Frontier's dividend looks safe for now

Article Excerpt

FRONTIER COMMUNICATIONS CORP. $3.50 (New York symbol FTR; Income Portfolio, Utilities sector; Shares outstanding: 998.5 million; Market cap: $1.2 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.6; Dividend yield: 11.4%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.frontier.com) earned $52.5 million in three months ended March 31, 2012, down 4.0% from $54.7 million a year earlier. Earnings per share were unchanged at $0.05 on fewer shares outstanding. These figures exclude costs related to Frontier’s July 2010 purchase of traditional phone (or land line) accounts from Verizon. Revenue fell 5.8%, to $1.3 billion from $1.35 billion. That’s because Frontier continues to lose residential (down 9.2%) and business (down 5.7%) customers. However, the $0.10-a-share quarterly dividend still seems safe: the payout accounted for a moderate 39% of Frontier’s free cash flow (cash flow less capital expenditures) in the latest quarter. Frontier Communications is still a hold. hold…