4-Star Stocks Poised to Pop: American Tower

Based on the aggregated intelligence of 180,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, wireless communication tower operator American Tower (NYSE: AMT  ) has earned a respected four-star ranking.

With that in mind, let's take a closer look at American Tower's business and see what CAPS investors are saying about the stock right now.

American Tower facts

Headquarters (Founded)	Boston (1995)
Market Cap	$20.86 billion
Industry	Wireless telecom services
Trailing-12-Month Revenue	$2.1 billion
Management	Chairman/CEO James Taiclet, Jr. CFO Thomas Bartlett
Return on Equity (Average, Past 3 Years)	9.2%
Cash/Debt	$373.5 million / $5.6 billion
Competitors	Crown Castle International (NYSE: CCI  ) SBA Communications (Nasdaq: SBAC  )

Sources: Capital IQ (a division of Standard & Poor's) and Motley Fool CAPS.

On CAPS, 91% of the 766 members who have rated American Tower believe the stock will outperform the S&P 500 going forward. These bulls include Clint35 and AcheronRecords.

Earlier this week, Clint35 touched on American Tower's plans to convert into a REIT: "I wanna get in on the upcoming dividends. This one still has a lot of room to grow as well, especially in emerging markets."

American Tower even boasts a rather robust three-year average operating margin of 40%. That's much higher than those of main rivals Crown Castle (29%) and SBA (12.4%).

CAPS member AcheronRecords elaborates on the American Tower bull case:

Moving to REIT status by January 2012 to get the tax benefits and to start distributing income to shareholders. Long term wireless towers are going to be needed more and more to support all the smartphone and tablets coming to market. They also are making inroads in developing countries. It seems pricey now, but I think that the earnings potential are worth it and payouts to shareholders will make it worth the wait.

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