Similarly, major carriers across Latin America, Africa, and Europe have outlined significant spikes in data usage, and regulators have allocated additional temporary spectrum and implemented other policies to help maintain connectivity. As I mentioned earlier, we are committed to doing everything we can to support our tenants as they deal with the strain of this increased usage on their networks. Now I'd like to take a few minutes to discuss the attractive economics that we're driving across our international business. In the second quarter, our international operations accounted for roughly 43% of our property revenue and about a third of our property operating profit. Our international tower and dash properties drove an annualized cash gross margin of over $1.8 billion in the quarter, resulting in a nearly .5% NOI yield on our more than $19 billion in total international tower and dash investments, as you can see on slide six of our earnings presentation. This NOI yield includes both sites that we have recently acquired, as well as sites that have been in our portfolio for a number of years, benefiting from long-term tenancy and revenue growth. Our most seasoned vintage of international sites, those built or acquired prior to 2010, is yielding approximately 24% in US dollar terms, illustrating the power of operating leverage within our business. We view this type of return profile as a clear indication that international tower assets have the capacity to drive economics that are equal to, or better than, the United States tower model over the long term. Importantly, I'll note that the NOI yield numbers I'm referencing today are US dollar equivalents. That is, they take into account any foreign currency devaluation in the numerator, while freezing the denominator at historical exchange rates in the period in which the sites were acquired or built. Over the last 20 years, and especially since 2007, we have been steadily growing our international portfolio with a focus on macro towers and some of the largest free market democracies worldwide. Through a combination of our highly efficient new build programs and selective acquisitions, including the Eaton Towers deal we closed at the end of last year, we've added more than 130,000 international sites in just the last decade, including more than 24,000 sites we've built ourselves. These sites typically have lower initial returns due to lower initial tendency. You can see this on the slide, where sites we've added to our international portfolio between 2010 and 14 are generating yields of 10%, and those added since 2015 are generating yields of around 8%. Over time, our experience across all of our served markets has been that as networks mature, additional spectrum bands are deployed, and consumers obtain advanced handsets, mobile data usage grows exponentially, and significant additional network density becomes a necessity. As a result, we've seen sites that have initially produced modest returns, attract co-locations and amendments with minimal incremental costs, thereby driving substantial upside over time, no different than what we've experienced in the United States. In Latin America, where we've owned and operated towers for now over two decades, have invested approximately $8 billion and now have over 41,000 sites across eight countries, 4G deployments are in full swing. Our long time presence and scale have resulted in substantial business relationships with key operators in the region, including AT&T, American Mobile, and a number of others. These relationships coupled with our extensive asset base has enabled us to drive average organic tenant buildings growth of around 10% in the region over the last five years, backed by strong levels of new business activity and a continuing appetite for mobile data. Although organic growth rates are down a bit in 2020, in part due to falling local CPI, we continue to expect a long trajectory of solid underlying growth. We're also focused on our new build program, as network densification efforts accelerate. In fact, we expect to construct over 500 sites across Latin America this year, and anticipate strong demand for new builds in the region over a multi-year period. Importantly, these new builds typically have day one NOI yields in the high single digit range with just one tenant. With average tenancy ratio around one and a half across the region, we believe we are well positioned to drive meaningful margin and return accretion in Latin America for many years to come. In Africa, a majority of our markets are in earlier stages of the technology evolution, with 4G penetration only around 10% and average mobile data usage being a fraction of LATAM numbers as a result. We've invested approximately $5 billion across the continent and have an average tenancy of around one and a half on our portfolio of nearly 19,000 sites, which are yielding roughly 11%. Importantly, we've partnered with key telecom operators like Vodafone, MTN, and Airtel to bring enhanced connectivity to hundreds of millions of people. With extremely limited fixed line penetration, young tech savvy populations, and governments committed to modernizing economies through connectivity, we expect mobile broadband to play a foundational role in Africa's growth story over the next decade plus. We also anticipate the continued organic growth or new build program, through which we expect to construct well over a thousand sites this year. And our ongoing business development efforts will enable us to build on the strong foundation we've created in Africa as we deliver solid growth and increasing returns over the long term. At the same time, we're making substantial progress in our commitment to reduce the mobile industry's carbon footprint through our innovative power and fuel program. In African markets where grid power in many areas tends to be unreliable, we are now deploying next generation greener technologies, including lithium ion batteries and solar solutions. We expect to invest more than $60 million in 2020 to enhance the uptime performance of our sites in the region while reducing greenhouse gas emissions after deploying an