Windstream Holdings Inc., still working through Chapter 11 bankruptcy, on Thursday reported a loss of $128.3 million in its fourth quarter.
It was an improvement from the $549.2 million loss the Little Rock-based company reported for the fourth quarter of 2018.
The loss per share was $3, compared to a loss of $12.92 per share a year ago. Adjusted for restructuring costs, it was a loss of $2.81 per share.
The broadband and communications company posted revenue of $1.24 billion in the period, down from $1.39 billion in the fourth quarter of 2018.
For the year, Windstream reported that its loss widened to $3.09 billion, or $72.54 per share, compared to $723 million, or $17.72 per share. Revenue was $5.12 billion, down from $5.71 billion in 2018.
The company said it is still working to modify its lease agreement with spinoff Uniti Group Inc. of Little Rock and, if negotiations are not successful, it will “pursue its litigation claims to conclusion” at a trial that is scheduled for the first week of March.
Conference Call
CEO and President Tony Thomas also said on an earnings call Thursday that Windstream’s plan is to exit restructuring in 2020 with a new capital structure.
In addition, the company saw its seventh straight quarter of more Kinetic broadband customers (9,300). Last year, it added 28,300 subscribers, nearly double the number Windstream saw in 2018. It was the second year in a row of subscriber growth.
The company also touted enterprise strategic revenue. Tied to the sales of products and services that include SD-WAN, UCaaS and OfficeSuite UC, that revenue grew by 38% year-over-year.
“Windstream achieved impressive year-over-year growth in consumer broadband subscribers as a result of our strategic network investments to deliver faster internet speeds across our rural footprint. And we still have a tremendous opportunity in front of us to up-sell our faster speed capabilities to larger portions of our Kinetic customer base,” Thomas said in a news release.
“We also continued to see strong growth in 2019 in sales of Enterprise strategic products and services, helping offset overall revenue pressures,” he continued. “While we are admittedly in a more challenging competitive situation during the restructuring process, we are taking aggressive actions to improve the current top-line trends by increasing strategic product adoptions and conversions and improving profitability levels across our legacy, core and strategic Enterprise customer base.”
Thomas said on the call that Windstream had been successful with all four priorities it set for the year, which were “consistent customer excellence, becoming a software development powerhouse, driving strategic revenue growth and continuing to have a sharp focus on aggressive cost management.”
The company’s priorities for 2020 are to focus on growth, maintain product and software leadership, consistently deliver excellent customer experiences, drive adoption of strategic products and manage costs aggressively, he said.
Revenue for each of Windstream’s business segments was down year-over-year.
Kinetic service revenue was $503 million in the fourth quarter and $2 billion for 2019, down 3% from the fourth quarter of 2018 and down 5% from 2018, respectively.
Enterprise service revenue was $623 million in the fourth quarter and $2.6 billion for 2019, down 14% and 13%.
Wholesale service revenue was $83 million in the fourth quarters and $350 million for 2019, down 12% and 9%.
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