Equinix Hurdles Lowered Guidance, Restores Some Confidence

Earlier this month Equinix (NASDAQ:EQIX, news, filings) lowered the bar on its Q3 and full year revenue while raising EBITDA guidance.  What followed was a loss of some $1B in marketcap.  Today, just three weeks later, they hurdled both numbers and offered an optimistic initial viewpoint on 2011, and the stock has rallied some after hours.  For a company with very tight guidance ranges, they have seemed uncharacteristically inaccurate of late – certainly due to uncertainties and complications introduced by the Switch & Data integration. 

Equinix checked in with revenues of $330.3M, adjusted EBITDA of $146.5M, and earnings per share of $0.24.  That EBITDA number was especially good relative to guidance from three weeks ago.  For the full year they bumped up both numbers slightly again, projecting revenues of $1216-1218M and adjusted EBITDA of $542M.  Guidance for 2011 is for revenues above $1.5B and EBITDA above $675M, which exceeded the street’s expectations slightly.  

Capital expenditures for 2011 are projected to be in the neighborhood of $400M, which would be down measurably from this year’s $560-580M but still dominated by spending for expansion.  I’ll bet that estimate rises over the next 6 months as this years projects finish up and new ones are considered for next year.

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Categories: Datacenter · Financials