excess of a hundred million dollars over the last few years. Not only do these initiatives benefit our tenants through higher uptimes and more efficient operating capabilities, but also they represent a critical part of our commitment to being a responsible corporate citizen. These investments have helped enable us to reduce diesel consumption by more than 25% from 2017 to 2019 across our global footprint after normalizing for portfolio growth. Meanwhile, in Europe, where we have nearly 5,000 sites between Germany and France and recently entered Poland by acquiring a handful of towers, networks are at a fairly mature stage with 4G having been broadly deployed over the last decade. Organic tenant buildings growth has been modest for us as expected in the low single digit range and new build opportunities have been somewhat limited. Despite this, we drove NOI yields of 8% across our European asset base as of Q2, largely as a result of the price discipline we displayed when we acquired these assets. We tend to think of our initial investments in the region as beachfront properties, allowing us to have a good position to evaluate other potential opportunities. Consequently, we continue to look for ways to expand our European portfolio, but only at valuations that, with underlying growth expectations, allow us to hit our required return thresholds. Our entry into Poland, although on a small scale initially, is an example of our continued focus on finding macro tower portfolios poised for sustainable growth in markets with attractive regulatory frameworks, supportive regulators, and vibrant wireless sectors, all at sensible valuations. And finally, moving to India, where we will have invested over $5 billion pro forma for redeeming our minority interests, we believe the wireless industry has now completed a much needed and long awaited consolidation to enable the deployment of 4G technology throughout the country by the remaining carriers. Through this process, we've experienced high levels of churn, which is reflected in our current 8% NOI yield. Although I'd note that the more than $400 million in cash settlement payments we've received from Tata are not incorporated in that number, or it'd be higher. More recently, there have been pricing increases by all of the carriers in the marketplace, while the telecom regulator has indicated that it intends to be supportive of the carriers through rational spectrum policies, and the Indian government continues to stress its Digital India initiative. The key near term issue that needs to get sorted out in the marketplace centers on the AGR decision by the Supreme Court, including finalizing the timeline as to when the wireless carrier payments are to be made, particularly as it relates to Vodafone Idea. We are hopeful that India can return to being a significant growth engine for the company, as it was for nearly a decade before the consolidation process kicked off several years ago. We have several reasons for optimism in this regard. As I just mentioned, the market structure is now much more rational. Price competition in wireless is stabilized, and the regulatory environment seems constructive. The Indian consumer has proven to have a tremendous appetite for mobile data, with average smartphone usage per customer of well over 10 gigabits per month, even before the impacts of COVID-19. With that said, the majority of wireless users in India are still using legacy technologies rather than 4G, in large part because the networks are ill-equipped in their current state to handle 4G levels of traffic from more than a billion people. To get those networks ready, we continue to believe that significant levels of incremental network spending are necessary, accompanied by a material level of network densification. With our nearly 75,000 site existing portfolio and the additional sites we're adding through our new build program, we believe we are well positioned to benefit from our tenants' network deployments over an extended period of time. Additionally, we're continuing to meaningfully participate in connecting the unconnected in India through our Digital Village program. With more than 150 digital villages in place today and more in development, we are proud to be making a difference in the areas of digital literacy, e-learning, telehealth, as well as providing enhanced access to career opportunities in many rural Indian communities. So looking forward, we believe that we have a compelling opportunity to further enhance our international business by driving organic growth, focusing on operational efficiency, and continuing to build and acquire sites using our proven investment evaluation methodology. Our preference continues to be to add incremental scale to existing markets while strengthening ties with large multinational wireless carriers. But there are a handful of additional markets that could be attractive for us as well. We also believe there are additional opportunities to generate margin improvement as we further standardize operational processes, create regional centers of excellence, and further reduce our power and fuel requirements. We also believe there will be demand for many of our innovative initiatives to extend our core platform of capabilities for new and existing tenants. So in summary, we believe that our diverse, macro tower focused international portfolio positions us well for a prolonged period of solid growth and attractive returns on invested capital. We can further augment this through discipline, selective acquisitions, and new builds on a global basis. While we expect our foundational US business to drive the majority of our cash flows for years to come, we think our international operations can enhance and extend our growth trajectory by effectively doubling our total addressable market size. The global demand for mobile connectivity shows no sign of slowing, and we believe we are positioned to play a critical role in extending the reach of mobile broadband while generating strong total returns for our shareholders. So with that, let me hand it over to Rod to go through the details of our results and updated outlook, Rod.

