BCE Q4 2024 Earnings Report

BCE EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.56
• Consensus EPS: $0.53
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.03
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

BCE Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: N/A
• Expected Revenue: $4.56 billion
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

BCE Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q4 2024
• Date: 2/6/2025
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, February 6, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 8:00AM ET

BCE (NYSE:BCE), a communications company, provides wireless, wireline, Internet, and television (TV) services to residential, business, and wholesale customers in Canada. The company operates through two segments, Bell Communication and Technology Services, and Bell Media. The Bell Communication and Technology Services segment provides wireless products and services including mobile data and voice plans and devices; wireline products and services comprising data, including internet access, internet protocol television, cloud-based services, and business solutions, as well as voice, and other communication services and products; and satellite TV and connectivity services for residential, small and medium-sized business, government, and large enterprise customers. This segment also buys and sells local telephone, long distance, and data and other services from or to resellers and other carriers; and operates consumer electronics retail stores. The Bell Media segment provides conventional TV, specialty TV, pay TV, streaming services, digital media services, radio broadcasting services, and out-of-home advertising services. BCE Inc. was founded in 1880 and is headquartered in Verdun, Canada.

BCE Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Presentation

[Operator]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the BCE q four twenty twenty four results and 2025 guidance call. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mr. Thane Fotopoulos. Please go ahead, Mr.

[Operator]

Fotopoulos.

[Thane Fotopoulos, Investor Relations at BCE]

Thank you, Matthew, and good morning to everyone on the call and thank you for joining us. With me here today are Mirko Bibic, BC's President and CEO and our CFO, Curtis Millen. You can find all of our Q4 disclosure documents, including the Safe Harbor notice concerning forward looking statements for 2025 and our financial guidance targets for this year on the Investor Relations page of the bce.ca website, which we posted earlier this morning. We have a lot of material to get through on this call. However, before we begin, I'd like to draw your attention to our Safe Harbor statement on slide two, reminding you that today's slide presentation and remarks made during the call will include forward looking information and therefore are subject to risks and uncertainties.

[Thane Fotopoulos, Investor Relations at BCE]

Results could differ materially. We disclaim any obligation to update forward looking statements except as required by law. Please refer to our publicly filed documents for more details on assumptions and risks. With that out of the way, I'll turn the call over to Merko.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

Thank you, Thane, and good morning, everyone. Our financial results in Q4 and in 2024 demonstrate our disciplined execution in an ultra competitive market as we took the necessary near term actions to balance growth with profitability and to reduce costs to achieve our target objectives. In terms of overall consolidated financial performance, we achieved all our non revenue targets for 2024. We We were also within our revised revenue guidance objective, notwithstanding sustained aggressive wireless pricing in Q4 and continued softness in the traditional media advertising market. Notably, our consolidated EBITDA margin increased 1.2 points to 43.4, our highest annual margin performance in over thirty years.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

A few other select operating highlights for 2024 and I'll start with wireless. We delivered positive wireless service revenue growth despite the most pricing intense market we've ever seen. This is a direct reflection of our focus on premium brand customer loadings and managing our promotional offers responsibly. In fact, all our new postpaid customer net activations in 2024 were on the main Bell brand, which should help improve ARPU going forward. We grew broadband Internet market share and drove higher multi product penetration.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

This contributed to Internet revenue growth of 3.3% and a 12% increase in households that subscribe to mobility and Internet service bundles where we have fiber. We now have 3,000,000 residential Internet customers on our FTTH network and that's up 10% in 2024. Our speed advantage and quality gap over cable shows in these results and that will continue to grow over time. Turning to Media. We grew digital revenue 19% over last year, helping to offset the secular pressures in traditional Media.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

Digital now comprises 42% of total Media revenue and that's up from 35% in 2023. And this strategic shift to digital will be supported going forward with investments we made this past year, including the availability of Crave, TSN and RDS content on Amazon Prime Video channels in Canada, the newly launched Crave, TSN and RDS bundles, a new self serve buying platform for advertisers looking to reach local audiences, Bell Media's multi year extension of Crave's partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery for HBO and Max content and the launch of 10 new fast channels. We also made further progress in advancing our BCE transformation agenda by continuing to leverage technology, automation and simplification to drive meaningful CapEx and meaningful operating cost efficiencies. These transformation initiatives together with savings realized from our workforce reduction program delivered well over $200,000,000 in cost savings in 2024.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

We're also seeing the benefit in terms of lowering CapEx, which declined $684,000,000 in 2024 to approximately $3,900,000,000 And our momentum to advance our position as a tech services leader in the business enterprise space also continued to ramp up in 2024 with strong business solutions services revenue growth of 18%. In summary, our performance in 2024 reflects a focused company in the midst of transformation, while at the same time driving day to day execution to serve our customers, grow subscribers profitably and prudently manage costs. Now I'm going to turn to Slide four of our presentation. Bell is an iconic company that's delivering on its purpose to advance how Canadians connect with each other in the world. At the same time, we're operating in an environment with the lowest pricing we've ever seen, as I mentioned, and with continued macroeconomic and regulatory pressures.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

This has resulted in revenue declines. In this context, it's incumbent on us to develop a business strategy that will generate revenue growth. And critical to the successful execution of the strategic plan is prudent management of our balance sheet and capital allocation priorities. We've spent considerable time with our shareholders and we've heard their perspectives. So let me outline very clearly our plan of action that will carry us for years to come that focuses on our customers and on creating value for shareholders.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

It plays to our strengths and it prioritizes the following core elements: putting the customer first offering the best Internet and wireless networks and services business technology services leadership and fourth, building a digital media and content powerhouse. There's a fifth pillar as well and that's to continue to transform our business by leveraging technology, automation and simplification in a way that's more agile, lower touch and digital to drive even more meaningful CapEx and operating cost efficiencies than we've already delivered. I'll now go through each element of the plan. Let's go to Slide five. As you can see, it begins and ends with the customer.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

Customers are our top priority. They're looking to access faster, easier experiences on their terms. We strive to make it easy for our customers to do business with us, whether that's doing what they say what we say we'll do, getting you the right help fast, offering bill accuracy and transparency, making it right if we fall short, or providing the same information whether you call us, visit us, or go to a store, or go online. This approach drives significant cost savings and a massively improved customer experience, which results in better customer satisfaction, lower churn, and ultimately revenue growth and higher customer lifetime value. Bell is the first Canadian telecom company to name a dedicated Chief Customer Experience Officer with a mandate to create best in class experiences for our customers in every encounter across all channels.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

