Sprint Nextel announced today that Gary Forsee is stepping
down as the company’s chairman, president and chief executive officer
(CEO), effective immediately. A committee of the Sprint Nextel Board of
Directors has been formed and is conducting the search for a new CEO.
It has been reported that the company is struggling to compete with its rivals. Sprint Nextel expects to report a net loss of 337,000 monthly subscribers in the recently completed third quarter and revised its
full year profit and revenue projection downwards.
Forsee Steps Down As Chairman, CEO of Sprint Nextel
-James Hance, Jr. to serve as acting chairman; Paul Saleh named acting CEO
-Company conducting outside search for new CEO
-Company updates 2007 financial guidance
James Hance, Jr., a member of the Board of
Directors, will assume the role of acting non-executive chairman of the
Board. Paul Saleh, current chief financial officer of Sprint Nextel,
will serve as acting CEO until a permanent replacement for Forsee is
named. With Hance serving in the position of non-executive chairman,
the position of lead independent director, held by Irvine Hockaday,
will be combined with that role. Hockaday will remain a member of the
Board.
“On behalf of the entire board and the Sprint Nextel employees, we
want to thank Gary for his dedication and leadership and all of the
contributions he has made since becoming chief executive of Sprint in
2003,” said Hockaday.
According to Hockaday, the decision to seek a new CEO was based on
the Board’s belief that it is the right time to put in place new
leadership to move the company forward in improving its performance and
realizing corporate objectives.
“The Board’s search for selecting its next chief executive will
focus on candidates outside the company,” said Hockaday. “We fully
expect that the search will be concluded in a timely manner and we are
focused on selecting the right candidate to guide the company to
achieve its full potential. Sprint Nextel has the assets, spectrum,
customer base and technology to be the leader in wireless mobility
services.”
Updated Operational Metrics and Financial Guidance
The company announced today that it expects to report a net loss of
approximately 337,000 post-paid subscribers in the third quarter. In
addition, both adjusted OIBDA* and consolidated operating revenue for
2007 are expected to be slightly below the range of previously provided
guidance of $11.0 to $11.5 billion of adjusted OIBDA and $41 to $42
billion of consolidated operating revenue.
Sprint Nextel will release its third-quarter financial results on Thursday, Nov. 1, 2007.
Additional Background on Hance and Saleh
Hance, 63, a senior advisor to The Carlyle Group, is retired vice
chairman and former member of the Board of Directors of Bank of America
Corporation, where he served as vice chairman from 1993 until January
2005 and as the chief financial officer of Bank of America Corporation
from 1988 until April 2004. He is a director of Cousins Properties
Incorporated, Duke Energy Corporation and Rayonier Corporation. He has
been a member of the Sprint Nextel Board since February 2005.
Saleh, 50, has served as chief financial officer since the merger of
Sprint and Nextel. Prior to the merger he had been executive vice
president and chief financial officer for Nextel since joining the
company in 2001. Before joining Nextel, Saleh was senior vice president
and chief financial officer at Walt Disney International from 1997 to
2001, and also served as senior vice president and treasurer for The
Walt Disney Company. Prior to Disney, Saleh served as treasurer of
Honeywell, where he spent 12 years in various leadership positions in
finance, treasury, investor relations, strategic planning and
operations.
*FINANCIAL MEASURES
Sprint Nextel provides financial measures generated using generally
accepted accounting principles (GAAP) and using adjustments to GAAP
(non-GAAP). The non-GAAP financial measures reflect industry
conventions, or standard measures of liquidity, profitability or
performance commonly used by the investment community for comparability
purposes. These non-GAAP measures are not measurements under accounting
principles generally accepted in the United States. These measurements
should be considered in addition to, but not as a substitute for, the
information contained in our financial statements prepared in
accordance with GAAP. We have defined below each of the non-GAAP
measures we use, but these measures may not be synonymous to similar
measurement terms used by other companies.
Because Sprint Nextel does not predict special items that might
occur in the future, and our forecasts are developed at a level of
detail different than that used to prepare GAAP-based financial
measures, Sprint Nextel does not provide reconciliations to GAAP of its
forward-looking financial measures.
The measure used in this release includes the following:
Adjusted OIBDA is defined as operating income before
depreciation, amortization, restructuring and asset impairments, and
special items. This non-GAAP measure should be used in addition to, but
not as a substitute for, the analysis provided in the statement of
operations. We believe that Adjusted OIBDA provide useful information
to investors because they are an indicator of the strength and
performance of our ongoing business operations, including our ability
to fund discretionary spending such as capital expenditures, spectrum
acquisitions and other investments and our ability to incur and service
debt.
