AT&T CEO on stock's rough 2023: 'It disappoints me'

Alexandra Garfinkle · Senior Reporter
2 min read

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AT&T (T) stock has a seemingly attractive dividend yield approaching 8%. But that hasn't been enough to entice investors lately.

The stock has had a tough 2023, with a 20% decline year to date.

"It disappoints me," Stankey told Yahoo Finance Live (video above) on Wednesday at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia and Tech Conference in San Francisco. "It disappoints me that maybe folks aren't willing to bid the stock up to what I think is the fair value, but I'm pretty pragmatic about it. ... We're repositioning the business."

The company is in transition after unwinding its ill-fated Time Warner deal, which was valued north of $100 billion. In April 2022, AT&T and Discovery closed the transaction that created Warner Brothers Discovery (WBD).

"We're coming out of major transactions, and there's a little bit of a wait-and-see," Stankey said. "We need to do what we say we're going to do, and do it consistently."

On top of slowing growth for postpaid phone subscribers and its fiber business this year, the company was also recently subject to controversy surrounding widely dispersed lead-covered cables that may pose public health risks, the Wall Street Journal reported. AT&T disputed those claims, and Stankey said that now the company is moving forward.

"The business will perform and, ultimately, be valued fairly," Stankey told Yahoo Finance Live. "I'm comfortable that that will happen. We just need to every day come in, run it, and do our best, and eventually the market will find the inherent value in the asset."

AT&T CEO John Stankey is pictured against a red backdrop.
AT&T CEO John Stankey speaks at a panel on the Times Center Stage during 2016 Advertising Week New York on Sept. 28, 2016, in New York City. (John Lamparski/Getty Images for Advertising Week New York) · John Lamparski via Getty Images

Wall Street analysts have 11 Buy recommendations on the stock, 19 Holds, and three Sells, according to Bloomberg data.

But AT&T still has somewhat of an uphill battle to fight on Wall Street as uncertainties loom.

"We struggle to find any fundamental investors who are interested in buying AT&T or Verizon at almost any price due to competition fears and now lead questions," JPMorgan's Philip Cusick wrote in July.

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