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American Tower (NYSE:AMT) on Thursday issued its full-year 2023 guidance for adjusted funds from operations per share, coming in below Wall Street expectations, after the tower REIT posted weaker-than-expected Q4 bottom line, albeit rising from a year ago.
The company expects AFFO per share to land at $9.49-$9.72 in 2023, vs. $10.58 consensus, the midpoint of which slipped 1.6% from a year before. FY23 total property revenue is expected to be $10,685M-$10,865M, vs. $10,836M Visible Alpha consensus, implying a 2.9% increase from the prior year.
And it’s calling for 2023 adjusted EBITDA of $6,860M-$6,970M compared with Visible Alpha consensus of $6,903M.
For the year, “we expect to continue leveraging our global portfolio of communications infrastructure to benefit from ongoing carrier network investments, including record organic new business growth contributions in the U.S. and Canada,” said CEO Tom Bartlett.
Q4 AFFO of $2.46 a share, vs. $2.52 average analyst estimate, climbed from $2.18 in the year-ago quarter.
Total operating revenue of $2.71B for the three months ended Dec. 31, 2022, exceeding the $2.68B consensus, rose from $2.45B for the three months ended Dec. 31, 2021.
AMT drifted higher by 1.5% in premarket trading.
Property gross margin rose 11.4% to $1.86B Y/Y in Q4 2021.
Adjusted EBITDA was $1.71B compared with $1.52B a year earlier. Adjusted EBITDA margin of 63% vs. 62% in Q4 2021.
During the quarter, the company spent around $190M to acquire 250 communication sites, mostly in Europe, and other communications infrastructure related assets.
Earlier, American Tower FFO of $2.46 misses by $0.06, revenue of $2.71B beats by $30M.
