Liberty Latin America Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
May 8, 2025

There are 9 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Today's call is being recorded. I'll now turn call over to Sean Fitzgerald, VP of Tax of Liberty Latin America.

Speaker 1

Good morning, and welcome to Liberty Latin America's First Quarter twenty twenty five Investor Call. At this time, all participants are in listen only mode. Today's formal presentation materials can be found under the Investor Relations section of Liberty Latin America's website at www.lla.com. Following today's formal presentation, instructions will be given for a question and answer session. As a reminder, this call is being recorded.

Speaker 1

Today's remarks may include forward looking statements, including the company's expectations with respect to its outlook and future growth prospects and other information and statements that are not historical fact. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by these statements. For more information, please refer to the risk factors discussed in Liberty Latin America's most recently filed annual report on Form 10 ks and quarterly report on Form 10 Q along with the associated press release. Liberty Latin America disclaims any obligation to update any forward looking statements or information to reflect any change in its expectations or in the conditions on which any such statement or information is based. In addition, on this call, we will refer to certain non GAAP financial measures, which are reconciled to the most comparable GAAP financial measures, which can be found in the appendices to this presentation, which is accessible under the Investors section of our website.

Speaker 1

I would now like to turn the call over to our CEO, Mr. Balan Maher.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Sean, and welcome, everyone, to Liberty Latin America's first quarter twenty twenty five results presentation. I'll begin with our group highlights and an overview of our operating results by credit silo. Chris Noyes, our CFO, will then follow with a review of the company's financial performance. After that, we will get straight to your questions. As always, I'm joined by my executive team from across our operations.

Speaker 2

I'll invite them to contribute as needed during the Q and A following our prepared remarks. As

Speaker 3

a

Speaker 2

point of housekeeping, we will both be working from slides, which you can find on our website at www.lla.com. Starting on Slide four and our highlights for the year. In the first quarter, we added 44,000 broadband and postpaid mobile subscribers in total. We saw notable progress on postpaid mobile in Costa Rica as well as across our Caribbean operations. Our broadband and postpaid strategy remains underpinned by our fixed mobile convergence efforts across the group.

Speaker 2

In our most successful markets, FMC penetration is now over 30%. This is driving a lower churn and a more predictable revenue profile. We reported group adjusted OIBDA rebased growth of 8% year over year in Q1. This was driven by double digit growth in C And W Caribbean and C And W Panama contributing to a very strong performance for our C and W silo. Our cost management efforts created a flywheel in driving margin expansion across the company.

Speaker 2

At the full year results, we discussed an outlook for lower capital intensity across the group in 2025 and 2026, and we are starting to see this coming through as well with lower P and E additions in Q1 than prior year's period, driving growth of adjusted OIBDA less P and E additions of 20% year over year. Turning to Slide six, I'll begin our operating review with our Cable and Wireless credit silo, which had a very solid quarter. Our C and W credit silos composed of C and W Caribbean, C and W Panama and our Liberty Networks segment. Looking first at C and W Caribbean where we delivered good operating momentum and very strong financial execution. Starting on the left of the slide with our subscriber additions.

Speaker 2

Having been negatively impacted by Hurricane Barry during the last two quarters of twenty twenty four, primarily in Jamaica, in Q1, we saw a return to growth as we begin to add back fixed broadband RGUs. In mobile, we continue to drive positive postpaid performance in Q1, adding 15,000 subscribers. C and W Caribbean represents a proof point of the successful execution of our FMC strategy, with strong KPIs being delivered alongside a four percentage point increase in FMC penetration year over year to over 35%. We are also launching loyalty programs across the region with the goal of reducing churn by rewarding our long term customers. Moving to the center of the slide and our revenue by product.

Speaker 2

The pie chart depicts that well diversified nature of C and W Caribbean's revenue with consumer fixed and B2B, the largest elements followed by consumer mobile. Across C and W Caribbean, market structures are constructive as we primarily compete in duopolies where operators are rational and focused on the customer. Year over year rebased revenue growth was muted in the quarter, partly due to lower B2B project revenue, but we continue to steadily grow our aggregate broadband and mobile service revenue with 3% year over year rebased increase in Q1. Our focus on productivity, network efficiencies and cost of goods sold has increased operating leverage. Chris will cover the very strong cost management in The Caribbean, which led us to report a record adjusted OIBDA quarter.

