Earnings Labs

Liberty Latin America Ltd. (LILAK)

Q4 2017 Earnings Call· Fri, Feb 16, 2018

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning ladies and gentlemen and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Liberty Latin America's Full-year 2017 Investor Call. This call and the associated webcast are the property of Liberty Latin America, and any redistribution, retransmission or rebroadcast of this call or webcast in any form without the expressed written consent of Liberty Latin America is strictly prohibited. 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 on this date, February 15, 2018. Page 2 of the slides details the Company's Safe Harbor statements regarding forward-looking statements. Today's presentation may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including the Company's expectations with respect to its outlook and future growth prospects and other information and statements that are not historical facts. These forward-looking statements involve certain risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these statements. These risks include those detailed from time to time in Liberty Latin America's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recently filed Form 10-K. Liberty Latin America disclaims any obligation to update any of these forward-looking statements to reflect any change in its expectations or in the conditions on which any such statement is based. Also note that nothing stated on today's call constitute an offer of any securities for sale. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Mike Fries.

Michael Fries

Management

Alright. Thanks, operator, and welcome, everyone, to Liberty Latin America's first official results call as a separate public company. First of all, a quick thank you to those who have been shareholders through the tracking stock phase and a special welcome to new shareholders. This is an exciting time and exciting moment for Liberty Latin America. That's for sure. I can remember our first investor call as Liberty Global after we spun out of Liberty Media some 13 years ago, and we knew it was going to be a great journey. I can tell you, the executives and the great Board of Directors who we put together for Liberty Latin America feel the same way. I think the Company starts its publicly listed life with a ton of advantages, including fixed and mobile networks in more than 20 countries and that reached five million video voice and broadband customers and four million mobile subs. And through upgrade, new build and converge products, this represents a stellar opportunity, in our view, to drive penetration, drive usage and drive revenue. The Company has the best subsea fiber network in the region with over 50,000 kilometers of fiber untapped capacity and a nice on-ramp into new markets. And then I think most importantly, Liberty Latin America has an outstanding management team led by Balan Nair. And the whole team really leverages the best of our existing leadership in the region and an extremely talented group in the Europe and Denver. And then I keep my remarks brief here, but I do want you to know that there are three things you can expect from this team and from this Board. First and foremost is a commitment to growth that's driven by network and product innovation across the footprint, relying in many cases on the billions of investment already made and deployed in Europe. Second, disciplined approach to acquisitions, based on building strategic scale in a market that's screening for consolidation. The deal we just announced in Costa Rica which we have been working on for over a year is a great example of that. And I will tell you the pipeline is full of both large and small opportunities. And then lastly, smart management of the capital structure from the balance sheet to currency hedges to creative financing. Unlike many of our peers in the region, we want to focus on the things we can control and minimize the volatility from those we can't, especially in this part of the world where, we have learned a few things over the last 20 years. So as Executive Chairman, really looking forward to providing guidance to the troops, helping to drive a broader strategic agenda. And I think most importantly, continuing to work closely with Balan who is a terrific talent on so many levels and someone I’m really, really proud of. So Balan, over to you.

Balan Nair

Management

Thank you, Mike. And welcome once again to our first call of Liberty Latin America. I will start by taking you through a review of 2017 and where we stand today, before moving on to talk about our strategic vision for 2018 and beyond. We have a great opportunity to bring technology and products to our region and we are convinced that there is a huge appetite for what we can deliver with the younger demographic and ever growing demand for data. So looking at what we have achieved in 2017. Having the right organizational structure is key to being able to execute our organic and inorganic plans. And we now have that following the split-off. For our organic aspirations, we have experienced capable and driven-leaders who will leverage the scale we have to drive improved top-line performance and create cost efficiency. And for our acquisition ambitions, we now have an operating model which will enable efficient integration of businesses while retaining our cost structure. I have been in the role of CEO of Liberty Latin America for about seven weeks now. And having visited colleagues in seven of our operations in that time, I’m more convinced of our ability to execute against this great opportunity. We also have scale. In 2017 despite the challenges we faced from Hurricane Irma and Maria, we delivered 3.59 billion of revenue and came in slightly ahead of our updated guidance at 1.37 billion of OCF which is a great platform from which we can grow in the coming years. I will cover the hurricanes in more detail under next slide, but I must say we have seen exceptional efforts from our colleagues in Puerto Rico and the cable and wireless markets to rebuild respective communities and to ensure that we can deliver core…

