Verizon Communications / VZ

About Verizon Communications

140 West St., New York, N.Y. 10007
www.verizon.com | 800-621-9900 | Founded: 1983

Industry: Telecommunications | Category: Major Employers Not Based in the Region

Verizon leaped into the cable TV business last year, a strategy that is costing it billions of dollars in investment and some credibility on Wall Street.
The company, which is the dominant telephone provider in the Washington region, is searching for new ways to expand as competition from wireless, Internet phone-calling and cable-telephone offerings eat away at its traditional phone business. Its customers cut nearly 3.5 million phone lines last year alone.
The company has more than made up for those losses by the steady growth of Verizon Wireless, which last year produced record revenue and profit, although Verizon shares ownership of that company with the British-based Vodafone Group PLC. Verizon also gained a new stream of revenue by completing its $8.5 billion purchase of MCI Inc. of Ashburn on Jan. 6, adding MCI's to extensive roster of government and corporate clients.
But its biggest bet is its multibillion-dollar investment in running fiber-optic lines to customers' homes. These lines, which offer far more bandwidth than the copper wires that have carried telephone calls since the 19th century, allowed Verizon to start providing cable TV in six states including Virginia, where some Herndon residents got the service in November.
The company hopes its Fios project — the name is loosely derived from "fiber-optic services" — will eventually pay off as consumer demand for services over high-speed Internet lines grows.
Over the past year, however, the project has been a drag on Verizon's earnings, stock price and debt ratings. Moody Investors Service and Standard and Poor's Corp. both cited the spending on Fios as a factor in downgrading Verizon's debt, and Verizon has said the project will trim 25 to 30 cents from its earnings per share this year.
The company has taken some steps that may have been designed to bolster its stock price, among them freezing pensions for management employees and exploring the sale of its yellow pages unit.
Verizon chief executive Ivan G. Seidenberg says he has no doubts about the huge Fios investment. "We recognize that we are making some bets," he said in a Jan. 30 interview at his office in the soaring art deco skyscraper built in the 1920s for the New York Telephone Co., one of Verizon's predecessors. "We don't consider them all that complicated because we have done this for a hundred years."

Chairman and CEO: Ivan G. Seidenberg

2005 Financial Data

Revenues: $75,112,000,000 | Net Income: $7,397,000,000
Asssets: $168,130,000,000 | Earnings Per Share: $2.65
Stockholder Equity: $39,680,000,000 | Annual Dividend: $1.62
Total employees: 216,704 | Local employees: 14,000