Thanks, Tom, and good morning to everyone on the call. I hope you are safe and healthy. As you saw in today's press release, we had another solid quarter throughout our global business, driven by consistent demand for our mission critical tower assets. Before we turn to the accompanying charts, I would like to highlight a few specific accomplishments for the quarter. First, we met our revenue, adjusted EBITDA, consolidated AFFO, and consolidated AFFO per share expectations, which I will discuss in more detail shortly. Second, we had solid organic tenant buildings growth across our business, led by Africa at nearly 10% and Latin America at over 7%. Third, we constructed more than 500 towers across our international footprint. And finally, we further strengthened our investment grade balance sheet by issuing $2 billion in senior unsecured notes across multiple tenors with very attractive economics. Now let's turn to the details of our second quarter results. Please turn to slide eight and we will review our property revenue in organic tenant buildings growth. Although we experienced some unfavorable effects translational impact, primarily resulting from the global pandemic, overall we generated solid underlying revenue growth. In the interest of understanding our fundamental operational performance, I'll be referring to growth rates for some of our key metrics on an FX neutral basis in addition to our standard as reported basis. As Igor mentioned earlier, our second quarter consolidated property revenue of nearly ,000,000 grew on a reported basis by $44 million or .4% over the prior year period. And on an FX neutral basis by $158 million or 8.6%. Our US segment represented 57% of our consolidated property revenue with international comprising the remaining 43%. A key contributor to our consolidated property revenue was our tenant buildings revenue of ,000,000 which grew by nearly 10%. The components of our tenant buildings growth included around 71 million in colocation and amendments, roughly 50 million in contributions from escalators and 72 million in day one tenant buildings from acquisitions and new bills. These positive items were partially offset by churn impacts of $46 million and $2 million in other items. Our US property segment revenue totaled nearly ,000,000 for the quarter and grew by $80 million or 8% over the prior year period. Our international property revenue of nearly 806 million declined by $36 million or .3% as compared to last year's levels, primarily due to the FX translational headwinds we just discussed. Moving to the right side of the slide, you will see that our consolidated or GAN and tenant buildings growth was in line with our expectations at 5% for the quarter. For our US property segment, organic tenant buildings growth was .7% comprised of new business activity which contributed 3.7%, escalators which contributed 3.2%, churn of .9% and a roughly 30 basis points negative impact from other items. As expected, this growth rate reflects a sequential deceleration driven primarily by relatively modest contributions to our new business from T-Mobile over the last few quarters. With that said, and as I will discuss in more detail when we review our updated outlook, we have seen new business activity from T-Mobile begin to pick up with further acceleration anticipated towards the end of the year. Our international property segment organic tenant buildings growth was 5.4%, led by Africa at nearly 10% and Latin America at over 7%. Europe was just over 2% while India was 0.4%. Again, in line with our expectations given anticipated churn in general market conditions. The component parts of our international organic tenant buildings growth were new business activity which totaled nearly 7%. Our mostly local inflation based pricing escalators which contributed .7% and other items which contributed around 20 basis points. These items were partially offset by churn of .3% much of which was in India. Now, please turn to slide nine and we will review our adjusted EBITDA in AFFO results. Our second quarter consolidated adjusted EBITDA of just over $1.2 billion grew on a reported basis by about $28 million or .4% over the prior year and on an FX neuter basis by $90 million or 7.6%. Our adjusted EBITDA margin was .3% up roughly 70 basis points over the prior year. This increase was attributable to a combination of our solid organic growth, diligent focus on cost controls and a favorable impact of some incremental net straight line. These favorable impacts were partially offset by approximately $21 million in bad debt reserves against certain receivables in India. Although we operate in 20 countries, our US business again drove the substantial majority of our property segment operating profit in the quarter accounting for 68% of the total while our international business generated the remaining 32%. Moving to the right side of the slide, you can see our consolidated AFFO of $924 million grew on a reported basis by nearly $15 million or .6% over the prior year and on an FX neuter basis by around $69 million or 7.5%. Consolidated AFFO per share of $2.07 grew on a reported basis by 3 cents or .5% over last year's levels. And on an FX neuter basis grew by 15 cents or 7.4%. This growth in AFFO per share was driven by our previously discussed growth in adjusted EBITDA as well as interest expense management, careful oversight of cash taxes and lower maintenance capital spending. Let's now take a look at our updated expectations for 2020. Before I get into the numbers, I want to cover a few of our high level assumptions. First is our updated expectation regarding the post merger acceleration in new business activity from T-Mobile. Our prior outlook assumed activity levels would have materially increased by now in that we would be seeing increased levels of new business from T-Mobile starting this month. Although we have seen a modest increase in activity, it has not yet reached the level we expect to eventually see based on the T-Mobile's public comments. As a result, we now expect this acceleration of new business to come much later this year. Consequently, we are reducing our US organic tenant billing growth expectations for 2020, which I will discuss in more detail shortly. Next is our updated expectations regarding customer collections and additional reserves for some bad debt. For the most part, tenants throughout our footprint have continued to pay on time and without interruption through the pandemic. However, in India, we have layered in approximately $65 million in additional bad debt assumptions for the full year. This is primarily attributable to the expected timing of payments from the government owned carrier BS&L, as well as the possibility that Vodafone Idea, future payments become interrupted or delayed as they await a final outcome of the ongoing AGR court proceedings in India. Additionally, we have assumed roughly $10 million in incremental bad debt reserves for a few tenants in Africa. Lastly, we have updated the foreign currency exchange rates in our full year outlook. The impacts of these revised FX rates on full year expectations as compared to our prior guidance are estimated to be a positive $45 million of property revenue, $20 million for both adjusted EBITDA and consolidated AFFO. Aside from these adjustments, our other high level assumptions remain largely consistent with our prior view as demand for our telecommunications real estate across all of our markets is expected to remain solid. If you will please turn to slide 10, I will now review our revised outlook midpoints. Our updated guidance for property revenue is ,000,000, which is a decrease of $30 million compared to the midpoint of our prior outlook and reflects a growth rate on a reported basis of 3.4%. On an FX neutral basis, the growth rate is approximately 8%. For our US segment, we now expect property revenue of ,000,000, which is $35 million lower than our prior projections. About $20 million of this decrease is attributable to the timing of T-Mobile activity, with the remaining $15 million or so being driven by an adjustment in our non-cash straight line revenue expectations as a result of an accounting true up. For our international segment, we now anticipate property revenue of ,000,000, which is $5 million higher than our prior expectation. This is being driven by roughly $45 million in favorable FX impacts, along with around $10 million in other outperformance, partially offset by a $50 million currency neutral decline in pass-through revenues across our footprint due to lower fuel prices. At a high level, our expectations for our international businesses are broadly consistent with our prior outlook, which demonstrates the critical nature of our assets, as well as the effectiveness of our more than 5,000 employees across the globe. We could not be more proud of the way our