Christopher Noyes

Management

Thank you, Balan. I will begin on slide 10 and summarize our 2017 full-year subscriber results on both fixed and mobile. We added 66,000 subscribers across all three business units with broadband delivering 110,000 net adds, while we had modest declines of 13,000 in video and 31,000 in fixed telephony. VTR posted strong annual growth of 82,000 net adds in 2017 and C&W delivered 45,000 net adds led by solid performances in Jamaica, Panama and Trinidad. Importantly, C&W gained 30,000 RGUs in Q4, its best quarter since we acquired the business in May 2016. In Puerto Rico, we lost 61,000 subscribers in 2017. This reflects additions in the early part of the year which were more than offset by subscribers that have disconnected from our services since the hurricanes. Notwithstanding as Balan mentioned earlier, we have seen improvement so far in 2018 in Puerto Rico. We have continued to see declines in our subscriber count, but the pace of such declines has continued to slow, especially as we have ramped up our sales efforts. Turning to mobile, we lost 58,000 subscribers in 2017 with VTR gaining 49,000, while C&W lost a 106,000. Our mobile subscriber growth in Chile was our best result in five years, particularly impressive given the intense competition in the market. With respect to C&W mobile, our net loss was principally related to the Bahamas and Panama due in part to competition and in the case of Panama, we had a more focused approach on higher value customers. These declines were offset in part by continued growth in Jamaica mobile where we continue to gain market share. This slide provides a snapshot for our consolidated full-year 2017 results. We reported $3.59 billion in revenue and $1.37 billion in OCF with declines in rebased revenue and OCF year-over-year…

Operator

Operator

The question-and-answer-session will be conducted electronically. [Operator Instructions]. And we will take our first question from Amy Yong with Macquarie.

Amy Yong

Analyst · Macquarie

Thanks and good morning. Chris, maybe just to clarify the CapEx guidance where you expect revenue or CapEx as a percentage of revenue to be 19% to 21%. Does that include the impact of the hurricanes and the rebuild?

Christopher Noyes

Management

Yes, it does. So the work that we will do in 2018 is included.

Amy Yong

Analyst · Macquarie

Got it. And then maybe, if you can just help us think through, not necessarily looking for 2019 guidance, but just some of the bigger buckets of CapEx spend as you are upgrading the networks across the regions?

Balan Nair

Management

I think as we look at 2019, the CapEx profile will change, one the hurricane impact will be off our books, but we will look at some other investments as well especially new build, we are very bullish on that. And there will be some investments in improving the customer experience as well. And that allocation, as we get closer to 2019 we will look at that.

Amy Yong

Analyst · Macquarie

Great. Thank you.

Balan Nair

Management

Okay.

Operator

Operator

We will take our next question from Mathieu Robilliard with Barclays.

Mathieu Robilliard

Analyst · Barclays

Good afternoon and good morning. Thank you for taking the question. In terms of M&A opportunities, so obviously you just announced a very interesting deal. And I was wondering, if you could elaborate a little bit about kind of synergies you can generate there, because you don't really have a presence, as far as I know, certainly not in mobile or any [indiscernible] Costa Rica. And that's also the case I guess in the number of Central American countries, where you are not present, but you may be looking at opportunities. And I would like to understand what kind of synergies you could generate there with your current asset base. If I can follow-up on that right away, I mean Panama we are seeing some potential changes to the legislation that could facilitate consolidation there and I was wondering if you think you can be a beneficiary of that in any ways? Thank you.

