EarthLink not selling off Helio stake

In a conference call Thursday, EarthLink president and CEO Rolla Huff reiterated the Internet service provider's commitment to Helio, its struggling joint venture with Korean operator SK Telecom, insisting there are no plans to liquidate its stake in the MVNO. Despite third-quarter net losses [1] of $92.3 million, Huff said he believes Helio will succeed: "Virgin Mobile hopefully has proven that value can be created with the right business model," he said. "While we'll have the option to participate in future funding rounds that might be required, we have stopped our participation in the current funding rounds. We believe our preliminary agreement with SKT will put value in the $210 million that had previously been invested by EarthLink."

Later in the call, Huff denied rumors EarthLink will cut its losses and sell off its Helio stake. "I think that the investment that we've made there absolutely has value," Huff insisted. "We have no plans to go out and sell it. It's a growing business. It's a business that we support. We clearly understood that putting needed cash into that business was not in the best interest of our shareholders from here on out. We're going to continue to be part of the governance structure and I think I've been saying all along, we believe there's value in this business. I would just point out that there were folks from time to time that were suggesting that what we should have done is just let it hit the wall and I hope that what has happened over the last few weeks and during the third quarter would suggest that we took a more thoughtful approach and that we are trying to create shareholder value."

For more on Helio's future:
- read the conference call transcript [2]

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