American Tower to Purchase Communications Properties from Watson Communication Systems

Boston, MA-based American Tower Corp. will purchase the assets of Watson Communication Systems Inc. (San Francisco) for approximately $73 million in cash. The purchase price may be allocated approximately $54 million, or 13.5 times cash flow, for tower assets and approximately $18 million for other assets, including a teleport facility with substantial expansion potential.

The transaction includes 11 wireless and 10 broadcast communication towers in the San Francisco Bay area and one teleport, which contains nine antennas for satellite transmission covering the full domestic arc and the Pacific international service region. Among the acquired sites is San Bruno Mountain, a premiere location within the San Francisco market. San Bruno will be the site of a new broadcast tower suitable for DTV as well as a new teleport facility aimed at meeting the growing demand for Internet traffic.

American Tower is an independent owner, operator and developer of broadcast and wireless communications sites in the US and, pending transactions, operates more than 4,000 towers, including 195 broadcast tower sites, in 44 states and the District of Columbia.