Crown Castle Closes $8.5B Divestiture, Raises 2026 AFFO View
Crown Castle Inc. CCI announced the successful closure of the disposition of its small cells and fiber solutions business for $8.5 billion. In the transaction, EQT Active Core Infrastructure Fund acquired the small cells business, and Zayo Group Holdings, Inc. purchased the fiber solutions business, each for $4.25 billion. The move resulted in Crown Castle emerging as a pure-play, U.S. tower company.
Crown Castle plans to use the funds for share buybacks and debt repayment. CCI expects to implement a $1 billion share repurchase program and curtail its outstanding debt by more than $7 billion.
The above move will enable CCI to focus on its core portfolio with disciplined execution, faster decision-making and improved operational agility.
Along with the closure of the above transaction, CCI also updated its 2026 outlook. It highlighted that the above transaction will lower interest expenses by $40 million for 2026 due to the expected earlier repayment of debt obligations by two months. The interest income is expected to increase by $10 million in 2026 due to the earlier investment of sale transaction proceeds. CCI has raised its initial 2026 AFFO per share guidance to the $4.53-$4.65 range from the earlier guided range of $4.38-$4.49, up 16 cents at the midpoint. The Zacks Consensus Estimate presently stands at $4.43.
Over the past month, shares of this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company have gained 13.9% compared with the industry's growth of 7.1%.
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Stocks to Consider
Some better-ranked stocks from the broader REIT sector are American Tower AMT and Prologis PLD, each carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for American Tower’s 2026 FFO per share is pegged at $10.95, which indicates year-over-year growth of 1.8%.
The consensus estimate for PLD’s full-year FFO per share is pinned at $6.17, which calls for an increase of 6.2% from the year-ago period.
Note: Anything related to earnings presented in this write-up represents funds from operations (FFO) — a widely used metric to gauge the performance of REITs.
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