The new role is responsible for the entire customer experience from end to end sales, installation, billing, support, managing changes to plans and packages and technology changes. We're prioritizing digital interactions to create smoother and more seamless processes for customers, whether they want to purchase new services, change their plan or simply get support with a technical or billing issue. And we'll continue to take advantage of the award winning MyBell app, virtual repair and self install tools. But we know that everyone has a different level of comfort with technology, so we'll always provide options to those who prefer to speak to a customer service agent on the phone. Now let's go to Slide six.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

As I said, our plan is to create sustained revenue growth that will benefit customers and investors now and well into the future. Our broadband Internet and wireless networks are the foundation of our business. Fiber is the future. It's the winning strategy offering the fastest Internet technology and providing a more durable alternative to copper, cable or fixed wireless. We've been transforming ourselves into a fiber first company and that is going to continue.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

And our fiber growth will be supercharged with the acquisition of Ziply Fiber, the largest broadband and fiber Internet provider in The U. S. Pacific Northwest. This strategic acquisition will grow BC's position as North America's Third largest fiber Internet provider. By year end 2028, we expect to have approximately 12,000,000 fiber passings in North America.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

This will accelerate subscriber revenue and EBITDA growth for Bell, generating long term value for our customers and shareholders. And as we announced previously, we intend to finance the Zipley Fibre deal largely with the net proceeds from the pending sale of MLSC. This is a very strategic redeployment of capital into our core business and a clear indication that we will act on compelling opportunities to monetize non core assets. Next, we have wireless. It's a tough environment right now in Canada as the industry is going through a period of unprecedented price competition.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

But as that stabilizes and as we continue to focus on costs and operational simplification, wireless will remain a key growth vector. We're going to continue to focus on value accretion, delivering better quality margin accretive subscriber loadings on our main Bell brand and increasing service bundle penetration and multi line sales, while managing pricing and churn. The third key area of focus to generate revenue growth is technology solutions leadership in enterprise. We've set an ambitious goal to generate $1,000,000,000 in annual revenue by 02/1930. Our enterprise customers are transforming their businesses and they want our help.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

Bell has created a leading IT services and cybersecurity business accelerated by the acquisitions of FX Innovation, HGC Technologies, Stratagem and CloudKettle. We're going to deliver among the best technology solutions in end to end cloud, IT, workflow automation and security, leveraging our strong partnerships with AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Palo Alto and others that are complementary to those acquisitions and important to our success going forward. This supports our goal to become the IT systems integrator and managed services provider of choice to key industry verticals. The fourth big opportunity is continuing Bell Media's momentum and pivoting from a traditional broadcaster to a digital media and content powerhouse. That journey is well underway with 42% of our media revenue now coming from digital sources, That's up from just 17% in 2020.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

And here's something I haven't shared with you before. About half of that $1,300,000,000 in annual revenue is new digital revenue from products including direct to consumer streaming, Crave with Ads, Connected TV, and other ad supported streaming options such as fast channels. Notably, the other half of our digital revenue comes from advertisers buying ads on our traditional platforms and who use Bell Media's digitally enabled sales tools to optimize their ad campaigns. Bell first party data to optimize advertising placement on our traditional channels and Bell Analytics to measure the success of that advertising. Importantly, this allows us to protect a large portion of our traditional revenue because of experience and value out of our digital tools.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

The fifth key pillars outlined on Slide seven of our presentation. As I mentioned, our execution will continue to be supported by our ongoing business transformation from a traditional telco to a tech co. And what I really mean by that is modernizing and simplifying how we do business and how we operate. Our goal is to generate $1,000,000,000 in cost savings by 2028, if not sooner. We have a number of focused initiatives underway, including consolidating our consumer order and billing systems, automating manual back office functions, deploying cloud based workflow management and CRM platforms, deploying a cloud based TV service, prioritizing digital interactions, enabling more self install, and of course migrating customers from copper to fiber so we can decommission copper.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

We started this business transformation in 2022 and at the end of twenty twenty four we were halfway towards our stated goal. I'll now turn to Slide eight and address our balance sheet management and capital allocation strategy. Our approach to capital allocation is to balance long term investment to generate growth, while strengthening the balance sheet and optimizing our cost of capital. We remain focused on maintaining investment grade credit ratings for our senior debt and lowering our leverage ratio closer to our target policy of three times adjusted EBITDA. Regarding our dividend, we recognize that we have an elevated payout ratio that is outside our policy range.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

That's reflected in BCE's share price and dividend yield, which we are disappointed with. BCE's dividend and dividend policy will continue to be reviewed by the Board taking into consideration the competitive macroeconomic and regulatory environments as well as the progress being made on the initiatives being discussed today. I also want to make clear that the discounted DRP, the DRIP, is in place for now. As opportunities arise to monetize non core assets, access the hybrid debt market and establish more capital efficient ways to fund our U. S.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

Fiber build, all of which would drive a lower cost of capital, then we would look to turn off the DRIP program. In terms of capital investment, we continue to lower capex and capital intensity while continuing to invest significantly in our business just as we said we would back in 2021 when we first announced our accelerated capex program. Last February, we said that our plan was to reduce CapEx by more than $1,000,000,000 over the twenty twenty four-twenty twenty five time frame. In fact, we're ahead of plan having achieved nearly 70% of that objective by the end of twenty twenty four. However, because of the CRTC's rejection on Monday of a governor and council request to reconsider its November 2023 decision that provided TELUS and other large carriers temporary wholesale tariff access to our FTTH network, we are cutting CapEx by more than we anticipated would be the case for 2025.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

And with that, our capital intensity ratio will be approximately 14% in 2025. This reduction is clearly greater than what we would have done otherwise. Consequently, we will not be delivering our fiber build out target of 8,300,000 homes by the end of this year. So what originally began as a 9,000,000 deployment plan in 2021 will now be less than $8,300,000 This decrease in our fiber build out is a direct result of the CRTC's refusal to ban TELUS and other large carriers from reselling the FTTP network we've built. We will revisit our build out plan if the CRTC reverses its decision.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

Our position on this issue has been stated many times. The CRTC's decision is in our view misguided as it goes against its long standing facilities based competition policies, which have clearly encouraged private investment. These policies have enabled our significant network investments that brought fiber to millions of homes and businesses for the benefit of Canadians. Post 2025, B. C.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

Capital intensity ratio including Zipfli fiber is projected to be at most 16.5%, while Bell standalone capital intensity is projected to drop below 14%. Regarding Zipley Fibre, that acquisition allows us to move capital to an asset that will drive significant growth in our core fiber business in a leverage neutral manner. We forecast very compelling IRRs for the targeted 3,300,000 homes to be passed by Zipley Fiber by the end of twenty twenty eight. We would review other potential opportunities to grow that fiber footprint, but only with a build out structure that would bring third party capital to invest alongside Bell, effectively reducing BCE's funding requirements. Turning to debt, we appreciate that many shareholders would like us to focus on deleveraging.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