Speaker 2

Moving to Slide seven in our C and W Panama segment. Starting on the left of the slide, we continue to see fixed growth in the first quarter adding not just broadband additions, but also video and voice. This has been supported by recent efforts to expand and upgrade our network with FTTH, which now represents 65% of our home spend. In mobile, we continue to grow our postpaid base as we drive prepaid to postpaid migration. Alongside Jamaica, Panama is another standout market for FMC where penetration has expanded by four percentage points year over year to over 30%.

Speaker 2

Moving to the center of the slide and our revenue streams, which in aggregate drove our top line 5% higher in the quarter on a rebased basis. C and W Panama was the fastest growing segment in our group this quarter in term of revenue. Growth was driven by residential mobile, which is up 16%, while fixed grew by 3%, both on a rebased basis year over year. Mobile growth benefited from a larger subscriber base and pricing actions we took throughout 2024. Leveraging off the current market structure, we saw consolidation from four to two players in the past few years and subsequent market repair.

Speaker 2

Moving to Slide eight, in our third C and W credit silo segment, Liberty Networks. This continues to be a great business for us with exceptional U. S. Dollar free cash flow generation. To provide some visibility of the underlying trends in the business, on the left side of the slide, we present revenue broken down by business lines.

Speaker 2

Wholesale had a very strong quarter with higher lease capacity and project revenue more than offsetting non cash IRU declines. Adjusting for IRUs, rebased growth was 7% year over year. Enterprise continues to perform well, growing 4% year over year on a rebased basis, driven by growth in IT as a service and connectivity, especially in Colombia and The Dominican Republic. Meanwhile, we announced a contract with Subcomm for the design, manufacture and installation of the MANTA subsea cable system. These investments are within our CapEx envelope and provide opportunities for strong future revenue growth.

Speaker 2

Even with the P and E additions in the new fiber routes of MANTA in Q1, our adjusted OIBDA less P and E margin is still at an exceptional 36%. Turning to Slide 10 in our next credit silo, Liberty Costa Rica. Starting on the left of the slide, we saw continued quarterly broadband additions in Q1 in what is our most competitive fixed market, which helped to partly offset ARPU pressures. We continue to future proof our network and with our recent investments, almost half of our network is now on FTTH. In mobile, we were again successful in growing our base, adding 30,000 postpaid subscribers in the quarter.

Speaker 2

This was our most successful segment for postpaid ads in Q1. And once again, it's reflective of our focus on FMC, which saw penetration grow six percentage points year over year to almost 35%. Moving to the center of the slide, consumer mobile remains our largest revenue category, representing over 60% share of our overall revenue in Costa Rica. This is followed by our consumer fixed business representing just under 30% and then a small but fast growing B2B operation. Costa Rica is our most competitive fixed market with five nationwide players, while in mobile we compete against two other operators.

Speaker 2

We are taking the first step in consolidating the fixed market through our announced JV with TIGO. We still expect this to be closed in the second half of this year. Overall, I'm very pleased with our performance and future prospects in Costa Rica and expect the integration with TIGO to yield even more growth opportunities and rationalization of the market. Next to Slide 12 and our third credit silo, Liberty Puerto Rico. Starting on the left of the slide, in Q1, we lost 3,000 fixed broadband customers though some impact was anticipated following our annual price increase for the fixed base.

Speaker 2

It's typical to see a small churn response to pricing moves. However, this is expected to underpin future revenue performance. Turning to mobile. On postpaid, we continue to make progress in lowering churn. We have seen voluntary churn for every month over the last six months to almost half the level it was in November.

