United States Cellular Corporat Stock Earnings Reports

Key investor takeaways: TDS closed the $4.3 billion sale of UScellular to T-Mobile, unlocking significant cash and simplifying the company into two focused businesses: Array Digital Infrastructure (towers, spectrum and wireless equity interests) and TDS Telecom (broadband/fiber). Array: the Board declared a $23/share special dividend (payable Aug 19) that will route approximately $1.63 billion to TDS; Array expects to monetize ~70% of its spectrum (including $2.0 billion of additional agreed proceeds from AT&T and Verizon subject to approvals) and to pursue opportunistic sales of remaining C-band licenses. Array will operate as an independent tower company with ~4,400 owned towers, a new 15-year master license agreement (MLA) with T-Mobile (2,015 new colocations committed, 600 term extensions, 1,800 interim sites), a planned target leverage of ~3x (~$700M debt), and near-term wind-down costs that will pressure 2025–2026 adjusted EBITDA. TDS (consolidated/TDS Telecom): will receive its pro rata share of the special dividend and plans to redeem ~ $1.1 billion of higher-cost debt (weighted avg cost ~7.5%), yielding about $80 million of annual interest savings and reducing consolidated average cost of debt to ~6% (preferreds remain outstanding). S&P upgraded TDS to BBB- (removed from credit watch). TDS Telecom appointed Ken Dixon as CEO for its fiber business; Q2 fiber progress: 27,000 new fiber service addresses and 10,300 fiber net adds, with confidence in hitting the 2025 target of 150,000 new fiber addresses. E-ACAM builds are underway and expected to add ~300,000 addresses over time; the company is targeting 1.8 million marketable fiber service addresses (current: 968k) and plans >80% of 2025 CapEx to fund fiber. Updated 2025 guidance (reflecting divestitures): revenue $1.03–1.05B; adjusted EBITDA $320–350M; adjusted OIBDA $310–340M. Management flagged capital allocation priorities for proceeds: (1) fiber organic investment, (2) M&A (targeted, synergistic fiber deals), and (3) shareholder returns (regular dividends expected at Array after spectrum sales). Additional notes: Array will provide initial standalone tower metrics in Q3 (first reporting as independent tower company); regulatory/tax estimates: TDS expects a reduced transaction tax estimate of ~$150M due to tax law changes; AT&T/Verizon spectrum deals have estimated cash taxes (AT&T ~$125M; Verizon $200–250M).