We're carefully reviewing our non core assets and will continue to capitalize on opportunities to monetize them where it makes financial and strategic sense. This review process has already resulted in the planned divestitures of North Westell and MLSE. Additional non core assets have been identified and any proceeds of their sale are expected to be used to strengthen our balance sheet, improve our leverage ratio and optimize our cost of capital. Between Northwest Tel MLSC and potential other non core asset divestitures, we see up to $7,000,000,000 being generated. In addition, there's a significant amount of untapped value that exists in our telecom infrastructure and we're assessing the best ways to surface that value.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

Financial advisors have been retained to assist in this regard given the importance of such potential transactions. In conclusion, the strategic and operational roadmap I've shared in detail today will guide our actions for 2025 and beyond. To quickly recap and to summarize the main elements of that roadmap, here's what we're going to do: Put the customer first in our decisions continue to execute in a disciplined manner in Canada focusing on margin accretive subscriber growth using our fiber and five gs wireless network advantages work towards building a billion dollar plus revenue technology services business, rapidly accelerate Bell Media's digital revenue mix, generate $500,000,000 in further transformation savings to reach $1,000,000,000 by 2028, consider divesting up to $7,000,000,000 in non core assets inclusive of our pending sales of Northwest Tel and MLSC, and optimize our cost of capital as we continue to focus on maintaining investment grade credit ratings for our senior debt. We will share our progress on these various elements with the investment community transparently and regularly. And before I hand it over to Curtis for a review of our Q4 operating results and financial guidance targets for 2025, let me conclude with a couple of thank yous.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

First, to the entire Bell team for your perseverance, dedication and resourcefulness in a challenging environment, and second, to Thane as this is his last analyst call after many years of outstanding service to our company which we greatly appreciate. And with that, Curtis, over to you.

[Curtis Millen, Executive VP & CFO at BCE]

Great. Thank you, Marco, and good morning, everyone. I'll begin on Slide 10 with BC's consolidated financial results. Adjusted EBITDA was up 1.5, which drove a 90 margin improvement to 40.6%. As expected, total revenue was down 0.8% reflecting the flow through impact of sustained competitive pricing pressures over the past year and ongoing declines in legacy voice, data and satellite TV services.

[Curtis Millen, Executive VP & CFO at BCE]

Both Q4 net earnings and adjusted EPS were up over last year, reflecting higher EBITDA and some non cash mark to market gains on FX hedges and auctions. CapEx was down $66,000,000 in Q4, bringing total CapEx savings to $684,000,000 this year, which was, as Merkel commented, well ahead of our plan to reduce capital investment by at least $500,000,000 in 2024. Lastly, Q4 free cash flow was in line with our quarterly forecast, reflecting higher interest paid as well as the timing of cash tax and, installment payments and working capital. Turning to Bell's CTS on Slide 11. Postpaid net adds of $56,550 were down versus a very strong Q4 last year.

[Curtis Millen, Executive VP & CFO at BCE]

Consistent with our focus on margin accretive subscriber acquisition, all new customers were on the main Bell brand. While postpaid churn was up and remains higher than we'd like, it did represent a fourth straight quarter of deceleration in the year over year rate of increase. Mobile phone ARPU was down 2.7%. This is a notable improvement versus the 3.4% decline in Q3. In internet, we delivered over 34,000 total new net retail subscribers.

[Curtis Millen, Executive VP & CFO at BCE]

We continue to capture the majority of new growth in our markets because of fiber even as industry growth is slowing due to high broadband penetration, fewer newcomers and less new fiber footprint expansion. In TV, we lost four forty four net IPTV subscribers in Q4 compared to a net gain of 23,537 a year ago due to lower internet volumes and fewer five TV app activations, which can vary quarter to quarter. Moving to Bell CTS financials. Total revenue decreased 1.1%, a sequential improvement from the negative 3.3% in Q3. Wireless service revenue was down 1.5%.

[Curtis Millen, Executive VP & CFO at BCE]

We expect the rate of decline will improve going forward as ARPU improves. However, the industry will be feeling the effects of the last eighteen months of competitive pricing on their service revenue for a while longer. Internet revenue was up 3.4%, a solid result showing we're striking a balance between market share growth and disciplined pricing. We also saw continued business solutions strength where revenue grew 14% over last year. This was driven by higher sales of technology services as well as acquisitions made over the past year.

[Curtis Millen, Executive VP & CFO at BCE]

When excluding the impact of those acquisitions, business solutions revenue still grew a healthy 6% organically. On the product side, overall revenue was up in Q4, marking a reversal from prior quarters in 2024. This was mainly the result of higher sales of land mobile radio systems to large enterprise customers in the government sector. Lastly, Bell CTS EBITDA was positive, growing 0.7% to yield a strong 42.9% margin. That's an increase of 80 points over last year, driven by our continued focus on cost management as evidenced by a 2.4% decrease in operating costs this quarter.

[Curtis Millen, Executive VP & CFO at BCE]

Over to Bell Media on Slide 12. Continued digital momentum and good overall financial performance marked by a third consecutive quarter of revenue and EBITDA growth. Digital revenues were up 6%, mainly on the back of strong Crave D2C streaming growth, which drove an 18% increase in Crave subscribers to more than 3,600,000 subscribers. On the strength of our digital strategy and contribution of Outedge Media, total advertising revenue increased for a fourth consecutive quarter. The Bell Media team also did a great job managing operating costs, which contributed to EBITDA growth of 14.2% and a 2.3 increase in margin to 20.3%.

[Curtis Millen, Executive VP & CFO at BCE]

That does it for quarterly results. I'll now turn to our 2025 financial outlook starting with revenue and EBITDA on slide 14. Our consolidated revenue and adjusted EBITDA guidance for 2025 reflects the latest economic forecast and industry outlooks. There also remains continued regulatory uncertainty as a result of this week's CRTC decision. The competitive pricing environment has created flow through revenue pressure in our Belt CTS segment for 2025.

