Sprint's stock gets a boost

Dan Hesse's efforts to turn Sprint around finally saw some positive financial news this week as the wireless/wireline provider saw its stock rise after it cleared a major piece of debt off the books and got an investment ratings upgrade from an investment bank.

The service provider was able to pay off $1 billion off its $4.5 billion revolving credit facility. With that payment it now has no remaining balance. As of the end of Q3 09, Sprint said it had $5.9 billion in cash.

Analysts and investors embraced this news with open arms. Sprint's stock rose up more than 10 percent during late morning trading on Monday, while investment bank Credit Suisse upgraded the service provider's earnings from neutral to outperform. Jonathan Chaplin, a Credit Suisse analyst said in a story in xChange that the company 'is making good progress with its turnaround efforts and will benefit from continued cost-cutting measures...'

Sprint's debt payment is part of an ongoing turnaround effort that has also included various cost cutting measures. Hoping to save $350 million in costs, Sprint said not long after reporting a slow third-quarter that it would lay off [1] 2,000 to 2,500 jobs. This follows a smaller round of job cuts [2] in its wireline wholesale division.

For more:
- xChange has this article [3]

Related articles
Declining revenues force Sprint to cut more jobs [1]
Sprint Wholesale to trim workforce [2]
Sprint's wireline revenues down once again in Q3 [4]