J.P. Morgan Notes From WIN Meeting

J.P. Morgan recently visited Windstream Corporation's WIN headquarters and met with CEO Jeff Gardner, and CFO Tony Thomas.

“Overall our takeaway from the meetings was Windstream's committed approach to becoming an increasingly business-oriented ‘top line growth' company, while maintaining focus on shareholder returns through with its $1.00/share dividend,” J.P. Morgan writes.

“A large RLEC acquisition not likely, prefer enterprise focus. While Windstream looks at and evaluates all opportunities in the market, management has explicitly put forward a focus on expanding business revenues and continuing to move towards growth assets rather than engaging in RLEC acquisitions that would increase the size of the company.

“Coming out of the meeting we find it less likely for WIN to engage in a potential RLEC turnaround acquisition, and the company's next target is likely to be an enterprise-focused, fiber-owning CLEC/RLEC or datacenter company.”

Windstream closed Wednesday at $12.73.