PAETEC (PAET) expects to name a new South region president by Thanksgiving, chairman and CEO Arunas Chesonis said on Thursday in an exclusive interview with PHONE+.
“That way the person can be involved in budget planning for 2010 so they don’t inherit something they didn’t have influence on,” he said.
John Leach vacated the top channel chief position in September for a post at Windstream Corp. (WIN) Now, after almost two months of interviews to find Leach’s replacement, a decision could come at any time.
“I think we’ve got the leading candidates down to the final two or three,” Chesonis said.
Each of the contenders already works at PAETEC, and that’s good, Chesonis said. That way, the new regional head will be familiar with the CLEC’s operations and employees, so the break-in curve will take less time.
Battling the Recession
News of the soon-to-be-announced channel executive came the same day as PAETEC reported its third-quarter 2009 earnings. The numbers weren’t mind-blowing, but the company’s standing as it rides out the recession is promising.
“Even though we are still experiencing a difficult economic environment, we grew enterprise business over 1 percent from the second quarter to third quarter of this year," Chesonis said in a conference call with analysts.
Yet, on a regional basis, and like its peers, PAETEC is dealing with fewer sales in areas where unemployment is high and demand from verticals such as real estate is low.
"You can expect that in locations like California, Florida, [business] still tends to get harder hit," Chesonis told analysts.
However, PAETEC is "actually seeing some good sales results" in parts of the Midwest, even as key markets such as Michigan have been slammed by the automotive industry's collapse, Chesonis said.
All of those factors contributed to PAETEC’s third-quarter losses of $6.5 million. Still, that’s better than the same period last year, when the Rochester, N.Y.-based company lost $6.9 million. Revenue was down, though – in 2008, sales amounted to $406.1 million. This time around they came to $395.7 million. Fewer carrier-services sales helped account for that drop – those deals fell by $1.5 million.
