Brendan Cavanagh: Yes. So as you alluded to, obviously, the broader environment, in terms of rates and cost of capital, is certainly influencing the trajectory of our leverage levels lately. And really, it’s a combination of a couple of things. It’s the overall cost, but it’s also the relationship to the opportunities in front of us in terms of investing capital and what we see as the potential return on those items. And we haven’t seen an appropriate adjustment, I guess, in the price points for some of that investment relative to the shift in the cost of capital. And so as a result, the best use of the cost of capital, most of the time, is to pay off some of our debt. And as you know, we had balances outstanding on our revolver.
And so it’s easy for us to just pay that down as the use of capital, and given that it’s floating rate, it’s some of our highest cost debt. So we will continue to do that. But at the same time, we’re going to look to be opportunistic around opportunities to invest that capital, and the stock buybacks are representative of that. We started to see our stock trading down to levels where we just felt that it was an appropriate time to jump in, and it would be certainly accretive to us. Both in the short term and over the long term, we would expect to invest a little bit of capital into the buyback. So I think, as we think forward, longer term, we haven’t necessarily targeted being investment grade, but the leverage has continued to drop. And that’s one of the great things about this business, you continue to grow EBITDA, and it naturally – as we produce a lot of free cash flow, you naturally start to delever quickly.
And so we’re approaching those levels now where we certainly could move towards investment grade. But as we mentioned in our scripted comments, we are going to maintain that flexibility for the time being and see how things go. And if we decide that, that’s a better way to go in terms of improving our cost of capital, then we have that optionality to do it. And if not, and there’s other places to invest that we think are going to produce greater returns for our shareholders, we’ll go that direction.
Ric Prentiss: Great. One quick one on my end. I think you mentioned Sprint share now expected to be $30 million in 2024. Has that previously been thought it was going to be kind of in the double digit, maybe $10 million to $15 million? And settling – can you kind of update on what you think of 2025, 2026, 2027 Sprint churns [ph]?
Brendan Cavanagh: Yes. I think last quarter, we gave you a range that was around $20 million to $30 million. And so by saying $30 million now, we’re seeing it a little bit lower here as we end this year. But the total is still the same. When we originally were giving guidance, we expected to see a little bit more in 2025 and 2026. And now we’re thinking 2025 is probably a little bit lower. So again, the total number is going to be basically the same, Ric. It’s just trying to pinpoint exactly the timing from year-to-year is – it’s been a little bit challenging to do with that kind of precision. But I think we’ve been pretty close.
Ric Prentiss: Right. Okay. Again, best wishes, Jeff and Marc. Look forward to hearing Marc with the CFO. Look forward to hearing from you next quarter.
Jeff Stoops: Thanks, Ric.
Operator: Our next question comes from Simon Flannery with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Simon Flannery: Thank you very much. And Jeff, also my best, will miss you on these calls and your insights on the industry. A couple of things. You talked a lot about the demand being subdued, given the financial conditions in the market. To what extent are things like the FCC not having the spectrum authority to release some spectrum, the dual-band radio issue. Do you think any of those might get solved here in the near term that might be holding back some spending, or even just a turn off the calendar from year-end 2023 and to 2024? And then you did some M&A in the quarter. It would be great just to get some broader thoughts on the M&A environment. I think we’ve heard in the past, just a big difference between public and private multiples, but it’d be great to get any color on what you were able to find in the market and what you see out there today? Thanks.
Jeff Stoops: Yes. I think the FCC spectrum authority issue has to be resolved here soon. At the same time, the FCC has lost their spectrum authority. The White House and other governmental agencies are trying to plot and figure out long-term spectrum availability. So – and everybody knows it needs to get done, and it will. And I believe, by the time it has been done or will be done, Simon, the dual-band 3.45 and C-band equipment will be ready to go. So that’s absolutely something that we think will contribute to next year’s leasing. But there’s a lot of spectrum still, and we think about things as a percentage of completion or deployment of certain spectrum bands on our towers. There’s just a lot left to go. And I think it just shows that our customers are being fiscally prudent and waiting and looking for the right return results before they deploy.
But ultimately, they have to deploy, unless the connection between growth in wireless data and the need for physical infrastructure has somehow changed, and that hasn’t changed since the beginning of wireless. I’ll let Brendan handle your M&A question.
Brendan Cavanagh: Yes. So on the M&A environment, we continue to see a very competitive environment. Notwithstanding where public valuations have gone, private valuations continue to remain elevated. And to the comments that I made earlier, that’s obviously influence where we’ve directed some of our capital. So in the U.S., in particular, pricing is staying high. And even internationally, we’re seeing that to some degree. Although I would say, internationally, there’s perhaps been less in the market. There’s still a ton out there of potential supply, but I think that sellers are being a little more cautious in their timing of bringing things to market.
Simon Flannery: Okay. Thank you.
Operator: And our next question goes to Batya Levi with UBS. Please go ahead.
Batya Levi: Great. Thank you so much. Jeff, I wish you all the best as well. I had a question on the leasing growth activity. You mentioned that it has been slowing down. Can you provide some sense if it has slowed down even more than what you had expected a few months ago? And the AT&T MLA is providing some visibility when the activity is coming down. Can you provide some color, maybe if you’re – if there is appetite from your other tenants to replicate similar deals and how you would approach them? Thank you.
