Topic: How To Invest

Q: Hi Pat. What are your thoughts on American Tower? Thanks.

Article Excerpt

A: American Tower (real estate investment trust), $144.96, symbol AMT on New York (Shares outstanding: 428.9 million; Market cap: $61.9 billion; www.americantower.com), is one of the world’s largest independent owners, operators and developers of multi-tenant communications real estate, mainly cell phone towers. Altogether, the REIT has a total of 144,884 cell towers. That includes 40,414 in the U.S and 104,470 overseas. The international sites are scattered across Asia (India), Europe (France and Germany), South America (Brazil, Argentina, and Chile), and Africa (South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, and Uganda). American Tower leases its towers to wireless providers of cellular, specialized mobile radio, and TV programming services. U.S. wireless firms AT&T, Sprint Nextel, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile represent 56% of its revenue. Over the five years from 2012 to 2016, the REIT’s revenue jumped 101.2%, from $2.9 billion to $5.8 billion. Earnings climbed 50.1%, from $637.3 million in 2012 to $956.4 million in 2016. Those gains came mostly from acquisitions. On more shares outstanding, earnings per…