Earnings Labs

Tucows Inc. (TCX)

Q3 2020 Earnings Call· Sun, Nov 8, 2020

$16.34

-1.39%

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Transcript

Monica Webb

Management

Welcome to Tucows’ Third Quarter 2020 Management Commentary. We have pre-recorded prepared remarks regarding the quarter and outlook for the Company. A transcript of these remarks is also available on the Company’s website. In lieu of a live question and answer period following the remarks, shareholders, analysts and prospective investors are invited to submit their questions to Tucows’ management via email at ir@tucows.com, until Tuesday, November 10. Management will address your questions directly, or in a recorded audio response and transcript that will be posted to the Tucows website on Tuesday, November 17 at approximately 4 p.m. eastern time. We would also like to advise that the updated Tucows Quarterly KPI Summary, which provides key metrics for all of our businesses for the last seven quarters, as well as 2018, 2019 and year-to-date, is available in the Investors section of the website along with the updated Ting Build Scorecard and Investor Presentation. Please note that the KPI Summary has been modified to reflect our transition from a Mobile Virtual Network Operator to a Mobile Services Enabler. This means the mobile metrics that are no longer applicable to our business have been removed. Now for management’s prepared remarks. On Thursday, November 5, Tucows issued a news release reporting its financial results for the third quarter ending September 30, 2020. That news release, and the company’s financial statements are available on the company's website at tucows.com, under the Investors section. Please note that the following discussion may include forward-looking statements, which, as such, are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. These risk factors are described in detail in the company's documents filed with the SEC, specifically the most recent reports on the Forms 10-K and 10-Q. The company urges you to read its security filings for a full description of the risk factors applicable for its business. I would now like to turn the call over to Tucows’ President and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Elliot Noss.

Elliot Noss

Management

Thanks Monica. Q3 2020 was another strong quarter of performance. I do want to highlight at the outset that our revenue and gross margin figures for the third quarter reflect our transition to a Mobile Services Enabler model from an MVNO model, and the sale of the vast majority of the Ting Mobile customer base to DISH Networks, a third of the way through the quarter. Dave will discuss in more detail, but here is a cheat sheet. The complicating factor is the compensation we got for the customer base. Money received for the earn-out on the sold customers is being recognized under Other Income, which sits below Operating Income, as a gain on the sale of the Ting Mobile assets. This income stream will remain in place for well over five years. When we considered this transaction, we looked at improving the cash contribution to the overall business and we considered all amounts received as part of the analysis. We knew it would complicate our reporting, and make it more difficult to follow, but we give our investors credit for being able to follow, and we maximize for cash generated. The amount in other income will be relatively close to what the sold customers would have generated on a contribution basis and will decline over time, roughly with churn. As a result, as we transition to the MSE business, our reported revenue and gross margin results will be negatively impacted with all of that revenue and much of the expenses associated with it now subsumed in other income. We are however, including these earnings in our adjusted EBITDA results and as such adjusted EBITDA may provide a better year-over-year view on operating results. For revenue and gross margin, the best way to view our performance for Q3 is by…

Dave Singh

Management

Thanks Elliot. Given that Elliot already summarized the mechanics of the financials of the Mobile Services business at the outset, I won’t review those here again, but will speak to them specifically within the context of the results. You can also refer to the note at the beginning of our news release for an explanation of those and the impacts for our Q3 results. Total net revenue for the third quarter of 2020 was $74.3 million, a 16% decrease from $88.1 million for the third quarter of last year. As Elliot discussed, the majority of the decrease was the result of the sale of the Ting Mobile customer relationships on August 1st, but was also due to the large bulk domains sale in Q3 last year from our Portfolio business, which we have since exited. Those decreases were partially offset by continued strong growth in Ting Internet revenue, largely the result of the Cedar Acquisition in January of this year, but also the result of the continued growth in the Ting Internet services customer base. Cost of revenues before network costs decreased 13% to $48.3 million, from $55.8 million for Q3 of last year, with the decline primarily due to the lower revenue. As a percentage of revenue, cost of revenues before network costs rose slightly to 65%, as the improved mix in the Domains business was offset by the shift in mobile revenues, including the addition of low margin transition services to DISH. Gross margin before network costs for the third quarter decreased 20% to $26 million, from $32.4 million, with the decrease primarily related to the sale of Ting Mobile assets and to a lesser extent the outsized portfolio sale in Q3 2019. Note, the margin generated by the mobile customers sold to DISH is now incorporated in…

Elliot Noss

Operator

Thanks Dave. In the value investment community, investors like the concept of an owners manual and on some level that is the way I view these ongoing transcripts. This quarter there are a couple of elements that feel like important additions to the manual. The first, the way to track our mobile business going forward, made up a fair bit of my opening comments and I expect as time passes, will take up some more. The other is what we expect from Ting Fiber in the coming years. I have previously mentioned that we now see the bulk of the transition from coax to fiber in the U.S. taking place over the next five to six years, not the 10-12 years we previously expected. I have also noted a number of times in recent remarks that smart money was pouring into this asset class, around the world -- but in the U.S. in particular. There are implications that land in the numbers that I want to help you all understand. The first implication of the above is that we want to accelerate an already aggressive plan to lay as much fiber as we can. We have noted repeatedly the influx of capital to the space. In a yield-starved world, mature assets in a fantastic infrastructure asset class like fiber-to-the-home are trading at very lofty multiples. Fiber is a utility that looks like a business. Yet currently, if one has the skills and wherewithal to be able to build and operate these assets, one can build EBITDA at four times to five times, which puts a huge premium on building as much as possible. We will continue to attract and invest in world class management talent in this regard. This creates the second implication. The faster we build, particularly in new…