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J and Friends Holdings Limited Sponsored ADR Class A (JF)

Q2 2007 Earnings Call· Tue, Aug 7, 2007

$1.08

+3.82%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning or good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. And welcome to the Portugal Telecom 2007 First Half Results Conference Call hosted by the Executive Board Member of Portugal Telecom, Mr. Zeinal Bava and Mr. Luis Pacheco de Melo, Group CFO. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode and the floor will be open for questions and comments following the presentation. [Operator Instructions]. I would now like to turn the floor over to your hosts. Please go ahead sir.

Zeinal Abedin Mahomed Bava

Analyst

Thank you very much. Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of the board of Portugal Telecom many a thanks for attending this call. The objective today is mostly to the results of [inaudible] today for the first half ended 30th June 2007. As usual I am here with the team our CFO, Luis Pacheco de Melo, our Chief Accounting Officer, Francisco Nunes and a member of his team ands also Control and Planning Director, as well and of course our IR, Director, Nuno Prego. In the first half of ’07, consolidated operating revenues of Portugal Telecom amounted to €2.956 million, an increase of 5.4% year-on-year. EBITDA increased 16.2%, albeit as we call the attention on press release it was an [inaudible] but it increased 15.2% to €1147 million and that’s equivalent to a margin of 38.8%. And the net income from… an income from operations increased by 58.3% to about €606 million. Net income for the period amounted to €429 million. EBITDA minus CapEx increased 17.6%, of coursed underpinned by EBITDA to about €840 million. At the end of June 2007, our net debt amounted to roughly €4.28 million and after tax unfunded post retirement benefit obligations totaled €905 million. Our results have been prepared in accordance with IFRS and following the approval of PT Multimedia spin-off at Portugal Telecom’s annual shareholders’ meeting on the 27th. PT Multimedia has been considered as a discontinued operation for reporting purposes. For more details and discussion of PT Multimedia’s results, we would ask you to refer the PT Multimedia’s first half 2007 earnings release. I will take you now to the divisional performance. And then my colleague Luis Pacheco de Melo will take you through the main financial highlights across this first half of both increases. With regard to the wireline, albeit…

Luis Pacheco de Melo

Analyst

Thank you Zeinal. Let me now focus on the main financials. I will focus my presentation on the first half results versus the first half of ’06 and therefore the numbers like decent from what we now just mentioned, our focus in the quarter. So overall group revenues at 5.4%, $2.96 billion and that being by 1.1% increase in TMN and 12.4% increase in Vivo. On the Wireline, revenue decreased by 5.7%, mainly as a result of lower voice revenues due to line loss. And the declines in retail revenues were most partly offset by higher ADSL revenues, lower sale revenues and also corporate revenues. On TMN, the performance… the 1.1% increase in revenues was getting by strong customer bills with billing revenues up by 1.9%. As we now set, basic revenues, it accounts for 40.3% of the overall total revenues. On Vivo, revenues were up by 12.4% in fact seasonally by the changing the internet connection regime last year and the growth in customer base and underlining ARPU. So, service revenues were up by 22% excluding the impact of the bill and keep revenues were up by 4.6%. On the other revenues increase… those increased mainly reflecting the consolidation of our Namibian assets in Q3. Focus now on the EBITDA performance. EBITDA was up by 16.2%, we had some one-offs, specially this year… throughout these and last year the provision on Vivo. That’s overall EBITDA increase by 16.2% giving an overall margin of 38.8%. Excluding the one-off that I have just referred to you EBITDA would have increased by 9.9%. Wireline EBITDA performance was supported on a great constitution and personal cost down 8.8% on the first half versus the first half of last year. Direct cost and other operating costs also declined at a considerable rate… good rate.…

Operator

Operator

Thank you [Operator Instructions]. Our first question comes from Christen Kern with Lehman Brothers. Please state a question.

