Earnings Preview: Leap Wireless (LEAP)

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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Leap Wireless International, Inc. (NASDAQ:LEAP) is set to report earnings after the close today.  First Call is looking for $0.04 EPS on revenues of $408 million.  Please be advised that estimates are all over the place and some expect a loss.  It is expected to see $0.16 EPS and $429 million revenues next quarter and Fiscal 2007 is expected at $0.22 EPS and $1.67 Billion revenues.  It also looks like expectations have come down since its last quarterly report.

The recent market slide has bitten into its chart quite a bit.  Shares are off almost 25% with this latest slide.  Depending upon your pivot points, that longer-term trend line has either been violated or is at risk.  Fundamental analysts are still positive on the stock and average targets are close to $100.00.  Options traders do not appear to be expecting much, at least not more than a 3% price change in either direction.  Shares also took a drumming after the recent drop at the recent IPO and competitor (and some speculate a merger partner), MetroPCS.

It added a $350 million debt offering in June, so its balance sheet will look a bit different this quarter.  At its analyst meeting June the company gave some key metrics.  It is building out on its latest FCC Spectrum auction wins for its markets this year and next and its analyst slide presentation did hint at acquisitions possible in certain markets.  Leap gave previous guidance saying its expects 125,000 to 175,000 net subscriber adds, with customer churn rates of 4.1% to 4.4%.  Its adjust OIBDA for the quarter was telegraphed at $105 to $115 million.  For fiscal 2007 it last forecast OIBDA of $400 to $470 million.

Jon C. Ogg
August 7, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at [email protected]; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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