SBA Communications (SBAC) Yatırım Derecesi Kazanırken Kâr Kayıyor

SBA Communications (SBAC) Wins Investment Grade While Profits Slide

Mon, September 7, 2026 at 8:51 AM GMT+3 4 min read

• SBAC -1.09%
• SPGI -1.57%

On August 3, SBA Communications (NASDAQ:SBAC) reported second-quarter results that told two very different stories at once. The tower operator earned its first-ever investment-grade credit rating from S&P, upgrading to BBB, in the same quarter that net income attributable to the company fell 12.9% year over year to $198.8 million. Diluted earnings per share dropped to $1.87 from $2.09 a year earlier. That contrast, a stronger balance sheet against softer per-share profit, sets up everything that follows.

Balance Sheet Gets A Makeover

SBA used the quarter to reshape how it borrows. On July 23, the company issued $3.5 billion of senior unsecured notes, split across three tranches maturing between January 2030 and July 2033, at a blended interest rate of 5.113%. It used the proceeds to pay down $1.0 billion drawn on its revolving credit facility and retire a $2.2 billion term loan, then replaced its old secured credit line with a new $2.5 billion unsecured revolving facility running through July 23, 2031. That refinancing helped earn SBA its S&P upgrade to BBB, its first investment-grade rating. Net debt to Adjusted EBITDA finished the quarter at 6.4 times, squarely inside the company's target range of 6.0 to 7.0 times, and $1.1 billion remains available under the stock repurchase authorization.

International growth is doing the heavy lifting on revenue. Site leasing revenue outside the US climbed 30.5% year over year to $211.4 million, while domestic site leasing revenue fell 3.7% to $452.5 million. SBA built 109 new towers during the quarter, with construction concentrated in Central America for customers including Millicom, and as of the earnings release date, the company had 58 additional communication sites under contract for $28.8 million, expected to close by the end of the fourth quarter of 2026. The company also nudged its full-year 2026 outlook higher, raising site leasing revenue guidance and lifting the AFFO per share range to $11.95 to $12.40.

Where The Cracks Show

The per-share numbers tell a tougher story than the balance sheet news. AFFO per share fell 3.8% year over year to $3.05, and total AFFO dropped 5.2% to $324.4 million. Tower cash flow margin slipped to 79.5% from 81% a year earlier. Domestic churn is a big reason why: the company's revenue bridge points to $56 million of Sprint consolidation churn and another $56 million tied to EchoStar, both concentrated in the domestic segment, on top of $57 million to $64 million of regular churn.

Borrowing more, even at investment-grade rates, has a cost. Net cash interest expense rose 9.5% year over year to $122.1 million in the quarter, and the outlook now assumes refinancing $1.165 billion of tower securities at a fixed 5.25% rate ahead of their November 9 anticipated repayment date. Site development revenue, the smaller of SBA's two segments, dropped 23.5% to $51.4 million. And the updated outlook raised the discretionary capital expenditure range by $25 million to $455 million to $475 million, meaning more cash is going out the door even as per-share profit growth eased.

What Wall Street Sees Now

Hedge fund ownership of SBA fell from 51 funds to 46 in the most recent quarter, a modest pullback. Short sellers have not piled in behind that retreat, with short interest sitting at just 4.14% of the float, a level suggesting little organized bearish conviction. The stock trades at a forward P/E of 20.00 as of September 4, a multiple that assumes earnings stabilize even after the year-over-year declines in this report.

The Tension Investors Face

SBA closed the quarter with a stronger, cheaper-to-service balance sheet and rising international revenue, but also with declining per-share earnings and margin compression in its core leasing business. Investors who lean bullish can point to the BBB rating, the international growth, and $1.1 billion of remaining buyback capacity as evidence that the fundamentals are more durable than the headline earnings decline suggests. Those who lean skeptical will note that AFFO per share, the metric SBA highlights first, fell for a second straight comparison, and that domestic churn from Sprint and EchoStar is not disappearing soon.

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