After it was reported that SoftBank (SFTBF) and Australian real estate company Lendlease formed a joint venture to purchase 8,000 cell tower sites in the U.S., Wells Fargo analyst Jennifer Fritzsche said she was “surprised” that tower company stocks did not react to this news. She had already thought if a T-Mobile (TMUS) and Sprint (S) merger deal was followed by T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray talking about network savings that the tower stocks “could take a hit,” and this news may have given him “a much bigger arrow” in that quiver, she tells investors. Publicly traded tower companies include American Tower (AMT), Crown Castle (CCI) and SBA (SBAC).