Speaker 2

Gross ads, however, were touched lighter in Q1 sequentially. Overall, progress in returning the business to positive postpaid ads is slower than we would like. Though we remain focused on improving the trends in coming months as we refresh our customer value proposition and provide differentiated offering to customers. Across the group, we are focused on leveraging our capabilities with FMC solutions for our customers. And this is equally a goal for us in Puerto Rico where we have a strong starting point to our best in class fixed and mobile networks.

Speaker 2

We are currently focusing amongst other things on new distribution channels, including our digital platform as an alternative source of incremental gross adds to accelerate the growth of our FMC proposition loop. In the center of the slide, we show the revenue mix in Puerto Rico and our overall year over year top line rebased decline, which at 11% continues to be a headwind for the overall group. To address the margin compression, we have begun a cost cutting exercise to reflect the lower revenue of the segment. This focus is on headquarter staff and minimizing the impact of our frontline team. We expect the second half of the year to reflect a lower cost structure and the beginning of positive growth in postpaid.

Speaker 2

We also expect to complete the Boost migration in the second half. With that, I'll pass you over to Chris Noyes, our Chief Financial Officer, who will talk you through our financial performance before we take your questions. Chris?

Speaker 4

Thanks, Ballen. I'll now take you through our financial performance in greater detail, starting on Slide 14. Q1 revenue was 2% lower on a rebased basis at $1,100,000,000 We saw positive momentum in C and W Panama, Liberty Costa Rica and Liberty Networks, which was more than offset by a decline in Liberty Puerto Rico. In fact, our non Puerto Rican operations, which account for over 70% of our consolidated revenue, grew revenue by 2% year over year collectively on a rebased basis. Turning to adjusted OIBDA.

Speaker 4

We reported a rebased increase of 8% to $4.00 $7,000,000 with three of our five operating segments posting year over year rebased growth, including Liberty Puerto Rico. Supporting our growth is operating leverage, as Balan flagged. We have embarked upon a range of cost out activities across each of our operations, and this has positively impacted our consolidated adjusted OIBDA margin, which increased over 300 basis points compared to Q1 twenty twenty four. In the third chart, we highlight an important metric for us, which is adjusted OIBDA less P and E additions. We increased this by $47,000,000 to $286,000,000 in Q1 or 26% of revenue as compared to 22% of revenue in last year's Q1.

Speaker 4

The year over year improvement is reflective of the higher adjusted OIBDA margin and lower P and E additions, which amounted to 11% of revenue in Q1. Moving to the last section. Adjusted FCF before partner distributions was $46,000,000 better, resulting in a negative $103,000,000 for Q1 twenty twenty five. Combined with third party distributions to our partners, our reported adjusted FCF was a negative $133,000,000 Our first quarter results are always impacted by seasonal working capital movements, in part due to phasing of spend with our vendors. Slide 15 recaps our C and W credit silo results for Q1, which consists of C and W Caribbean, CWP and Liberty Networks.

Speaker 4

Starting with C and W Caribbean. We reported $364,000,000 of revenue in Q1 with flat rebased growth. This was a result of 5% growth in mobile, offset by a reduction of 3% in B2B on a rebased basis. The main drivers of higher residential mobile revenue were higher ARPU, resulting from price increases and postpaid subscriber growth driven by our successful FMC strategy. B2B revenue was mainly affected by lower project revenue.

Speaker 4

We posted adjusted OIBDA of 173,000,000 representing 16% rebased growth, largely fueled by reductions in indirect costs, especially with respect to facilities, staff, networks and commercial costs. As a result, adjusted OIBDA margin improved by over 600 basis points year over year to 48%. Next, moving to Cable and Wireless Panama. CWP generated $177,000,000 of revenue and $65,000,000 of adjusted OIBDA in Q1, reflecting 5% rebased revenue growth and 15% rebased adjusted OIBDA growth. Year over year rebased top line growth was driven by 16% growth in mobile and a 3% increase in residential fixed, largely as a result of subscriber base expansion over the last twelve months.