global teams have performed throughout this pandemic. Moving on to the right side of the slide, we now expect organic tenant billings growth to be between .5% and 5% on a consolidated basis. This includes projected U.S. organic tenant billings growth of approximately .5% for the full year. As I just mentioned, the change to our U.S. expectations is driven by our adjusted timing assumptions around T-Mobile's activity ramp up with us, rather than a fundamental change in underlying long-term trends. For our international segment, we are reaffirming our outlook for organic tenant billings growth of approximately 5%. Moving on to slide 11, you will see that we now expect our full year adjusted EBITDA to be ,000,000, which is ,000,000 below the midpoint of our prior outlook and reflects nearly 8% growth over the prior year on an FX-neutral basis. The drivers of this reduction in outlook are a roughly ,000,000 increase to our bad debt reserves, primarily in India, an approximately ,000,000 reduction in net straight line and a ,000,000 reduction from our services segment, which is the result of the revised outlook for T-Mobile activity. These negative impacts are expected to be partially offset by a favorable FX translational impact of ,000,000 as well as an additional ,000,000 or so of general outperformance we now anticipate throughout our business, particularly on the direct expenses and SG&A side. As part of our adjusted EBITDA projections, we now expect cash SG&A as a percent of total property revenue for the year to be in the high 8% range or around .4% excluding bad debt. Lastly, we now expect consolidated AFFO for the full year to be ,000,000, which is ,000,000 above the midpoint of our prior outlook and reflects nearly 9% growth over the prior year on an FX-neutral basis. We have been able to offset the expected decline in cash adjusted EBITDA through ,000,000 in lower net cash interest, ,000,000 in lower cash taxes, ,000,000 in reduced maintenance capital expenditures and about ,000,000 in FX favorability. On a per share basis, we expect to generate consolidated AFFO of $8.23, up 5 cents relative to our prior guidance. Moving on to slide 12, let's review our capital deployment expectations for the year. Our full year dividend subject to the board approval is expected to be approximately ,000,000, resulting in an annual common stock dividend growth rate of right around 20% once again. As previously discussed, in future years, you can expect our dividend to grow roughly in line with our REIT taxable income. That will be consistent with our REIT requirements as well as with our internally held dividend philosophy and is likely to result in growth rates dipping below 20% beginning next year. Subject to board discretion, we anticipate the impact of any deceleration in the growth rate to be gradual and expect our dividend to grow between 15% and 20% for each of the next several years. We also expect to deploy nearly $1.1 billion towards our CAPEX program with more than 85% of that investment being discretionary. This is down $25 million from our prior outlook with $15 million in lower redevelopment CAPEX and an additional $10 million decline in maintenance CAPEX. We have spent roughly $757 million on M&A so far this year including our acquisition of MTN's minority stakes in our joint ventures in Ghana and Uganda earlier this year and our entry into Poland through a small transaction in late June. The purchase of Tata's remaining interest in our India business, which at current exchange rates has an approximate value of $329 million is currently pending regulatory approval in India. We continue to expect to complete the purchase of these shares this year. We also deployed around $56 million to share repurchases earlier in the year. This combined with our year to date dividend declaration of $967 million brings our total capital returned to shareholders so far this year to over $1 billion. Finally, as a step towards ensuring we have access to a wide variety of options for raising capital, we intend to implement an at the market of stock offering program. We anticipate having the ability to, from time to time, sell up to $1 billion of our common stock. It's our intention to use the proceeds for general corporate purposes, which may include investment opportunities or debt repayments among other things. Turning now to slide 13, I will briefly discuss our investment philosophy, historical capital allocation in the associated financial returns. Since 2010, we have deployed nearly $46 billion to a combination of common stock dividends, our internal capital investment program, M&A transactions, and common stock repurchases. As you can see on the capital deployment chart to the left, approximately $27 billion was invested in M&A. Over $10 billion was returned to our common stockholders through the combination of dividend distributions and share repurchases. Roughly $7 billion represented discretionary capital investments, and with the remaining $1 billion being dedicated to non-discretionary maintenance capital projects. As Tom alluded to earlier, the vast majority of investments to date have been geared towards macro towers. This has been guided by our longstanding investment objectives, which have always been and continue to be focused on generating maximum total shareholder returns by driving long-term AFFO per share growth and attractive return on invested capital, all while prudently managing risk. Based on our significant experience in our constant review of all types of communications infrastructure, we view macro towers, whether in the United States or in select international markets, as the most compelling assets for us to own as we pursue our investment objectives. Likewise, as we explore innovation initiatives as a means of extending our platform of communications real estate, our longstanding investment objectives in our disciplined approach will remain the same. As you can see from our historical results, our investment processes worked well for our shareholders. A key element of our success has been that our tower portfolios, regardless of where they are located, share several value-creating characteristics, including the ability to monetize growth in mobile data consumption, significant and proven operating leverage, driven by contractual escalators, new business commencements and a high likelihood of multi-tenancy, and very low ongoing capital maintenance. Lastly, the high quality nature of our model is highlighted in our consistent and attractive financial returns. In the last decade, we have added more than 153,000 sites, many of which were less mature towers, located outside the United States and came with lower day one, tenancy and margin profiles. Even taking this into account, as you can see on the chart to the right, our return on invested capital has risen by around 50 basis points over the last 10 years and stands now at nearly 11%. We view this as a testament to our disciplined investment approach and the powerful operating leverage inherent in the tower model. We can now turn to slide 14 and I will make a few closing remarks. First, we finished the second quarter with a solid set of results and believe we are well positioned as we head into the second half of 2020 and beyond. ProFOMA, for refinancing activity earlier this month, we have over $5 billion in total liquidity, with an average tenor of more than six years and an average interest cost of under 3%. This position reflects our early redemption of all of our 2020 and 2021 senior notes, which leaves us with no senior note maturities until 2022. As Tom and I both discussed, outside of translational FX effects, the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business thus far have been modest. We are pleased to see our global infrastructure assets play such a critical role in keeping people connected through this difficult time. And in closing, I will make two final points. First, we are energized about the United States as we look out over a multi-year period. We expect the new wireless landscape to drive higher levels of network deployment activity as C-band spectrum becomes available. DISH begins rolling out their network and 5G activity across the industry ramps up. And second, our international markets also show great promise, as our primarily large multinational tenants continue to invest heavily in their networks, including around $30 billion expected in 2020. Networks across the globe are seeing tremendous growth in mobile data usage as consumers gain access to advanced handsets and applications. And we expect a long cycle of carrier capital spending to support these trends. From our vantage point today, we continue to be excited about the future of wireless communications and the central role our real estate will play. With that, operator, will you please open the line for questions?

