Uniti has enough capital through next year, may consider issuing debt

By Devika Patel

Knoxville, Tenn., Aug. 12 – Uniti Group Inc. is funded through next year, but may issue debt if the right opportunity arose.

The company’s top executive said that, at the current share price, he would prefer selling debt over equity.

Uniti’s leverage has fallen to 6.1x, and is now just above the company’s targeted leverage range of 5.5x to 6x.

“We don’t want to be beholden to the capital markets,” president and chief executive officer Kenny Gunderman said at the Cowen 2020 Communications Infrastructure Summit on Wednesday.

“We don’t want to have to raise capital.

“I think it’s important for us to have the ability to fund our business internally and, as we’ve said recently, we’re funded through next year, if we choose to be.

“That doesn’t mean we won’t raise capital if the markets present themselves in a positive way or if opportunities present themselves in a positive way.

“We have lots of options,” he said.

“I prefer [to issue] debt over equity, especially these days,” Gunderman said.

“Our equity is at a price that I’m not interested in selling and I don’t think our board is either,” he said.

The company also wants to reduce its cost of debt.

“We’re looking at ways to reduce our cost of debt,” Gunderman said.

Leverage has come down from 6.4x during the bankruptcy to 6.1x, just above the company’s targeted range.

“Our leverage right now is down to about 6.1x,” Gunderman said.

“Historically, we’ve guided towards a range of targeted leverage of 5.5x to 6x and so we’re almost back into that range, down from 6.4x at one point during the bankruptcy.

“We’ve managed to bring down leverage to a point where our liquidity is hardened, our balance sheet is almost back to the range where we want it to be and so I feel really good about our optionality going into 2021,” he said.

The real estate investment trust focused on communications infrastructure is based in Little Rock, Ark.

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