Speaker 4

This was in part offset by a 6% decline in B2B, primarily due to lower governmental projects. Adjusted OIBDA performance year over year was driven by the aforementioned revenue expansion and operating leverage. This led to an adjusted OIBDA margin expansion to 30%. Turning to Liberty Networks. We generated $110,000,000 in revenue and $58,000,000 in adjusted OIBDA, resulting in rebased growth of 3% in revenue and rebased decline of 2% in adjusted OIBDA.

Speaker 4

Top line growth year over year was driven by higher revenue in both wholesale and enterprise business lines, while adjusted OIBDA was impacted by higher network maintenance expenses, in part due to the costs associated with the cable cut and higher interconnect costs. Aggregating all three operating segments for the C and W credit silo, we generated $629,000,000 in revenue and $296,000,000 of adjusted OIBDA in Q1 for the credit side. Importantly, these results reflect year over year rebased growth rates of 2% for revenue and an impressive 12% for adjusted OIBDA. Moving to Slide 16 and the Q1 results for our other two credit silos, Liberty Puerto Rico and Liberty Costa Rica. On the left, Liberty Puerto Rico.

Speaker 4

Q1 revenue was $298,000,000 reflecting an 11% rebased decline year over year. Residential fixed revenue declined 1% due to lower volume, driven by the discontinuation of the ACP program and lower ARPU due to retention discounts more than offsetting price increases. Mobile residential revenue declined by 16% on a rebased basis, driven by lower postpaid revenue post migration. On the other hand, prepaid revenue remained stable during the period. B2B revenue declined 22% on a rebased basis, driven by lower mobile service revenue due to a decrease in the subscriber base impacted by migration related churn, ARPU declines and the termination of the ECF program.

Speaker 4

Adjusted OIBDA grew year over year as we reported $82,000,000 which reflected a rebased increase of 16% as compared to Q1 twenty twenty four. This improved adjusted OIBDA performance was mainly driven by costs related to our integration and migration efforts recorded in Q1 twenty twenty four and lower equipment, labor, interconnect and transition services costs in the current quarter. Concluding with Costa Rica on the right. We delivered Q1 revenue of $158,000,000 and adjusted OIBDA of $59,000,000 reflecting 2% rebased revenue growth and a 1% decline in rebased adjusted OIBDA. Fixed revenue was down 7% year over year on a rebased basis, with volume growth more than offset by lower ARPU impacted by competition.

Speaker 4

Mobile residential revenue increased 6% on a rebased basis, driven by postpaid volume and equipment sales growth, and B2B revenue was up 7% year over year on a rebased basis, mainly due to higher project revenue. Adjusted OIBDA declined slightly year over year due in part to higher equipment costs and an increase in bad debt. Turning to Slide 17. At the end of Q1, on a consolidated basis, we had $8,200,000,000 of total debt with a net leverage of 4.6 times. Our fully swap borrowing cost was 6.5% with a weighted average life of over five years.

Speaker 4

As of March 2025, we have roughly $600,000,000 of cash on balance sheet and $800,000,000 of availability under our revolving credit line. Continuing to the bottom left of the slide, the three timely C and W refinancings over the last nine months, which we highlighted on the Q4 earnings call, have significantly improved our maturity schedule with about 50% of our debt maturing in 02/1931 and beyond. As it pertains to Liberty Puerto Rico, which has debt due in 2027 to 2029, we would target refinancing in mid- to late twenty twenty six as we provide the business with time to improve its financial results. On the right hand of the slide, we highlight our financing principles, which have been an important element of LLA's corporate finance strategy since inception. Firstly, each credit pool is an independent ring fenced capital structure with no cross guarantees across defaults.

Speaker 4

This approach enshrines the concept that each silo is self standing and shields each of the credit pools from negative performance contamination from any of the other silos. We aim to maintain sustainable amounts of leverage in our businesses, and we expect our silos to naturally delever through organic growth. Our medium term leverage target is mid-3s for LLA on a consolidated basis. In addition, we like to run a long dated maturity profile and are always monitoring the markets to take advantage of the best issuance windows possible, which we've been successful in accessing recently with Cable and Wireless. We run a hedge balance sheet, hedging both our floating rates and currency exposure when economically viable.