[Curtis Millen, Executive VP & CFO at BCE]

A sustained improvement in wireless and broadband Internet pricing will be key in our ability to deliver positive consolidated revenue growth this year. We also expect restrained enterprise customer spending on traditional network products and services and a continued market shift by wireless customers to BYOD mobile phone transactions. Additionally, we estimate a revenue loss in the range of $125,000,000 in 2025, following a $260,000,000 elimination last year due to the timing of the source store closures and transition of Best Buy Express in 2024. As this revenue is largely consumer electronics related, the impact on EBITDA will not be material given low margins for such products. While declines in legacy voice and data revenues will continue to weigh on Bell CTS EBITDA, our fiber, five gs wireless and B2B solutions business continue to present attractive growth opportunities.

[Curtis Millen, Executive VP & CFO at BCE]

Underpinning this expectation is our continued focus on premium mobile phone subscribers as we lean on our five gs network leadership and ongoing market expansion driven by population growth and our progress in the newcomer market, multiple device penetration gains and multi product bundling with Internet and Bell Media contact. In our wireline B2B operations, our objective is to build on the momentum from 2024 to be the best systems integrator and managed services provider for our customers, while also leveraging our broadband fiber footprint to grow share in SMB. At Bell Media, we expect to deliver higher revenue. This reflects continued digital advertising and D2C streaming growth as well as the contribution of OutEdge Media, which are expected to outpace declines in traditional media and favorable retroactive subscriber revenue adjustments in 2024. We also anticipate absorbing higher year over year content costs.

[Curtis Millen, Executive VP & CFO at BCE]

Given these segment outlooks and consistent with 2024 results, we are setting our 2025 guidance growth ranges at -three to plus one for total revenue and -two to plus two for adjusted EBITDA. We also anticipate a higher year over year margin supported by further cost savings from the transformation initiatives that Merkko outlined earlier. And I will qualify that our revenue and adjusted EBITDA guidance ranges are unaffected by the pending divestitures of Northwest Town and exclude the favorable impact of Zipley Fiber. That acquisition is only expected to close in the second half of this year, at which time we will update our financial guidance targets as required. Over to slide 15 for a summary of our adjusted EPS outlook, which we project to be 8% to 13% lower compared to 2024.

[Curtis Millen, Executive VP & CFO at BCE]

This year over year decline can be attributed mainly to the same factors as last year, namely a year over year step up in interest expense, higher depreciation and amortization expense consistent with ongoing but reduced spending in our broadband networks, and lower gains on the sale of real estate related to our multi year consolidation and conversion program. Additionally, for 2025, we're forecasting tax adjustments to be around $0.03 per share less than last year and a higher average number of common shares outstanding because of the discounted drift. Turning to slide 16. Free cash flow is projected to increase by 11% to 19% in 2025. This marks a return to growth driven by lower CapEx and an improved working capital position, partly offset by higher interest paid.

[Curtis Millen, Executive VP & CFO at BCE]

As Merco stated, given this week's CRTC decision, we are now currently budgeting approximately $3,400,000,000 in CapEx for 2025, which is $500,000,000 lower than last year. Our free cash flow outlook for 2025 also reflects stable to slightly lower cash taxes compared to last year, a relatively unchanged working capital position, and cash pension funding that remains essentially unchanged as we continue to benefit from a full contribution holiday given the strong solvency position of our defined benefit plans. Severance payments are also anticipated to be relatively the same as 2024 at around $300,000,000 which remains higher than run rate given that a portion of employee departures related to the workforce restructuring initiative we announced last February were only completed in Q4 with associated one time payments to be made in Q1 of this year. Turning to Slide 17, I want to take a moment to drill down on our expectations for capital intensity over the next several years, both for standalone Bell and on a combined pro form a basis with Ziply fiber included given that CapEx is such a critical free cash flow driver. Bell's standalone CapEx spending going forward is now on a declining path given the planned slowdown of our fiber build in Canada as well as efficiencies from significant prior investments in digital transformation initiatives.

[Curtis Millen, Executive VP & CFO at BCE]

As a result, we can operate Bell at a very efficient capital intensity ratio of approximately 14% this year and below 14% beyond 2025. As for Simply Fiber, they are currently accelerating their fiber build out like Bell did back in the 2021 to 2023 timeframe. Therefore, they will be at a peak capex spending over the next few years, which will increase BEC's capital intensity ratio more than on a stand alone basis. Zhibli fiber's base case in footprint fiber build out to approximately 3,300,000 locations by the end of twenty twenty eight can be fully executed at a pro form a combined company capital intensity level of around 16.5%, during which time they are projected to generate double digit EBITDA growth annually. Turning to Slide 18.

[Curtis Millen, Executive VP & CFO at BCE]

As we begin the year, we have access to $4,500,000,000 of liquidity, which has been enhanced with a $500,000,000,000 increase in our committed credit facilities to $4,000,000,000 and a balance sheet with a sizable pension solvency surplus totaling $3,700,000,000 All this provides us with the financial flexibility to execute our business plan for 2025. Our net debt leverage ratio at the end of twenty twenty four was approximately 3.8 times adjusted EBITDA. Importantly, the acquisition funding for Ziply Fibre is leverage neutral and has been structured to maintain our senior debt credit ratings investment grade. We're keenly focused on reducing our leverage ratio, which is projected to begin decreasing this year as we capitalize on opportunities to monetize non core assets and use the sale proceeds to strengthen our balance sheet and optimize our cost of capital. Furthermore, all of our $2,100,000,000 of public debt maturities in 2025 have been largely pre financed and the Ziply fiber transaction is being fully funded with the net sale proceeds from MLSE together with cash generated from the discounted DRIP.

[Curtis Millen, Executive VP & CFO at BCE]

I'm pleased to report that the initial participation rate has been strong with a 34% enrollment rate for the Q4 common dividend payment in January which resulted in $3.00 $8,000,000 of cash being attained. To conclude on Slide 11, the financial guidance targets we are providing today for 2025 are prudent given continued competitive pricing pressures and economic and regulatory uncertainty. As we focus on the key strategic priorities that Marco outlined to drive future growth and undertake a proactive review of BC's asset portfolio to unlock value. We remain confident in our proven consistent operational execution and cost discipline to deliver under any circumstances. I will now turn the call back over to Fane and the operator to begin Q and A.

[Thane Fotopoulos, Investor Relations at BCE]

Thanks, Curtis. So given the volume of information we presented this morning, I'm sensitive to the time we have left. So I would ask you to please limit yourselves to one question and a brief follow-up so that we can get to everybody in the queue. With that, Matthew, we're ready to take our first question.

[Operator]

Thank you. The first question is from Eiryagyi from Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

[Maher Yaghi, Managing Director at Scotiabank]

Great. Great. Thank you for taking my question. And please let me join you, Merkel, with thanking Sainte for his help over the years. Daniel will be greatly missed.

