On Jan 18, 6:47 pm, John Navas <spamfilt...@navasgroup.com> wrote:
> <http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=awtdEXcif_Tk&refe...>
>
> Sprint Nextel Corp., the third-biggest wireless carrier in the U.S.,
> fell the most in more than 25 years in New York trading after losing
> more subscribers than analysts estimated and announcing plans to fire
> 4,000 workers.
>
> Sprint fell 25 percent, the most since at least July 1980. The
> company said today that about 683,000 contract customers left last
> quarter, more than the 200,000 estimate of Robert W. Baird & Co.'s
> William Power.
>
> The subscriber slump brings defections to 1.2 million in 2007,
> forcing Chief Executive Officer Daniel Hesse to get rid of about
> one-fifth of Sprint's retail locations. Hesse replaced Gary Forsee in
> December, taking charge of a company that has struggled to absorb the
> $36 billion purchase of Nextel and offer phones to compete with Apple
> Inc.'s iPhone, sold by AT&T Inc.
>
> ``The subscriber numbers look pretty ugly,'' said Power, who is based
> in Dallas and has a neutral rating on Sprint shares. ``It's not
> getting better.''
>
> Before the Nextel acquisition in 2005, the companies' combined market
> value was about $70 billion, according to Bloomberg data. Today,
> Sprint is worth about $24 billion, a drop of almost two-thirds.
>
> [MORE]

Lucifer would give out executive bonuses for that kind of stock
performance...