Speaker 4

And finally, we maintain a robust liquidity position with significant cash on balance sheet and committed revolving credit facility availability. With respect to our stock buyback program, we have not been active for the last three quarters and have roughly $240,000,000 available under our authorization. We may look to be opportunistic as we return to our cash flow build cycle, which is always weighted to H2. Moving to Slide 18 and our conclusions. First, we had a very good start to the year with strong KPI performance on both postpaid mobile and broadband.

Speaker 4

This flowed through into robust financials, which led to high single digit rebates adjusted OIBDA growth in the quarter. This was driven by standout performances in the C and W silo, where we recorded double digit adjusted OIBDA growth. This was all supported by continued initiatives to reduce P and E additions intensity, helping to underpin improved trends in cash flow. In Puerto Rico, we are behind schedule due to the challenging migration in 2024 and a slower start to our recovery than hoped for in 2025. This is the principal reason for our decision to withdraw our three year guidance from 2024 to 2026 for LLA today.

Speaker 4

Our other operating businesses are performing largely expected, but collectively not able to overcompensate for the 2024 deficit and the slower recovery in Puerto Rico this year. Notwithstanding, in Puerto Rico, we are seeing steady improvements in churn and have new CVPs in the market and are leaning into FMC where we have seen such success across the group. We anticipate better postpaid mobile KPI trends in the second half of twenty twenty five. Additionally, we are pursuing an aggressive reduction in costs, as Balan highlighted, and expect these to positively impact our run rate performance in H2. Building upon the steps in Puerto Rico, we continue to be very constructive on the outlook for the group.

Speaker 4

We are maintaining a strong focus on cost out and P and E adds efficiency across all the credit cycles. We are positioning LLA for significant year over year growth in adjusted OIBDA and adjusted FCF before partner distributions in 2025. And with that, operator, happy to take questions.

Operator

The question and answer session will be conducted electronically. If you would like to ask a question regarding the company's operations, please do so by pressing star followed by 1 to ask a question or star followed by 0 for operator assistance. In order to accommodate everyone, we request that you only ask one question Our Our first question is from Vito Tamita of Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Good morning all and thanks for taking our questions. Two questions from our side. The first one is on Puerto Rico. If you could give us a bit more color on the competitive environment there, how aggressive competitors are being right now in terms of promotions and handset discounts in particular? And our second question would be on CapEx.

Speaker 5

You previously provided a guidance of that was lowered to 14% CapEx in 2025 and 2026. Do you still expect that 14% CapEx to sales? And could you give some more color on how that might be distributed across regions? Thank you very much.

Speaker 2

Sure. Thanks for the question. I'll answer your second question first on the CapEx. The CapEx of 14% is something that we will hit in 2025 and 2026. And it is quite equally distributed, across the business, for many reasons.

Speaker 2

It wasn't just by luck that we did that's how it played out. It's, it's the the level of maturity in all of our businesses where we were doing both our fiber to the home upgrade and our mobile upgrades are reaching to about the same point. So so so we are very confident on that 14%. On the competitive environment in Puerto Rico, essentially, the fixed side, we compete with Claro. And on the mobile, we compete with Claro and T Mobile.

Speaker 2

And of all the three mobile operators here, clearly, T Mobile is the most aggressive on their handset subsidies, and that's the case across, Mainland USA, as well. The the promotions here in Puerto Rico are similar. Our view is that, you know and what we've seen is that they haven't gotten any more aggressive than what they've been. And, as a matter of fact, you know, I think with all the tariff issues, people may, you know, dial it back a bit on, subsidies, but we haven't seen that either. But right now, the subsidy issue is not what worries us at all.

Speaker 2

We're we're doing pretty well there. I think what we need to do is improve on both our customer service and as well as our cost structure here in Puerto Rico. That's what we are focused on.

Speaker 5

Clear. Thank you very much.

