WCG guides to 10 percent growth
Tuesday December 11, 1:35 pm Eastern Time
Press Release
SOURCE: Williams Communications Group, Inc.
Letter to Shareholders from Williams Communications' Chairman and CEO
TULSA, Okla., Dec. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- The following was issued today by Howard Janzen, Chairman & CEO of Williams Communications (NYSE: WCG - news).
In the wake of continued telecommunications industry consolidation and speculation, I want to take this opportunity to reiterate Williams Communications' commitment to its shareholders and investors. Williams Communications continues to execute on its business plan, accelerate financial performance and drive new revenues by signing long-term, high quality customer contracts. In addition, we continue to enhance efficiencies throughout the organization and aggressively manage our cost structure. Our achievements are driven by a strong management team and a group of employees who are highly focused on delivering operational excellence and quality services that enable our customers' success. Following are just a few recent accomplishments, highlighting our focus, strength and unwavering commitment to success:
Financial Performance
-- Delivered sequential network services revenue growth for every quarter
since our IPO in 1999
-- Increased third quarter 2001 network services revenues by six percent
over second quarter 2001, differentiating our performance versus our
competition
-- Further differentiated our financial execution from the industry,
projecting continued sequential growth of at least 10 ercent for network services revenue in the fourth quarter
-- Fully lit network remains on-track to be operating EBITDA positive by
year-end
-- Fully executed on a $3 billion financing plan, resulting in almost $2 billion of available liquidity (as of September 30, 2001)
-- Continued to optimize capital structure through the purchase of $550 million, or over 18 percent, of the company's publicly traded senior redeemable notes (company debt) at a substantial discount to face value
Operational Excellence
-- Added significant new long-term high quality customers including Boeing, Yahoo and Cingular Wireless and extended agreements with key existing customers such as WorldCom, NFL Films and KDDI
-- Delivered world-class customer satisfaction by executing on 97 percent of customer firm order commitment dates and 91 percent of customer requested due dates
-- Independent industry survey reveals over 92 percent of network customers remain strongly committed to Williams Communications
Technology Leadership
-- Introduced industry's first private line Quality of Service offering
-- Launched industry's first local-to-national-to-local Gigabit Ethernet service
-- Achieved a record-breaking 6,400 km data transmission without electrical regeneration across our next generation network, the largest in North America
-- Strategically acquired the assets of industry pioneers iBEAM and CoreExpress to strengthen IP and streaming media capabilities and expand product offerings
Williams Communications is proud of its heritage of commitment and is focused on delivering superior shareholder returns. Through relentless attention to execution and results, we remain uniquely positioned to meet the demands of an increasingly broadband-driven world. |
