Some of the information we will discuss on this call is forward-looking, including but not limited to, any guidance for 2026 and beyond. With that, I will now turn it over to Marc to comment on the first quarter results and 2026 outlook. The primary drivers of these increases include outperformance during our first quarter, higher street-level revenue, and favorable foreign currency rates. In the first quarter, we continued to operate efficiently, controlling direct costs and achieving company-wide Tower Cash Flow margins of approximately 80%.
Internationally, we continue to see healthy demand for infrastructure, and we added approximately $4 million of quarterly new lease and amendment billings year-over-year. Consistent with our prior outlook, we continue to assume that our $1.2 billion November ABS maturity will be refinanced in November at 5.25%. Our current leverage of 6.6x net debt to Adjusted EBITDA remains near historical lows and within our target range of 6x to 7x. During the first quarter, we declare a cash dividend of $135.2 million or $1.25 per share.
This dividend represents an increase of approximately 13% over the dividend paid in the first quarter of 2025 and an annualized rate of approximately 41% of the midpoint of our full year AFFO guidance. The first quarter was another quarter of solid financial and operational results, leading both an industry AFFO per share and year-over-year growth in our dividend. Our customers around the globe remained busy deploying cutting-edge technology, expanding their footprints, and deepening existing capacity to meet strong customer demand. Our backlogs also continued to steadily increase during the quarter, and we expect to see steady activity levels throughout the remainder of 2026.
| Metric | Period | Current guidance |
|---|---|---|
| Site leasing revenue (full-year 2026) | FY2026 | Increased |
| Tower Cash Flow (full-year 2026) | FY2026 | Increased |
| Adjusted EBITDA (full-year 2026) | FY2026 | Increased |
| AFFO (full-year 2026) | FY2026 | Increased |
| AFFO per share (full-year 2026) | FY2026 | Increased |
| November ABS maturity refinancing rate | November 2026 | 5.25% (assumed) |
| Metric | YoY | Note |
|---|---|---|
| U.S. new lease and amendment billings | +~$10 million quarterly | Bulk of activity from new collocations as carriers densify and expand network footprints, including C-band, Massive MIMO upgrades, and Fixed Wireless Access growth |
| International new lease and amendment billings | +~$4 million quarterly | Healthy demand for infrastructure internationally |
| Quarterly dividend per share | +~13% (to $1.25) | Shareholder-friendly remuneration policy; represents an annualized rate of approximately 41% of the midpoint of full-year AFFO guidance |
| Tower Cash Flow margin | ~80% company-wide | Efficient operations and control of direct costs |
| Topic | Previous mention | Current period | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6G / edge computing | Early theoretical discussion of compute at the tower | Starting to see early signs of 6G with higher capacity radios and denser antennas; actively engaged with multiple companies exploring edge data centers at tower sites for AI inference and low-latency use cases | — |
| Millicom / Central America | Assets recently acquired | Integration progressing well; co-location demand exceeding initial lease-up projections; ramping new tower builds and land purchases | — |
| Investment grade transition | Committed to becoming IG issuer | Well positioned to be an investment grade issuer during 2026, with inaugural IG bond issuance expected at some point in 2026 | — |
| Organic growth drivers | 5G deployment | Upper C-band auction expected mid-2027, 6G network architecture toward more balanced uplink/downlink, and new spectrum bands being studied for future auction | — |