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Assessing Crown Castle (CCI) Valuation After Fiber Sale Plan And Mixed Shareholder Returns

Simply Wall St · 3d ago

Crown Castle (CCI) owns around 40,000 cell towers and 90,000 route miles of fiber across major U.S. markets, so its recent share moves have investors revisiting how this infrastructure-focused REIT is currently valued.

See our latest analysis for Crown Castle.

At a share price of $88.70, Crown Castle’s recent 90 day share price return of a 6.77% decline sits against a 1 year total shareholder return of 5.34%, suggesting short term momentum has faded while longer term returns remain mixed.

If this kind of infrastructure story has you thinking about what else is out there, it could be a good time to scan fast growing stocks with high insider ownership for other ideas.

With a recent 3 year total shareholder return decline of 28% and a current share price of $88.70, investors are left asking a simple question: is Crown Castle now trading at a discount, or is the market already pricing in future growth?

Most Popular Narrative: 21.6% Undervalued

Against the last close of $88.70, the most followed narrative points to a higher fair value and leans heavily on Crown Castle’s tower focused repositioning.

The decision to sell the fiber segment and become a pure-play U.S. tower company could unlock substantial value in the tower business by enhancing focus on operational excellence, customer service, and improved profitability, potentially driving higher revenue and net margins. The ongoing growth in U.S. mobile data demand, particularly with the continuation of 5G deployments, supports expectations for durable growth in tower rental revenues, which historically have shown consistent growth across market cycles and economic conditions.

Read the complete narrative.

Curious how a business with falling revenues can still be modeled to grow earnings strongly, expand margins, and support a premium future P/E multiple? The core of this narrative is an aggressive earnings rebuild, a sizeable swing in profit margins, and a valuation multiple usually tied to faster growing sectors. Want to see how those moving parts are combined into a single fair value number?

Result: Fair Value of $113.18 (UNDERVALUED)

Have a read of the narrative in full and understand what's behind the forecasts.

However, the fiber sale and tower-only focus come with execution and regulatory risks, while industry legal disputes could pressure margins and weigh on valuation multiples.

Find out about the key risks to this Crown Castle narrative.

Build Your Own Crown Castle Narrative

If you are not on board with this view or simply prefer to test the numbers yourself, you can build a custom Crown Castle story in just a few minutes, Do it your way.

A great starting point for your Crown Castle research is our analysis highlighting 4 key rewards and 4 important warning signs that could impact your investment decision.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.