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Monday, 03 March 2008 |
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US telco posts US$29.5 billion loss…
WiMAX ‘angel’ Sprint Nextel has posted an eye-watering loss of US$29.45bn for Q4 2007 – in part due to a goodwill write-down associated with its merger with Nextel. The group discontinued its dividend and its share price dropped 9% on release of the figures.
“The fourth quarter financial results reflect the challenges facing our wireless business,” said Sprint Nextel ceo Dan Hesse. “We are making significant changes across the organisation in an effort to improve execution, stabilise our customer base and deliver on the opportunity provided by our assets. Given current deteriorating business conditions, which are more difficult than what I had expected to encounter, these changes will take time to produce improved operating performance, and our near-term subscriber and financial results will continue to be pressured. Additionally, in light of current capital market conditions, we are taking steps to increase our financial flexibility and mitigate refinancing risk by borrowing funds from a revolving credit facility and discontinuing declaring a dividend for the foreseeable future.”
Media reports suggest that Hesse and his team are – publicly at least – still looking to its future WiMAX network to help it compete more effectively with the US wireless opposition. Sprint is also apparently in talks with Clearwire to resurrect their proposed network sharing agreement which collapsed last year and which was subsequently the subject of speculation involving the participation of chip giant Intel (click).
John Williamson |
