Windstream Pays Nearly 11% Dividend Yield But We Prefer CenturyLink

We previously analyzed CenturyLink (CTL) versus Frontier Communications Corporation (FTR) and Windstream Corporation (WIN), two other rural telecommunications firms and we concluded that CenturyLink offered the best risk-reward scenario of the three rural telecoms. We followed up our first research report with another report that researched and analyzed CenturyLink's steady business performance, strong generation of free cash flows and growth potential from Savvis. We then followed it up with individual reports analyzing the performance of Frontier and CenturyLink respectively and now we will devote a report to Windstream since we find the rural telecom sector to be very interesting to us, especially with Windstream and CenturyLink's recent acquisitions of cloud companies. Last year, we actually considered replacing CenturyLink with Windstream. At the time, CenturyLink's dividend was about 7.5% while Windstream's was 9%. Plus Windstream had seen smaller pro forma revenue declines than CenturyLink and Qwest Communications (Q), which CenturyLink acquired... Read more