Wednesday's new low came after a downgrade at Wells Fargo, which previously rated Lumen Overweight but moved to Equal Weight on seeing trends emerging for the company after some $10B in divestitures (of its ILEC and Latin American arms).
Analyst Eric Luebchow expects that the part of Lumen left behind will be hitting just $1.35B in quarterly run-rate EBITDA, which led him to cut his 2023 EBITDA forecast to $5.3B - well below Street expectations for $5.9B.
And the resulting effect on free cash flow (he expects it to remain around $800M rather than $1B-plus) means a risk to the company's dividend, he says - adding that a 50% dividend cut would mean 20% or more downside risk. |