Shares of SBA Communications (SBAC +1.36%) jumped as much as 2.2% on Monday to set a fresh 52-week high. Crown Castle (CCI +1.97%) took a 3.9% leap to reach yearly highs of its own. Determined to top its competitors, American Tower (AMT 0.08%) surged 4.8%, and yes, that's another 52-week high.
Why in the world are these stodgy stocks jumping sky-high? These big winners own and manage networks of cell phone towers in North and South America. We're talking real-estate investments with a side order of long-term infrastructure installations on top. Be still, my beating heart!
But the tower operators actually have good reason to cheer today. Japanese telephony giant Softbank is preparing to pump some $20 billion into American laggard Sprint Nextel (S +0.00%), and that deal would pump this sector's cash flow veins full of adrenaline.
Sprint desperately wants to build an advanced 4G LTE network to compete with Verizon (VZ +0.53%) and AT&T (T +0.28%), but has been held back by a lack of investable funds. High-speed networking partner Clearwire (NASDAQ: CLWR) suffers from a very similar imbalance between desire to invest and the funds to make it happen. The Softbank deal would free up both companies to buy tower space again -- not to mention how it puts more pressure on the two market leaders to make their networks sparkle and shine.
