(Editor's Note: This article should have published on June 20, 2025, but was delayed due to a technical issue)

By Jack Hough 

AT&T

After John Stankey took over as CEO of struggling AT&T in July 2020, he put his prior experience in running the company's television businesses, WarnerMedia and DirecTV, to the best possible use. He sold both of them. He also cut AT&T's dividend in half. That has allowed for paying down debt while freeing up funds for investment. Stankey, 62, has wisely spent this money to connect millions more fiber broadband customers.

Broadband isn't a business that comes with many invitations to Hollywood parties, but it is plenty attractive. Cable companies, faced with pay-TV defections, have already done the work of pushing stand-alone broadband prices higher. And whereas customers will swap streaming services like they change pants, broadband churn is low. Stankey is capitalizing on that by persuading a rising percentage of his broadband customers to bundle up with his cellphone service.

The result has been a script flip that would test credulity if it were fiction. After decades of miserable stock performance, AT&T has doubled investor money over the past two years, and done more than twice as well as the broad U.S. market.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 23, 2025 21:34 ET (01:34 GMT)

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