Crown Castle Inc. (CCI) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending March 31, 2023

April 20, 2023 10:30 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Crown Castle First Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. [Operator Instructions] Please also note, today's event is being recorded.

At this time, I'd like to turn the floor over to Ben Lowe, Senior Vice President of Corporate Finance. Please go ahead.

Ben Lowe – SVP of Corporate Finance

Great. Thank you, Jamie, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today as we discuss our first quarter 2023 results. With me on the call this morning are Jay Brown, Crown Castle’s Chief Executive Officer; and Dan Schlanger, Crown Castle’s Chief Financial Officer. To aid the discussion, we have posted supplemental materials in the Investors section of our website at crowncastle.com that will be referenced throughout the call this morning.

This conference call will contain forward-looking statements, which are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions and the actual results may vary materially from those expected. Information about potential factors which could affect our results is available in the press release and the Risk Factors sections of the company’s SEC filings. Our statements are made as of today, April 20, 2023 and we assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements.

In addition, today’s call includes discussions of certain non-GAAP financial measures. Tables reconciling these non-GAAP financial measures are available in the supplemental information package in the Investors section of the company’s website at crowncastle.com.

So with that, let me turn the call over to Jay.

Jay Brown – CEO

Thanks, Ben, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us on the call. We continue to see positive underlying demand trends as 5G has developed across the U.S., driving first quarter results that were in line with our expectations and no changes to our 2023 outlook. As we discussed in the press release, we expect our near-term results to be impacted by a combination of the Sprint network rationalization and a higher interest rate environment, which will result in minimal dividend growth in 2024 and 2025, despite strong projected underlying growth throughout our business.

Looking past these discrete items, we believe our strategy will allow us to deliver on our long-term target of growing dividends per share at 7% to 8% per year. Our strategy is to grow revenues on our shared infrastructure and invest in new assets that will generate additional future growth. By executing this strategy, we aim to deliver the highest risk adjusted returns by consistently returning money to our shareholders through a growing dividend.