Per the following and very informative interview with Pascal Desroches:
AT&T, Inc. (NYSE:T)
Deutsche Bank Media, Internet & Telecom Conference
February 27, 2023, 09:40 ET
Company Participants
Pascal Desroches - Senior EVP & CFO
Conference Call Participants
Bryan Kraft - Deutsche Bank Host
You can view the call transcript on “Seeking Alpha” or maybe search web
Almost to the target goal by EOY 2023...... Reduction goal is 40K.
Not sure where the 7k employees he mentioned is coming from.
The facts:
Total employee count
End of 3Q2022 - 169,800
End of 4Q2022 - 157,476
Today, about 153,9xx
That is a loss of almost 16k in 5 months
21K more to go in Q2 through Q4.
AT&T had to get below 140 thousand employees.
Randall the Vandal and his decisions or lack thereof are the reason we are in the position we are now. Directv, Digital Life, failed Tmo merger......... we can go on and on
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4584506-t-inc-t-deutsche-bank-media-internet-and-telecom-conference-call-transcript
Too little too late…
Since they already have the largest footprint in fiber and near the same for wireless then Yes AT&T will catch up, the other companies haven’t consistently invested such a large yearly capex. It will payoff in the near future as long as leadership remains focused and stops making stupid acquisitions.
Wheee! T will now focus on wireless and fiber. Only about 5 years behind T-Mobile, Verizon, and Frontier in that respect.
Bets on whether T can catch up?
I learned more about the company’s future direction and have more business insight from this one interview than any 10 town halls put together. No self promotion, backslapping or gratuitous smiling and clapping from a captive audience.
Wow, a little transparency is refreshing! Thank you Mr. Desroches and to the interviewer Mr. Kraft.
Mega mergers and acquisitions definitely wasn’t the way to go, back to square one with a huge debt load still having a stranglehold over any prudent business initiatives.
What’s left is deleveraging by selling assets, layoffs, lowering dividends, spinning off companies, increased responsibilities and span of control for those trying to right the ship.
The green fiber initiative never panned out the way T expected it to. This started out as the deployment of fiber in commercial real estate to go from the main point of entry to the various suites throughout the building. Didn't go so well as expected because there's nobody to sell it since the sales force has been decimated!
Stephenson seemed to want to become another Whitacre. Transform or maintain At&t into the biggest bully in the room. However he tried to do it with acquisitions he had no experience with. Even the Whitacre legacy has been hurt by not totally embracing wireless imo. He put money into it but felt like he thought it was a necessary evil for too long.
Understand the feeling of if it works considering the abysmal recent history of the initiative shifts. However fiber has a track record of decreasing costs after deployment. Saw that firsthand back during the U-verse deployment. Dispatches became almost nonexistent in those areas. Very little facility upgrades needed. That impacted center needs. This fiber deployment is going to completely reshape Network.
Definitely search on a browser of your choice for the entire transcript on Seeking Alpha website, it’s much more detailed and informative . All the other reporting news agencies including AT&T only give a few summarized bullet points.
Fiber and Wireless should have been the primary objective before over $150 billion was wasted on Stephenson’s folly of mergers!! Stephenson’s tenure has to be one of the greatest failures in AT&T history.
I’m happy to hear that they are sticking to the Fiber build and Wireless plan. Very limited fixed wireless and their opinion that it isn’t a long term growth product. It wont be able to meet consumers future broadband needs and will have a degraded experience over time.