Crown Castle hikes dividend by 6.5%

On October 19, 2022, Crown Castle International Corp (CCI) announced a 6.5% dividend hike to $1.565 quarterly per share. This marks 8 straight years of dividend growth by the communications REIT.

Crown Castle's Board of Directors has declared a quarterly cash dividend of $1.565 per common share, representing an increase of approximately 6.5% over the previous quarterly dividend of $1.47 per share. The quarterly dividend will be payable on December 30, 2022 to common stockholders of record at the close of business on December 15, 2022.

“We are excited about the activity levels across our business as our customers are deploying 5G at scale, highlighted by the nearly 6.5% organic revenue growth in our Towers segment year to date,” stated Dan Schlanger, Crown Castle’s Chief Financial Officer. “In the near term, the rapidly rising interest rate environment has accelerated an increase in our expected 2023 interest expense, causing some headwinds to our growth in 2023. These headwinds are largely offset by an expected acceleration of future billings resulting from the Sprint network decommissioning work, allowing us to maintain our annual dividend per share growth in line with our long-term 7% to 8% target.

“Longer term, I believe the combination of persistent growth in mobile data demand in the U.S., our long-term customer contracts that include more than $40 billion in remaining contracted tenant receivables, a cost structure that is largely fixed in nature, and our lack of exposure to higher risk international markets provides a solid foundation to support growing cash flows through various economic cycles. In addition, we have an investment grade balance sheet with nearly 85% fixed-rate debt, a weighted average maturity across our debt of approximately nine years, limited debt maturities through 2024 and more than $4.5 billion in available liquidity under our revolving credit facility. As a result, I believe we are well positioned to pursue investment opportunities that are consistent with our strategy and support our ability to deliver attractive risk-adjusted returns through a combination of dividends and growth.”

Crown Castle International Corp. is a real estate investment trust (REIT), which owns, operates and leases shared wireless infrastructure (multitenant communications real estate). The Company's segments include towers and small cells. The small cells segment also offers fiber-based solutions. Crown Castle has operations in the United States and Puerto Rico. Crown Castle owns, operates and leases more than 40,000 cell towers and approximately 80,000 route miles of fiber supporting small cells and fiber solutions across every major U.S. market.  The company has paid a dividend to shareholders every year since 2014.