Christen Kerns

Analyst

Hi, there Zeinal. Just two or three questions. One on the strategy type please. Can you elaborate a bit on the wireline scenario going into 2008? I understand Anacom launched a public consultation on Naked DSL and Dell to some discussions around fourth mobile license even though in the 450 MHz spectrum and any updates would be much appreciated on fixed mobile? And also on the PTM spin-off situation? And finally, more detailed question on the guidance that fair to assume that your guidance, is it raise due to Vivo that this is the main contributor there? Thank you

Zeinal Abedin Mahomed Bava

Analyst

Okay. Thank you very much. I think, it’s a very, very good question. So, the first with regard to Wireline, clearly, I think if you look at the Portuguese Telecom sector, things are changing pretty fast, particularly the advance of fixed mobiles convention offers is now very, very real. I think that’s why Portugal Telecom with a unique opportunity to bring today what makes it perhaps in our view the best of Telecom operator in Portugal. We have distribution network. We have the engineering background. We have powers switching a lot of operate that has in this market and such I think the way a fixed mobile conversion offers are lining up in the Portuguese markets, it will certainly lead to regulators allowing us to pretty much to the same, because it is no longer making sense to look at fixed mobile separately. And that’s what… in that regard, we think that we can bring today… in the future the great advantage that both the fixed line business to Portugal Telecom and the mobile business have. And hopefully, regain some market share in some key areas where we have not been able to be as competitive as we wanted to mainly because of the regulatory commitments and pressure that we have in ourselves. Naked ADSL, I think ultimately the terms and conditions also what is Naked ADSL will dictate whether it is a significant plus or not. I think it was interesting to see that some of our direct competitors have also come out very vocal concerned about Naked ADSL. I think in this regard, we will continue to lead at the Portuguese Telecom’s regulator, which a lot of these things has been… I would say very, very up to speed, what else is going in the world and very…

Luis Pacheco de Melo

Analyst

There is some own guidance. What we said is that fixed rates. We give the overall guidance for the group. Of course we feel slightly more positive growth on TMN on the Wirelines and on Vivo. But overall we just give guidance for the overall status.

Christen Kerns

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Kevin Chong with Citi. Please state your question.

Kevin Chong

Analyst · Citi. Please state your question.

Yes good afternoon this is Kevin Chong from Citi. Three quick questions please. Firstly just wondered any of the sort of improvements we are seeing in Q2 in terms of operations. How much of that is coming from any overall improvement within the Portuguese economy? And the second question relates to the Vivo. I am just trying to understand obviously there is significant speculation surrounding Telefonica's potential offers to Portugal Telecom for Vivo. And I am trying to understand, obviously following the recent decision to expand the business announced last week. I just wonder whether you can give us some indication of what it is that Portugal Telecom… what would make Portugal Telecom sell Vivo? Is there a price out there where you would sell the business? Is it not for sale at any price or is it an issue, should we think about that in the context of using proceeds? And then the last question just with respect to I am wondering if you could give us some idea as to when we are going to have clarity on when and where existing PT mergers will be poised to PTN demerger? Thank you.

Zeinal Abedin Mahomed Bava

Analyst · Citi. Please state your question.

Okay. Thank you very much. Well, clearly you are seeing the benefit of the improved economy in all our businesses in Portugal. In fact as Luis just mentioned, referring to guidance, that's one of the reasons why we have been able to revise the guidance because we are increasingly more confident that our domestic businesses are doing better than what we had been able to see in the Portuguese market in the first six of last year. Clearly, some of these things are related to management decisions. Cost cutting, clearly they have been to some extent dependent on the ability that we have had to reverse the trend in the top line, truly in mobile. But clearly here, I think, what you are seeing is the Portuguese economy beginning to do better, confidence levels picking up and that is beginning to filter through the… in the performances to some extent across all of our businesses here in Portugal. So we would hope that continuing the strength will lead us to underpin even stronger performance going forward. Having said that, clearly as I had mentioned earlier in the previous questions, the competitive environment remains to some extent very aggressive and we are obviously trying to be here. Forthcoming with…regarding some guidance that we also would like to keep some commercial flexibility in order to be more competitive in the Portuguese market in the next six months, if we have to do so. On the Vivo question as we have said already, a number of times we are not sellers of our stake at Vivo. We are focused on the turnaround of Vivo and we are prepared to work with Telefonica as a partner and Telefonica and Portugal Telecom have been partners for almost a decade now. To see whether we can…

Kevin Chong

Analyst · Citi. Please state your question.

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Bosco Ojeda with UBS. Please state your question.

Bosco Ojeda

Analyst · UBS. Please state your question.

