Music to a bondholder’s ears

I own some long term debt in Sprint. Recently, the following was quoted from their CFO:

NEW YORK (AP) — Shares of Sprint Nextel Corp. rose Monday after Chief Financial Officer Bob Brust told investors the telecommunications company plans to pay down its debt and continue to strengthen its balance sheet.

“(In) the next 30 months, we have about $5.2 billion of debt coming due. Right now we plan to pay that as due, not refinance,” said Brust at the Raymond James Institutional Investors Conference, according to a transcript.

The only other better news that could come out of his mouth was that they would be raising capital through the equity markets to pay down more debt, but I will settle with this. Sprint has negative net income, but they have strong positive cash flows, and I think their debt is still (slightly) undervalued. It is my second largest portfolio component.

The only issue I have with their debt is not their ability to pay it off – it is the more macroeconomic perspective of rising interest rates and a US government that is seemingly destined to inflate its way out of its fiscal situation.