CTL - CenturyLink's Consumer Business Is a Drag but Still a Top High-Yield Dividend
The screws continued to turn on legacy communications company CenturyLink (NYSE: CTL) during the final quarter of 2019. Revenues fell year over year again -- albeit at a slower pace than before -- and capital spending to invest in new business services led to lower profits (as measured by free cash flow).
As usual, it was the old consumer-facing business that weighed heavily on results, and there's no new news as to what management has decided to do with the flagging segment. Nevertheless, though the headline numbers weren't great, CenturyLink's high-yield dividend remains on solid footing entering the new decade.
CenturyLink's revenue in the fourth quarter declined 3.6% to $5.57 billion, the same rate of year-over-year decline in the third quarter, but a slowdown from the 5.5% and 5% drops in the second and first quarters, respectively. Adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization) fell 3.8% in the quarter, but it increased 2% for full-year 2019 as the company let low-profit-margin consumer business (like cable TV and LAN line phone) go and focused on picking up higher profit enterprise and high-speed internet customers.