Balan Nair

Management

Okay. Thanks, Mathieu. The first question on M&A, we are very excited about the Costa Rica transaction and there will be synergies as well. We have our submarine cable network coming into the country, as well as we have a team that works on our B2B products. And so there will be some synergies and usually when we look at these acquisitions, we bring some scale to it, some procurement benefits and some other benefits as well on the product side that will help. As far as Panama is concerned, we are very supportive of that bill. It makes sense, consolidation makes sense and our team locally have been very supportive as that law goes through its approval process.

Mathieu Robilliard

Analyst · Barclays

If I may follow-up on Panama, I mean, you are one of the largest players there. I mean do you think you could be an active participant? I don't know if that's going too far, or just benefit from a more rational competitive environment, because other players merge, I mean I get the questions really from a regulatory point of view?

Balan Nair

Management

Well, one, we won't comment on any potential transaction, but certainly, we will benefit from consolidation as you get more rationality into that market. Four mobile operators in a small country like that is probably too many.

Mathieu Robilliard

Analyst · Barclays

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

We will take our next question from Jason Bazinet with Citi.

Jason Bazinet

Analyst · Citi

I just had a question on M&A. Given the lack of free cash and elevated leverage that you have because of the hurricanes and your stock hasn’t really inflected up. I was operating under the assumption that M&A would be difficult of you guys to do until some of those factors changed. Clearly I was wrong with what you did in Costa Rica, but my interest was just piqued, you said you have this very full acquisition pipeline, you mentioned it twice on the call. What am I missing? It’s hard for me to understand how you can effect major transactions given all those variables, whether it’s the leverage of the free cash or the lack of currency?

Balan Nair

Management

I think you know and I will pass this on to Chris in a second as well and we have the benefit Mike Fries here in the room and he will probably share some of his thoughts, too. But I will say this that we will be very opportunistic. We will be very disciplined in how we value assets. And as Chris pointed out, we have liquidity as well as we have access in either using our equity as currency or tapping in the markets, but we will be very prudent and we will be looking for value. So with that may be Chris or Mike do you want to…

Michael Fries

Management

Well, I will let Chris address the liquidity point, Jason, but there is I think $1.5 billion of liquidity nominally in the Group today that consists, in no small part of revolving credit facilities, principally at VTR. So there is liquidity in the Group, some of its trapped of course, some of it’s available. The Second thing I would say is many of the targets aren't levered to the four to five times range. So if you were to see the pipeline or come up with a pipeline of your own, you will see that there is a borrowing capacity generally on the target. The third thing I would say is I think the Group is going to be very creative and opportunistic around partnering. So in the case of Costa Rica, the local partner retained a 20% stake. That lowered the requirement. There is a number of both private and local partners who would love to be in business with us. If you look at Puerto Rico, with Searchlight or even local regional and strategic partner. So I think when you look at the overall sources of liquidity, there are many and I think what we have to do as I said in my remarks, is be really thoughtful and creative and smart about how we assemble that capital while minimizing dilution to the shareholders on this call. That's as ever, we're highly sensitive to that. So I think the last thing will be utilizing as currency is the equity that everybody on this call owns, but that doesn't mean down the road, we won't be able to tap that or do something that is to the benefit of all parties.

Jason Bazinet

Analyst · Citi

Understood.

Christopher Noyes

Management

Yes, just to add, I think we have kind a covered the potential sources, but for example in Cabletica in Costa Rica we are doing local borrowing is the intact. So we will, were few three to four times on that assets and so the equity check is relatively small.

Jason Bazinet

Analyst · Citi

Understood. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And we will take our next question Soomit Datta with New Street Research.

Soomit Datta

Analyst

Hi, yes a question please on free cash flow for 2018. I don’t this there is any explicit guidance out there when I look at the OCF and what you are talking about in terms of CapEx and insurance proceeds. It looks like you should be able to get to circa like $100 million $150 million of free cash flow under your new definition. Am I thinking about that broadly correctly, maybe not in terms of specifically commenting on numbers, but it feels like we should be able to get positive free cash flow. Is that the right way to think about it? And then just as a quick follow-up, just sorry, yes, please go ahead?

Christopher Noyes

Management

No, no, go ahead.