Hi, good afternoon. I would like to know if you would update us on the P&L costs from most of the cash, the costs from the side of the pension commitment. And also on the personal redundancy expenses, if you could give us some update for this year, that would be helpful. Thank you.

Luis Pacheco de Melo

Analyst · UBS. Please state your question.

Okay, so on pension, the main movements for the cash was basically [inaudible]. So, basically we started at the beginning of the year more or less with R$ 1.65 billion of unfunded pension liability. The extra lay-off or the severance costs was around R$ 85 million. We contributed more or less R$ 1.50 million. We have reduced the benefit of the pension of more or less R$ 45 million. And we had some actuarial gain of, on the discount price of around R$ 240 million. And so targeted returns on our assets was around R$ 40 million. So, overall these should bring it down to R$ 1.23 billion before tax, yes. So, for the full year what we expect is some curtailment of more or less the same size as the first quarter. So, basically we are indicating that we target more or less 500. And of this we have done 253, plus [inaudible] again in July. We should have more or less a cost of around R$ 150 million [inaudible] curtailment cost over there. And therefore, what we are estimating for the end of the year is flat around R$ 1.1 billion of unfunded pension liabilities for the end of the year.

Bosco Ojeda

Analyst · UBS. Please state your question.

So, from a cash perspective, what do you think would be the outflow this year?

Luis Pacheco de Melo

Analyst · UBS. Please state your question.

In terms of cash. In terms cash, what we estimate overall to put in into the pension fund is R$ 120 million already on extraordinary, we have formed more or less R$ 164 million normal contributions. In the second half we should have around $19 million going to the pension fund.

Bosco Ojeda

Analyst · UBS. Please state your question.

Thank you.

Luis Pacheco de Melo

Analyst · UBS. Please state your question.

Okay.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from George Ierodiaconou with Dresdner Kleinwort. Please state your question.

George Ierodiaconou

Analyst · Dresdner Kleinwort. Please state your question.

Hello. I have three questions please. The first one is on fixed to mobile substitution, we've seen a slowdown in Q1, I was wondering how much of that is due to the flat rate being introduced, whether there is anything else that you've launched in terms of your intention? Second question is on other OpEx in the Wireline, we've seen an $8 million reduction year-on-year and you do give some reasons in the text, but I was wondering whether any of that comes from any declines in provisions? And finally, just a question on your ADSL strategy, after the spin-off of Multimedia you'll only have control of just over 40% over the broadband market. Do you think whether that is defendable and could you give us an update on how the market is evolving after the consolidation by Sonaecom? Thank you.

Zeinal Abedin Mahomed Bava

Analyst · Dresdner Kleinwort. Please state your question.

Okay. Thank you. It’s a difficult question in the sense that the performance that we are seeing in terms of lines is a result of a number of things that the Company is doing. On one hand, clearly the bundling of minutes with the monthly rental I think has had a very good impact. If you look at for example the take up of tariff plans, I think we now have a significant portion of our overall subscribers taking up more than one service. And as you know there is a direct correlation between churn and the number of services that people actually buy from you. We’re also increasing the number of customers that have direct debits and also electronic billing. So rather than receiving paper at home, they receive via mail the monthly bill. That is again one of those important services in terms of reducing churns. So, I think, there are a range of initiatives that we have launched. I don’t want to under-stage the impact fixed to mobile conversion offers, simply because we have seen significant activity from Vodafone and from our direct competitor Sonaecom as well in terms of some of these launches. And therefore we will want to respond to them in line with and therefore we want to see how the next couple of months work out in terms of some of the initiatives that we have launched. On one hand PC bundled with wireless broadband at TMN. We’re also looking to reposition the many offers that we have as well both in fixed and mobile. So I think we remain confident that if the name of the game with regard to the future in fixed and mobile convergent offers that Portugal Telecom will be even in a stronger position than it is today…

Luis Pacheco de Melo

Analyst · Dresdner Kleinwort. Please state your question.

On other OpEx as we were seeing quarter-on-quarter, the decline more or less is R$ 8 million. Of this R$ 8 million, $6 million is Q1 information [inaudible] costs. [inaudible] we are in the great into the IBM which we handled last year. So that reflects a $6 million decline. And we have another $2 million on deduction on consultant fees. We have the electronic fees and so on and so forth and lay offs that we did on the back half, on the… sorry, lay outs on the new billing reductions [ph] over there which is more or less R$ 2 million, and that accounts for more or less $8 million. With regards to provisions, so we account for… the reduction in provisions is less than $1 million. And that’s basically as a result of standard collection processes that can also give lower door-to-door sales which normally have higher provisioning levels. So the decline is not explained by any decline in the provisions cycle [ph].

