PAETEC Q2 Loss Widens - Update

Wednesday, PAETEC Holding Corp. (PAET), an integrated communications services company, reported a wider loss for the second quarter from a year ago, reflecting lower revenues due to decline in usage-based revenue and a one-time debt extinguishment and related costs.

PAETEC Holding's net loss for the second quarter widened to $16.48 million from $14.72 million in the previous year. The prior-year results included a tax benefit of $2.70 million.

On average, 10 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to report a loss of $0.02 per share for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

Total revenues for the quarter declined 2.5% to $395.16 million from $405.27 million last year, primarily due to a decline in usage-based revenue associated with long distance, access, and non-core basic telephone service or POTS. Seven analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $399.77 million for the quarter.

Network services revenue declined to $312.95 million from $317.55 million a year ago, primarily due to a $4.6 million decrease in non-core POTS revenue and $0.8 million decrease in access revenue.

Carrier services revenue declined to $66.78 million from $71.58 million last year mainly, on a $3.9 million decrease in access revenue and $1.4 million decrease in non-core POTS revenue.

Revenue from Integrated solutions declined to $15.43 million from $16.14 million in the previous year, largely due to a 14.2% decrease in hardware-related revenue.

For the second quarter, the company reported a stand-alone debt extinguishment and related costs of $10.35 million.

Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization for the second quarter increased to $63.53 million from $60.18 million a year ago.

For the six-month period, net loss widened to $19.79 million from $17.67 million in the same period of the previous year. Total revenues for the period increased to $794.41 million from $764.07 million last year.

PAET is currently trading at $2.87, down 4.65%, on a volume of 200K shares on the Nasdaq.

by RTTNews Staff Writer

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