Earnings Labs

Comcast Corporation (CMCSA)

Q4 2012 Earnings Call· Wed, Feb 13, 2013

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Comcast’s fourth quarter and full-year 2012 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Please note that this conference call is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Senior Vice President Investor Relations, Ms. Marlene Dooner. Please go ahead, Ms. Dooner.

Marlene Dooner

Management

Thank you, operator, and welcome, everyone. Joining me on this morning’s call are Brian Roberts, Michael Angelakis, Steve Burke and Neil Smit. We have a full agenda this morning. Brian and Michael will make formal remarks on both our earnings results and our announced early acquisition of GE’s 49% common equity interest in NBCUniversal. Following their remarks, Steve and Neil will also be available for Q&A. As you review our materials, please refer to our trending schedules, which are available on our investor relations website for performer results covering the past 12 quarters as well as detailed information for our business segments and other consolidated metrics. As always, let me refer you to Slide number 2 which contains our Safe Harbor disclaimer and remind you that this conference call may include forward-looking statements subject to certain risks and uncertainties. In addition, in this call we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to our 8-K for the reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP. With that, let me turn the call to Brian Roberts for his comments. Brian?

Brian Roberts

Management

Thanks, Marlene, and good morning, everyone. This is a really special moment for our company with a number of exciting developments to tell you about today. We are reporting strong results for the fourth quarter and the full-year 2012, accelerating the acquisition of GE’s equity interest in NBC’s Universal and demonstrating confidence and optimism in the future of all our businesses by increasing our dividend 20%, announcing our plan to repurchase $2 billion of our stock during 2013. Let me begin with our strong financial results for both the fourth quarter and the full year which highlight our momentum and how we’re benefitting from scale and from our focus on operational excellence. These results demonstrate that our investments for growth and strategic differentiation, particularly in programming, technology and in new products, are helping us lead in innovation and strengthening our position in the market. Michael will discuss the results in more detail but I want to provide a few highlights. Let me start with cable, which capped accelerating performance throughout the year with a strong fourth quarter. Every part of the cable business showed strength with revenue increases in all our residential products, business services and in advertising. High speed internet led the way in both revenue and subscriber growth. We added 1.2 million HIS customers in 2012, a 6% increase for the seventh year in a row of more than 1 million customer additions. In video, we extended the trend of improving subscriber and revenue results. The fourth quarter was the ninth quarter in a row of year-over-year improvement in video subscribers and we expect that excluding the impact of Hurricane Sandy we added subscribers in the fourth quarter. Just as important, video revenue growth of 2.9% in the fourth quarter was the highest in four years. Our triple…

Michael Angelakis

Management

Good morning and thank you, Brian. There is quite a bit to review today, including the NBCUniversal transaction and our 2013 financial strategy but I think most important is our strong operational performance and positive momentum in the fourth quarter and for all of 2012. As Brian mentioned, we are very pleased with our results on Slide 4, which reflect sustainable and profitable growth and the fundamental strength of our businesses. For the full year, consolidated revenue increased 12% to $62.6 billion and operating cash flow increased 9% to $20 billion, reflecting strong organic growth in both our cable communications and NBCUniversal businesses. Free cash flow for the full year, which excludes the impact of the economic stimulus, increased 13% to $7.9 billion primarily reflecting growth in operating cash flow and improvements in working capital partially offset by higher cash taxes and capital expenditures. Free cash flow per share increased 16% to $2.92 per share in 2012. For the year, our cable free cash flow generated $6.2 billion or 78% of the total while NBCUniversal contributed $1.7 billion or 22% of consolidated free cash flow. Earnings per share grew 52% to $2.28 per share for the full year from $1.50 per share in 2011. Excluding gains from the SpectrumCo and A&E transactions, an income tax benefit resulting from a state tax law change in 2012, an NBCUniversal transaction and related costs and other non-recurring items in 2011, our adjusted earnings per share increased 22% to $1.93 per share. Now, let’s review the Pro Forma results of our cable communications and NBCUniversal businesses on Slide 5. As you know, we believe the Pro Forma presentation provides a more meaningful comparison of the operating performances and businesses. The Pro Forma results are only necessary for the full year and are presented as…

Marlene Donner

Management

Operator

Operator

Jason Bazinet - Citi Investment Research

Management

Michael Angelakis

Management

Is your second question, Jason, regarding to the tax benefits we’re receiving as part of the transaction on an NPB basis? I just want to make sure I clarify the question.

Jason Bazinet - Citi

Management

Correct.

Michael Angelakis

Management

So when we announced the transaction, the first part of the transaction back in December of ’09, we articulated that we thought the NPB benefit of the taxes was approximately $1.5 billion. We’ve been fortunate in terms of how we structured it and other benefits where now we estimated that the NPB of those tax benefits is approximately $2.2 billion, so they’ve gone up nicely over the last several years. We expect to receive those benefits over really the next 10 to 15 years, which is several hundred million dollars a year of benefits to Comcast, so we’re really pleased with how this has been structured. With regards to cash taxes, they do move around a little bit related to gains and other kinds of things. We don’t anticipate any meaningful changes and I think you’ll see that our effective tax rate on our P&L will probably hover around 38%, 39% as we go forward.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jessica Reif Cohen – Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Jessica Reif Cohen – Bank of America Merrill Lynch: I had a question for Neil and Steve if each of you could just talk about the big three drivers for your divisions for the year ahead.

