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Cell Tower Lease or Cell Site Lease Buyouts
CELL
PHONE TOWER LEASE BUYOUTS- Recently a number
of companies have entered the cell tower lease buyout
industry- they purchase the remaining cash flow under
a cell tower lease. Some tower companies like Global
Signal and Crown
Castle have been contacting owners as well. The
transaction is typically crafted as an exchange of a
one time payment for a lease assignment or a permanent
easement on the landowners parcel in exchange for the
rights to collect all future rent payments from the
cell tower owner. Other companies just purchase an assignment
of the cell tower lease and a successor lease.
Some companies have resorted to "scare
tactics" whereby they suggest that technology will
make the tower obsolete in the near future. They also
sometimes suggest that industry consolidation might
shorten the length of what we in the industry refer
to "90 day" cell tower leases. This is due
to the fact that most agreements are written such that
the tower company or wireless carrier can terminate
the cell tower lease without penalty with 90 days notice.
While it is true that the cell tower leases can be terminated,
it is not a common occurrence that they will be.
There are, of course reasons why a landowner
might want to sell the remaining portions of the lease
to a company that specializes in this type of transaction.
First and foremost is the opportunity
to get cash out of your asset. These
companies often can give a sizable payment when your
financial institution would not. The purchasing companies
can reduce the risk that any one lease will be terminated
over the purchase of hundreds of leases, where the landowner
could not. Landowners who have attempted to borrow against
cell tower leases often find that banks do not loan
against them due to the 90 day termination rights common
in most cell tower leases.
Secondly, depending upon the location
and the company purchasing the cell tower lease rights,
the offer might be one that the average landowner
with a cell tower lease would be hard pressed to turn
down. Determining which situation the landowner
is faced with, unfortunately requires expert review.
Third, in certain situations where a landowner
has exposure to termination due to the Cingular / AT&T
merger or the Nextel / Sprint merger, the sale of the
cell tower leases for a lump sum can eliminate
the risk that those companies will terminate
the cell site lease. We can help you guage that risk
and determine if the sale of the lease is right for
you.
If you are interested in simply getting
a better offer, contact us
the details of your lease and any buyout offer you currently
have and we will be happy to see if we can beat it.
There is no cost to you.
If on the other hand, you are interested
in getting assistance with whether you should sell your
cell tower lease, we can assist. Steel in the Air has
consulted with many landowners on cell tower lease purchase
offers based on in depth analysis of the landowner's
parcel and the surrounding wireless environment. We
can assist you with working through the wireless side
of the decision and help you determine what you are
really selling. We can help ascertain what the real
remaining term of your cell site lease will be so that
you can figure out the true "present value"
of your lease. We can tell you the history of the lease
purchase market as well as where we expect it to go.
We can help you answer the decision of when the best
time to sell is. We have compiled a database of numerous
transactions and can tell you trends in this arena.
Furthermore, we can determine whether or not you are
passing up future revenue that you might not have known
about. The standard consultation normally runs around
$1000.
Please contact
us for a free estimate of what a review
will cost. Click here
to see what many of our satisfied clients have had to
say.
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