Muddy Waters is out with a new report on American Tower Corp (NYSE:AMT) after the company reported Q2 earnings. Prior report from Muddy Waters on AMT here.
Muddy Waters On AMT
American Tower Corp (NYSE:AMT)’s Q2 2013 results show the cracks in the façade of its international business, with international EBITDA flat for the past three quarters, and international operating profit margin down 470 bps from Q2 2012. Certain of the issues we detailed in our July 17th report are at least partly responsible for the deterioration in the business. American Tower Corp (NYSE:AMT) has attempted to paper over these issues by, on one hand, failing to respond to numerous issues we raised in our prior report; and, on the other hand, attempting to evade some fairly pointed questioning on yesterday’s call. Further, we continue to take AMT to task for materially misstating the purchase price for Site Sharing. In this update, we present additional information showing that approximately $250 million appears to have gone missing in the transaction. Our conversations with a selling shareholder and a former American Tower Corp (NYSE:AMT) employee involved in the transaction confirm that AMT paid the selling shareholders approximately $300 million, and not the $585 million AMT claims.
We note that six banks have responded to the results by lowering price targets: Barclays PLC (NYSE:BCS) (LON:BARC), Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C), JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM), Macquarie, Pacific Crest, and Stifel Financial Corp. (NYSE:SF).