[Maher Yaghi, Managing Director at Scotiabank]

So a quick question, Merkel, on your prepared remarks. You mentioned in the context of The U. S. Fiber footprint expansion, you mentioned the build out structures that could include third party capital. Can you elaborate a little bit on what that means in terms of additional CapEx or investments that BCE is expected to deploy in The U.

[Maher Yaghi, Managing Director at Scotiabank]

S. And what could be deployed by third party capital? And you also referred to non core asset sales. Does that include Bell Media? And finally, on the on the dividend, in your November press release, you indicated that the dividend was set until the end of twenty five.

[Maher Yaghi, Managing Director at Scotiabank]

However, in today's press release, you indicate that the dividend could be reassessed if economic conditions change. Does this mean the dividend could be changed even before the end of twenty five if conditions change? Thank you.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

Okay. Thank you, Mayor. So let me take those. On the reference, I think it was your second question on the non core assets and Bell Media. I think I can I'll deal with that one first because I can deal with it pretty simply.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

So my prepared remarks, I did outline four core elements of our strategic roadmap to generate revenue growth and you'll have noticed that one of them is to build a digital media and content powerhouse. So I think that kind of answers your question right there. Bell Media and particularly the digital pivot is a key strategic growth vector for us and I think that's the best way to answer that question. On The U. S.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

Fiber build, I think the best way to answer that right now is just to reiterate that our priority now is to close the acquisition of Ziply fiber. And as I've mentioned several times, I think that transaction is going to move you know capital to an asset that's going to drive significant growth in our core fiber business, which is again you know best networks and fiber first companies, one of our key strategic growth vectors, and we're going to do that in a leverage neutral manner, I want to emphasize that again. And, you know, beyond I think beyond repeating what I said in my remarks, I did say that we'd review other potential opportunities to grow the Ziply fiber footprint, but with a build out structure that will bring third party capital to invest alongside us to reduce our funding requirements. I won't give specifics as to as to the extent of, of what that might look like other than, I think what's important to note, which I did not say in the opening remarks, is that we have received a number of inbound calls asking us if we'd be interested in doing that. And to me, I mean, that's quite interesting.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

Right? First of all, it speaks to the value and the attractiveness of the Zipley fiber asset and the potential for growth in The US and it also speaks to the desire of third parties to work with Bell in particular. Expertise in fiber. So I'll leave it at that. On dividend, I guess I'd say that what we're going to do here on capital allocation is balance long term investment to generate growth.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

You asked me two questions already about that, but at the same time we're going to strengthen the balance sheet and optimize the cost of capital and that's how we're going to return value to our shareholders. And as I said in the opening remarks, the dividend payout ratio is elevated right now. It's outside our policy range. Don't like where the share price is at and so you know the dividend and the dividend policy will continue to be reviewed by the BCE board and as we do that we'll take into consideration, like I said, you know, the competitive environment, the macroeconomic environment, the regulatory environment and the progress we're making on the various strategic and operational initiatives that I outlined. So you wrap those three questions together, Mayor, I'd say, and the message to take away from me is we're going to continue to execute in the market along the four or five core vectors that I outlined.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

We're going to focus on our investment grade rating. We're going to delever and we're going to optimize the cost of capital.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question is from Drew McReynolds from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

[Drew McReynolds, Managing Director - Global Research, Telecommunications & Media at RBC Capital Markets]

Yes. Thanks very much. Good morning. Maybe I'll just also echo, congrats, Dane, and we'll definitely miss you. So first question just on leverage, you ended the year at 3.8 times.

[Drew McReynolds, Managing Director - Global Research, Telecommunications & Media at RBC Capital Markets]

And Merco, in your prepared remarks, obviously pretty extensive kind of blueprint that you outlined. Just to give you additional financial flexibility, like, where would you like to see leverage, you know, by the end of twenty twenty five? And, you know, beyond 2025? What is that kind of pace and timeline look like? And related to that?

[Drew McReynolds, Managing Director - Global Research, Telecommunications & Media at RBC Capital Markets]

Can you talk to your expectation of closing additional non core assets or, you know some of the infrastructure options you may have in 2025? And then I'll have a

[Drew McReynolds, Managing Director - Global Research, Telecommunications & Media at RBC Capital Markets]

follow-up after that. Thank you.

[Curtis Millen, Executive VP & CFO at BCE]

Hi Drew, thanks for the question, it's Curtis. So I'd say we're focused on maintaining our strong investment grade credit rating and we are focused on reducing our net leverage ratio, as you say. So continued focus on driving free cash flow growth. The asset review process, as Merkel mentioned, it's resulted as has already been publicly announced, our divestitures of MLSE and Northwest Hell. And there are a number of other incremental initiatives on the go, each of which would actually help strengthen our balance sheet and optimize cost of capital and reduce leverage.

[Curtis Millen, Executive VP & CFO at BCE]

Don't have more details in terms of those initiatives when they're ready to be announced, we will do so. And of course, we'll keep, keep everyone informed on a transparent manner as we make progress.

[Drew McReynolds, Managing Director - Global Research, Telecommunications & Media at RBC Capital Markets]

Okay.

[Drew McReynolds, Managing Director - Global Research, Telecommunications & Media at RBC Capital Markets]

Okay. And a follow-up then on just the revenue growth guidance range, negative 3% to plus 1%. I think I caught Curtis in your remarks, the plus 1% depends on a constructive competitive environment. But but more broadly, you know, you've called out macro regulatory and competitive on the macro and regulatory side. First on the macro, obviously, a fairly tariff potential tariff situation for Canada to be determined, just, you know, what what is your assumption in and around that?

[Drew McReynolds, Managing Director - Global Research, Telecommunications & Media at RBC Capital Markets]

And then secondly, on the regulatory side, is it really and I don't want to be a little adjusted the TPIA ultimate framework with big three, you know, restrictions or or, you know, that that treatment that's that's still pending, that's really an issue with respect to that revenue growth guidance range. So set it a different way, if we get decent outcomes on macro, decent outcomes on regulatory, decent outcomes on competitive, you know, are you comfortable in getting the flat to plus one as opposed to the bottom end of the range? Thank you.

[Curtis Millen, Executive VP & CFO at BCE]

Yep. Thanks for the question, Drew. And look, I think on the tariff side of the world, it's a little early to know what the actual impact would be. As of this date, there are no tariffs. So we'll we'll obviously be, be looking at that closely.

[Curtis Millen, Executive VP & CFO at BCE]

Shouldn't be shouldn't be a material impact, but again, let's let's wait for details and and see how that plays out. In terms of regulatory, kinda similar question. I mean, it's it's the status quo at this point and, you unfortunately, the CRTC kind of pushed the decision down the line. We don't think it's conducive to driving innovation and investment in Canada and especially in our networks. But again, we'll have to wait for a final decision.

