Global Crossing loss grows but revenue up

Despite widening losses, Global Crossing is viewing its third-quarter numbers as highly positive for the company, as it focuses on its growing revenues and cash EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) rather than earnings per share.

For the quarter, Global Crossing posted a net less of $89 million, up from $51 million in the third quarter of 2006, primarily due to higher interest costs and a charge the company took for early conversion of debt to equity for its controlling shareholder. The company saw an increase in consolidated revenue of 27% to $594 million and positive adjusted cash EBITDA of $74 million.

Goldman Sachs analyst Jason Armstrong said in an investment note that Global Crossing was bucking the negative trend set by Qwest Communications and Level 3 Communications – competitors in the IP-based services space – earlier this quarter. He called this a “strong” third quarter for the company.

That strength is based on fulfilling its strategy of focusing investment on selling IP services to enterprises and carriers, as part of what Global Crossing calls its “invest and grow” strategy, and that has been going very well, said Gary Breauninger, chief marketing officer and executive vice president.

“We think the cash EBITDA is the more relevant figure for us right now,” he said. “The $74 million we had in Q3 will jump up again in Q4, as we are seeing a lot of revenue growth in our target market, selling IP services to enterprises and carriers.”

Global Crossing is making inroads among the top global enterprises, for diversity and disaster recovery services and more, he said. While the company has benefited from concerns about consolidation, Global Crossing is now gaining more business from its enterprise customers, he said.

“We are getting more traction with existing customers as they now are tied into just two providers [AT&T and Verizon],” he said. “They are looking at Yankee Group and Ovum, and their recommendation is to diversify their spending. We are getting bigger seats at the table. Our closed deals are twice the value they were 19 months ago.”

In addition, he said, pricing of high-bandwidth services has stabilized, with 8% to 10% pricing declines versus the 50% of a few years ago.

On the carrier side, Global Crossing has seen “considerable growth in carrier business, selling high-speed bandwidth and Internet access to traditional players and to non-traditional such as content providers,” Breauninger said. “Traditional carriers and non-traditional carriers are ramping up to provide triple or quad play, with high-speed capacity both throughout the U.S. and internationally.”

Total IP traffic growth was up 17% sequentially and 52% year-to-date, and Global Crossing was projecting an 80% year-over-year growth by the end of 2007.