Soomit Datta

Analyst

No, just the follow-up on the CWC. I think one of the markets which stands out at the moment is Jamaica, the broadband business is growing well and across the Board the RGUs are strong. And thinking about 2018, is there another market which you are particularly excited about, or is Jamaica likely to be the one which drives the RGU growth next year as well all in 2018 as well? Thank you.

Christopher Noyes

Management

Yes, I will take the cash flow question. I did in my remarks mentioned that, we did expect modest negative adjusted free cash flow in 2018. And just to put it in context, and I think we're been prudent in how we guide the market around the cash flow. And I think to the extent which we're successful on the recovery from insurance that will be additive or positive to our free cash flow story. And then I think as you think about the components, we did provide obviously OCF guidance. If you kind of breakdown into the sort of free cash flow merits overall debt is around $6.4 billion at a little over 6% on a weighted basis. So if you just do the math on that, it will be around $400 million of interest. And then cash tax is another question that we get frequently. And if you look at what we did in 2017 we had $110 million of cash taxes, but it also included a refund in Chile. So if you broke that up, it was more around $140 million. And if you think about that on a go-forward basis, it's generally kind a upward sloping, is the way I would think about it. So that should give you at least some parameters to model out the cash flow figures.

Balan Nair

Management

On the Jamaica question, I will ask Betzalel, our Chief Operating Officer to comment on that.

Betzalel Kenigsztein

Analyst

Yes. Thank you, Balan. Jamaica, definitely will continue to be our key growth driver for next year. We expect leveraging our expansion of the network and our good position in the market. But I expect next year also to see some positive trends in the other markets, mainly driven by two factors, improving our base management. We are doing a lot in leveraging our capabilities to manage our base better and lower churn. And on the other hand, adjusting our product offering in our go-to-market that will deliver a growth improvement, we expect that in Trinidad, in Panama, and in the other markets. We have to also remember that we have a new build that will deliver growth in those markets. And as we go we will improve our delivery and execution in those new build areas.

Soomit Datta

Analyst

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And we will take our next question with Kevin Roe with Roe Equity Research.

Kevin Roe

Analyst

Thank you. On Puerto Rico, you mentioned the issue of migration. What is your estimate of how much the addressable market at the end of the day may have shrunk on a sort of a permanent basis? And on power restoration, I guess that’s a key variable for hitting your exit OCF target, monthly target for Puerto Rico. What is your expectation for power restoration between now and year end?

Balan Nair

Management

Okay. On the migration question, obviously there is migration to the mainland. And we expect household would probably drop probably in the 10% range. However, in our RGU story, we don’t expect to just sit back and then take the lower homes path. Naji and his team is fully focused on capturing additional share in that market. So the bottom of that market for us is not going to be the same as the amount of households that would no longer exist on the island. And I will ask Naji to add some color on that as well. And on the power side, that’s been a very slow process and Naji can probably give you a better guidance on the forecast on the island. Naji.

Naji Khoury

Analyst

Yes, Balan, thank you. On the power restoration, based on today’s figure, we are approaching 75% and based on information we have, they will likely reach the 100% some time towards the end of Q2. They are probably getting to a point, where it is slower than expected, simply as you reach the area heavily devastated in the mountains. So we do anticipate the power will be back 100%, it’s just the last 20%, 25% is going to take a bit longer.

Kevin Roe

Analyst

That’s helpful. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

We will take our next question Andres Coello with Scotiabank.

Andres Coello

Analyst

Yes. Thank you for taking my question. On the assets available for sale in your balance sheet specifically and the asset in Trinidad, I was wondering maybe you can give us an update on how that sale is going, when do you expect to monetize that asset? And my second question is on the timing of the Costa Rica acquisition, if we should expect that to be consolidated, after this Q1 or it may take a few more quarters?

Balan Nair

Management

Well on the Costa Rica, I think we expect six to eight months for it to close with all the regulatory approvals et cetera. And in Trinidad on the TSTT asset, I recently met with some of the government officials a couple of weeks ago. I think there is a path there for us to dispose the assets, a lot more clearing down than it ever has been, but it’s still not done deal yet. But suffice to say the teams are working pretty hard on it to exit that business.