George Ierodiaconou

Analyst · Dresdner Kleinwort. Please state your question.

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Mathieu Robilliard with BNP Paribas. Please state your question.

Mathieu Robilliard

Analyst · BNP Paribas. Please state your question.

Good afternoon. I have a few questions, please. First on mobile, can you tell us how advanced you are in terms of making changes to roaming tariffs and what kind of impact we can expect? And should you remain quite positive, or at least not more negative for the rest of the year? How do you think you can offset that in terms of the top line of TMN? And also a question on TMN, a very impressive decrease in the SARC year-on-year. Now you alluded in the conference call to the fact that the environment would remain competitive. Does that mean that you think that this trend in SARC is not sustainable in H2 or you can still maintain that? And then I had a question on Meditel, you highlight the 6% revenue growth in Meditel, what seems to surprise with Meditel is that it underperforms quite significantly and Maroc telecom which in the meantime is increasing in seven years on mobile by 17% and I was wondering if there's an explanation or something you think that can be improved at Meditel that would allow it to close the gap than it was Maroc telecom. Thank you.

Zeinal Abedin Mahomed Bava

Analyst · BNP Paribas. Please state your question.

Thank you very much. Luis will take you through the Meditel question and I'll give you some highlights on the roaming and active subscriber acquisitions and retention costs. The roaming impact this year at TMN with the implementation of the recent decisions across the board in the sector will be somewhere between $7 million and $10 million. In terms of… in terms of full year, the impact is up to $22 million. So as the tariffs will come into play later than expected, the impact to the year will not be more than $7 million to $10 million maximum. In any event, next year I think the impact will be $20 million. Now of course, we are not factoring into this any elasticity because clearly more clarity on roaming tariffs and lowering roaming tariffs will most likely lead to higher usage as well. So we are not at this stage factoring in any of that. We will see what the impacts will be the next three, six months and then perhaps come back to you at a later date with some views on what potentially elasticity could be. With regard to subscriber acquisition retention costs, first and foremost, we have been able to achieve this by reducing the number of handsets that we had available at TMN and thus increasing our bargaining power vis-à-vis our equipment manufacturers. TMN in the past used to operate with 75% to 80% types of handsets. We have reduced that to a level that we think is more commensurate with industry block factors, and as a result we have been able to improve conditions. What we're highlighting here is also the fact that Vivo has migrated to GSM and that is also giving both us and of course our partners Telefonica the ability to present themselves with much greater bargaining power in the overall market. So subscriber acquisition retention costs decline has been achieved on much more stringent control of subsidies, changes in the line-up of equipment that we had and of course better management of the commissions in the Portuguese market as well. We think that the way we have reorganized ourselves across the board, and this includes our own direct sales force, we should be able to sustain any additional competitive pressure in the next three to six months. And if anything, if we do decide to become ourselves, more active commercially, we think that the guidance that we have provided on TMN continues to be fairly robust. And if anything we can do better than we have indicated in the past with regards to our EBITDA performance at TMN could do. Luis, on Meditel?

Luis Pacheco de Melo

Analyst · BNP Paribas. Please state your question.

Thank you. On Meditel, the overall revenues were up by 6.2%. As you know the Morocco market is undergoing a substantial growth with part [inaudible] month, year, one year ago, more or less with our main competitor giving out some cards [ph] which we picked up later in the year, both with the same amplitudes [ph]. The growth level of gross adds from the first half of this year has been more or less twice the amount of last year. In terms of net ads, net adds is almost four times. We have had a significant impact on our commissioning and commercial costs, also around 80 to 90 in local currency which therefore, our EBITDA has increased by more or less 2% year on year in the first half. And these prices nearly represent more or less 10% of say 85. So, this has had an impact on the EBITDA levels, continuing impact of probably 7% to 8% in terms of growth rate. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you, we have time for two more questions. Our next question comes from Nuno Vieira with Millennium. Please state your question.