[Curtis Millen, Executive VP & CFO at BCE]

And then ultimately, as you know, and as the market knows, I mean, revenue growth is dependent on pricing in market. And right now it's a very competitive pricing environment. We've seen certain green shoots and improvements in certain areas over the last few weeks, but again, it's a matter of how long those pricing increases will be sustained.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

I'd add, it's Myrko, I'd add on the regulatory front, you know, quite to put it bluntly, we're not in the business of building fiber for TELUS's benefit and that's what the CRTC policy that's in place right now forces us to do. So to us it makes no sense that the CRTC is forcing incumbent resale at a time, you know, if you kind of combine your two questions together Drew, I mean at this particular point in time when Canadian productivity is already lagging and we're having conversations about how to boost the Canadian economy and boost productivity. I don't understand, you know, why a regulator would put in place policies that create disincentives to investment, puts jobs at risks and puts at risk the building out of critical infrastructure. It seems like the wrong policy at exactly the wrong time and and we all know that our world leading, I say Canada here, our world leading communications infrastructure was built on long standing facilities based competition policy that served this country very well for years and years.

[Drew McReynolds, Managing Director - Global Research, Telecommunications & Media at RBC Capital Markets]

Got it. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question is from Sebastiano Peri from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

[Sebastiano Petti, Executive Director - Equity Research at JP Morgan]

Hi. Thanks for taking the question. Also echo, congratulations to Thane. You will be missed. In terms of just maybe a couple quick follow ups here, I think, you know, kind of on the topic of the, you know, following up on Drew's question there about just kind of the macro outlook.

[Sebastiano Petti, Executive Director - Equity Research at JP Morgan]

I think Curtis, in your prepared remarks, you did talk about, maybe a little bit of, you know, decision making or implied essentially enterprise spend. But I mean, have your conversations with large enterprises, SMBs, advertisers, you know, demonstrably changed over the last few months? Or is there just more kind of predictability or uncertainty kind of baked into the guidance as we kind of think about the macro outlook and, you know, just kind of echoing on Marco's remarks just now as well. And then another follow-up, perhaps to the to your US and, you know, US fiber strategy. Yeah, just on convergence and partnerships, obviously, bundling in is core to the Canadian telecom ecosystem and a very big and emerging theme here in The US and area of debate for the big three wireless operators.

[Sebastiano Petti, Executive Director - Equity Research at JP Morgan]

So, I mean, how do the wireless incumbents push harder on fiber and bundling in the coming years? I mean, do you see the need to inevitably partner with a wireless operator or maybe stand up an MVNO to successfully compete in the rapidly converging market in The U. S? Just kind of given Zipley's relative

[Sebastiano Petti, Executive Director - Equity Research at JP Morgan]

scale to some of

[Sebastiano Petti, Executive Director - Equity Research at JP Morgan]

the other announcements we've seen in The U. S. Market from telcos? Thank

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

you. Thank you. It's Mirko. I'll take the second one first. The structure, as you know, is different in The U.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

S, the industry structure than it is in Canada, certainly at this point in time. And then I would point out really important to point out, in the Pacific Northwest, it's a highly attractive high growth market and Ziply Fibers footprint is basically either ZIPLY with its fiber or one cable company. So, you know, ZIPLY fiber and its footprint isn't competing with integrated providers. And without the wireless offering at this point in time, the management team there has executed extremely well and continues to take, you know, see quite significant and impressive subscriber growth, revenue growth, and EBITDA growth, and we expect that to continue especially as we as we, you know, proceed on its build out plans, in its, in its current incumbent footprint. On the the macro side of things, I think the best way to kind of address the larger macro question Sebastiano is kind of I link it back to the pillars of growth that I outlined.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

If you think about our best networks proposition and what we've delivered and what we continue to think we're going to deliver, we continue to take the majority of Internet net ad growth in the market and we expect that to continue in 2025. The percentage of customers we have on the highest speeds is impressive and we can expect that to continue. Our multi product penetration in Canada is continuing apace, and you see that in our results and in our internet revenue growth and you see that in our results and in our Internet revenue

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

growth results. And our

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

wireless loadings are all on the premium Bell brand, which is something that we focus on all the time. So while the market isn't growing as fast in Internet or wireless as it had before, it's still growing and we're going execute on these things as we have in the past. Again, to macro, go back to now media and digital media in particular, that's continuing the pivot to digital is continuing at pace, and we expect that to to continue, quite strongly. On business whether or not it's small, medium or large, you know, the big focus on business solutions, we got to be mindful of what the macro environment will bring to budgets of our enterprise customers, but you know our business solutions revenue is going to continue to grow and of course we got to manage the the overall environment so so costs will continue to be front and center. So all these things are going really well.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

Now pricing, Curtis mentioned green shoots on market pricing both on broadband and wireless. So hopefully the green shoots that we're seeing in the early days of 2025 sustain themselves through 'twenty through the entire year? I would hope so particularly when you think about the tremendous value that the industry provides to consumers and enterprises and particularly Bell, but those new pricing levels really do need to stick.

[Sebastiano Petti, Executive Director - Equity Research at JP Morgan]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question is from Vince Valentini from TD Securities. Please go ahead.

[Vince Valentini, Managing Director at TD Cowen]

Hey. Thanks very much. Lots of good stuff here and lots to unpack. First off, Dane, yes. All the best to you.

[Vince Valentini, Managing Director at TD Cowen]

At the risk of offending others I've dealt with over the years, you're definitely the best IR person I've ever dealt with in my thirty years. So, you'll be sorely missed, but all the best to you in retirement. The, if I can just try to clarify the revenue guidance first, Curtis, it sounds to me like you're saying the higher end is possible if recent pricing changes are sustained? I just want to make sure that's the case as opposed to are you saying we need even more than everything that's been announced in January in terms of broadband price increases by almost everybody and and wireless price increases. If we just see those stick, does that enough to get you towards the higher end or do you need even more?

[Vince Valentini, Managing Director at TD Cowen]

And I have I'll throw the other question in now to make sure your thing doesn't cut me off. On the 7,000,000,000 target, I just want to unpack that and make sure we understand that properly. You've already announced 5,700,000,000.0 of the 7,000,000,000, between MLSE and Northwest Telus. So, that leaves 1,300,000,000.0 only as new stuff you're working on for this year. Is that the way to think of that $7,000,000,000 target?