Neil Smit

Management

I think the big drivers for our business are, number one, executing the growth our business, our hi-speed business and business services. Those are our drivers of our profitability and revenue and I think we’re very focused on those. Number two is grow continuing to the improvement on our video business. We’ve seen, as you know, about nine quarters of improving results in video and I’d like to continue that trend. And number three is just executing well on some of the efficiencies we’re finding in the business, reducing truck rolls, improving the call center performance and just overall improvement on the execution side of the business.

Steve Burke

Management

And Jessica, on the NBCUniversal side, I would say if I had to pick three the first would be what I call the monetization gap or the entitlement gap. I think our affiliate fees are not what they should be both in terms of the cable channels and retransmission consent. And on the advertising side, our CPMs are lower than some of the other people in the business who have lower ratings than we do. Secondly, I would say that the broadcast business continues to seem like a big opportunity to us, whether it’s the NBC network, our local stations or (Telemundo). I think all three of those represent a big opportunity. And finally, theme parks, which is a business that we have come to really appreciate over time. We’re doing quite well in the theme park business and I think that growth will continue.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jason Armstrong – Goldman Sachs. Jason Armstrong – Goldman Sachs: First, maybe a question on content cost growth that you talked about in double digit range. Where are we in the process of content step ups and authentication rights? I guess what’s included here is presumably box and I know ESPN at the beginning of the year. Does this represent the later stages of the process and content cost? Can you start to moderate – or growth and content cost and start to moderate after this year or are we still in middle stages of this process? And then just related to that cable margin, you talked about stable cable margins in 2013 despite the content cost growth. I guess in order for that to be the case, it looks like you probably have to accelerate revenue growth in cable. Is that the right assumption?

Michael Angelakis

Management

So on the cable margin, we’ve done a great job over the few years keeping a relatively stable margin. When you look at really the revenues of our cable business right now, roughly half of the revenues are the video side and the other half are other services, which from a product pick standpoint have better margins and are higher growth. So a combination of increasing product mix and adjustments that will have on the pricing on our video side, some efficiencies that we’re confident we’ll be able to access, which actually help the customers and help our efficiencies, we think as we look to ’13 we’ll be able to keep pretty stable margins. On the content side, in terms of where we are – and the Fox deal was announced yesterday – I’ll let Neil answer that.

Neil Smit

Management

Brian Roberts

Management

I think for content, we have always thought, for many years, that it’s a great business on a standalone basis. It’s created a lot of wealth over a long period of time and we think we’ll find ways to do so in the future. Having both in one company makes us a really special company and I think now we need to execute and continue to find ways to have the two work together and apart and it’s a very special day for the company and I think employees and that place where people want to come to work will be the last – my next goal would be to make it – continue to make it absolute home for where a young person coming out of school or somebody with their career says this is a company at the cross hairs of media and technology and all parts of this company make it where I want to spend my career.

Operator

Operator

I think for content, we have always thought, for many years, that it’s a great business on a standalone basis. It’s created a lot of wealth over a long period of time and we think we’ll find ways to do so in the future. Having both in one company makes us a really special company and I think now we need to execute and continue to find ways to have the two work together and apart and it’s a very special day for the company and I think employees and that place where people want to come to work will be the last – my next goal would be to make it – continue to make it absolute home for where a young person coming out of school or somebody with their career says this is a company at the cross hairs of media and technology and all parts of this company make it where I want to spend my career.

Doug Mitchelson - Deutsche Bank

Management

I think for content, we have always thought, for many years, that it’s a great business on a standalone basis. It’s created a lot of wealth over a long period of time and we think we’ll find ways to do so in the future. Having both in one company makes us a really special company and I think now we need to execute and continue to find ways to have the two work together and apart and it’s a very special day for the company and I think employees and that place where people want to come to work will be the last – my next goal would be to make it – continue to make it absolute home for where a young person coming out of school or somebody with their career says this is a company at the cross hairs of media and technology and all parts of this company make it where I want to spend my career.

Michael Angelakis

Management

I think for content, we have always thought, for many years, that it’s a great business on a standalone basis. It’s created a lot of wealth over a long period of time and we think we’ll find ways to do so in the future. Having both in one company makes us a really special company and I think now we need to execute and continue to find ways to have the two work together and apart and it’s a very special day for the company and I think employees and that place where people want to come to work will be the last – my next goal would be to make it – continue to make it absolute home for where a young person coming out of school or somebody with their career says this is a company at the cross hairs of media and technology and all parts of this company make it where I want to spend my career.

