Grupo Televisa, S.A.B. Q4 FY2020 Earnings Call

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Grupo Televisa's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2020 Conference Call. Before we begin, I would like to draw your attention to the press release, which explains the use of forward-looking statements and applies to everything we discuss in today's call and in the earnings release. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Alfonso De Angoitia, Co-Chief Executive Officer of Grupo Televisa. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Digi. Good morning, everyone and thanks for joining us today. With me today are Salvi Folch, CEO of Cable; Alex Penna, CEO of Sky; Patricio Wills, Head of Televisa Studios; and our Carlos Ferreiro and Antonio Lara, Corporate Vice President of Financing Administration respectively. Last year was one of the most challenging and uncertain periods that any of us can remember, not only because of COVID, but also because of the dramatic contraction of the Mexican economy by 8.5%, the worst drop in almost 90 years. 2020 also highlighted the importance of the services we provide, from our entertainment content to our newscasts, to our broadband and paid television services. Our content business continues operating without interruption, entertaining and informing our audiences and it played a critical role in the educational front, which in Mexico continues to be mostly remote. Also, our Cable infrastructure was able to cope with the needs of our customers who had to switch into a work from home environment. 2020 demonstrated the strength of our core businesses throughout the year. Bernardo and I did not lose sight of our strategic initiatives and continue to focus on execution. More specifically, in cable we reached a milestone of 14 million RGUs or Revenue Generating Units and delivered a growth in broadband subscribers of 16%. We also achieved high single digit growth in revenues and operating segment income. In the case of Sky, we continue to add in broadband and video customers and the company posted a top line growth of 3.7%. During 2020, Sky contributed 3.8 billion in operating cash flow and maintained strong levels of profitability. And in Content, we were able to substantially compensate for the decline in advertising revenues with growth in other sources of content revenue and also with a dramatic reduction in costs and expenses. We are happy to say that we delivered the savings we promised of Ps. 2.2 billion. Finally, our Other Businesses segment was severely impacted by the closing of the economy and posted a drop in operating segment income of 92% year-over-year. Unfortunately, due to the social distancing measures mandated by the authorities, we had to close our gaming sites and soccer stadiums. Also, the large majority of the points of sale for our magazines were not open and not operating. Our movie distribution business was put on hold due to the closure of movie theaters. All these circumstances were outside of our control. As a result, full year revenue and operating segment income for the company dropped 3.7% and 1.3% respectively, and the margin was relatively flat. However, excluding the results of our other businesses segment, revenues from our three combined core businesses expanded by 2% and operating segment income grew by 2.1%. In terms of our balance sheet, we closed the year with a solid cash position of $1.8 billion without relevant short-term maturities and with a net debt leverage ratio of 2.5x. Bernardo and I are pleased that our portfolio of core assets delivered growth in 2020, the most challenging environment the company has faced in many decades. In terms of our consolidated fourth quarter results, revenues were practically flat and operating segments income was up by 14%. This was driven by solid performance in cable, resilient operations of Sky, and material OpEx savings in content. Now, let me address the fourth quarter results in our content division. Advertising revenue was relatively flat. This is a remarkable result considering the contraction of this business in the first three quarters of the year and the fact that a relevant part of the economy remained closed. Private Sector advertising revenues were strong, growing mid-single digits; sequentially, there was a significant improvement across all sectors. On the other hand, government advertising revenues dropped double digits, driven by ongoing austerity initiatives. From the beginning of the new administration, the government implemented several public policy measures to release funds for other projects. One of these measures was the reduction of its overall investment in advertising, which continues to this date. Royalties from Univision increased by 8.8% in dollar terms, reaching $110 million, which is a record high for a single quarter. This was achieved despite the impact of the pandemic and was helped by political ad spending. In sum, during the quarter, content revenue was down by 0.5%, but operating segment income grew 23.7%, mainly driven by Ps. 1.1 billion in savings. Moving on to the full year, content revenue declined 7%. This is primarily explained by the decline in advertising sales in the first three quarters of the year due to COVID. Throughout the year, our content division was extremely disciplined with costs and expenses and we were able to reduce them as I mentioned before by Ps. 2.2 billion. This is a substantial reduction in our cost structure, particularly considering that most of it was concentrated in the second half of the year. From the beginning of the pandemic, Bernardo and I made a company-wide mandate to examine every single cost and expense line to eliminate any unnecessary expenses, cancel many contracts with service providers, and renegotiate terms with many others. As a result, during 2020, operating segment income in our content business was only 2.3% lower when compared to 2019 and the margin reached 37.9%. This is an increase of 180 basis points from 2019 and the highest margin since 2016. In terms of our upfront, I am glad to say that our negotiations with our customers have practically concluded and upfront deposits are expected to grow mid-single digits. We're optimistic that this will contribute to reach an inflection point in advertising revenue during 2021. In addition, despite the fact that many social distancing measures remain in place, we see that many of our advertising clients are better prepared to operate in this complex environment and have been more active since the beginning of the year. I will now turn it over to Patricio for a discussion of the progress we made during the year in our content offering.