[Vince Valentini, Managing Director at TD Cowen]

And and can you clarify this is this stuff of pure selling stuff that's non core and you don't need? Or is it are you thinking these are potentially sale and leaseback transactions or transactions with EBITDA implications? Like, is it really just a full net $1,300,000,000 of cash to pay down debt? Or is there are there potential offsets based on some of the transactions you'd be looking at? Thank you.

[Curtis Millen, Executive VP & CFO at BCE]

Yeah. Hi, Vince. It's Curtis. Thanks for the questions. I'll take the second question first.

[Curtis Millen, Executive VP & CFO at BCE]

So you're right. That's the math. It's 1.3 implied, billing of other asset sales, and I would characterize them as noncore. This is not meant to be kind of sale leasebacks that would have a a capital lease component after the fact. Again, there might be some EBITDA sales, but all of this would be, EBITDA sold as part of that, but these would all be deleveraging transactions and and strengthening the balance sheet.

[Curtis Millen, Executive VP & CFO at BCE]

So you're you're thinking about it the right way. And in terms of the first question, in and around revenue and ability to hit the high end, you know, obviously there are many factors that flow into our revenue performance, high pricing in or higher pricing in market. And if this pricing increase that we've seen over the last few weeks sticks, that certainly helps. Right? I mean, if it go up a little more, it'll help even more.

[Curtis Millen, Executive VP & CFO at BCE]

So I I I think it's too early to to pinpoint one specific variable, but certainly pricing in market is a key driver.

[Vince Valentini, Managing Director at TD Cowen]

Very clear. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question is from Aravinda Galapathygi from Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.

[Aravinda Galappatthige, Managing Director - Institutional Equity Research at Canaccord Genuity Inc]

Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. And let me start by sort of offering my best wishes to Tane. It's been a great source of support and integrity during my time covering Bell. Two questions or one clarification from me.

[Aravinda Galappatthige, Managing Director - Institutional Equity Research at Canaccord Genuity Inc]

First of all, Marco, you indicated in your comments that with respect to sort of The U. S. Fiber expansion, you're open to sort of third party investments. Could you say that you would go so far as maybe sort of having a separate entity operating that that may not be controlled by Bell or not may not be consolidated by Bell with the view to sort of keeping that off balance sheet? I realize that's a bit of a speculative question, but just wanted general thoughts on that.

[Aravinda Galappatthige, Managing Director - Institutional Equity Research at Canaccord Genuity Inc]

And then secondly, with respect to your Internet revenue growth, the 3.3%, we've seen that number kind of ebb and flow between low single digit and mid. I mean, is it fair to say that going forward, it's really sort of price increases that kind of help keep that in the mid single digit range given sort of the competitive dynamics in terms of subscriber share? Thanks.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

Yes. On the second question on the Internet revenue growth, yes, pricing would be the key lever there, particularly as you since you consider that we're continuing to take the majority of net ad growth. So that's going to continue and therefore pricing becomes the key lever. And on the first question with respect to potential structures in The U. S, I think the most I can say right now is again, we'd be looking at potential opportunities to grow the fiber footprint, but only with build out structures that would reduce effectively reduce our funding requirements.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

And the most direct way to answer your question at this point in time is that as we think that through, we're going to remain focused on maintaining our investment grade ratings for senior debt, which is again one of the key things that I've made sure to emphasize more than once in our time together this morning, executing the market to drive revenue growth, focus on that investment grade rating, delever, which Curtis again emphasized in response to Vince and optimize the cost of capital.

[Aravinda Galappatthige, Managing Director - Institutional Equity Research at Canaccord Genuity Inc]

Okay. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question is from Jerome Zebray from Desjardins Securities. Please go ahead.

[Jérôme Dubreuil, Analyst at Desjardins Securities]

Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Two on CapEx. Maybe you want to clarify the comments made on the decision with regards to the CRTC earlier this week. You said the reduction is related to the CRTC decision this week, but at the same time, basically, they're just, punting the decision later this year.

[Jérôme Dubreuil, Analyst at Desjardins Securities]

So do you intend to increase CapEx, again this year if the CRTC blocks incumbent resale of fiber? So that is question number one. And question number two is a bit more of a long term, CapEx neutral level. You know, at the AT and T Investor Day, we saw them announce a way to get rid of expensive copper through more usage of fixed wireless, where there's no business case for fiber. Is this something that you would would consider and that would have regulatory support in Canada?

[Jérôme Dubreuil, Analyst at Desjardins Securities]

And maybe, if you can talk about the potential savings that this could bring longer term, just trying to figure out if there's ways to reduce CapEx further, even if fiber builds come to a halt? Thanks.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

So on the first, I'll let Curtis will answer the second one, Jerome. On the first question, our CapEx guidance is set for the year as we outlined this morning and really as it relates to the regulatory decision and where it ultimately ends up later on the year. It's going to dictate how we allocate the capital within the guidance range if you know what I mean. So we're going to have our capex budget and where we make the investments throughout the year and into the following years will will, you know, in in a significant way be guided by that decision. So that's how I would, I would answer the question.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

So we can we can pull back on fiber build or we can increase fiber build but that will remain within the intensity ratio that we've we've guided but what I do know given this week's decision is that right now it doesn't look like we'll be hitting the 8,300,000 target homes that we had outlined over a year ago. And over to this for the second question, over to Curtis.

[Curtis Millen, Executive VP & CFO at BCE]

Yeah. And the second question, Jerome, it's it's a good one. Not as much clarity in the near term. I'd say long term, we're in alignment with you in terms of there's just an overall benefit to reduce legacy technologies and legacy networks. Obviously, the path there is dependent on regulatory, so it's not complete within our hands.

[Curtis Millen, Executive VP & CFO at BCE]

We do see in The US, a little bit more willingness to retire legacy networks and and convert to newer technologies. Hopefully, that's the case up here. I do think there would be significant efficiencies in terms of, maintenance costs as well as, frankly, our ability to sell, copper and real estate of, of COs, etcetera. So I think it's a I think you're directionally right. It's difficult at this point to know timeline or scale, but certainly, eventually a win for us all.

[Jérôme Dubreuil, Analyst at Desjardins Securities]

Thanks and congrats, Dane, as well.

[Curtis Millen, Executive VP & CFO at BCE]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question is from David Barden from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

[David Barden, Managing Director at Bank of America Merrill Lynch]

Hey, guys. Thanks so much for taking the question. I feel like it's a privilege to be part of the last time that we all have an opportunity to ignore things, admonition to have one question and one follow-up. But, thank you for everything, Faye. Marco, so I wonder if you could elaborate a little bit because, you know, your your statement about not choosing not to hit your original fiber investment goal because of the regulatory environment.

