Citigroup Looks To Sprint's Future

Citigroup has published a research report on Sprint Nextel Corporation S in anticipation of updating Sprint's long-term potential. In the report, Citigroup writes "We remain a Buyer of Sprint heading into 2011 based on: 1) favorable progress towards stabilizing its Sprint-branded wireless business in 2010 with room for growth in 2011; 2) constructive steps to improve longer-term margin prospects by strategically pursuing the recently announced Network Vision strategy; and 3) Sprint's implied spectrum valuation remains well below its peers, reinforcing the opportunity for share price appreciation to the extent Sprint can improve sentiment for its cash flow prospects over the longer-term. We expect Sprint to continue to deliver improvements in subscriber productivity heading into the 4Q results season (we estimate +50k postpaid net adds). S should continue to improve sales productivity for its postpaid CDMA segment, and for what it is now describing as the Sprint-branded business (which includes 4G), as we believe churn is on a path of improvement & gross add productivity is holding on to some recent gains." Citigroup maintains its Buy rating and $6 price target. Sprint Nextel Corporation closed yesterday at $4.15.