Operator

The next question is from Chris Hall of New Street Research. Chris, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Yes, thank you and thanks for the opportunity as well. Can I just follow-up on the CapEx question, specifically in Puerto Rico? I think your CapEx there was down 30% on a year over year basis to sort of around 11% of service revenues. And I'm just wondering if that is a sustainable level for Puerto Rico going forward or whether it's going to trend back towards the kind of group average you talked about 14%. And then just following up on that, I appreciate you're still sort of year fifteen months away from the refinancing in Puerto Rico.

Speaker 6

But I just wonder if you can say anything about whether or not you see the opportunity to use any of the assets within Puerto Rico to help build a stronger balance sheet as you head towards the refinancing?

Speaker 2

Sure. On the first question on the CapEx, you know, the way we report the segment CapEx, it's CapEx that's actually spent, by the local operating team here in Puerto Rico. We do have CapEx spent for Puerto Rico at the group level. As an example, our digital platforms, they consume CapEx as well. It's spent at the corporate level, but allocated to Puerto Rico.

Speaker 2

Being done for Puerto Rico. There's some other spends that we also do at the corporate level, like like some of the centralized platforms on, like, our wireless core networks, etcetera, that are allocated outside of Puerto Rico. But, really, it's Puerto Rico CapEx. So the if if I look at the overall CapEx for the for the year, Puerto Rico is trending closer to the mid to high 15% range. So so we're not understanding in Puerto Rico.

Speaker 2

We we actually we actually doing a pretty good job here, think, especially in the mobile network. As a matter of fact, as you know, last year, we bought the spectrum from Dish, and we're firing that up this summer, and all that 600 megahertz spectrum gets put into the network. And that also requires CapEx. So we're not shying away from that. On your second question on the refinancing, I'm going to ask Chris to jump in here and give you some color.

Speaker 7

Yes. I mean, I think as I mentioned, the focus in the business today is to improve the operations and the financial results. So we're best positioned in '26 and mid to late twenty six to, you know, look to refinance the debt. Certainly, the the work that we're doing in both mobile and the fixed business should help, you know, crystallize value and and and improve the value of each

Speaker 2

of those businesses. And I think that's, you know, that's

Speaker 7

the focus of the of the management team at this point.

Speaker 6

Okay.

Operator

The next question comes from Michael Rollins of Citigroup. Michael, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking the question. This is Jose Herrera on Mike Rollins' team. First question was within the prior multiyear guide provided, how much of that growth was coming from Puerto Rico relative to the rest of the asset portfolio? And then secondly, if the Puerto Rico business needs additional funding, will Liberty Latin America fund the business from the parent balance sheet?

Speaker 4

Or does Puerto Rico need to fund it within its own capital structure? Thank you.

Speaker 2

Sure. On the free cash flow, we without breaking down the, the percentages for each segment in in our business, Suffice to say, you can see from the operating results that the rest of Liberty Latin America is on fire. And, you know, and so the if when we did the guidance a year ago, we did not anticipate some of the challenges in Puerto Rico and or at least to the extent that we actually experienced it. And then when we got into the end of the year, we kinda indicated that, you know because we had a lot of buffers in our free cash flow beyond the billion dollars, but we got kinda eaten up over the year in '24. And when we got into the beginning of the year as we looked at our budgets, etcetera, we were very close.

Speaker 2

So everything had to be priced to perfection, and we came out and said, you know what? We still think it's it's it's right there. But then at the, as the first quarter started to progress, we looked at some of the numbers and we track trajectory out the first quarter, the net add performance, and we go, you know, everything needs to be priced to perfection, and it's not working to perfection here Not right now. We we we are still pretty optimistic in the second half of turning around a lot of things.

Speaker 2

But, but, clearly, you know, having that information on where things at Puerto Rico, we decided, you know, let's pull the guidance. But I can tell you that the rest of our business and even Puerto Rico over time, it's gonna get so Puerto Rico is gonna get better, and the rest of the businesses are throwing off cash. You can see that in our numbers. And your second question around the capital structure. Listen.

