The activist has amassed a stake of more than $2 billion in Crown Castle.
Elliott Investment Management plans to push for changes at Crown Castle International after the activist failed to gain traction when it first took a stake in the big owner of wireless towers.
Elliott has amassed a stake of more than $2 billion in Crown Castle, which has a market value of nearly $45 billion, and plans to engage with the company about ways to boost its shares, according to people familiar with the matter.
Should Elliott nominate a slate of director candidates ahead of Crown Castle’s annual shareholder meeting in the spring, the window to do so runs from Jan. 18 through Feb. 17, according to proxy materials.
Crown Castle rents out its towers to major wireless carriers including T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon Wireless under long-term deals. A real-estate investment trust, it is based in Houston and owns thousands of miles of fiber-optic cable used for transporting data and powering its customers’ networks. The fiber network supports so-called small cells that deliver bandwidth much closer to customers than its bigger towers.
Elliott said in July 2020 that it controlled a $1 billion economic interest in Crown Castle as it pressured the company to overhaul its approach to the fiber business, which the hedge fund said at the time was weighing on the company’s market value despite billions in investment in recent years. Elliott called Crown Castle’s fiber spending “undisciplined" and said that it diluted the company’s return on invested capital.
Elliott urged Crown Castle to focus on higher-return opportunities and pushed the company to address its “long-tenured" board.
Crown Castle responded by implementing a mandatory board-retirement policy and refreshing its director slate. It said it planned to stay the course with regard to its business strategy and has since continued to invest heavily in fiber.
Shares of Crown Castle hit a record high of around $209 in January of 2022, but higher interest rates and reduced 5G spending by major carriers have since crimped the company’s performance. Chief Executive Jay Brown said in October that the company expected site-rental revenue to fall next year.
The company has since lost nearly half of its value from the 2022 high, with the stock closing Friday at $103.58. Year-to-date, shares of Crown are down almost 24%.
Shares of competitor tower-owners American Tower and SBA Communications are down about 6% and 16%, respectively this year. The S&P 500 index, meanwhile, has risen by nearly 19%.
Elliott is known for taking on tech companies and others and forcing changes that include sales and executive shake-ups. One of the biggest and busiest activists, it has recently pursued campaigns at companies including Salesforce, NRG Energy and Goodyear Tire & Rubber. The latter two have recently announced plans for new CEOs.