Verizon won’t pass on opportunities despite commitment to deleverage

By Devika Patel

Knoxville, Tenn., Sept. 7 – Verizon Communications Inc. has made a commitment to deleverage its balance sheet, but will take advantage of opportunities that benefit the company long-term even if it means that the company has to defer its deleveraging efforts.

“I think we’ve been clear with the debt markets since five years ago,” chief financial officer Matt Ellis said at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch 2018 Media, Communications & Entertainment Conference in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Friday.

“We made that commitment [to deleverage].

“We continue to have that goal to strengthen the balance sheet but we also said to both the debt markets and equity markets that, look, we’re not afraid to, if the appropriate activity comes along, to go ahead and do that and if that means it defers when you would otherwise get back to that leverage ratio, if it makes sense in the long-term strategy of the company, we’re not going to pass it up just so that we can get to some shorter-term number if it means that the company is not as well-positioned for the long-term as it could be,” he said.

Verizon is a New York City-based telecommunications company.

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