Andres Coello

Analyst

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And we will take our next question from Julio Arciniegas with RBC Capital Markets.

Julio Arciniegas

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets

Yes. Thank you for taking the question. About the M&A strategy and pipeline, is LILAC more focused on Central America Caribbean or do you see also some pipeline opportunities in South America? And my second question would be what should we expect of the extra cost that LILAC will have as an independent entity after the spin? Thank you.

Balan Nair

Management

I will answer the first one. I don’t know if I caught the second question really well. But I will pass it on to Chris Noyes to answer that. On the first one, on the M&A opportunities, we will be opportunistic across the whole region, and we are not looking at one specific area of the regions, be it Central or Caribbean or South America. There are good opportunities across the board. And I should say we would look at the value, we would do the right due diligence and be very disciplined about it, and of course looking at the speed of the target companies as well. Now on the second question, I will pass it on to Chris.

Christopher Noyes

Management

Yes. I mean I think in terms of corporate cost, you will see in 2017, it was $25 million in Q4 specifically, it was $10 million. So it gives you a little bit of an indication of what the inflection in incremental corporate costs are. There will be costs obviously for public company expense and board. We have the separate 10-K et cetera. So I think if you look at that Q4 type number, and add increment to that to reflect a more fulsome staff to handle the public company commands, that will provide you I think a little bit of guidance about where that figure will be?

Julio Arciniegas

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And the last question will take is from Steve Malcolm with Arete Research.

Steve Malcolm

Analyst · Arete Research

Yes. Hi guys. I just wanted to come back on the Puerto Rico question. First of all, well done on making the progress you have in many years covering this sector, I can’t remember a situation as focused that, so well done. As you work through the restoration, I mean just coming back to sort of what the new normal [indiscernible] looks like. And you came into a 400,000 subs spending $75 a month roughly. As you reconnect customers, are they taking the same sort of bundles they - are you seeing kind of accelerated cord cuttings, if people kind of right size the packages. Some color on that would be good and helpful. And then just on the Cabletica deal, I mean it looks to me like, you need to find sort of $60 million, $70 million, $80 million outside local leverage, which I guess, comes through one or three places Cable & Wireless, Telco or VTR. Can you give us a bit more color as to where that money has come from? And were there any tax implications of streaming cash from VTR to fund this deal? Thank you.

Michael Fries

Management

So, on the first question on the Puerto Rico. Our acquisition, I will tell you the bundling ratio on the acquisition is not that far off from where it was before. So we are not seeing any changes in, or cord cutting as you would say. We think we can actually grow the business even more after this or at least our share of the business will grow. It’s becoming very clear that broadband and our broadband product resonates with customers and we have increased across the base everybody’s speeds. And our entry product now is 100 megabits. So we think we have a winning proposition there. On the Cabletica and the financing on it, I will pass this on to Chris right now.

Christopher Noyes

Management

Yes, Steve. So it will come from either cash on hand or draw on either the VTR line or the CWC line and I wouldn’t expect any significant tax leakage from any upstream.

Steve Malcolm

Analyst · Arete Research

[Technical Difficulty] I assume that’s ongoing? You may have said something previous that I might have missed. That will be funded presumably from central cash if it is ongoing. Thanks. On the buyback I haven’t seen any sort of update on the buyback plans and how that will be funded. I may have missed it, but I just wanted to check if I had missed it or not.

Balan Nair

Management

We had mentioned something in the prepared remarks, we did not purchase stock in Q4 and it will be an item that we will continue to discuss with our Board regarding the stock repurchase plan over the coming months.

Steve Malcolm

Analyst · Arete Research

Do we assume, it’s on hold for now as you tend to work through Cabletica and LCPR?

Balan Nair

Management

Yes.

Steve Malcolm

Analyst · Arete Research

Okay. Thanks all.

Balan Nair

Management

So I guess we have come to the end of this call. I want to thank everybody for joining on our first earnings call for Liberty Latin America. We are really, really excited about this business. We see tremendous opportunities. And we appreciate you supporting us. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes Liberty Latin America’s full-year 2017 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.