Speaker 2

We have the silos for a reason. We paid up for the silos. And, and we're gonna treat these all as separate credit silos, And the parent will decide, you know, strictly on a capital allocation, methodology that we have in the liberty way. And then we'll make decisions on, on funding, whether it's a credit silo or funding a buyback or funding anything based strictly on how we look at the different opportunities in front of us. And I know I'm being cryptic, but but you should hang on to the fact that it is a separate credit silo, and we treat it as such.

Operator

The next question is from Matthew Harrigan of The Benchmark Company. Matthew, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 8

Thanks, Paul. I think a number of years ago, were quite happy with Puerto Rico was performing in the context of all the headlines on net migration and the debt issues and some of

Speaker 3

the

Speaker 8

political issues. And I know you can't just do an econometric model on a country and figure out where our telecom business is going to fare. But when you look at federal subsidies given everything going on with the Trump administration and that migration on the positive side, Puerto Rico has a very nice manufacturing base relative to some other obviously, it's a territory rather than the state, but relative to other U. S. States.

Speaker 8

How helped or hindered are you by the macro outlook in Puerto Rico? And I suspect you're not going to give a definitive number, but any sense for what you're trying to motivate your operating guys to achieve on a monthly EBITDA level aspirationally even if it's not guidance, you know, relative to where you were before? Thank you.

Speaker 2

Sure. Thanks, Matt. Let's start with the Puerto Rico macros. It is actually a good market. Competitively, like I said, two player fixed, three player mobile, and very rational, you know, value and value creation type focused competitors.

Speaker 2

So so you want to be in a market like that. It's all US dollars, obviously. And and if you look at the net population, it's held steady, and and it's it's a robust, great functioning state of The United States even though it's not formally a state. So all that good. Your question on, you know, back 2122.

Speaker 2

By the way, the FCC we have and AT and T, when we bought this business, had a lot of FCC funding. And that slowly, you know, declined over the last two, three years. It's part of the revenue declines. Not all of our revenue declines happened because of mobile losses. There were a lot of FCC revenues that that declined as well.

Speaker 2

And we are really, at this point, not too dependent on any government subsidies even though there are still some kinda like the the RDOF in The United States. It's called Uniendo here in Puerto Rico. And so we do have some other type funding, but we're putting in capital into that those projects. So in many ways, great market, great macros, great competitive environment. We're not too dependent on the government, and and the business is it is what it is today.

Speaker 2

Now what could it be? With that kind of a macro environment and by the way, we have the best mobile network here. You go anywhere, we have the best coverage. And like I said, we're gonna fire up some 600 megahertz spectrum here in a couple of months. We will have even bigger, deeper penetration with the with that spectrum.

Speaker 2

We have the best fixed network. We consistently win on a fixed network. It's one gigabit everywhere. It's highly competitive product. And in fixed, we have, you know, pretty much a split market, fifty fifty fifty forty, something like that with with us and the other guys, but we had we we have a five handle on our market share.

Speaker 2

In mobile, we're about 21% market share with a lot of upside. When we bought the business, it was about 26%. So we lost some share. But remember, even at 26%, that's 74 of the island that we never served. And we haven't even started our FMC here.

Speaker 2

So there's some upside. And the reason we haven't done some of that because we had some systems issues, and we needed to get our house in order before we can do some of these things. And the house is getting back in order. And so you can see good macros, good competitive environment. We have a great network.

Speaker 2

We need to fix some internal issues, and then you'll start to see things, return. We have internal guide, you know, guidelines. I am very, you know, very transparent internally with our with our colleagues here. As a matter of fact, now, if you're an employee in Puerto Rico, you get the the sales. Every day, you'll see what we sold the day before.

Speaker 2

We're being very we'll be showing everybody the numbers. And I have a target for the management team here on monthly EBITDA. And, and we are focused on that, and we are focused on getting the EBITDA to the right place. As Chris pointed out earlier, it's all operations. And if we get EBITDA at the right place, then by mid twenty six, you know, you're sitting a lot better given the, you know, some of the questions earlier on, on our debt.

Speaker 2

And that's how we're looking at it. But like like Chris said, this is an operational problem to solve for.

