Private Sector Solutions

APWIP offers a variety of financing solutions to businesses and individuals, each customized to meet your particular needs:

Maximum Value for Your Cell Site. The vast majority of cell site leases allow the carrier to terminate with 30-90 days’ notice. If this is the case with your carrier lease then you cannot walk into your local bank and borrow against the future cash flow. This is because the bank, like you, faces “binary risk” relative to the cell site: either the carrier pays rent (“1”) or it doesn’t (“0”). APWIP, in contrast, faces “portfolio risk”: if, immediately after we make a prepayment, the carrier decides to terminate your lease, we still own hundreds of other cell site leases that continue to cash flow as before. In other words, we are “hedged” against the termination of your site, which is why we are willing to make the largest, up-front, lump sum cash payouts in the industry.

Maximum Value for Your Overall Property. Any potential buyer of your overall property faces the same “binary” risk relative to your cell site, i.e., either the carrier pays, or it doesn’t. As a result, the buyer will likely not ascribe much value to the cell site (which is why there is not a “traditional” market in cell site leases comparable to the market in “triple net” leased properties occupied by, say, drug stores or fast food franchises). This means that, if you are selling your property, you are much better off selling separate pieces: a limited-use communications easement to APWIP, which will make a large, lump sum cash payout in return, and the usual fee simple interest to the buyer, who now no longer has to worry about valuing the cell site lease. To incentivize the buyer, you might limit the term of the easement to APWIP to 30 years. This way, the buyer has a substantial reversionary interest in the site. And you might grant APWIP a large enough easement to incentivize APWIP to seek one or more additional carriers, so that there is residual “upside” in the buyer’s interest. In the meantime, you might retain that “upside” during the 30-year easement, so that you not only maximized the value of your property today but also have an opportunity to earn additional income from the property during the next three decades.

Maximum Payout during Your Lifetime. If you prefer a combination of cash up-front and cash over time, you might opt for selling a shorter-term interest. You might, for example, sell a 30-year interest to APWIP, after which the carrier lease reverts back to you. In the meantime, you might engage APWIP to pursue additional carriers which might “co-locate” on your property. APWIP would pay you a generous “rent share” during the 30-year term, and your reversionary interest 30 years from now would not only include the rent projected to be received from the carrier currently occupying the site but 100% of co-location rent as well.

“Hybrid” Transactions and Deferred Payouts. Perhaps you would prefer to “monetize” a portion of your cash flow only. Or perhaps you would prefer to be paid out in two or three installments. We will work with you to achieve your objectives.

Favorable Tax Treatment. There appear to be pervasive misconceptions throughout the industry about the federal income tax treatment of cell site lease prepayments. We do not agree, for example, that the sale by a private landlord of an easement as opposed to that of a leasehold interest is automatically most tax-advantaged. Moreover, achieving the tax treatment you desire (say, a “like-kind exchange” under Section 1031 of the Internal Revenue Code) often requires careful structuring. We are not in the business of rendering tax advice, and we urge you to seek guidance from your tax advisor. However, our management team is highly experienced from a federal income tax perspective and we will work closely with you and your advisor to achieve the optimal solution.

Eliminate the Risk of Lease Termination. If your lease resembles 95% of U.S. cell site leases, the carrier can terminate with little or no notice. Thousands of cell site leases have, in fact, been terminated or sold as a result of carrier mergers or technological obsolescence. While we have no reason to believe that your particular site is at risk, you can eliminate any risk that might exist through a lease prepayment with APWIP.

Pay Down Debt. A lease prepayment from APWIP allows you to accelerate and “lock in” a portion of your future site rent so that you can assuredly meet your recurring financial obligations like credit card debt, mortgages, student and auto loans, etc. In some cases it is indeed true that a “bird in the hand is worth two in the bush!”

Eliminate the Risk of Rent Reductions. Wireless carriers and tower companies have a strong interest in controlling the growth of their operating expenses. Site rent is a significant operating expense for these companies and it tends to increase over time due to the impact of rent “escalators.” You may have already been approached about reducing your site rent in exchange for a guaranteed lease term or some other consideration. After prepaying your site rent, APWIP assumes all rent reduction (and lease termination) risk throughout the lease prepayment term.