If you have been approached to sell a cell site lease for Nextel or Sprint, and you have other cell site leases that you wish to sell- be careful about the contract you enter to sell the leases.
It has come to our attention that one of the largest lease purchase companies has entered into agreements to purchase multiple leases from a client of ours including a Nextel cell site lease and a Sprint cell site lease and is now backing out of purchasing one of those leases due to potential perceived risk from termination because of the Sprint/Nextel merger. I question how they weren’t aware of this risk prior to signing the agreements to purchase the leases. I can assure you that the client would not have agreed to sell absent their committment to purchase both.
In essence, they are purchasing the cell site leases that have little or no risk- and keeping those that don’t. The landowner gives up the most valuable cell site leases (those with nominal risk of termination)- and gets to keep the ones with the most risk.
This is a pretty one sided deal. If you are dealing with a similar offer to buy multiple leases-we suggest either selling all the leases or none. And get it in writing that during the due diligence period- they can only decide to buy them all or not.
If you have further questions about this topic- please see our webpage on selling cell site leases.