[David Barden, Managing Director at Bank of America Merrill Lynch]

And this is a little bit of an escalation from last year's commentary, it's basically saying that the Canadian fiber broadband business is uninvestable, and that, you know, you'd rather invest in The US. And, if the if the CRTC continues going down this path, bad things will happen. And we haven't had a conversation about what those bad things look like. What what does what does what do you fear happening if TELUS does come in to resell your fiber? And and what opportunities do do you have to perhaps resell fiber, you know, in other markets in the future?

[David Barden, Managing Director at Bank of America Merrill Lynch]

I'd like to hear that, like, that that scenario that that is so dire that it it's changing your whole outlook about the capital investment opportunity that you foresee, in the cap you know, in the Canadian market. And and and the and my follow-up question, would be just specifically, towers. Is towers a non core asset? And and are towers a thing that you that you think about monetizing, you know, as you address the the balance sheet? Thank you.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

Okay. So on your second question, I guess I'll just reiterate what I said in my opening remarks, which is there's a significant amount of untapped value in our telecom infrastructure. So we're looking at ways that we could surface value there and that's why I pointed out that we've retained financial advisors to assist us in that regard. But, you know, however we do that, that wouldn't be part of, of the $7,000,000,000 that I outlined and, and that Curtis reiterated when, he was responding to Vince's question. On your first point, I think what I'm really trying to convey is the following.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

I mean, it's pretty clear that the most sustainable form of competition is through companies who build their own infrastructure. So we would always rather compete on the basis of networks we own. So I think that's the simplest way to get at a couple of points that you were making in your first question. We want to build. We want to compete against other well capitalized companies that build their own, and we're prepared to do that here, obviously, in Canada, and we're prepared to seize on the growth opportunities in The US.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

So what happens going forward? I didn't say that we would stop entirely building in Canada. What I said is that we're not going to hit the 8.3, so there's going to be a significant slowdown in the pace of build. You know, if they're you know in greenfields as new housing continues to be built of course we'll be looking at the opportunities so long as we can generate the appropriate return to build infrastructure to to new greenfield areas. But again, that that means that a much much slower pace of build in Canada than otherwise could have been the case, and it really comes down to, you know, where where is the best use of the next incremental dollar of capital and fiber.

[Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer at BCE]

That's where we're always going to be looking at, and now we're gonna be able to look at it from a kind of a broader footprint area. You know, brownfield in Canada where we have legacy copper versus greenfield in Canada versus Pacific Northwest, the fact that we're having this conversation actually speaks to how inappropriate that CRTC decision was. And I know there's gonna be a final ruling later in the year, and that's all well and good, except that cabinet clearly asked the CRTC to make a ruling by this week and they didn't.

[David Barden, Managing Director at Bank of America Merrill Lynch]

Appreciate it, Marco. Thank you.

[Thane Fotopoulos, Investor Relations at BCE]

Thank you. Next question.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question is from Patrick Ho from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

[Patrick Oh, Executive Director at Morgan Stanley]

Hello. Good morning. Patrick Ho on the line for Morgan Stanley. Also want to echo my congrats, Dufin. Thanks for all the help over the last few years.

[Patrick Oh, Executive Director at Morgan Stanley]

Just a couple of questions for me. Firstly, on the DRIP program, when exactly are you looking to turn this off? And are you guys targeting a specific payout ratio or leverage level or simply the closing of Zipley in order to decide to turn it off? And then I guess, secondly, just wanted to ask about your current back book as it relates to wireless. How much of this has been repriced to reflect the current pricing environment right now?

[Patrick Oh, Executive Director at Morgan Stanley]

Thank you.

[Curtis Millen, Executive VP & CFO at BCE]

Thanks, Patrick. It's Curtis. I'll address the first one. So look, as Merkel said a few times here, our intention is always to optimize cost of capital. So we recognize that issuing equity at these levels is expensive.

[Curtis Millen, Executive VP & CFO at BCE]

So the drip is not something we intend to keep in place long term. There's not a specific date I can give you, but ultimately the balance sheet actions and benefits that we've talked about throughout this call, prepared remarks and Q and A that we've outlined, obviously that's going to accelerate the turning off of that drift.

[Curtis Millen, Executive VP & CFO at BCE]

And in terms of the back book,

[Curtis Millen, Executive VP & CFO at BCE]

our key priority is to

[Curtis Millen, Executive VP & CFO at BCE]

get turned down. So customers that are with us, we want to have them stay with us. That's how I'd answer the back book.

[Patrick Oh, Executive Director at Morgan Stanley]

Great. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. There are no further questions registered at this time. I would now like to turn the meeting over to mister Frutopoulos.

[Thane Fotopoulos, Investor Relations at BCE]

Thank you, Matthew. So I just want to take a quick second to say thank you to Merkel for his kind words and to all the analysts who have reached out to me in the past few months with their good wishes. And you've challenged me as has the investment community. And I've been very privileged and honored to have been part of such a great company for the past twenty years and the and the industry for the past twenty seven, well over 110 quarters. It's been an honor to be part of such an amazing company.

[Thane Fotopoulos, Investor Relations at BCE]

I've witnessed the transformation of Bell from, from what it was to what it is now, and there's the best is yet to come, and we have the best team and leaders in place to do that, to take Bell to the next level. And I'll be watching from the sidelines very keenly. And thank you to everybody. And I wish everybody the best on that. That said, as usual, Richard and I will be available throughout the day for any follow-up questions and clarifications.

[Thane Fotopoulos, Investor Relations at BCE]

So thank you again and have a

[Thane Fotopoulos, Investor Relations at BCE]

great day.

[Curtis Millen, Executive VP & CFO at BCE]

Thank you, Steve. Thanks everyone.

[Operator]

Thank

[Operator]

you. The conference has now ended. Please disconnect your lines at this time and we thank you for your participation.

Participants

Executives

• Thane Fotopoulos, Investor Relations
• Mirko Bibic, President & Chief Executive Officer
• Curtis Millen, Executive VP & CFO

Analysts

• Maher Yaghi, Managing Director at Scotiabank
• Drew McReynolds, Managing Director - Global Research, Telecommunications & Media at RBC Capital Markets
• Sebastiano Petti, Executive Director - Equity Research at JP Morgan
• Vince Valentini, Managing Director at TD Cowen
• Aravinda Galappatthige, Managing Director - Institutional Equity Research at Canaccord Genuity Inc
• Jérôme Dubreuil, Analyst at Desjardins Securities
• David Barden, Managing Director at Bank of America Merrill Lynch
• Patrick Oh, Executive Director at Morgan Stanley