HOUSTON-Crown Castle International Inc. released its first quarter 2003 results and announced changes to certain agreements with Verizon, affecting two Crown joint ventures.
The company’s total revenue was $216.7 million, down from the year ago quarter’s $220.6 million. The decrease in total revenue reflects the company’s de-emphasis on its services business, with network service revenues cut almost in half, to $31.8 million from $60.4 million a year ago. Meanwhile, U.S. site rental revenue was up 5.9 percent to $107.8 million and U.K. site rental and broadcast transmission revenue was up 33.1 percent to $71.1 million. Crown developed 34 sites in the first quarter, 31 of which were developed under the company’s agreement with British Telecom in the United Kingdom.
Net loss was $83.4 million, or 38 cents per share, an improvement over last year’s loss of $123.5 million or 56 cents per share. Free cash flow was reported as a use of $46.9 million.
Crown also announced changes to certain agreements with Verizon that affect the Crown Castle Atlantic Joint Venture (CCA) and the Crown Castle GT (CCGT) Joint Venture. Crown extended Verizon’s interest in CCA until July 2007 and exchanged Verizon’s interest in CCGT for additional interests in CCA. Also, Crown purchased 5.1 million shares of Crown common stock previously held by CCGT and CCA distributed 15.6 million shares of Crown stock to Verizon. The result is $36.7 million in cash and Crown now owns 62.8 percent of CCA and 100 percent of CCGT.
Shares of Crown were up more than 8 percent to trade at $7 following the earnings news Tuesday.
