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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Moderated Thread - please read rules before posting -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Biddle who wrote (32861)	2/26/2003 7:53:21 AM
From: John Biddle	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 197253

Sprint sees debt falling to $14 bln by end of 2004 Reuters, Tuesday February 25, 7:19 pm ET biz.yahoo.com NEW YORK, Feb 25 (Reuters) - Sprint Corp. (NYSE:FON - News; NYSE:PCS - News), the No. 4 U.S. long-distance telephone company, expects to use cash generated by its operations and proceeds from asset sales to cut its net debt to $14 billion by the end of 2004. "We will evaluate means over the course of the year to reduce debt," Sprint Chief Financial Officer Robert Dellinger said at a Merrill Lynch communications conference in New York. "You'll get to see those plans as they develop." The Overland Park, Kansas-based company had $21.08 billion in net debt at the end of 2002, Dellinger said. The company currently has about $3.1 billion in cash, including proceeds from the recent sale of its telephone directory business. Those funds will cover $2.6 billion in debt that will mature over the next two years, he said. "We feel very comfortable with our liquidity condition our and debt reduction plans," Dellinger said. When asked by an investor when debt-rating agencies would raise their ratings on Sprint, Dellinger said those firms are "nervous about the industry. It's going to take them a while to get comfortable." He said the rating agencies may become positive about the company if Sprint's wireless unit, Sprint PCS, shows strong improvement over the next several quarters. "A couple of quarter of execution will really help us," he said. Fitch Ratings (News) in January affirmed its ratings and "stable" outlook on Sprint's debt, citing Sprint's recent efforts to improve its wireless customer mix and cut costs in its long-distance operations. In September, Moody's Investors Service (News - Websites) reaffirmed its negative outlook on Sprint, saying the company needed to stop the erosion of its revenues.