CLAIM #65085 · American Tower Corp (AMT) · 2026Q2 earnings call · Jul 28, 2026 · due Dec 31, 2026
“So you put all that together, you end up with an organic growth rate in the mid-single digits, maybe 4.5% for 2026.”
Rodney Smith · CFO
In context
“Rodney Smith (Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer): I'll address your question around the data center business and our joint venture there. So as you know, as of today, American Tower owns about 72% of that business. We are clearly the in-control shareholder and Stonepeak as our partner owns about 28%. They also have that convertible note where we give them a preferred dividend. The cost of that is actually reflected in our AFFO and the distributions. So our attributable AFFO per share to American Tower already includes that distribution for that convertible note. In Q3, we will expect—we expect that to convert to equity. So that will move the ownership percentage of Stonepeak up to about 36% and move ours down to about 64%. That ownership split will then be reflected in our attributable AFFO per share. And we really don't expect a material difference from the way that those numbers compared to what we've had in the past. So we've always had the charge for that convertible note; instead of being a distribution, now it will be an attributable piece of AFFO. That's the way that will work. You'll see that happen in Q3. The other thing that I'll address here just briefly is jumping back to your question about carrier activity and highlight the fact that in our U.S. business, the pipeline and the demand for our sites continues to be very healthy and consistent and largely driven, as Steve said, by late-stage 5G amendments as well as the early-stage densification that we're seeing. As a result of that, in 2026, we expect the carrier network investments to drive revenue growth for us with the contribution to organic tenant billings that comes from new business of about 250 basis points. That is very consistent with what we experienced last year on an ex-DISH basis. So from an apples-to-apples standpoint, we see that being very consistent. Because of the drivers that Steve also articulated in his prepared remarks and the comments around the questioning there, we expect that demand to continue going forward. That means we have that 2.5% new business contribution. We add to that 3% from the escalator that we have. Our churn is running 1% to 2%. We've been at the lower end of that, ex-DISH and ex-other in prior years. So you put all that together, you end up with an organic growth rate in the mid-single digits, maybe 4.5% for 2026. That is very constructive and supportive of our aspirational intention to deliver mid-single-digit to upper single-digit AFFO per share growth going forward.”
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SEC filings for AMT ↗ · Claim quote is verbatim from the 2026Q2 earnings call.