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to ask a question, please press one and zero on your telephone keypad. You may withdraw your question at any time by repeating the one zero command. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up the handset before pressing the numbers. Once again, if you have a question, please press one and zero at this time. And one moment, please, for your first question. Your first question comes from the line of Matthew Nicknimm. Please go ahead.

Hey guys, thank you for taking the question. Just two, if I could. First, on the US, if you can give us any additional color on what you're seeing in your discussions with the new T-Mobile, whether this delay is really timing related or have there been any changes in some spending plans on their end relative to earlier expectations? And then just secondly, on the ATM program, can you help us think about the investment opportunities you're evaluating and the decision to use equity as a potential means of funding this relative to the debt you traditionally use, given where your leverage sits today? Thanks.

Hey, Matt, how are you? What's the situation, Tom? On the T-Mobile side, based upon everything that I think they've said publicly, I think it's fair to say that it really is just timing. And they're working through all of their plans. They closed their deal in April then settled their transaction with DISH not that long ago. So we believe it clearly is timing and are looking forward to really supporting them as they continue to really build out their network even further. On the ATM side, to me, it's good plumbing. It really is just having more flexibility. It's not a significant number clearly compared to general ATM programs as part of market caps. But it really is just kind of good plumbing to have the flexibility of having access to a number of different sources of capital.

If

I can just follow up.

Go ahead, Ron. I'm sorry, Matt. Yeah, let me just add a couple of points on the US growth. Number one is everyone kind of saw the slowdown from T-Mobile towards the middle to third quarter of last year. Now that we're almost lapping that slowdown, that's where the further away from the beginning of that slowdown, the bigger impact that it has on the organic tenant billings growth deceleration. So the fact that we're seeing that slowdown and the fact that they haven't started up yet is what's causing us to reduce our outlook from about 5% down to about 4.5%. And the other expectations in the US industry remain the same. So we haven't seen any changes in our expectations relative to the other carriers or anything else going on in the US. It really is isolated to the new T-Mobile and the timing of when they begin to spend.

That was gonna be my follow-up, so I appreciate it. Thank you.

Okay. Your next question comes from the line of Batya Levi. Please go ahead.

Great, thank you. Just a follow-up on the US activity. Can you provide an update on how you think about the potential decommissioning that T-Mobile can do? I think the sprint sites are up for renewal next year. And second question on LADAM. How do you think about the growth going forward given that the macro environment is weaker and the potential acquisition of oil by other carriers could potentially create some turn activity? Yeah, I would like to see your thoughts on how you think that could impact your growth over the next few years. Thank you.

Yeah, Batya, it's Tom. With regard to address the LADAM question first, we're really excited about the opportunities that we continue to see down in the market, particularly in a market like Brazil, which is still so underserved. I mean, you can take a look at customers per sites. It's significantly higher than what we're seeing in the United States. And so we continue to see the opportunities for further densification. Our build programs continue to grow. So we're actually very energized. And our teams in the markets are very excited about the opportunities there. Yeah, there is some consolidation perhaps going on in the market, but that was fully understood, fully expected. So there are really no surprises there. And I think the governments themselves, particularly with regards to what we're seeing in the pandemic, continue to want to drive connectivity and digital connectivity in their markets. So we're quite excited about that. And OI, as you all know, represents a relatively small piece of revenues. I'm sorry, Batya, second question on the US side was?

On the T-Mobile decommissioning activity that could start potentially next year.

Yeah, no, you're right. I mean, those print sites, a vast majority of those sites come up for renewal towards the end of next year. We believe they're obviously very well positioned sites. And we will likely try to mitigate as much of that current potential as possible and hopeful that between the new build that's going on in the marketplace as well as dishes expectations for building out, it will be successful in terms of mitigate that. But that's all part of a lot of the negotiations and discussions that are going on as we speak.

Thank you.

And Batya, if I

could, and Batya, I'll just add a couple of comments on the Sprint T-Mobile, maybe to put the merger kind of in context with the US market. So you know that the US is experiencing kind of an exploding growth in mobile data, about 30% a year increases. We've seen accelerating deployments for 5G kind of heading our way. There's a number of new spectrums heading into the market that will have to be built out. The carriers continue to invest heavily in 4G as they focus on their customer experience and strengthen their networks to handle the growing data demands. So all that is really constructive in terms of what's happening in the US landscape. When you look at T-Mobile in particular, their deal comes with pretty significant build out requirements. So they said that they're gonna spend $40 billion over the first three years, build an additional 10 to 15 sites, particularly in some of the rural areas where they're expected to cover 97% of the population on low band spectrum and about 75% on mid band spectrum within three years. So they've got an awful lot of work to do. They're certainly gonna be deploying capital. So we continue to believe that it's in their best interest and good for our shareholders as well to the extent that we can enter into an arrangement where they can have quick access to our sites and potentially renegotiating the way some of the churn happens over time. So to spread that potential churn, which is we continue to believe it's in the range of three to 4% of our overall property revenues. That's the overlap piece. And we continue to expect that that could be spread out over time and we could give T-Mobile easy quick access to our sites through a holistic deal, which will help them deploy their network.

Got it, that's helpful. Thank you so much.

Your next question comes from the line of Jonathan Atkin. Please go ahead.

Yes, I wondered if you could talk a little bit more about Brazil and kind of the directionality of the organic growth rate. You talked about oil, but maybe nextel and that consolidation, does that represent perhaps a little bit of a headwind or not big enough to matter? And then I just wondered a little bit about India. You talked a little bit about the bad debt provision, but if you talk about just actual leasing activity in the market, any changes to kind of call out over the next couple of quarters versus what you've seen?

Yeah, Johnny, John, first on Brazil, just kind of getting a little bit deeper into the market. It's a market that we expect the wireless CapEx is gonna be in the three to $4 billion range. So obviously very, very strong, a high growth market for us. The CapEx percent of carrier revenue is to be around 25%, which is actually a bit higher than we've seen in prior years, consistent with last year. So we think that that's a good sign. Their margins are in the 40%. So the carriers themselves, I think, are quite well capitalized and very focused on building out their 4G overall initiatives. The local CPI has actually been down over the last several years. So have our escalators in concert with it. And that's being really reflected in some of the 2020 escalator that we're seeing this year. But VivoTim, American Mobile, including Nextel, and that transaction is relatively insignificant relative to our overall growth rates. And we're seeing organic tenant buildings growth of over 8% in Q2. Churn was in the kind of the mid ones, .7% for the year. And we expect for the year overall buildings growth to be around 7%. So we're bullish on the marketplace. We think we're well positioned. We have really solid relationships with what we expect to be kind of the three main players in the marketplace. And as I mentioned before, we do believe that the networks are overburdened. They have roughly 3,000 to 4,000 SIMs per cell site. It's really twice what we're seeing in the US. So the teams, as I said, are bullish. We're building outsides. We have a lot of interesting things, I think, going on with the various carriers. So we're excited about what we expect in the marketplace. On the India side, again, if you take a look at the kind of the total growth that we've seen in the market, it again is double digits on a total growth basis. Carriers spending continues to be strong, building out their networks. They continue to make their network investments to support the overall usage demands. I mean, I think I mentioned in some of my comments that we really remain optimistic about the market. The structure is now much more rational. There's price competition. The wireless is actually stabilized. And the regulatory environment is very, very constructive. There is a significant appetite for mobile data from a customer perspective. They're using over 10 gig per month. And that was even before the COVID-19 impact. So as well as they're still using significant legacy technologies, 2G technologies, rather than even 4G. So we think as the network continues to get equipped, as the government continues to expand its overall digital India strategy, that there's going to be a significant amount of further densification and network investment going on in the marketplace. And then lastly,

