CluenexAmerican Tower AMT
American Tower scores average on business quality (5.5 of 10). Here is why, in plain words, and what our sealed record shows.
Why it matters
- What American Tower does
American Tower owns and operates thousands of wireless communication sites, leasing antenna space to major telecom carriers who pay recurring rents to maintain their network coverage. The firm is expanding its digital infrastructure presence to capture growing demand from the artificial intelligence boom and mobile data traffic.
- What it does best
American Tower secures long-term master lease agreements with top-tier carriers, generating an operating margin of 45.0% that beats peers like Crown Castle at 48.3% while maintaining high asset density. This physical network density makes duplication prohibitively expensive and time-consuming for any rival.
- The main risk
A heavy debt load with a debt-to-equity ratio of 10.2 exposes the balance sheet to rising borrowing costs during periods of elevated interest rates. This limits aggressive capital deployment without straining liquidity.
Quality, check by check
Scored against its own industry, from company filings.
Free cash flow margin hits 36.2% in the top decile of its sector, driving elite profitability that expands as tenants add equipment to existing towers.
High switching costs and difficult zoning hurdles lock in telecom tenants across a network sitting in the top decile for return on equity at 91.6%.
Revenue grew 5.1% to $10.9 billion, continuing a steady multi-year expansion from $10.1B in 2024.
Total debt sits at $37.2 billion against interest coverage of 3.5x, leaving little room for error on debt servicing as free cash flow reaches $4.0B.
Insiders
Executives and directors, from SEC Form 4 filings we read ourselves. Open market trades only; grants, option exercises and pre-planned sales left out.
1 insider bought $501K on the open market. 1 sold $894K outside pre-planned sales.
Our sealed record on AMT
Verdicts appear here 30 days after we publish them; members see today's. Each one is in the nightly ledger, fingerprinted the night it was made.
The first sealed verdicts appear here on Oct 11, 2026.
Questions
American Tower scores average on the Cluenex quality check (5.5 of 10), measured against its own industry. Profitability is strong, moat fair, growth slow and financial health weak.
In the last 90 days of SEC Form 4 filings: 1 insider bought $501K on the open market. 1 sold $894K outside pre-planned sales.
Oct 27, 2026.
See AMT today
- Today's verdict on AMT, and why
- Fair value with cautious, base and optimistic cases
- The exact price that would change the verdict
- Which stocks each signal names, the night it fires
Cite this page: Cluenex, “American Tower (AMT)”, https://cluenex.com/stocks/amt/, data as of Oct 10, 2026.