Uniti Group (NASDAQ:UNIT) Posts Earnings Results, Misses Estimates By $0.73 EPS

Uniti Group (NASDAQ:UNIT) announced its quarterly earnings results on Monday. The real estate investment trust reported ($1.19) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.46) by ($0.73), Briefing.com reports. The firm had revenue of $917.30 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $909.44 million. Uniti Group had a net margin of 55.60% and a negative return on equity of 2.52%. Uniti Group’s quarterly revenue was up 212.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the firm earned $0.35 EPS.

Here are the key takeaways from Uniti Group’s conference call:

• Uniti closed its transformative merger with Windstream, established a scaled national wholesale fiber footprint, installed a new insurgent leadership team, reignited builds, and materially lowered its cost of capital via landmark ABS and debt transactions.
• Kinetic showed strong operational momentum (Q4: 38,000 consumer fiber gross adds, 28,000 net adds, 535k fiber subs), reduced churn, and is targeting 450,000–500,000 new homes built in 2026 with ~675k–700k consumer fiber subs by year-end.
• Fiber Infrastructure reported record hyperscaler bookings, plans ~6,000 new route miles over three years, expects nearly $1 billion of cumulative non?recurring cash revenue through 2028 (plus growing recurring lease-up revenue) and projects a 2–4x total return on capital over time.
• Consolidated pro forma revenue was down ~5% YoY due to legacy copper/TDM declines, and 2026 is a heavy investment year with roughly $1.4 billion net CapEx and lumpy sales-type lease revenue recognition (concentrated in Q1 and Q4), which could cause uneven near-term results.
• Management has improved financing metrics (blended debt yield down ~560 bps to ~6.9%), closed an inaugural Kinetic ABS and a $1B unsecured add-on, and believes it can opportunistically monetize $500M–$1B of non?core assets to further optimize the balance sheet.

Uniti Group Price Performance

Uniti Group stock opened at $7.77 on Wednesday. The company has a market cap of $1.15 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 1.50. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $7.66 and a 200-day moving average of $6.81. Uniti Group has a one year low of $5.30 and a one year high of $11.73.

Institutional Trading of Uniti Group

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of UNIT. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. grew its stake in Uniti Group by 103.1% in the fourth quarter. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. now owns 14,656,558 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $102,743,000 after purchasing an additional 7,441,044 shares in the last quarter. TMB Capital Partners LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Uniti Group in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $185,000. Invesco Ltd. grew its stake in shares of Uniti Group by 32.8% in the fourth quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 1,829,904 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $12,828,000 after buying an additional 452,149 shares in the last quarter. Mercer Global Advisors Inc. ADV bought a new position in shares of Uniti Group in the fourth quarter valued at $72,000. Finally, State of Tennessee Department of Treasury increased its holdings in Uniti Group by 14.1% during the fourth quarter. State of Tennessee Department of Treasury now owns 72,275 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $507,000 after buying an additional 8,948 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 87.51% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms have recently weighed in on UNIT. Wells Fargo & Company cut their price objective on Uniti Group from $7.50 to $7.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, November 7th. Weiss Ratings restated a “hold (c-)” rating on shares of Uniti Group in a report on Monday, December 29th. Barclays set a $8.00 target price on shares of Uniti Group in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Wall Street Zen downgraded Uniti Group from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research note on Sunday. Finally, Raymond James Financial restated a “strong-buy” rating and issued a $11.00 price target on shares of Uniti Group in a report on Tuesday. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, one has issued a Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $7.66.

About Uniti Group

Uniti Group Inc is a real estate investment trust that owns, operates and acquires communications infrastructure assets across the United States. Established in September 2015 through a spin-off from Windstream Holdings, Uniti Group focuses on leasing fiber, small cell networks, cell towers and related infrastructure to service providers, wireless carriers and other enterprises requiring high-capacity connectivity. The company’s assets are designed to support the growing data demands of residential, business and governmental customers, with an emphasis on long-term contractual lease arrangements.

Uniti’s portfolio encompasses an extensive fiber network that spans metropolitan and rural markets, as well as a portfolio of wireless towers and small cell nodes that facilitate mobile network densification and help carriers deploy 5G services.