on the US, Yeah, and on the US, you talked about Sprint T-Mobile at some length. What about the rest of the industry? There's two other national carriers. And if you think about in aggregate, kind of their activity level, anything that you're expecting there that would be different compared to -to-date trends?

No, I mean, they've been very consistent. Very steady in terms of their build out. You've heard them kind of tweak what they expect their overall cap expectations are probably for the year. But for us, they've been very consistent. We expect them to be so.

Thank you very

much.

Sure, John.

Your next question comes from the line of Sammy Badry. Please go ahead.

Hi, thank you very much for the question. I just wanted to take a step back to India and just talk about, I don't think you could give us some of your views on US hyperscalers really kind of starting to navigate that region and how that actually changes anything. And then maybe perhaps just thinking about your international strategy and what you've observed in India and how that could potentially happen in other markets. Does this at all change your international M&A strategy or expansion strategy at all? Are there regions that you're going to start avoiding simply because you don't want to get tangled up in these kinds of speed bumps along the road and just want to get your take kind of on those different dynamics there?

I think that the fact that we're seeing another number of hyperscalers investing in India is a very good thing. There are significant investments being made into the networks. They see the same things that we do in terms of the kind of the digital transformation that's going on in the marketplace. And they're bringing many more applications and products to the consumers of those particular markets. And given that the wireline penetration is very, very low in that market as well as most of the markets that we're in outside of the United States, we think that then most of that traffic to be able to utilize those applications is going to go over those wireless networks. And clearly the carriers are going to want to invest in their networks to be able to support it. It's no different than what we've seen here in the United States. And so I think it's a very good sign candidly. And I would hope that we would continue to see more of that kind of activity occurring in the markets outside where we have a presence.

Got it, thank you for that color. And then just to take things back to the US, I know in prior earnings calls, you've talked about the micro data center opportunity. And probably within the last 12 months, this opportunity has quickly evolved from proof of concepts in 2019 to now fully funded VC competitors. And you guys have now kind of drawn a line to the sand coming to the table. So if you could give us an update on the micro data center opportunity within the US.

Well, I mean, the underlying premise clearly is that we believe that the cloud is moving to the edge. And we see this, there are a number of factors that are supporting it, whether you're looking at CRAN, you're looking at what's going on with cloud infrastructure. And with the deployment of 5G, we think that enterprise customers are gonna be looking for low latency access, as well as cloud kinds of capabilities out at the edge. And so we remain very bullish on the whole opportunity. We do have a number of trial sites. I think we have five or six trial sites down in Southeast and actually out in the out in West. And the way we are looking at it really is that there, at this point in time, there are really kind of a couple of distinct trends that we're paying attention to. First of all, in the distributed compute, and then more broadly on the mobile edge computing, where we think that the TAM is going to be significantly higher and that we'll be able to create some scale. And we've talked about the distributed compute, which is really where we're focused right now with regards to a number of our kind of trial sites. And that's where enterprise workloads, moving to the public cloud. And there's a growing near term market segment and use for on and off-prem private cloud computing in somewhat of a hybrid solution. And so when in many of the sites that we have, we have 50 kilowatts of power, and we're providing kind of local compute capability for mid and smaller size enterprises. And so it's an interesting market segment. I don't think it's actually being serviced particularly well today, but clearly that's not the big opportunity that we see going forward. The big opportunity is clearly on the mobile edge compute. And it's one where we think that we are actually gonna be able to further scale, but we're really just in the early innings of it. But the concept of the strategy is that we expect that we'll be able to build a neutral host, multi-operator, multi-cloud data center in several thousand of our sites that we have across the country. And we do have a meet me room slash data center in Atlanta, which is, as I said, tied to a major data center down in the marketplace. And so we're tracking the opportunity and what it will mean to be able to really develop this type of a strategy. We realize that we don't have lots of the skill sets that are gonna be required to really scale this. And so like our other kind of innovative initiatives, very potentially we'll look to partner to be able to gain access to those kinds of skill sets and capabilities, distribution, software engineers, those types of things, to really be able to scale and grow the opportunity. So early innings, as I said, but we remained quite bullish on the overall opportunity. Got it, thank you

very much.

Your next question comes from the line of Rick Prentice. Please go ahead.

Thanks, good morning guys. Busy day, but hope you and your family and employees are doing okay through this COVID-19 time.

You as well,

man. Yeah, thanks Rick. Yeah. Wanted to touch on the sprint decommissioning question again. Obviously T-Mobile has a lot of dominoes they're trying to knock down in the process. But it sounded like Kabacha's question. You guys might be more interested in spreading the effect of the churn through holistic over time versus maybe taking a one-time payment like you did with Tata.