Brian Roberts

Management

I think for content, we have always thought, for many years, that it’s a great business on a standalone basis. It’s created a lot of wealth over a long period of time and we think we’ll find ways to do so in the future. Having both in one company makes us a really special company and I think now we need to execute and continue to find ways to have the two work together and apart and it’s a very special day for the company and I think employees and that place where people want to come to work will be the last – my next goal would be to make it – continue to make it absolute home for where a young person coming out of school or somebody with their career says this is a company at the cross hairs of media and technology and all parts of this company make it where I want to spend my career.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of John Hodulik – UBS. John Hodulik – UBS: First, a clarification and then a quick follow-up. On the clarification, the CapEx guide on the cable side says 10% growth in CapEx equates to about 12.9% of sales. Is it right to think that that suggests you’re going to see cable revenue growth of close to or around 6% ’13 or am I looking at that the right way? And then in terms of CapEx, you’ve got a meaningful step up here ’13 versus ’12. Is this the right level, maybe for Michael, that you’re investing in? Should we think of that from a dollar standpoint as a good level going forward or is 2013 sort of an outsized year?

Michael Angelakis

Management

I think on your first question we’re not providing guidance. Your math is directionally correct, so let’s just leave it at that. With regards to the 2013, we are actually excited about investing in the areas that we are articulated, both on the Comcast cable side and on the NBCUniversal side. So we do look at intensity in terms of 12.4% of cable CapEx in 2012 and we articulated around 12.9% in 2013. And really the difference is we are investing in high growth, high opportunity areas in both parts of the business. So we’ve got X1, Comcast Business Services, hi-speed Engine Net, Wireless Gateways, a whole variety of areas, XFINITY Home that we think are transforming the product set that we have on the cable side. Neil’s team has done an amazing job of how we deploy that, so those are all primarily variable type costs of how we successfully deploy really new products that we’ve invested in. Now on the NBCUniversal side, as Steve mentioned, theme parks has been terrific, really have reset the bar and the majority of those dollars are going into new attractions at the theme parks which really are, again, high growth, high opportunity dollars. So we’re really – we’re not looking at multiple-year plans but for 2013 we wanted to step on the peddle in areas where we think there’s some high growth, high opportunity areas for the company.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Marci Ryvicker – Wells Fargo. Marci Ryvicker – Wells Fargo: I have two questions. One, related to NBC and the transaction, can you help us with the accretion math? We’re hearing anywhere from $0.05 accretion to $0.30. So any guidance on how to think about that would be helpful. And then with regard to the programming cost guidance, can you just confirm that this is a P&L basis and not a (per sub) basis and does the incremental expense at all incorporate an assumption of positive video adds for any period of time in 2013?

Michael Angelakis

Management

Let’s be really clear about the accretion. So on free cash flow there’s really no accretion because we’ve been consolidating 100% of NBCUniversal’s free cash flow since we’ve controlled 51%. So on free cash flow, what the impacts will be, as we just talked about, we’ll have a little bit higher CapEx, going to have a little bit higher interest expense related to the dollars that we’re borrowing to complete the transaction but we’re also going to have operating cash flow growth and we feel that we’ll be able to keep relatively stable free cash flow for 2013, which the transaction itself isn’t creating any kind of accretion. On the P&L side, we are going to see EPS accretion. So we’re going to pay a bit more in taxes because now we’ll pay 100% of the taxes related to NBCUniversal. We’re also going to eliminate the non-controlling interest which is in our P&L. And net-net that’s about a positive $550 million, which is about $0.19 to $0.20 of EPS accretion. So that’s a number that we think is immediately accretive on our P&L related to the transaction.

Operator

Operator

Ben Swinburne - Morgan Stanley

Management

Neil Smit

Management

Operator

Operator

Michael [Sena] - Credit Suisse:

Michael Angelakis

Management

Brian Roberts

Management

Marlene Dooner

Management

Operator

Operator

Brian Kraft - Evercore Partners

Management

Michael Angelakis

Operator

No, the $1.4 billion really has nothing to do with the 39.4 enterprise value. That value is just separate for the business. A separate part of General Electric actually owned the real estate and we thought it was important to bring that into the transaction given what we considered to be both strategic facilities that we were fortunate enough to have both under one roof, one GE roof to be able to negotiate that. So your first question, there will be some savings on EBITDA related to rent expense that we would have at both facilities that when the transaction closed that we won’t have that. So it’s not that meaningful given the size of roughly $20 billion of operating cash flow but it certainly is going to help. And we made the decision that it was strategic to buy these facilities as well as from an economic perspective it was a smart deal. And you can look at a whole variety of real estate metrics to make that decision.

Marlene Dooner

Management

Thank you all for joining us this morning.

Operator

Operator

There will be a replay available of today’s call started at 12:30 pm Eastern standard time. It will run through Wednesday, February 20th at midnight Eastern time. The dial-in number is 855-859-2056 and the conference ID number is 85751942. A recording of the conference call will also be available on the company’s website beginning at 12:30 pm today. This concludes today’s teleconference. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.