While depreciation and amortization are considered operating costs
under generally accepted accounting principles, these expenses
primarily represent non-cash current period allocation of costs
associated with long-lived assets acquired or constructed in prior
periods. Adjusted OIBDA is a calculation commonly used as a basis for
investors, analysts and credit rating agencies to evaluate and compare
the periodic and future operating performance and value of companies
within the telecommunications industry.
Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
This news release includes “forward-looking statements” within the
meaning of the securities laws. The statements in this news release
regarding forward-looking guidance, as well as other statements that
are not historical facts, are forward-looking statements.
Forward-looking statements are estimates and projections reflecting
management’s judgment based on currently available information and
involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual
results to differ materially from those suggested by the
forward-looking statements. With respect to these forward-looking
statements, management has made assumptions regarding, among other
things, customer and network usage, customer growth and retention,
pricing, operating costs, the timing of various events and the economic
environment.
Future performance cannot be assured. Actual results may differ
materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Some factors
that could cause actual results to differ include:
- the effects of vigorous competition, including the impact of
competition on the price we are able to charge customers for services
we provide and our ability to attract new customers and retain existing
customers; the overall demand for our service offerings, including the
impact of decisions of new subscribers between our post-paid and
prepaid services offerings and between our two network platforms; and
the impact of new, emerging and competing technologies on our business; - the impact of overall wireless market penetration on our
ability to attract and retain customers with good credit standing and
the intensified competition among wireless carriers for those
customers; - the uncertainties related to the benefits of our merger with
Nextel Communications, Inc., including anticipated synergies and cost
savings and the timing thereof; - the potential impact of difficulties we may encounter in
connection with the integration of the pre-merger Sprint and Nextel
businesses, and the integration of the businesses and assets of certain
of the third party affiliates, or PCS Affiliates, that provide wireless
personal communications services, or PCS, under the Sprint® brand that
we have acquired, and Nextel Partners, Inc., including the risk that
these difficulties could prevent or delay our realization of the cost
savings and other benefits we expect to achieve as a result of these
integration efforts and the risk that we will be unable to continue to
retain key employees; - the uncertainties related to the implementation of our
business strategies, investments in our networks, our systems, and
other businesses, including investments required in connection with our
planned deployment of a next generation broadband wireless network; - the costs and business risks associated with providing new
services and entering new geographic markets, including with respect to
our development of new services expected to be provided using the next
generation broadband wireless network that we plan to deploy; - the impact of potential adverse changes in the ratings afforded our debt securities by ratings agencies;
- the ability of our wireless segment to continue to grow and improve profitability;
- the ability of our long distance segment to achieve expected revenues;
- the effects of mergers and consolidations and new entrants in
the communications industry and unexpected announcements or
developments from others in the communications industry; - unexpected results of litigation filed against us;
- the inability of third parties to perform to our requirements under agreements related to our business operations;
- no significant adverse change in Motorola, Inc.’s ability or
willingness to provide handsets and related equipment and software
applications or to develop new technologies or features for our
integrated Digital Enhanced Network, or iDEN®, network; - the impact of adverse network performance, including, but
not limited to, any performance issues resulting from reduced network
capacity and other adverse impacts resulting from the reconfiguration
of the 800 megahertz, or MHz, band used to operate our iDEN network, as
contemplated by the Federal Communications Commission’s, or FCC’s,
Report and Order, released in August 2004 as supplemented thereafter; - the costs of compliance with regulatory mandates,
particularly requirements related to the FCC’s Report and Order,
deployment of enhanced 911, or E911, services on the iDEN network and
privacy-related matters; - equipment failure, natural disasters, terrorist acts, or other breaches of network or information technology security;
- one or more of the markets in which we compete being impacted
by changes in political or other factors such as monetary policy, legal
and regulatory changes or other external factors over which we have no
control; and - other risks referenced from time to time in our filings with
the SEC, including our Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2006,
in Part I, Item 1A, “Risk Factors,” and our quarterly reports on Form
10-Q filed in 2007.
Sprint Nextel believes these forward-looking statements are
reasonable; however, you should not place undue reliance on
forward-looking statements, which are based on current expectations and
speak only as of the date of this release. Sprint Nextel is not
obligated to publicly release any revisions to forward-looking
statements to reflect events after the date of this release.
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About Sprint Nextel
Sprint Nextel offers a comprehensive range of wireless and wireline
communications services bringing the freedom of mobility to consumers,
businesses and government users. Sprint Nextel is widely recognized for
developing, engineering and deploying innovative technologies,
including two robust wireless networks serving 54 million customers at
the end of the second quarter 2007; industry-leading mobile data
services; instant national and international walkie-talkie
capabilities; and a global Tier 1 Internet backbone. For more
information, visit www.sprint.com.