HScreen · CCI

CCI · Crown Castle Inc. 28d old

conviction2

coverage tierT3-PRIMARY-COMPLETE

horizon12 months

Return distribution probability-weighted scenarios, never collapsed to a point

-14%30%

+9%50%

+35%20%

EV +7.30%

why these probabilities: All legs total return from 74.66 (2026-08-18), 12 months, and all three are built forward from a growth rate to a price, not reverse-engineered from a magnitude. BASE (+9%, 50%) = the market's expectation delivered: consensus revenue -5.0% FY2026 and +1.3% FY2027 (fmp:/stable/analyst-estimates?symbol=CCI&period=annual, 2026-08-19, EST), the guided ~200bp EBITDA margin expansion largely achieved (CCI/CCI_2026Q2.json:53), dividend held at USD 4.25, leverage drifting toward the 6.0-6.5x target. On unchanged multiple that is roughly +3% price on the margin-driven EBITDA uplift plus the 5.69% yield. This is anchored TO consensus deliberately: we have no model, no management access and no channel checks, so an independent revenue forecast here would be a noisier copy of the street's. BULL (+35%, 20%) = growth materially above the market: FY2027 revenue +4-5% against consensus +1.3%, driven by organic tower billings returning toward the >5% rate delivered 2020-2024 on USD 35bn+ annual carrier spend (CCI/CCI_2025Q1.json:3), helped by data-centre-adjacent demand for permitted, powered, fibre-backhauled sites — a business management has explicitly identified as facing the same zoning, permitting and power-delivery constraints towers solved decades ago (CCI/CCI_2026Q2.json:29, CCI/CCI_2026Q1.json:53). With the cost programme banked that compounds into AFFO, leverage falls through 6.5x and

not built — options-implied distribution on the same axis, with the KL number and where the disagreement sits
needs: desk-options implied bands (v1.4 Part 4a) — activates at 60% coverage; currently 33%

Visibility how far ahead this name can be seen

not built — visibility score
needs: visibility_score.py

Trust how much weight this name's own record can carry (credibility Z)

not built — credibility
needs: credibility.py

Technology supply chain graph-backed context · read-only

not built — supply-chain attributes
needs: ticker not mapped in supply_chain.yaml

Sizing survival-first size (half-Kelly) vs the enforced ladder

kelly not computable — no data

Payout durability does the distribution survive a downturn?

FAIL

DPS trajectorycut

interest cover now2.17x

interest cover at FORWARD rates1.41x

DPS trajectory = cut (cuts in [2025]); interest coverage now 2.17x < 3.0x; interest coverage at forward rates 1.41x < 2.0x (this is the test a static ratio cannot see)

Falsifiers what would prove this wrong

The USD 4.25 annualised dividend is covered by AFFO and survives the horizon
The guided ~200bp adjusted EBITDA margin expansion is delivered over the next year
Net debt/EBITDA falls into the stated 6.0-6.5x target range, enabling the buyback leg of the capital allocation framework
Organic tower billings growth for FY2027 is guided at or above ~4%, i.e. within reach of the >5% average delivered 2020-2024
CCI's position that the 15% bankruptcy cap does not apply to its accelerated EchoStar/DISH claims prevails
New tower build economics do not deteriorate further to the point of blocking growth capex returns above cost of capital

Conflicts surfaced, never netted out (T4)

Our probability-weighted expectation is +7.3% total return over 12 months against a street implied +32.9% (target 95 plus yield, fmp:/stable/analyst-estimates, 2026-08-19) — 25.6pp below. We do not disagree with the stre	high
The consensus rating is Buy but the ratings split is 1 strongBuy / 23 buy / 23 hold — a dead heat — while the price-target range is degenerate at 95-95. A single mark is being reported as a consensus target. Any downstre	high
Consensus FY2026 EPS growth is +112.8% while FY2026 revenue growth is -5.0% (same source, same as_of). The EPS figure is an accounting recovery off a depressed 1.02 FY2025 base that includes the fibre-disposal impairment	high
The revision tape is unavailable, not flat-by-agreement: estimates_query.py drift returns n_up 0, n_down 0, breadth 0.0, median_move null, velocity 0.0 for both EPS and revenue over 365 days, and outliers is empty (as_of	medium
Management holds the dividend as "sacrosanct" within a 6.0-6.5x leverage target (CCI/CCI_2026Q2.json:51, CCI/CCI_2026Q1.json:60) while an analyst argued on the same Q1 2026 call that at a ~90% payout and this share price	high
No desk corroboration exists — options, crowding, technical and factor desks are not built, and the pack confirms there is no CCI options chain, so options_implied anchors are null on both legs. The bull and bear probabi	medium

The case against independent adversary, different model family (P6) weakened

Version history from the research record

archived versions1

archived	hash	bytes
2026-08-19T08:32:01	6adb2381d5b7	34,179

One version only — the archive was created today. The diff view fills in on the next re-run.

Rendered from canonical artifacts only (T1) — no terminal database exists. Every figure is read from the system's own files at render time; where an artifact is missing the panel names the dependency rather than showing an empty box. No execution path exists anywhere in this interface (T5), not even a link.