BOCA RATON, Fla.-With its stock still floating above $1 following last week’s announcement of its pending tower sale, SBA Communications Corp. has reported its fourth-quarter and year-end 2003 results.
For the fourth quarter, SBA’s total revenue decreased 7.3 percent to $64.1 million from the previous fourth quarter. EBITDA was $19.3 million, up 1. 8 percent from the fourth quarter 2001. General and administrative expenses decreased 16.9 percent, mainly a result of headcount and expense reductions, but net loss was still $30.3 million, or 59 cents per share. Free cash flow was negative $6.3 million and cash capital expenditures, which are not included in free cash flow calculations, were $11.9 million.
SBA said it ended 2002 with $61.1 million of cash and cash equivalents and for the year the company owed $255 million under its senior credit facility. SBA warned it “will not be in compliance in 2003 with certain quarterly financial covenants currently in place under its senior credit facility,” and its auditors will include a “going concern” qualification in its financial statements. However, with the pending sale of up to 801 towers, the company intends to seek an amendment to its senior credit facility that it believes would “eliminate any event of non-compliance with respect to such quarterly financial covenants.”
The amendment is expected to address the decline in the services business, a segment SBA has stood by as a viable source of revenue, even as tower companies including American Tower Corp. and SpectraSite Communications have sold theirs off to focus on the core tower leasing business.
SBA’s stock last week traded above the vital $1 mark for the first time since October, following the announcement it would sell up to 801 towers, almost its entire western U.S. portfolio, to AAT Communications. Shares were at $1.27 at market close on Monday.
