Windstream Earnings Good Enough to Maintain High Dividend Yield

On a GAAP basis, Windstream posted revenues of $1.46 billion and EPS of $0.01. Third-quarter adjusted EPS excludes two cents in after-tax merger and integration and restructuring charges.

In late July, the company announced that it was spinning off some telecommunications assets into a publicly traded real-estate investment trust (REIT). The company has appointed its now-former CFO to be president of REIT operations with the expectation that he will be named CEO of the as-yet unnamed REIT, which is expected to be created in the first quarter of 2015.

The company has already declared its quarterly $0.25 dividend, maintaining its dividend yield at 9.6%.

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The company’s CEO said:

Enterprise and small-business revenues grew sequentially and year-over-year, driven by solid enterprise sales. Our consumer channel also delivered another strong quarter. … We continued to see positive trends during the quarter supporting our efforts to move up-market, evidenced by our acceleration in enterprise customer growth and average revenue per customer.

Windstream generated adjusted free cash flow of $253 million in the third quarter and $693 million year to date, a 2% increase over the same period a year ago due to cash interest savings and lower capital expenditures. The company has returned $452 million to shareholders in the form of dividends for the first nine months of the year.

The EPS and revenue misses may weigh on the company’s share price, but investors are in this stock for the dividend. Short sellers may pick up some profits Thursday, though. More than 10% of Windstream’s shares (about 62 million) are short and days to cover is nine. That is down from 87 million short shares when the company announced the REIT spin-off.

We included Windstream as one of our high-yield dividend stocks for investors who are risk takers.

Windstream’s shares closed up about 0.9% on Wednesday, at $10.49 in a 52-week range of $7.18 to $13.30. Shares were down about 1.6% in Thursday’s premarket to $10.32. The consensus target price for the shares was around $11.20 before the report.

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