Crown Castle Stock Gains Premarket After $8.5B Deal To Sell Small Cells And Fiber Solutions: Retail’s Divided
The deals are expected to close in the first half of 2026.
FollowCrown Castle (CCI) stock rose 3% in pre-market trade on Friday after the cell tower operator said it would sell its small cells and fiber solutions businesses for a total of $8.5 billion.
The communications-focused real estate investment trust (REIT) said it would sell its small cells business to private equity firm EQT AB and its fiber solutions business to Zayo Group.
Crown Castle operates a nationwide portfolio of about 115,000 small cells on air or under contract spread across 43 states, serving the top three U.S. mobile network operators.
EQT said the deal would help meet the growing demand in bandwidth-intensive activities driven by the proliferation of 5G, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and other emerging technologies.
The deals are expected to close in the first half of 2026. Crown Castle expects to use the cash proceeds from the agreement to repay its debt and fund share buybacks.
"Selling our Fiber segment represents a significant step on Crown Castle’s path towards a refined focus as a pure-play provider of multi-tenant tower assets," CEO Steven Moskowitz said.
The company launched a strategic review of the assets in December 2023 after activist investor Elliott Investment Management pushed for changes, citing the stock's underperformance.
Crown Castle expects to cut its annualized dividend to about $4.25 per share starting in the second quarter.
After the deal closes, the company plans to set its annualized dividend at about 75% to 80% of its adjusted funds from operations (AFFO), excluding amortization of prepaid rent.
Crown Castle projected 2025 AFFO per share in the range of $4.06 to $4.17.
According to FinChat data, the company's fourth-quarter AFFO was $1.80 per share, while analysts expected it to be $1.81 per share.
Retail sentiment on Stocktwits moved to ‘neutral’ (52/100) territory from ‘bullish’(63/100) a day ago, while retail chatter was ‘extremely high.’
CCI’s Sentiment Meter and Message Volume as of 04:30 a.m. ET on March. 14, 2025 | Source: Stocktwits
One user said the company was heading nowhere due to its ‘higher leverage, lower dividend and continued slow growth.’
Over the past year, Crown Castle stock has fallen 15.7%.
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