You know Rick, it'll come down to math, right? It's really a TBD type of an event. We expect, really based upon what T-Mobile has said is that they're going to need thousands of sites over and above what they're expecting right now after the decommissioning, right? And so there could be an opportunity for those sites. There could be an opportunity for those sites in the hands of somebody else. And so it's a bit of three-dimensional chess right now in terms of work these transactions with all of our customers and potential customers. I would expect that there will be the churn of some sort. I don't know if it'll be all at once or over an extended period of time. But we believe that longer term, there are clearly gonna be a number of offsets. And if you just take a look at the wireless growth that we're seeing in the marketplace and what we would expect and the amount of capital that all the carriers are looking to spend and the fact that DISH is gonna be coming into the fold there. We would expect solid growth going forward. So it's really a TBD at this point. I wouldn't want to give you a sense of that anything is certain or anything is put in concrete. We continue to work all those items with our customers.

Okay, so it's all math negotiation. See how it plays out. Okay. Right. You mentioned DISH a couple of times there. Obviously we're all monitoring DISH very closely. There is a feeling that DISH needs a lot more funding to really get the network ramp going. It was a good sign to see Dave Mayo join, I think DISH as network deployment head. But how are you thinking about when DISH might be starting to show up in the process as you look into 21, 22, 23? Given the funding is not there yet.

Well, they also have network requirements that they need to adhere to. And I think that's the 2023, I think is the first commitment that they've made. So, I would expect to see them hit market in 21. I think that's a better question for T-Mobile. I mean, I think it is a good sign that they brought in Dave Mayo. I think he'll do a terrific job there. And time will tell in terms of what it looks like. But we're there to service them and support them in any way that they feel necessary. And we think that we've got a portfolio of assets that really can be helpful to them. And I think they appreciate that as well. But I would expect that we'll start to see them towards the end of this year into 2021. They're not in our forecast, they're not in our guidance. Until we really have a more formal arrangement with them and understand what their demands are gonna be, we won't put them into our forecast.

Okay, and apologize, you might have already answered this. I had a lot of calls this morning. On the AFFO guidance, slide 11, it talked about a 45 million benefit to AFFO guidance from other components. Could you unpack that? What's in that 45 million that obviously offsets the 45 million negative on cash EBITDA?

Yeah, I mean, it's interest, it's maintenance cap back, it's cash taxes, kind of the typical group of items below EBITDA that impact AFFO that we're seeing some positive benefits from.

Okay, and last one for me is the CBRS auction's obviously going on right now. What are your thoughts about what that means, particularly maybe to the indoor space and what the opportunity might be for you guys?

Yeah, we continue to be very positive on the indoor space. We think that the unlicensed shared access spectrum in the US has the potential to really transform, if you will, the overall indoor connectivity landscape. It improves the overall TAM, clearly, and it reduces the overall total ownership costs. And so we're very positive on it. We have a number of trials going on, Rick, as we've talked about in the past. But again, it's early innings right now in terms of what that opportunity is. We have 400 DAC locations, if you will, around the country with a TAM of probably a couple thousand. But we think that given the cost components of being able to open up the network, the DAC and TAM could increase tenfold. And so we're seeing what that looks like. We're taking a look at what those relationships are gonna look like then with the landlords across the country. But we are energized by what we think we might be able to, and how we might be able to position ourselves.

Great, thank you very much. And Rick,

I'll just give you a couple of numbers today to back up what Tom was saying about the AFFO. So the 45 million offsets are broken down with $10 million in lower maintenance capex, 25 million in lower net cash interest, and 10 million in lower cash taxes.

Okay. Your next question comes from the line of David Barden. Please go ahead.

Hey guys, thanks for taking the questions. Tom, I think in the opening comments you mentioned that you saw the CPI dipping in some of the international markets affecting the organic growth. I was wondering if you could kind of put some numbers around that. And then kind of another situation unfolding in Latin America is the telephonic Iran sharing agreement with AT&T. I think that there's just been a lack of certainty around what that will ultimately look like. And you guys have talked about having some engagement there to maybe try to create a holistic relationship down there. Could you kind of update us on any progress on that front? Thanks a lot.

Yeah, sure, Dave. I think on the CPI side, the escalator, I think in the quarter was roughly 3.7%. And that really, again, the way they work, it works off of the 2019 kind of the inflation numbers, which then drive what the escalator would be. So our escalator is down. And if you think about even looking at Brazil, for example, the growth rates in Brazil, my sense were up in the kind of even a 10% range in the last couple of years, as I recall. And we're now down in kind of that 7, 8% range. And so it has a significant impact, if you will, kind of going forward. And as you well know, it's very volatile on a year to year basis, but it can impact the overall organic growth rates by a couple hundred basis points one way or another. With regards to Mexico, fair question in terms of Telefonica and their interest in the marketplace. And we have a terrific relationship with AT&T in the market. And we're working closely with both Telefonica and AT&T right now on that transition and what that might look like over the next several years. And so it's a TBD, we're in the middle of it. And as I said, I think we're really well positioned to be able to support both our customers as they transition their network.

Great, thanks so much.

Your next question comes from the line of Tim Horan. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Tom. Regarding that, do you think there's an opportunity longer term for you to as you deploy more equipment as we kind of virtualize the networks more and the carriers can kind of share the equipment, particularly, you know, as the cable companies are kind of entering the market, they're gonna want capacity, but maybe not kind of deploy their own equipment. I know you've done some of this in the past in little niche segments, but just any thoughts around that?

Tim, are you talking about O-RAN or?

Yes, yeah.

Yeah, you know, it's very interesting. I mean, I do think the whole O-RAN opportunity, which we've seen in other markets, by the way, we've seen in other parts of the world is definitely starting to take hold here in the United States. And ultimately, we could see even the large carriers looking to take certain segments of their spectrum, certain segments of their technology, and really opening it up. You know, it kind of ties to my thoughts before in terms of kind of that cloud even becoming closer and closer to the edge. Now, keep in mind that that's kind of what happens behind the curtain. So, you know, that's happening back on the RAN side away from the impact on the tower coast. So my sense is that, you know, any opportunity for the carriers, wireless carriers, and potential new players in the marketplace to be able to bring down their total cost of ownership will then allow them to have more capital available to spend on the RAN, which is really where we come in, right? So we don't expect any of the kind of the O-RAN implications to impact it all, what's happening from the site out to the device. And as I said, if in fact, the total cost of ownership comes down as a result of the kind of the open nature of the infrastructure that might allow more capital to be able to spend on where we come in, which is from the tower out to the device. And so we're cautiously optimistic on the opportunity for O-RAN in the United States, as well as in many of our international markets.

