American Tower Corporation, the U.S. wireless tower operator plans to issue $1.8 billion of securities backed by interests in mortgage loans made to borrowers that are all wholly owned indirect subsidiaries of the issuer.
The issuer leased the tower sites to a variety of users, primarily major wireless telephone carriers. The cash flows from those leases will be used to repay the mortgage loans and ultimately the securities. The pool has strong diversification by number of towers and geographic location, with 16,765 tenant leases on 5,195 wireless communication sites located in 47 states and Washington, D.C.
Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings assigned the deal’s subclass 2013-1A notes and the 2013-2A notes a provisional rating of ‘Aaa’/ ‘AAA’. Barclays Capital is lead manager in the deal, according to the Fitch presale report.
American Tower can issue multiple series of securities under its securitization structure, American Tower Trust I . To date the issuer has issued one series, the $1.75 billion, Series 2007-1 with an anticipated repayment date of April 2014. According to Moody’s, the issuer will use a portion of the proceeds from the issuance of the 2013 securities to pay the Series 2007-1 in full.
