Oppenheimer analyst Timothy Horan maintained a Buy rating on CenturyLink Inc (CTL) today and set a price target of $14. The company’s shares closed yesterday at $11.43, close to its 52-week low of $11.28.
Horan said:
“Revenue in 1Q19 fell 5% annually, a touch below our estimates, as CLT usually prices contracts down in 1Q and it is exiting nonprofitable businesses. Positively, CTL is executing on its transformation story, realizing $128M in cost savings in 1Q19. This helped drive EBITDA margins up 460 bps since the close of the Level 3 acquisition 18 months ago, closing in on its 700 bps goal. The total focus of management is to delever to 3x debt to EBITDA from 4x now. FCF generation of $3B per year will get them there in three years. Declining revenues is a concern, but management noted that it is seeing signs of improved performance in consumer broadband and enterprise from its companywide restructuring.”
According to TipRanks.com, Horan is a top 25 analyst with an average return of 17.4% and a 76.4% success rate. Horan covers the Technology sector, focusing on stocks such as Interxion Holding NV, Boingo Wireless Inc, and Limelight Networks.
The word on The Street in general, suggests a Hold analyst consensus rating for CenturyLink Inc with a $13.69 average price target.
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Based on CenturyLink Inc’s latest earnings release for the quarter ending December 31, the company reported a quarterly revenue of $5.78 billion and GAAP net loss of $2.41 billion. In comparison, last year the company earned revenue of $5.95 billion and had a net profit of $115 million.
Based on the recent corporate insider activity of 56 insiders, corporate insider sentiment is positive on the stock. This means that over the past quarter there has been an increase of insiders buying their shares of CTL in relation to earlier this year.
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CenturyLink, Inc. is an investment holding company, which engages in the provision of integrated communications to residential and business customers. It operates through the Business and Consumer segment.
