Telecom Ramblings

Colocation facility specialist DuPont Fabros (DFT: chart, news) managed to find a crack in the credit markets this week, raising a total of $180M. That was enough to pay off a $135.1M construction loan, clearing up near term balance sheet issues. This will allow them to restart the development of their ACC5 facility in Ashburn VA, completion is now anticipated in the third quarter.  Construction remains halted at its Piscataway NJ and Santa Clara CA sites I suppose, but it’s the first step back to normalcy since the freeze in the credit markets interrupted their plans.

The company also reported strong Q4 results, apparently the datacenter sector remains unbowed by the recession – at least when the capital is available. Revenues of $47.5M were up 10% sequentially, and the company remained profitable, earning $0.10 per share despite the market’s expectations of disaster during the quarter. It seems the insiders buying at Dupont Fabros did in fact know what they were doing. The company’s stock has rebounded since then, but even now its marketcap remains below 1x 2008 revenues and just 7x EBITDA.