American Tower 3Q Loss $55.9M On $48M Pretax Charge

BOSTON (Dow Jones)--American Tower Corp.'s (AMT) third-quarter loss fell slightly, missing internal and Wall Street's forecasts, as a pretax charge to retire debt hurt the bottom line.

In a press release Thursday, the maker of wireless communication hubs reported a loss of $55.9 million, or 25 cents a share, after a loss of $52.9 million, or 25 cents a share, a year earlier.

The loss included a pretax charge of $48 million for the early retirement of long-term debt. The company expects debt refinancing to reduce interest payments by $50 million a year.

American Tower had expected a loss between 10 cents and 14 cents a share for the quarter, while analysts expected, on average, a loss of 15 cents a share, according to Thomson First Call.

American Tower's quarterly operating earnings rose 15% to $115.7 million from $100.9 million last year.

Quarterly revenue rose 6.6% to $199.2 million from $186.9 million, paced by an 11% gain to $174.9 million in revenue in the tower rental and management unit.
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Posted to the site on 28th October 2004