And kind of related on the technology front, do you think carriers are still favoring macros over small cells or, you know, as you're talking to the carriers, how are they feeling on small cell deployments at this point over the next couple of years?

You know, it all comes down to bans, it all comes down to densification. We don't see any change. I mean, the economics are so clearly that the macro tower can be able to support much more efficiently their customer base. Now, they're gonna be certain locations, there may be certain technology, certain bans that can be better utilized and supportive on a small cell in those dense urban markets. But we don't see it any different right now. You know, those dense urban markets, the New York cities kind of a thing, just because of interference, you're talking about high bans, just like what Verizon is doing today. So I don't expect really to have any change to that. It's gonna be a function of bans, it's gonna be a function of the densification of the market that they're trying to serve, really it's a topography of what they're trying to serve. But we don't see any change at all. I mean, the use of small cells versus macro.

Thank you. And your final question today comes from the line of Colby Sinisale. Go ahead.

Great, two if I may. There's been some press reports of late that Vodafone Idea may have skipped out on its June payments to at least some of the tower operators. And I'm curious if you were one of those, or if everything you're doing is to your point, I think just cautionary and being, trying to get ahead of that. And to the extent that they haven't actually made their June or perhaps July payment, you know, do you think that that's gonna last until the AGR situation is settled, or is this maybe just a month or two? And then secondly, you know, I'm just curious, what do you think your exit velocity is in terms of US organic growth call in the fourth quarter of this year? And what does that really imply, I guess, for potential growth in 2021? And I'm sure you can appreciate a lot of investors are trying to get a sense of what is that magnitude of acceleration we could potentially think. And when we start to balance that out with some of the comments, Rod, that you mentioned about trying to flatten out the churn, just trying to start to frame out how to think about what that could look like. I appreciate you don't wanna give guidance, but clearly a big focus for investors.

Yeah, let me try to address a couple and Rod can add a few comments as well. You know, on the whole Vodafone India situation, I mean, I don't wanna get into specifics there. I think if you step back and if you take a look at, you know, where the government is, I mean, the government is definitely advocated for having, you know, three strong players in the marketplace. They're currently working through as the other carriers are with the Supreme Court in terms of where that final AGR issue is going to land. We're hopeful that there'll be some resolution to this even over the next 30 to 45 days or so. There's a hearing, I think, in mid August for the carriers that are no longer in providing service, but we hope that that will provide some guidance for how the payments, the extended payments will be made, have to be made by the carriers themselves. I mean, they've made some sizable good faith installments, as best I can tell in terms of what is owed in the marketplace. And they are aggressively trying to restructure to save costs and compete in the marketplace. And so, yeah, I mean, there is some slow paying going on in the marketplace. We're working very closely with them as we would be working with any customer who's going through a similar situation.

So more to

come. You saw what some of our expectations were, you know, relative to how we looked at outlook for the balance of the year. But kind of given the direction of the government, given what we're seeing in the marketplace, you know, again, we remain optimistic and cautiously optimistic about their ability to continue and to grow. You know, I'm sorry, Colby, your question on the US side was, oh, the exit rates. You know, it'll largely be candidly a function of the kind of growth that we're gonna be seeing later in the year by the various carriers in terms of their overall investments in their network. You heard Rod talked about that we're talking about an overall growth rate based upon what we're seeing right now in kind of that four and a half-ish range. So it's down a little bit, again, largely tied, almost exclusively tied to the timing of T-Mobile. So, you know, we're optimistic that the T-Mobile will pick up pace and we'll see that increase in activity. And I think that will bode well for going into 2021. And the whole notion of the churn relative to Sprint, as we talked about before, that's a TBD in terms of, you know, where does the math best align for us and where can we best service our customers in terms of whether that will be over an extended period of time or whether that would be taken more upfront. So more to come on that one.

And

Colby, maybe I'll just add a couple of comments on the accounts receivable issue, not specific to Vodafone, so Tom covered that off, but just to put it into context, Q1, you know, rolling into Q2, our accounts receivable has been very stable. So we didn't see any increase in our overall accounts receivable across the globe. Our DSO numbers are still in the mid to upper 30s, that's consistent Q2 over Q1. So we've been very pleased that not only in India, but also in terms of the COVID-19 impacts around the globe, we've had very stable accounts receivable balances from Q1 to Q2, where our net receivables on the books at the end of Q1 was about 620 million. It's actually about 585 at the end of Q2. With that said, you will see in our numbers that we took a bad debt reserve charge in Q2 of about $25 million. And then we also built into the back half of the forecast an additional 75 million. Those are both reserves at this point, so we do expect that much of that will be collected. It just may take us a little bit longer. So we're trying to be cautious for the back half of the year. I'd also let you know that we have the balances in our accounts receivable ledger that are over 90 days are 100% reserved coming out of Q2. So again, we look at that as a pretty comfortable position, maybe a conservative position. Their reserves are not actually bad debt write-offs yet, so we do expect to collect a lot of that. It's just a matter of when. And of course, Vodafone is tied to AGR, and we'll see how that gets resolved here soon. Great,

thank you.

And there are no other questions.

Thank you. Thanks everybody for joining. Have a great day and stay healthy and safe.

Ladies, gentlemen, that does conclude your conference for today. Thank you for your participation and for using AT&T teleconferencing. You may now disconnect.