Thank you, Alfonso. Television is performing well in Mexico. According to Nielsen during the last year, viewership of free-to-air TV grew 3.6% year-over-year, and we were the main contributors to that growth. Our flagship channel Las Estrellas posted a year-over-year growth in viewership of 21% during the combined areas and bystanders, while reaching a five-year rating record. Our newscasts were equally strong, with ratings in our nightly news program remaining solid, almost doubling those of our closest competitor. The success of our 2020 productions was evident even before the beginning of social distancing measures. In February, when ratings were already reaching levels not seen since 2016. At the outset of the COVID pandemic, for a period of time we had to replace much of our early afternoon content with library programs given the temporary closure of our production facilities. Even then, our absolute growth delivered over 50% more viewers than the price and content of our closest competitor. We have a very valuable library which we will continue to build over time. Televisa's content continues to support Univision's strong rate performance. Univision was the only network portfolio to grow in the ratings year-over-year, allowing it to increase viewership share in the Spanish language programming to 88%.

Thank you, Patricio. Now moving on to Cable. Let me turn it over to Sandy.

Thank you, Alfonso. Despite the challenges we faced during 2020, we're very happy with our results. We posted double-digit growth in RGUs surpassing the milestone of Ps. 14 million. Broadband customers drove most of the growth, but voice was also a contributor. The weak performance of video was mostly attributed to the difficult economic environment. Additionally, our customers are prioritizing connectivity as there are more options in the streaming services. Our network responded well; average monthly traffic per user went up by approximately 30% during the year, and our number of users increased by about 16%. This is a very relevant increase in the demand on our network, and we were able to satisfy it. The investments that we made over the years are paying off, allowing us to keep up with the increasing demand for high-speed internet. In fact, over the last five months, Netflix has designated us as the top broadband service provider in Mexico, according to various industry reports. Throughout the year, innovation was an important component of our strategy. During 2020, we launched multiple initiatives, including a disruptive mobile service, which closed the year with over 75,000 customers. Our easy eBay smart offer based on an Android TV setup box, which includes voice control and allows us to offer all the relevant OTT alternatives. Our new linear EC feature, which allows our customers to take their fixed-line number with them wherever they go, and aficionados, our sports-only network, which now includes important sports content on an exclusive basis. Finally, we continued positioning ourselves as the leading aggregator of OTT services in Mexico, and we now carry many of the main participants, including Sling, Netflix, Disney Plus, Prime Video, HBO Max, Starz, and others. Financial results were also strong. During the quarter, our revenues grew 7.3% while operating segment income grew at 9%, reaching a margin of 41.9%. For the full year, revenue growth was 8.8% and operating segment income grew 6.2%, with a margin of 41.7%. While the MSO business contributes most of the revenues of our segment, our enterprise business continued to build scale. During the quarter, we posted revenue growth of 9% and for the full year of 15.5%. This is the fastest pace of growth since 2016. During 2020, capital expenditures reached $663 million, equivalent to 31% of revenue. The majority of our capital in 2020 was directed at increasing our subscriber base and supporting growth which was stronger than anticipated. In addition, we expanded our network by over 500,000 homes. As a result, we closed 2020 with close to 16 million homes connected, of which more than 60% are serviced either by fiber to the node or fiber to the home. Over the last decade, our market share of fixed broadband has expanded from 8% to about 25%. We expect to continue with this positive trend.

Thank you, Sandy. Now, moving on to Sky, let me turn it over to Alexandre Penna, CEO of Sky.

