M&A: Why Crown Castle International Corp. (REIT) (CCI) is Rising

REIT Crown Castle International Corp. (REIT) (NYSE:CCI) is continuing its M&A strategy, disclosing on Monday that it has agreed to acquire fiber services provider Wilcon Holdings LLC for around $600 million. Wilcon is valuable because it owns around 1,900 miles of fiber, principally around LA and Dan Diego. When completed, Crown Castle will own or have rights to around 28,000 miles of fiber. Currently management expects the acquisition to close in Q3 of 2017.

Crown Castle International Corp. (REIT) (NYSE:CCI) CEO Jay Brown said, ‘The acquisition of Wilcon provides us an extensive set of dense metro fiber assets that will enable us to continue to deliver fiber-fed small cell solutions for our wireless customers in our fastest growing and most active market. With its complementary footprint, we expect to benefit in the near-term by leveraging Wilcon’s assets to execute on our substantial and growing pipeline of small cells. Longer-term, we believe Wilcon’s well-located assets across the greater Los Angeles and San Diego metro areas, combined with its currently low utilization rate, provide us with a long runway of growth opportunities to pursue small cell deployments for our wireless customers as they seek to improve and enhance their networks to meet growing demand for high-speed, high-capacity wireless services’.

Shares of Crown Castle have done well in 2017, rallying almost 12% year-to-date, as investors buy for the stock’s yield and anticipated future growth.

What Does The Smart Money Sentiment Say?

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36 elite funds had a bullish position in Crown Castle International Corp. (REIT) (NYSE:CCI) at the end of the fourth quarter, down 6 funds from the previous quarter. Those numbers are out of the 742 total funds we track.

The Bottom Line

Crown Castle International Corp. (REIT) (NYSE:CCI) shares are higher after the company agreed to buy fiber services provider Wilcon Holdings LLC for around $600 million. For more reading, check out ‘11 Biggest Telecom Companies In the World‘.

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