Verizon Communications, Inc., Fiscal Year 2010 Verizon Essay

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Verizon Communications, Inc., Fiscal Year 2010

Verizon Communications, Inc. (NYSE -- "VZ") has two business segments Domestic Wireless (operated as Verizon Wireless) and Wireline. These business segments are operated and managed as strategic business units and organized by products and services. The company uses the so-called "Anglo-American model" or "the unitary system" (Mallin, 2011) which employs a single-tiered Board of Directors which is comprised of a mixture of executives from the company and non-executive directors, who are all elected by shareholders (Bowen, 2008). Verizon has fourteen board members, including the current CEO. Each business segment is operated separately, but the cash flow and dividend information that is described in the 2010 annual report is not split out by business unit. Thus the results presented below are for the Verizon Wireless and Wireline segments.

The cash and cash equivalents at December 31, 2010 totaled $6.7 bil-lion, a $4.7 billion increase compared to Cash and cash equivalents at December 31, 2009. The sources of cash are from operating, investing and financing activities. The net cash generated from operations are used to fund network expansion and modernization, repay external financing, pay dividends, repurchase Verizon common stock from time to time and invest in new businesses. Investing activities are capital expenditures to grow the networks, dispositions of businesses, and acquisitions, which will be detailed below.
Debt or equity financing is used to fund additional development activities or to maintain capital struc-ture to ensure financial flexibility of the company, but in 2010 this was actually reduced significantly as there were relatively few large acquisitions.

The following table reconciles net cash provided by operating activities to free cash flow:

Table 1: Cash Flow Position

The cash from operating activities during 2010 was used to invest in the capacity of the wireless EV-DO networks and fund the build-out of the 4G LTE network. This prompted an increase in capital expenditures at Domestic Wireless by nearly $1.3 billion compared to 2009. As a company the overall capital expenditures decreased due to a reduction in the Wireline spending related to FiOS. Additionally, there was an investment of $1.4 billion in acquisitions of licenses, investments and businesses to further the growth of the company. One of these was completed on August 23, 2010, as Verizon Wireless acquired the net assets and related customers of six operating markets in Louisiana and Mississippi in a transaction with AT&T Inc. For cash consideration of $0.2 billion. Additionally, some cash went to interest paid on debt, which decreased in 2010. This included Verizon Wireless exercising its right to redeem the out-standing $1.0 billion of aggregate floating rate notes due.....

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