"AT&T's Free Cash Flow Declined Significantly Last Quarter". Stanks plan isn't working. Plan for a dividend cut down the road. Eliminating jobs isn't the answer. The Board must take immediate action, but all they do is collect a fat check.
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@dh Betting the farm on mergers and acquisitions has always been a great strategy. Can you name one that made money? Me either. M&A is what companies with no real growth prospects do. At best you eliminate a competitor. At worst you overpay for and then destroy a company with real value.
@dh This time will be different!
Historically, dividends increase as the layoffs continue. We don't backfill, we contract out projects. That's not really a secret. If you work for AT&T, you are an operational expense and you are hurting our dividends. Thanks for nothing! So, AT&T cuts you. You are now helping our dividends. Congratulations! So, who does the work? Well, like many companies, we contract out 'projects' to offshore vendors. Those workers are not our problem. They aren't salaried employees, they are the machines making the sausage.
The problem is that our sausage su-ks. Its unreliable, expensive, and it tastes horrible, Its so bad that we have to pay people more money to make the sausage edible. In our case, we get that garbage working just enough so that some brainless schmuck will buy it from us. Sniff, sniff.. Smells like FirstNet.
Investors aren't completely stupid. The shell game only works for a while until investors realize that they are being taken.
Believe they said on the quarterly results call that the ratio will balloon to the 3%+ range after the Echo Star purchase closes. They seem to be making big bets on the recent acquisitions panning out. For instance, will they they actually be able to increase the Lumen customer base from 25 to the mid 40’s or better and draw in wireless customers with the converged service offerings. These growth strategies better not have a big hiccup.
Part of the reduced cash flow is due to stock repurchases, which will help cash flow in the future as AT&T will have fewer stocks to requiring a dividend payout. I wonder how much our borrowing to pay for purchases has affected our average long term debt percentage rate since we are in a period of higher rates vs pre-covid borrowing.
RTO and actually work.
@aw Don't forget Lori Lee! She's the driver of this RTO. yes, John. Whatever you say master. Yes master. Anything you say master.
B b but RTO is working. ThAnK yOu JoHn
AT&T has not raised its common stock dividend since reducing it significantly in 2022 following the WarnerMedia spin-off. Yeah. Everything is fine.
https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/ts-free-cash-flow-declined-175000704.html
"But cash flow fluctuates, and AT&T still projects its free cash to total at least $18 billion for the full year. That's still well above the roughly $8.2 billion it pays in dividends on an annual basis. AT&T also said it expects to maintain its current dividend, which pays $1.11 per share on an annualized basis."
Everything is fine.
Lots of money for dividends and for paying workers. We can continue to securely complain.
Sadly you can't short the company stock in your 401k. I asked.
Like putting lipstick on a pig.