MW Lumen reveals latest numbers around AI deals, and stock leaps higher
By Emily Bary
Lumen's CFO says an additional $3.5 billion in AI business 'really allows us to go after the capital structure and actually reduce debt'
Lumen Technologies Inc. said that it's added more than $3.5 billion in new business from its private connectivity fabric since it last gave an update, as the telecommunications company has struck new deals focused on providing data-center connectivity services to artificial-intelligence players.
One was a deal Lumen (LUMN) announced Tuesday morning with Alphabet Inc.'s $(GOOG)$ $(GOOGL)$ Google Cloud to provide insights and power AI operations.
"AI needs data, data needs data centers, data centers need to be connected, and that's what we do," Chief Financial Officer Chris Stansbury told MarketWatch.
See also: How Lumen transformed from a 99-cent stock into the latest AI craze
Lumen is offering new details around its AI business alongside its earnings Tuesday afternoon. Stansbury told MarketWatch that the latest AI deals are financially beneficial in new ways relative to earlier ones that Lumen inked.
"The first $5 billion, we said, really funded the gap that we had in our model. It allowed us to to invest in the turnaround," he said. "It allowed us to invest in pensions, allowed us to pay debt as it matured. This additional over $3 billion now really allows us to go after the capital structure and actually reduce debt, so it's meaningful for us."
Lumen had been staring down a precarious debt tower, but it's sought to turn around its business recently with these AI deals. Shares have surged more than 450% in the past year, with most of that action taking place this summer as Lumen embarked on the new AI business.
After slipping 3% in after-hours trading following Tuesday's announcement, the stock leaped 18.5% higher on Wednesday.
"The weight of legacy enterprise telecom is still there," Stansbury said. "We know that, and that'll continue for some time with declining Ebitda results, but this positions us really well for what we see as two curves of growth, the first being these PCF deals, and the second being the digital services that we bring that allow customers to consume those networks digitally, which is one of the reasons why the hyperscalers are here."
Indeed, Lumen posted $899 million in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization for the third quarter, down from $1.049 billion a year before. Analysts were modeling $988 million.
Stansbury said that the third quarter tends to bring higher seasonal expenses due to summer construction and temperatures.
Read: A Lumen executive talks AI, Verizon's fiber deal - and meme-stock status
The company also posted a net loss of $148 million, or 15 cents a share, compared with a loss of $78 million, or 8 cents a share, a year before. On an adjusted basis, Lumen lost 13 cents a share, while the FactSet consensus was for 9 cents a share.
Revenue dropped to $3.22 billion from $3.64 billion, whereas analysts were looking for $3.21 billion.
"We're really excited about the progress we're making," Stansbury said. "That said, we're also incredibly humble in understanding that our legacy business is in decline, and it will continue to be."
Given the substantial size of Lumen's legacy business, which includes things like voice services, "it's going to take a while for the total revenue to start to grow," he said, but he thinks the company has the "ability to navigate through it with these AI builds."
Lumen upped its forecast for full-year free cash flow to $1.2 billion to $1.4 billion, whereas its prior range was for $1.0 billion to $1.2 billion. The company previously noted that its AI deals come with substantial upfront cash collection, even though it will take time for them to seriously manifest in financials like revenue.
Stansbury said the company is still in talks for more AI deals, to the tune of several billion dollars in potential opportunity, but those could take longer to finalize than those announced in recent months.
The conversations around possible future arrangements "are really exciting, but they're also huge construction projects, because you're now talking about digging trenches," Stansbury said.
This report was updated Nov. 6 to clarify comments by Chris Stansbury.
-Emily Bary
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November 06, 2024 17:45 ET (22:45 GMT)
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