ANALYST: Morgan Stanley comments on Verizon after Deal to Sell Assets

On Friday Verizon Communications

announced that it had reached agreements with American Tower

and Frontier

on transactions totaling more than $15 billion for tower and wireline properties in Florida, Texas and California.Verizon also announced a $5 billion accelerated share repurchase program. Morgan Stanley analysts Simon Flannery, Armintas Sinkevicius, and Spencer Gantsoudes wrote, "Verizon's transactions are not a surprise given a desire to de-lever after the buy-in of the Vodafone stake...their current spectrum position plus small cell deployments should allow them to continue to deliver a superior network experience, without needing to do a major spectrum transaction." Morgan Stanley currently rates Verizon as Overweight. Verizon has traded at $48.43, up 1.2 percent. American Tower has traded at $96.40, down 3.2 percent. Frontier has traded at $7.93, up 3 percent.