Nuno Vieira

Analyst · Millennium. Please state your question.

Yes, hello. Good afternoon. Just two questions, please. The first question is concerning the recent process and the recent find that the antitrust authorities in Portugal applied to PT [inaudible] signed. I’d just like to know if there are any further processes pending with ADC. And how much in the maximum could represent for PT? On another note, it is a recurrent question on mobile. I would like to know if you have got any updated views on the termination… on the mobile termination rates. And also to know still on TMN, if we should expect any roaming agreement between TMN and PTM, in order to PTM… in order for PTM to start supplying mobile services to its clients? Thank you very much.

Zeinal Abedin Mahomed Bava

Analyst · Millennium. Please state your question.

Okay, thank you. With regard to the competition authority, we have put out a press release and we have made a number of public statements in that regard. And, as we have indicated, we will fight in court our views and we think that at least judging by the whole legal opinions that we have from our lawyers that we have a fairly strong case. With regard to other pending issues with not just ADC, but other relevant entities, I would ask that you refer to our 20-F which has been already published and where you have a specific risk factor and we have lined all the pending cases. As you can imagine at this stage we will not provide you with what we think that could happen in all of those cases other than to say that we are doing everything we can to make sure that the regulators are not biased in some of these decisions, and they live up to what is expected of them which is to be fair with all the other operators and everyone that works in the telecom sector in the Portuguese market. So, I will not take you through that list, but I think the 20-F is public, so you can refer to that. With regards to mobile, mobile termination rates, as you have indicated in the past, I mean, it's tough to even clarify as to where those rates will be in the future. But I think worth highlighting is that we have indicated both in the market generally speaking and to the relevant entities that we think that going forward, this is important that mobile termination rates is adjusted, should be adjusted also in line with what we are paying for spectrum, for the use of spectrum. In this regard,…

Operator

Operator

Our next question, our final question comes from Teresa Martinho with Banif. Please state your question.

Teresa Martinho

Analyst

Hello. I would like to know why have you postponed the timing for execution of the share buyback program? And from a visualization point of view, could your share buyback program to acquire directly through Telefonica the 10% stake they have in PT, if they'd be willing to sell? Then, do you already have any visibility regarding what kind of regulatory relief you may be granted at the Wireline business due to TM spin-off? Thank you.

Zeinal Abedin Mahomed Bava

Analyst

On the buyback, if I understand, your question is about the timings, yes. We, as you know have been doing the buybacks in the market… as you know, we have Luis Pacheco to take you further. And then I'll answer the other question.

Luis Pacheco de Melo

Analyst

Okay, on the buyback, as you know, we are implementing with the fixed rules by MDA [ph], we can buy up to 25% of the daily volume. And we cannot operate under the opening and the pre-closing of the market. With regard to the stocks and shares, as long as our stocks is selling in the market, we can acquire in the market, probably some of the shares, somebody else's shares. We have to restrict it to 25% of the daily volume and therefore we cannot define the context [ph] at this stage.

Zeinal Abedin Mahomed Bava

Analyst

Okay, just so we are absolutely clear, we can just buy shares in the market up to these limits, we have no reason to believe that Telefonica is selling at all. But I think your question was, if you could buy from them the 10% directly, we could not do that under the current conditions that operates in Portugal. On the regulatory relief, it is our expectation that with the spin-off of PT Multimedia, we should be granted this relief, we think that the significant market position of the Portugal Telecom group, both in voice and in broadband reduces significantly with the spin-off and therefore we would hope that in the best interest of the Portuguese market that both the fixed line business and multimedia be given a lot more flexibility to present more innovative and more aggressive pricing both in voice broadband and of course also video. At this stage, as you can imagine I will be not elaborate on the what we think the regulatory relief could be. We have in the past discussed universal service obligations, I think that is clearly one of the things that we have discussed I think with the markets in the past. We think there will be others. But I have to say that we are making good progress. I think it is very encouraging to see the Portuguese Telecom’s regulator also being innovative and receptive to our views that increasingly one should not be looking at the market based on the types of accesses. So I think the technical team and the regulator, Telecom regulator in our view are looking at the structure the right way and we think in the best interest of all operators and the consumers alike. So we are hopeful that going forward both our companies PTC,…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today’s teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you all for your participation.