Uniti Group Reports 1Q Loss of $20M

Uniti Group Inc. of Little Rock on Thursday reported a $20 million first-quarter loss, down from a $8 million profit in the same quarter last year.

The company (Nasdaq: UNIT), formerly known as Communications Sales & Leasing, reported revenue of $211.5 million, up 21 percent from $174.7 million last year. On a per-share basis, the company’s loss came in at 14 cents, down from a 5-cent profit in the same quarter last year.

Uniti said the first-quarter loss included a $10.9 million non-cash charge related to its acquisition of Tower Cloud Inc., a privately held data transport services provider with a fiber network of 90,000 fiber strand miles throughout the southeastern U.S. The company announced the deal in June.

Uniti is a spinoff of Windstream Holdings Inc. of Little Rock. The publicly traded real estate investment trust launched in 2015 and since added to its portfolio of communications infrastructure.

During the quarter, the company agreed to purchase Hunt Telecommunications LLC of of Metairie, Louisiana, which provides data transport to K–12 schools and government agencies, in a deal worth $170 million. Last month, it said it would buy privately-held fiber network provider Southern Light LLC of Mobile, Alabama, for about $700 million in cash and equity.

In its earnings report, Uniti said it pre-funded the acquisitions through a combination of an unwritten public offering of shares, the selling of senior secured notes, and increasing its borrowing capacity. It expect to close the Hunt deal on June 1 and the Southern Light purchase on Aug. 1.