Worst of the Week: Losing $30B and other amazing feats

Hello!
And welcome to our Thursday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCRWirelessNews.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way. We hope you enjoy it!
And without further ado:
So you may have already heard, but Sprint Nextel lost almost $30 billion during the fourth quarter. Specifically, Sprint Nextel’s net loss for the quarter was “$29.5 billion or $10.36 diluted loss per share,” according to the company. In layman’s terms that means “a lot.” In my own personal terms that means “an unfathomable amount of money.”
Sprint Nextel’s $30 billion loss was down significantly from the net income of $261 million the carrier reported during the same quarter a year ago. And by “significantly” I mean “holy cow can you believe it?”
So my question is, how does a company lose almost $30 billion in a quarter? I’m pretty sure I physically couldn’t spend that much money in three months, no matter how many top-of-the-line toaster ovens and vintage 1965 Shelby Cobras I purchased.
In fact, I think Sprint Nextel should pat itself on the back for losing that much money, simply because it is an accomplishment that few would be able to do. Think about it: Sprint Nextel lost more money during the fourth quarter than the federal government has gained through the 700 MHz spectrum auction. (The auction is nearing $20 billion in provisionally winning bids.) Isn’t that impressive?
So I say: Way to go Sprint Nextel!
The theory here among my fellow brain-dead keyboard jockeys at RCR Wireless News is that Sprint Nextel employees must have been burning piles of money with flamethrowers in order to record such a huge loss. But even then, it’s still an impressive feat: Working a flamethrower is exhausting and $30 billion is a lot of money. Unfathomable, really.
Now, to be fair, Sprint Nextel did announce that its net loss for the fourth quarter was primarily due to a “non-cash goodwill impairment charge” of $29.7 billion. Those smartypants over at the Financial Times tell me that “goodwill impairment charge” is a funny way of saying that Sprint Nextel has written off most of the value of the Nextel operation it acquired for $36 billion three years ago.
By the same logic, I can take a “goodwill impairment charge” of $100 for all those Jar Jar Binks trading cards I bought in 1999. Mesa bombad stupid indeed!
So what’s the point? The point is that Sprint Nextel actually managed to lose around $30 billion over the course of three years rather than three months. Which is still a very impressive accomplishment.
Way to go Sprint Nextel!
OK! Enough of that.
Thanks for checking out this Worst of the Week column. And now, some extras:
–Motorola’s new CFO, Paul Liska, is going to get paid around $1 million a year, according to Crain’s Chicago Business. I’m assuming he’s going to get paid so much because he’s going to find all that money that Moto has lost over the past year or so. Mr. Liska must be really, really good at finding things that are lost.
I welcome your comments. Please send me an e-mail at mdano@crain.com.