Abbey White | Staff Writer, SatNews — On Monday, American Tower Corp (Tower Corp) officially signaled it was done waiting for the “cell tower in the sky” narrative to pay rent.
In a regulatory filing disclosed December 15, the terrestrial infrastructure giant revealed it had unloaded approximately 2.28 million shares of AST SpaceMobile (NASDAQ: ASTS)—more than 90% of its position—netting roughly $159 million. Read more detail of ther Shares sale in a previous SatNews Report
The timing is brutal. The sale occurred just days before the scheduled launch of BlueBird 6, AST’s first next-generation commercial satellite, which has now slipped to December 21. While retail investors have viewed the BlueBird launch as a vindication event, Tower Corp’s exit suggests the “smart money” in the infrastructure sector saw the current valuation as a liquidity event—an exit door they couldn’t afford to miss.
The Friction: REIT vs. R&D
To understand this divorce, look back to December 2020, when Tower Corp joined AST’s PIPE alongside Vodafone and Rakuten. The thesis was elegant: LEO satellites would become the natural extension of the cell tower business model—passive infrastructure generating boring, beautiful, high-margin recurring revenue.
Five years later, the reality is anything but boring.
Direct-to-Device (D2D) is graduating from an emergency niche to a mass-market play, but the bill to get there is antithetical to the steady-state model of a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT). Tower Corp is in the business of collecting rent on existing steel, not betting on the R&D cycles of phased array antennas or the vagaries of launch windows.
With AST shares trading near $70—up significantly from their SPAC debut—Tower Corp likely saw an opportunity to repatriate capital into its core terrestrial business rather than ride the volatility of a pre-revenue constellation. They essentially decided that the bird in the hand was worth more than the birds in the bush, even if those birds are in orbit.
The Anchor Tenant Exits
The departure of Tower Corp reshuffles the strategic deck. The risk here isn’t just financial; it’s the erosion of the “too big to fail” coalition. However, the core thesis remains breathable as long as the Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) stay committed.
Unlike Tower Corp, partners like AT&T and Verizon aren’t looking for rent; they are desperate for spectrum utilization and coverage density. The value prop for an MNO is customer retention and roaming savings, not infrastructure arbitrage. As long as the MNOs continue to fund prepayments and sign commercial agreements, the loss of a REIT investor is manageable, albeit symbolically painful.
Enter Volatility
Expect extreme volatility for ASTS through the end of Q4. The market must now digest two conflicting signals:
- The Bull Case: The technical validation of a successful BlueBird 6 deployment (targeting Dec 21).
- The Bear Case: The cold financial skepticism of a founding partner heading for the exits.
Long-term, this likely marks the end of the “Space REIT” narrative for now. LEO infrastructure will remain a venture-class asset—funded by MNOs and risk capital—until the constellations are fully deployed and cash-flow positive. Until then, terrestrial giants like Tower Corp will likely prefer to keep their feet, and their capital, firmly on the ground.