Crown Castle To Buy Lightower; $7.1 Bln Deal To Double Fiber Footprint

(RTTNews) - Crown Castle International Corp. (CCI) announced a definitive agreement to acquire LTS Group Holdings LLC, or Lightower, from Berkshire Partners, Pamlico Capital and other investors for approximately $7.1 billion in cash. Crown Castle expects the transaction to be immediately accretive to its adjusted funds from operations per share and increase its previous 6% to 7% long-term annual dividend growth target to 7% to 8%.

Lightower owns or has rights to approximately 32,000 route miles of fiber located primarily in top metro markets in the Northeast, including Boston, New York and Philadelphia. Following completion of the transaction, Crown Castle will own or have rights to approximately 60,000 route miles of fiber.

Jay Brown, Crown Castle's CEO, stated: "We anticipate increasing our annual common stock dividend rate, subject to approval by our board of directors, between $0.15 and $0.20 per share following the closing of the transaction."

In the first full year of Crown Castle's ownership, the company expects Lightower will contribute $850 million to $870 million in site rental revenues, $510 million to $530 million in adjusted EBITDA and $465 million to $485 million in AFFO before financing costs. On a net income per share basis, the transaction is expected to be modestly dilutive during the first full year of ownership, due primarily to the expected depreciation and amortization expense associated with the transaction.