Like tw telecom, Cogent Communications (NASDAQ:CCOI, news, filings) has been finding ways to return cash to shareholders, but unlike them they have been taking the dividend route and boosting the amount every quarter. They continued on with that game plan for Q2 as they posted another quarter of forward progress. Revenues and EPS were up sequentially but a bit below projections this time, while both margins and EBITDA were higher than anticipated. Their numbers in some context:
| $ in millions | Q2/12 | Q3/12 | Q4/12 | Q1/13 | Q2/13 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| – On-net | 57.3 | 58.1 | 60.4 | 61.7 | 62.7 |
| – Off-net | 19.9 | 20.9 | 21.6 | 22.3 | 22.6 |
| – Other | 0.6 | 0.6 | 0.6 | 0.6 | 0.5 |
| Revenue | 77.8 | 79.7 | 82.6 | 84.6 | 85.8 |
| EBITDA | 25.3 | 26.2 | 28.5 | 28.3 | 29.6 |
| Earnings per share | -0.04 | 0.00 | -0.01 | 0.01 | 0.03 |
| Gross Margin | 55.0% | 54.3% | 54.6% | 56.1% | 56.9% |
| Adj. EBITDA Margin | 32.6% | 32.9% | 34.6% | 33.5% | 34.5% |
| On-net Buildings | 1799 | 1832 | 1867 | 1890 | 1921 |
Off-net revenues grew more slowly during the quarter than they have lately, while on-net building additions continued to maintain the pace they’ve been on for years now.
Cogent raised its quarterly dividend by another penny to $0.14, up 7.7% sequentially. However, they have also decided to return another $10M quarterly to shareholders via some combination of stock buybacks or special dividend starting in Q3, at least until the company’s ratio of net debt to ttm EBITDA rises to 2.5.
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