One-glance verdict
Overvalued
$-41.48 our estimate vs market $9.72
Wall Street consensus: $10.42 (-125.1% lower than our fair-value estimate)
123% below our estimate, beyond the bull case
Fundamentals snapshot
Uniti Group Inc.
UNIT · NMS · Real Estate · REIT - Specialty
Current price
$9.72
52-week range
$5.30 - $12.94
Market cap
$2.36B
Balance sheet
Distressed
0.80x Concerning
Net debt $10.48B. Interest coverage shows how many times profit covers the interest bill.
What stands out
3 Rewards
3 Risks
3 rewards · 3 risks
- Reward Revenue grew 58.3% last year.
- Reward Free cash flow was positive in 2/10 years.
- Risk Net debt grew 90.7% over 3 years.
- Risk Operating margin compressed from 52.4% to 4.1% over 3 years.
What this company does
Uniti Group Inc.
Uniti Group is like a real estate company for the internet, owning thousands of miles of fiber optic cables that carry data for our phones and computers. They primarily earn money through recurring revenue (predictable income from long-term rental agreements) by leasing these data highways to major telecommunication companies. This is important because the growing need for faster internet and 5G service depends on physical infrastructure like the networks Uniti owns.
How the company got here
Uniti was created in 2015 when a telecom company called Windstream decided to separate its valuable fiber optic network into a new, publicly traded company. Originally, Uniti's main job was to own this network and lease it back to Windstream, acting like a landlord for data infrastructure. Over the next few years, Uniti bought other fiber companies to grow its network and reduce its reliance on its single main tenant. A major turning point came in 2025 when Uniti merged with its former parent, Windstream, transforming from just a network landlord into a company that both owns and operates the fiber services provided to customers.
What it actually does
Think of Uniti as a company that owns and operates the digital highways of the internet. It has a massive network of fiber optic cables—super-thin strands of glass that transmit data as light—stretching across the United States. Other companies, from your local internet provider to massive tech firms, pay Uniti to use these fiber highways to deliver internet, video, and phone services. Uniti also provides internet service directly to homes and businesses and offers related tech services like cloud computing and network security.
Kinetic
This is Uniti's largest business and the one most people would recognize, providing high-speed fiber internet directly to homes and small businesses, primarily in smaller cities and rural areas. Customers pay a monthly bill for their internet service, similar to how you would pay Comcast or AT&T. This part of the company came from the merger with Windstream and is focused on upgrading older copper networks to modern, faster fiber optic connections. It represents the biggest slice of the company's revenue (the total money brought in from sales).
Fiber Infrastructure
This segment is like a wholesaler for internet capacity, serving very large customers instead of individual homes. Its clients are other big companies, like wireless carriers (think Verizon or T-Mobile), cable companies, and hyperscalers (a term for giant tech companies like Amazon or Google that need huge amounts of data capacity). These customers pay Uniti for access to its fiber network to power their own services, such as connecting cell towers or data centers. This is a significant part of Uniti's business, focused on long-term contracts for mission-critical data transport.
Uniti Solutions
This part of the company provides a suite of technology services to medium and large businesses that need more than just an internet connection. Think of it as an outsourced IT department, offering services like managed network security, cloud computing access, and business phone systems. Instead of just providing the raw data pipe, Uniti Solutions manages the complex services that run over it. Customers are typically businesses like banks, hospitals, or school districts that pay for these bundled, scalable solutions to run their operations smoothly and securely.
What management is betting on now
Management's strategy is a two-pronged bet on the growing demand for fiber. First, they are aggressively expanding the Kinetic network, aiming to bring high-speed fiber internet to hundreds of thousands of new homes each year. Second, they are focused on winning large deals in their Fiber Infrastructure business, fueled by the massive data needs of 5G wireless networks, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence. The company is investing heavily in capital expenditures (often called capex, which is money spent on physical things like new equipment or buildings) to build out its network ahead of this expected demand.
Price history
How the share price has moved
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Earnings history
Last 8 quarters — what happened
Click any quarter to read the call summary and what the numbers say.
Revenue
$909.70M
Net income
$-155.90M
Diluted EPS
-0.68
Operating cash flow
$78.50M
Free cash flow
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Sources
Revenue
$987.50M
Net income
$-70.30M
Diluted EPS
-0.34
Operating cash flow
$260.90M
Free cash flow
—
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Sources
Revenue
$917.30M
Net income
$-305.70M
Diluted EPS
-0.06
Operating cash flow
$120.40M
Free cash flow
—
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Sources
Revenue
$722.60M
Net income
$1.61B
Diluted EPS
4.92
Operating cash flow
$46.20M
Free cash flow
—
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Sources
Revenue
$300.70M
Net income
$-10.70M
Diluted EPS
-0.07
Operating cash flow
$175.00M
Free cash flow
—
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Sources
Revenue
$293.90M
Net income
$12.20M
Diluted EPS
0.08
Operating cash flow
$8.60M
Free cash flow
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Sources
Revenue
$1.17B
Net income
$93.40M
Diluted EPS
0.64
Operating cash flow
$185.50M
Free cash flow
—
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Sources
Revenue
$292.20M
Net income
$12.20M
Diluted EPS
0.08
Operating cash flow
$181.10M
Free cash flow
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Sources
Is it cheap or expensive?
Fair value $-41.48 vs current price $9.72
Wall Street consensus is the average analyst price target: $10.42 (-125.1% lower than our fair-value estimate).
Our most-likely fair value is $-41.48 a share — about 526.8% below today's price of $9.72, so the stock currently looks expensive (overvalued).
Is it drowning in debt?
Distressed
Net debt $10.5B. Interest coverage 0.8x.
Net debt
$10.48B
Interest coverage
0.80x
Uniti Group Inc.'s profit covers its interest bill about 0.8 times over. which is stronger than most peers shown here and 3 peers sit below 1x, which is the danger zone where profit does not fully cover the interest bill.
Distressed
Worse cushion
Baseline
Better cushion
UNIT
BASELINE
Uniti Group Inc.
Total debt $11.10B Interest coverage 0.80x This is the baseline the peer rows are being compared against.
Total debt $319.68M Interest coverage -4.29x -100% vs UNIT This peer has almost no interest-payment cushion compared with UNIT.
Total debt $13.50B Interest coverage -0.14x -100% vs UNIT This peer has almost no interest-payment cushion compared with UNIT.
Total debt $23.40B Interest coverage 2.22x +176% vs UNIT Carries about 2.8x more debt cushion than UNIT.
Total debt $15.21B Interest coverage 3.26x +307% vs UNIT Carries about 4.1x more debt cushion than UNIT.
Total debt $2.64B Interest coverage -0.64x -100% vs UNIT This peer has almost no interest-payment cushion compared with UNIT.
What you should know
The case for and against UNIT
3 Rewards
3 Risks
Rewards
-
Revenue grew 58.3% last year.
-
Free cash flow was positive in 2/10 years.
-
Trades at 2.5x P/E vs peer median 19.8x (87.2% cheaper).
Risks
-
Net debt grew 90.7% over 3 years.
-
Operating margin compressed from 52.4% to 4.1% over 3 years.
-
Insider ownership is only 1.9% (peer median: 3.7%).
The numbers
All the key metrics, grouped by purpose
Tap any ? icon to learn what it means.
Valuation
How expensive the stock looks
P/E (TTM)
2.53x
Forward P/E
-13.69x
P/B
7.38x
P/S
0.67x
EV/EBITDA
9.11x
PEG ratio
0.17x
Profitability
How much profit each dollar creates
Gross margin
58.5%
Operating margin
4.1%
Net margin
30.4%
ROE
—
ROA
2.2%
Health
Liquidity and balance-sheet strength
Debt / equity
68.70x
Current ratio
1.22x
Quick ratio
0.85x
Total debt
$11.10B
Total cash
$611.40M
Growth
How the business has been compounding
Revenue TTM
$3.54B
Revenue 5Y CAGR
94.3%
EPS TTM
3.84
EPS 5Y CAGR
—
Cash flow
How much cash the business throws off
Operating CF TTM
$506.00M
Free CF TTM
$-459.60M
FCF margin
-13.0%
Dividend
Shareholder payout
Yield
—
Payout ratio
0.0%
Last ex-div date
2024-06-14