NEW ULM, Minnesota – November 29, 2023 – The board of directors of Nuvera Communications, Inc. (OTC: NUVR), a diversified communications company, today announced that it is suspending dividend payments to its shareholders until further notice.
Nuvera announced its largest infrastructure investment in late 2021, to the benefit of customers, shareholders and communities in its service areas. The company now passes over 30,000 homes and businesses with an end-to-end fiber network, connecting more than 10,000 customers to our fiber broadband services. Nuvera will continue to allocate 100% of its capital towards fiber deployments as we identify and capture the full market opportunity into the foreseeable future.
“The significant fiber expansion project Nuvera embarked on two years ago has met important milestones this year and our success continues to confirm that we are on the right track,” said Nuvera CEO Glenn Zerbe. “The decision to suspend dividend payments was not made lightly. However, this is a necessary step to secure the continued success and completion of the fiber expansion project which will ensure Nuvera’s status as a regional leader in the broadband industry.”
Bandwidth consumption is rising every year, and to support the needs of Nuvera’s customers, a strong fiber network is a necessity. Such a major transformational project takes time and resources. “Suspending the dividend is the best decision for the company at this time,” Zerbe said.
About Nuvera
Nuvera Communications is a leading Minnesota broadband provider headquartered in New Ulm, Minnesota. Nuvera’s state-the-art fiber network provides reliable and affordable residential internet service through both fiber-to-the–neighborhood and newly expanding Gig-speed fiber-to-the-home services. Nuvera also provides business services including fiber internet, voice, hosting and managed services. Nuvera serves residents and businesses in New Ulm, Glencoe, Goodhue, Hutchinson, Litchfield, Prior Lake, Redwood Falls, Elko New Market, Savage, Sleepy Eye, Springfield, and surrounding communities. Nuvera also serves customers in Aurelia, Iowa. Nuvera is a Fiber Minnesota partner which cooperatively enables connectivity for multi-location business customer locations, wireless towers, and network connectively to major internet connection transport points. Nuvera Communications, Inc., is a publicly held corporation.
Forward Looking Statements
From time to time, in reports filed with, or furnished to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, in press releases, and in other communications to shareholders or the investing public, we may make forward-looking statements concerning possible or anticipated future financial performance, business activities or plans. These statements generally are identified by the words “believes,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “estimates,” “projects,” “intends,” “plans,” “may,” “will,” “would,” “seeks,” “targets,” “continues,” “should,” “will be,” “will continue,” or similar expressions. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance, or achievements of Nuvera and its subsidiaries to be different from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements.
For these forward-looking statements, we claim the protection of the safe harbor for forward-looking statements contained in the federal securities laws. Shareholders and the investing public should understand that these forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could affect our actual results and cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements.
These risks and uncertainties may include, but are not limited to:
- our decision to actively build and deploy the largest infrastructure project in our company history through the Nuvera Gig Cities™ project construction that we first announced in December 2021;
- our ability to attract and retain customers in our service areas, including the areas serviced by our fiber initiative;
- our ability to finance the deployment of our ongoing infrastructure project and meet our liquidity and capital needs;
- our ability to declare cash dividends in the near future in light of our commitment to actively build and deploy our largest infrastructure project and support
- our current debt structure may change due to increases in interest rates or our ability to comply with lender loan covenants or any decision we may make to seek additional debt capital
- elimination of, or changes in the structure or level of, federal or state governmental network support we receive;
- unfavorable general economic conditions that could negatively affect our operating results;
- possible customer payment defaults:
- possible future substantial regulatory change and increased competition;
- our possible pursuit of acquisitions could be expensive or unsuccessful
- we may not accurately predict technological trends or the success of new products
- a failure in our operational systems or infrastructure could affect our operations
- data security breaches to us or our customers; and
- possible replacement or turnover of management or key personnel.