Thank you, Alfonso. 2020 was a very solid year for us. Our broadband offering continued building scale, and we managed to add customers in every single quarter of the year. Our combined net additions in 2020 were the strongest since 2016, and we closed the year with 7.5 million video RGUs and 666,000 broadband RGUs. We have become a relevant participant in broadband and a strong competitor. In terms of our financial results, revenue growth during the fourth quarter was 4.4%. Operating segment income growth was 1.6%. For the full year, revenue was up by 3.7%. Operating segment income was in line with last year, and we reached a margin of 41.3%. For 2021, we have a number of initiatives to maintain our standard base of growth. For example, last month, we launched a package called Sky Sports. This prepaid offering includes exclusive sports content, such as the Spanish League, the English Premier League, and many other eSports properties. Sky Sports also includes all free-to-air channels and Televisa's suite of pay TV channels. This package is an effort to further monetize Sky's investment in exclusive sports content and is being positioned as a must-have for hardcore sports fans who are satisfied with their current providers of broadband service. We will continue developing and testing pay TV and telecom offers to maintain the resilience and profitability of our business.

Thank you, Alex. Now in terms of Univision, on December 29, Searchlight and ForgeLight concluded the acquisition of a majority ownership interest in the company, and as part of the transaction, we converted our warrants into common stock. The management transition took place swiftly and successfully. As soon as Wade Davis assumed the role of CEO, he set out to revamp the company's strategy and incorporate world-class talent into the team. In addition, as announced previously, Univision named four very accomplished Hispanic business leaders as its new independent directors. They are Marcelo Claure, CEO of SoftBank Group International, Oscar Munoz, Executive Chairman of United Airlines, MC Gonzalez, Senior Vice President of Global Public Affairs of Estee Lauder, and Jasel Reif, a 26-year veteran of Walmart. Most recently she served as Chief Operating Officer of Sam's Club. This impressive group of individuals appreciates Univision's extraordinary potential; they bring a unique understanding of the Hispanic market and substantial strategic and operational expertise. On Televisa's side, Bernardo, Emilio, and I will also serve as board members. The implementation of aggressive cost actions at the beginning of the pandemic allowed Univision to benefit from the sequential recovery in advertising in the second half of the year. During 2020, Univision was also able to refinance over $4 billion of debt, extending its maturity profile. Earlier this year, Univision announced PrendeTV, a streaming service designed exclusively for the US Hispanic audience, with free premium Spanish language programming to be launched in the next few weeks. This service would allow Univision to have a leadership position in the Spanish language streaming space, just as it does in Spanish language linear television. Today, Bernardo and I have the closest working relationship we've ever had with Univision, and I'm looking forward to supporting Wade and his team with all the initiatives they have in the pipeline. Moving on to capital expenditures. Last year, they were $939 million lower than our guidance of $970 million and lower than our CapEx in 2019, which was close to $1 billion. For 2021, our CapEx will be slightly higher than last year as we take advantage of growth opportunities, particularly on the cable side. Finally, I am happy to report that our Board of Directors approved yesterday the payment of our regular dividend in 2021. This will be presented for approval at our annual shareholders meeting. In closing, 2020 took us all by surprise, but we were caught in a very solid position, producing strong and attractive content with robust video, voice, and data offerings. In this environment, we were able to increase ratings in our content on free-to-air television to levels not seen since 2016. We also protected our margins in our content business as a result of the aggressive cost actions that we took throughout the year. We continue gaining market share in telecom services, adding over 1.7 million RGUs in broadband, voice, and mobile between Cable and Sky. This is our fastest pace of organic growth on record. At every moment, we maintained sufficient sources of liquidity and a solid balance sheet with strict financial discipline. Finally, in an economy that contracted 8.5%, we delivered growth in revenue and operating segment income for our three combined core operations. 2021 will continue to be a challenging year, but we will remain focused on delivering solid results for all our stakeholders. Bernardo and I are optimistic about 2021; first, connectivity has become very important in every household, and we are benefiting from this trend. So we will continue to invest and grow in our broadband operations. Also, as a result of the positive outcome of our upfront negotiations, we believe that we will see in 2021 the inflection point for our ad sales business. Before we close, I would like to inform you that our friend Carlos Rivas will be leaving us after many years of dedication and hard work. Thank you, Carlos. We wish you all the best in your new activities. We will be announcing the new IR Head in the following weeks. