AMERICAN TOWER CORP /MA/

Operational Strategy

As wireless communications technologies advance and the use of wireless services on handsets, tablets and other advanced mobile devices grows, there is a corresponding increase in demand for the communications infrastructure required to facilitate ever growing network demand. To capture this demand, our primary operational focus is to (i) increase the occupancy of our existing communications real estate portfolio to support global connectivity, (ii) invest in, and selectively grow, our communications real estate portfolio and service offerings, including through platform expansion initiatives, (iii) further improve our operational performance and efficiency and (iv) maintain a strong balance sheet. We believe these efforts to meet our customers’ needs will support and enhance our ability to capitalize on the growth in demand for wireless infrastructure. In addition, we expect to explore new opportunities to enhance or extend our shared communications infrastructure businesses, including those that may make our assets incrementally more attractive to new customers, or to existing customers for new uses, and those that increase our operational efficiency.

•Increase the occupancy of our existing communications real estate portfolio to support global connectivity. We believe that our highest incremental returns will be achieved by leasing additional space on our existing communications sites. Increasing demand for wireless services in our served markets has resulted in significant capital spending by major wireless carriers and other connectivity providers. As a result, we anticipate growing demand for our communications sites because they are attractively located and typically have capacity available for additional tenants and equipment. In the United States, incremental carrier network activity is being driven by ongoing 5G network deployments. In our international markets, carriers are increasingly deploying more advanced network technologies such as 4G and, in the case of our international markets with more mature network technology, 5G, while continuing to selectively augment legacy networks. We believe that the majority of our towers have capacity for additional tenants and that substantially all of our towers that are currently at or near full structural capacity can be upgraded or augmented to meet future tenant demand with relatively modest capital investment. Therefore, we will continue to target our sales and marketing activities to increase the utilization and return on investment of our existing communications sites.

•Invest in and selectively grow our communications real estate portfolio to meet our customers’ needs. We seek opportunities to invest in and grow our operations through our capital expenditure program, acquisitions and platform expansion initiatives. A significant portion of our inorganic growth has been focused on properties with lower initial tenancy because we believe that over time we can significantly increase tenancy levels, and therefore, drive strong returns on those assets. More recently, we have invested in strategic data center assets, including through our acquisition of CoreSite Realty Corporation (“CoreSite”) in late 2021 (the “CoreSite Acquisition”), which we believe can drive strong, recurring growth and also meaningfully enhance the value of our existing communications tower real estate through emerging edge compute opportunities in the future. We also expect to explore additional ways to use our platform expansion initiatives to enhance the efficiency of our operations over time.

•Further improve our operational performance and efficiency. We continue to seek opportunities to improve our operational performance throughout the organization. This includes investing in our systems and people as we strive to improve efficiency and provide superior service to our customers. To achieve this, we intend to continue to focus on customer service initiatives, such as reducing cycle times for key functions, including lease processing and tower structural analysis. We are also focused on developing and implementing power solutions across our footprint to help improve the overall efficiency of the communications infrastructure and wireless industries through our power as a service (PaaS) initiatives.

•Maintain a strong balance sheet. We remain committed to disciplined financial policies, which we believe result in our ability to maintain a strong balance sheet and will support our overall strategy and focus on asset growth and operational excellence. As a result of these policies, we currently have investment grade credit ratings. We continue to focus on maintaining a robust liquidity position and, as of December 31, 2025, had $11.1 billion of available liquidity. We believe that our investment grade credit ratings provide us consistent access to the capital markets and our liquidity provides us the ability to continue to invest in growing and augmenting our business.

Capital Allocation Strategy

The objective of our capital allocation strategy is to simultaneously increase adjusted funds from operations per share and our return on invested capital over the long term. To maintain our qualification for taxation as a REIT, we are required annually to distribute an amount equal to at least 90% of our REIT taxable income (determined before the deduction for distributed earnings and excluding any net capital gain) to our stockholders. After complying with our REIT distribution requirements, we plan to continue to allocate our available capital among investment alternatives that meet or exceed our return on investment criteria, while taking into account the repayment of debt consistent with our financial policies. On an ongoing basis, we also perform a comprehensive assessment of our global operations to ensure our portfolio is positioned to drive sustained growth and achieve our risk-adjusted return objectives. This assessment can influence our decisions on future capital allocation priorities between certain countries and assets, and may result in our decision to prioritize investments into developed markets, including the U.S. & Canada, Europe and the data centers markets. Conversely, this assessment can influence our decision to divest a portion, or all, of certain assets, including our Mexico fiber and Poland businesses in 2023, our Australia, India and New Zealand businesses in 2024 and our South Africa fiber business in 2025, and repurpose proceeds, and potential future capital, to other capital priorities, including investments into developed markets.

•Capital expenditure program. We expect to continue to invest in and expand our existing communications real estate portfolio through our capital expenditure program. This includes capital expenditures associated with site maintenance, increasing the capacity of our existing sites and projects such as new site and data center facility construction, land interest acquisitions and power solutions.

•Acquisitions. We intend to continue to pursue acquisitions of communications sites and other telecommunications infrastructure in our existing or new markets where we can meet or exceed our risk-adjusted return on investment criteria. The risk-adjusted hurdle rates used to evaluate acquisition opportunities consider additional factors such as the country and counterparties involved, investment and economic climate, legal and regulatory conditions and industry risk, among others.

•Return excess capital to stockholders. If we have excess capital available after funding (i) our required distributions, (ii) capital expenditures, (iii) the repayment of debt consistent with our financial policies and (iv) anticipated future investments, including acquisition and select platform expansion opportunities, we will seek to return such excess capital to stockholders, including through our stock repurchase programs.

International Strategy

Our international strategy incorporates portfolio analysis, capital prioritization and the disciplined management of overseas cash, including repatriation where feasible.

We believe that, in certain international markets, we can create value by expanding our existing, communications real estate leasing business, and leveraging our shared global experience, capabilities and services, to deliver a best-in-class offering for our customers and attractive risk-adjusted return for our shareholders. We strive to maintain a diversified approach to our international strategy by operating in a geographically diverse array of markets in a variety of stages of wireless network development.

Specifically as part of our ongoing portfolio analysis, we conduct an extensive review of a particular country’s historical and projected macroeconomic fundamentals, including inflation and foreign currency exchange rate trends, demographics, capital markets, tax regime and investment alternatives, and the general business, political and legal environments, including property rights and regulatory regime. We also analyze (i) the competitiveness of the country’s wireless market and (ii) how a particular market fits within our long-term strategic objectives.