Thread regarding AT&T layoffs

I'm bullish on T as a stockholder, but not too pleased for my employment prospects

So while folks here are rightfully concerned about their employment prospects in less critical and growing areas of the company, I'm actually pretty confident from a company shareholder perspective here's why.

First the bad stuff, T has a pretty massive debt load and it was likely a foolish decision to pay what they did for Time Warner, I guess they didn't teach the executives how not to overpay during bidding wars. Second shtty customer service and treating employees like replaceable gaskets will in the short term cause some headaches. Also their legacy pensions could be problematic if the economy takes a sht,But these are less in my opinion compared to the benefits (speaking as an owner of 5k shares)

Now the reasons, I'm bullish, over next decade or so.:

  • T and VZ have a f*ckn big moat in telecom in the US ,meaning they have a lot of incumbent industry advantages due to their recent capex for spectrum purchases, their large established mobility footprint, large b2b contracts and their upcoming 5g rollouts. This business at T's level is pretty imune to new competitors, why do you there are only 4 major telcos in the US?. Only another regulatory shift would be cause for worry.

  • 5g is going to the THE CASH COW for many years to come, think about it, its not just all the mobile handsets but its all the new iot services, remote medical services, and industrial applications etc. Allriding on top of 5g,The list goes on. And when 5g is fully rolled out and i can dump my home cable thats yet another revenue stream.

  • content and entertainment, by owning DTV and TW licenses for content, as long as HBO, CNN and others are household names they can milk those premium properties , not to mention some marketing business, although I doubt xandr will be as profitable as they think.

  • finally don't forget their many government and fortune 100 contracts.

So sure folks here can look at all the dysfunctional issues at some of field level operations, but the bigger picture while certainly not smooth sailing , will be a stable business for many years to come,

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| 1652 views | | 8 replies (last January 21, 2019) | Reply
Post ID: @OP+Xd7EFsj

8 replies (most recent on top)

I dumped my T stock last year, moved everything out of the AT&T shares fund in the 401K as well. And I feel pretty good about it. It's a dog.

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Post ID: @1jls+Xd7EFsj

OK OP, let's just assume T is a good investment (it's not). Do you really feel good about profiting from a company that treats its employees and customers the way this one does?

Have you no ethics? Have you no shame?

Oh wait, this post was written by you wasn't it Randall?

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Post ID: @smm+Xd7EFsj

The stock has significant impact on the company's ability to raise money for things like building out a 5G network. If the company wants to raise capital, they need to sell more shares, and a 20% price drop last year means we need to sell 20% more shares to raise the same amount of money. Which means paying 20% more in dividends year after year.

The other choice is to buy bonds, and our ability to borrow at low interest rates is based on the value of the company. Which is based on the value of the stock.

ATT puts your entire 401k match into company stock. So if the above doesn't bother you, at least look at your personal exposure.

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Post ID: @qau+Xd7EFsj

Who cares about the stock, mo--ns SMH

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Post ID: @lfv+Xd7EFsj

Sorry Randy but this shiny explanation does not hide the rot at the top.

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Post ID: @adh+Xd7EFsj

OP, this is an AT&T Layoffs thread, who gives an eff about your stock holdings and outlook?

But since you bring it up, you might want to factor in rising interest rates in the next few years, for every 1% rise T will have to pay another $185M per year. You might want to factor in morale after losing 30% of the work force and making everyone do more work for the same pay. Not to mention losing 100k customers that used to be employees, along with their family, friends, and goodwill. Not to mention that you have the same greedy debt hungry management that got T into this mess in the first place.

From 2014 to 2017 T didn't make enough FCF to cover the dividends and buybacks, but hid it with accounting magic. The C-level boys (all boys) lined their pockets at the expense of the balance sheet, what makes you think they'll stop now? Enjoy that fat dividend while you can.

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Post ID: @vrb+Xd7EFsj

Randy, you forgot to sign !

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Post ID: @syl+Xd7EFsj

I sure hope your 5000 shares are less than 10% of your net worth. See Lucent, Northern Telecom, Global Crossing, Broadwing etc. etc. etc. See a financial planner if not.

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Post ID: @jxh+Xd7EFsj

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