Verizon CFO Fran Shammo this week categorically denied that there is any substance to rumours that the company is planning to sell off certain key enterprise business assets.
"They are factless, they are conjecture, they are speculative, and there’s no foundation behind these comments," Shammo said at the Wells Fargo Securities 2015 Technology, Media & Telecom Conference, in an interview that was published on the U.S. telco’s Website.
He was responding to a question about a story that broke on Monday, when Reuters cited unnamed sources as saying that Verizon is considering selling US$10 billion worth of assets, including its fixed-line and Internet services business that used to be known as MCI and data centre unit Terremark.
Shammo suggested that the rumours could in fact have come from a rival player.
"Are our competitors trying to get the enterprise customer a little antsy about Verizon and their continued support?" he wondered. "I think we’ve shown it. This is part of our portfolio and we will continue to support our enterprise customers."
Shammo also pointed out that this is not the first time Verizon has found itself at the centre of M&A talk.
"I think these are the same reporters and bankers who keep telling me I’m going to buy Dish," he said, referring to recent repor ts that Verizon could strike a deal to lease spectrum from the satellite TV provider, or make an outright takeover bid for the company.
"These rumours and speculative information [are] just ridiculous, so there’s really no comment to make beyond that," Shammo said.
A spectrum leasing deal seemed more likely than a Dish acquisition, but Shammo appeared to put paid to any such arrangement.
"We went into the AWS-3 auction [and] we spent $10.4 billion. If I wanted more spectrum, I would’ve bought it in the auction," Shammo said.
He explained that Verizon walked away from spectrum in Chicago and New York because the price was too high; those two markets, together with another couple, would have cost an additional $6 billion, he said. "I can build the same capacity for $1.5 billion."
The spectrum sold in the AWS-3 auction will not be available for three years, he added. "My build will be done by 2018. I will have the exact amount of capacity I would have had if I bought that spectrum," he said.
"$1.5 billion versus $6 billion is a pretty simple equation, so why would I go out and buy spectrum and be held hostage by a third-party? It makes no logical sense to do that," Shammo insisted.
"[Dish CEO] Charlie [Ergen] has great spectrum, but not at the price that he paid for it," Shammo said. "So there’s no reason to have this discussion…I am not interested in Dish."
