SBA Communications Corporation (NASDAQ: SBAC) and Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE: CCI) disclose securitized tower debt using anticipated repayment dates, or ARDs, but the convention applies to vastly different portions of their respective debt bases.
SBA's Tower Securities represent 49.9% of a debt-from-balance-sheet (DFB) bridge from its June 30 debt through July financing: $6.475 billion over $12.975 billion. In contrast, Crown Castle's $750 million Series 2018-2 represents 4.3% of a separate DFB bridge from $18.353 billion of June 30 face-value debt, less the $1.0 billion senior note Crown Castle repaid in July.
The Print
The convention matters in proportion to the debt it governs. Crown Castle shows the date distinction inside its own disclosures. Its July 22 supplemental says the maturity overview uses the July 2028 ARD for the $750 million Series 2018-2 where applicable. Its Form 10-Q instead presents "Scheduled Principal Payments and Final Maturities" and does not consider principal payments that would begin after the ARD. Under the supplemental's stated convention, the series is a 2028 item; under the 10-Q convention, its July 2048 final maturity falls in 2031 and after.
For Crown Castle's Series 2018-2, the ARD also carries contractual consequences. Crown Castle states that if the notes are not paid in full by July 2028, Excess Cash Flow of the issuers will be used to repay principal and additional interest of approximately 5% per year will accrue.
SBA's Tower Layer Is 49.9% On The June 30 Bridge
SBA's June 30 debt schedule uses ARDs for its Tower Securities. Its footnote says the maturity date represents the anticipated repayment date for each issuance. That schedule does not separately display final maturity for those securities. SBA's 2025 Form 10-K lists the $1.165 billion 2021-1C series with a Nov. 9, 2026 ARD and a final maturity of May 9, 2051.
The July transactions changed the rest of the capital structure, not the seven Tower series. SBA issued $3.5 billion of senior unsecured notes on July 23 and used proceeds to repay the prior term loan and revolving borrowings. It also replaced the previous secured revolving facility with a $2.5 billion senior unsecured revolver. SBA said no amounts were outstanding under the new facility as of Aug. 3.
The June 30 bridge reaches $12.975 billion: $12.778 billion of debt, plus $3.5 billion of new notes, less the $2.248 billion term loan and $1.055 billion revolver balance repaid in July. That matches the total in the July prospectus's as-adjusted capitalization table. The prospectus table is expressly based on March 31, 2026, and states that debt balances are shown at nominal principal and do not reflect discounts. On that March 31 as-adjusted basis, SBA says approximately $6.5 billion of parent debt would have been unsecured and approximately $6.475 billion of subsidiary debt would have been secured.
Crown Castle's 4.3% uses a different basis. Its $17.353 billion denominator is a DFB bridge from June 30 face-value debt adjusted only for the disclosed $1.0 billion July repayment. It also includes Crown Castle's $261 million line for installment purchase liabilities and finance leases. Removing that line would put the Series 2018-2 share at 4.4%.
One SBA Date Is In The Aug. 3 Outlook
SBA's Aug. 3 outlook gives a financing assumption for the 2021-1C Tower Securities. The series carries $1.165 billion of principal at a 1.631% interest rate and has a Nov. 9, 2026 ARD.
For the outlook, SBA assumed the securities would be refinanced before the fourth quarter at a fixed rate of 5.25%. In the same disclosure, the company said it did not have a specific refinancing plan and that the actual date and rate would be subject to market conditions.
The difference between the disclosed 1.631% rate and the 5.25% outlook assumption is 361.9 basis points. Applied to $1.165 billion, that is about $42.2 million on a full-year annualized rate-difference basis, a DFB calculation. It is not a stated 2026 guidance impact or an observed refinancing cost.
What the Numbers Show
The structural difference lies in the amount governed by the ARD convention. At SBA, the Tower layer represents nearly half of the post-July principal bridge used here (49.9%). At Crown Castle, the corresponding series is a much smaller share of the separate face-value bridge (4.3%). Neither issuer leaves the date convention unstated: Crown Castle gives readers an ARD-based maturity overview and a final-maturity table, while SBA's June 30 debt schedule uses ARDs for the Tower Securities, with final maturities provided in its 2025 Form 10-K. No principal changes because the date label changes; the date is measuring a different contractual event.
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