Tower Company SBA Mulling Sale: Report
It’s the third largest public tower company in the U.S.
WASHINGTON, April 7, 2026 – Tower Company SBA Communications is mulling a potential sale after receiving “preliminary takeover interest,” Bloomberg reported Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. The outlet said SBA was working with advisers to evaluate its options and that “large infrastructure funds have been circling” the company.
SBA stock was down more than three percent Tuesday afternoon but up about 20 percent since Thursday morning.
“The appeal of tower leasing to long-term, patient capital – infrastructure, pension, insurance – is obvious: it’s a highly durable business model with predictable cash flows supported by secular growth in wireless traffic,” MoffettNathanson founder Craig Moffett wrote in an investor note.
SBA is the third largest public tower company in the U.S., with nearly 17,500 domestic towers by Wireless Estimator’s count. It’s smaller compared only to Crown Castle’s 40,000 towers and American Tower’s 42,000.
“SBAC is a sensible target for infrastructure funds seeking visible, stable returns and not, necessarily, material synergy or incremental scale gains,” New Street Research analyst David Barden wrote in a Monday investor note.
He said Crown Castle and American Tower could also be targets for consolidation in the tower space, notwithstanding recent downward pressure from EchoStar subsidiary Dish backing out of leases after major spectrum sales. SBA is suing Dish over the lease issue, as are American Tower and Crown Castle and multiple other companies.
“It would be weird if SBAC were truly in play and AMT and CCI didn’t emerge as part of the conversation at some point,” Barden wrote.
Moffett wrote that in addition to typical infrastructure funds, private tower company Vertical Bridge might be interested. Vertical Bridge is controlled by DigitalBridge, which owns other telecom companies and is itself being acquired by Japanese firm SoftBank.
Vertical Bridge has been expanding, and acquiring SBA would put its tower count on par with American Tower and Crown Castle, he wrote. Plus, SBA’s towers in Latin America could be folded into other DigitalBridge holdings.
“We would expect Vertical Bridge to be very engaged and highly motivated in any princess involving SBA,” he wrote.
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