Frontier Communications Shares Surge Following Q2 Results

Shares of

jumped more than 6 percent in pre-market trading after the company reported in-line earnings for the second quarter. The Stamford, Connecticut-based company posted a quarterly loss of $28 million, or $0.03 per share, versus a year-ago profit of $38 million, or $0.04 per share, in the year-ago period. Excluding one-time items, the company's earnings slipped to $0.03 per share from $0.05 per share. Its revenue climbed 19.3 percent year-over-year to $1.37 billion. However, analysts were expecting earnings of $0.03 per share on revenue of $1.36 billion. The average estimate among 5 Estimize users was for earnings of $0.03 per share and revenue of $1.34 billion. At June 30, 2015, Frontier Communications had 3,177,000 residential customers, 299,000 business customers, 2,407,400 broadband customers and 569,500 video customers. Dan McCarthy, Frontier President and Chief Executive Officer said, "On the operational front, we achieved a sequential increase in customer revenue, reflecting improved trends in the legacy Frontier business, and a stable performance in Connecticut. These strong revenue results reflect solid execution in both the residential and business segments, and are a result of substantial initiatives to enhance our product offerings and improve the customer experience. We continued our track record of strong broadband net additions, with 29,200 this quarter, representing our tenth consecutive quarter of broadband share gains. We are building tremendous momentum in the business and the plans and programs we are implementing for the future." The company now projects 2015 free cash flow of $825 million to $865 million and capital expenditures for Frontier business operations of $700 million to $750 million. Frontier Communications shares climbed 6.36 percent to $5.02 in pre-market trading.