Speaker 8

Apart from the FCC subsidies, which is which is, you know, it sounds like it's the minute or or not that big a deal at this point. Are you very concerned about the Trump administration withholding support for the economy of the island given how maverick Trump can be? I honestly don't know how much federal support there is to to Puerto Rico, not not on FCC basis, but in terms of just upholding the general economy.

Speaker 2

You know, we don't see it here. By the way, the governor of Puerto Rico is a strong Trump supporter. I'm gonna be visiting with them here soon. Listen. There's a lot of things with the federal government that really I can't predict here, and I don't think anybody can.

Speaker 2

They'll do what they need to do, but I haven't heard anything officially or even in unofficially other than, you know, rumors on the media about them wanting or not wanting to help Puerto Rico. We don't see that on the ground. I'm here a lot, but we don't see that. Nobody talks about it here on the ground either.

Speaker 8

So sorry, I'd try to make you play treasury secretary or whatever. Thanks.

Speaker 2

Thanks.

Operator

The next question is from Leonardo, Carter Daugh of Scotiabank. Leonardo, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 3

Hi. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two. The first, service compensation was up 26% year over year $34,000,000 I was just wondering if you're expecting SBC for the full year to trend in line with Q1 and if there will be some buybacks to offset the new shares? Additionally, my second question, there was significant refinancing activity this quarter, and average foreign costs were slightly up to 6.5% from 6.2%.

Speaker 3

Do you have an estimate on cash interest expenses this year considering that it was close to $620,000,000 last year? Thank you.

Speaker 2

You want me to go? Go ahead, Ben.

Speaker 7

Yes. On the interest, the weighted average is higher that reflects the refinancings. We did $3,300,000,000 of refinancing over the last nine months, including a couple of deals in Q1 on Cable and Wireless credit silo. So the average rate did tick up. So that would be as you think about interest expense impact, would be higher on a year over year basis.

Speaker 7

But I would focus you as well to look at the swap portfolio. So we are hedged on floating rate exposure and you can factor that in beyond just the cash interest. There's an offset. And then as it relates to stock comp, we typically have grants happen in the first half of the year. And I mean, what how I would look at it is continue to kind of run it out not dissimilar you know, prior prior years.

Speaker 2

Okay?

Speaker 3

That's perfect. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Yeah. The important part about the refinancing is really

Speaker 3

the

Speaker 2

tenor. And and, you know, the the Chris and the treasury team have done a tremendous job pushing, pushing the wall out.

Speaker 7

Any other?

Operator

Conclude today's question and answer session. I would like to hand back to Balan Neff for any additional or closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Thank you, operator, and thank you everybody on the call. You know, the business is doing really well. You can see from the numbers. Now we did pull guidance, and I I I know there'll be a reaction to that. But I think it's, you know this is important for us that when, you know, when we look at stuff and as soon as we know it, we wanna make sure our credibility is also strong.

Speaker 2

And I know to a certain degree, there's been challenges in our Puerto Rico business. And and over the last year, it was very hard for us internally to predict some of the trajectory of that business. But we're getting a this is we're getting a strong handle on everything here, and now we see things very clearly, and we see a very clear path as well. It is gonna take time, though. We have to be patient.

Speaker 2

And, in Puerto Rico, it's gonna take time. But you can see from the rest of our businesses. There was a time when Panama was not doing great, though. Cable and wireless, the Caribbean Islands was not doing great. Any one of our operations, and we focus on it and operating wise, we fix it, and they become really strong flywheels.

Speaker 2

And I see the same thing here for Puerto Rico. Yes. We got into a jam. We're gonna get out of this jam, and we're gonna really grow this business. And, and I I'm quite positive about that.

Speaker 2

So with that, I wanna thank you again for your support, and, we'll talk to you the next quarter.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the Liberty Latin America's first quarter twenty twenty five investor call. As a reminder, a replay of the call will be available in the Investor Relations section of Liberty Latin America's website at www.lla.com. There, you can also find a copy of today's presentation materials.

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Earnings Conference Call
Liberty Latin America Q1 2025
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