eastunder(Sydney?),
My first thought after hearing Doc Huber declare his estimate of a $5.5 bil "replacement value" on Broadwing was that he was communicating his "minimum bid" requirement for anybody interested in opening a serious "buy out" negotiation.
After noodling on things awhile, my conviction moved on to consideration of another possibility, something that would actually ride incognito on that first assumption.
Huber has gotten away with playing "outside the general rules" in a lot of ways, but undervaluing and over-depreciating the Broadwing assets could become a drag if he needs to "pony up" for a big loan at reasonable rates.
What to do? Well, putting a bigger number out there can't hurt IMO. I think he was seeking to do a couple of things that would play well in his game. Nudge the BWNG share value closer to reality and clarify the true asset value at the same time.
Those comments are from a "loan value" perspective. My very limited experience leads me to think that the stock market's valuation of an equity works in many very different and mysterious ways. The P/E trend is a good place to start, but things seem to go off in every direction from there.
You asked about available "unlit" capacity to sell, but all this interested observer can say is that there appears to be plenty of high margin incremental revenue potential ahead at Broadwing. How much, I have no clue.
One "common sense" thought that I had after watching streets get torn up to bury fiber just about everywhere in recent years was, "If somebody is spending the money to rip up every Main Street around the globe, I sure hope they are stuffing all the fiber optic cable they will EVER need down into those ugly ditches before covering them over."
Seeing a few dimwit yokels acting out their version of the "Wall Street Analyst" role by attempting to use the percent of that fiber utilized to say anything else just registers "Tilt!, Dip Stick" on my feeble mind.
There is plenty of excess capacity in the ground IMO.
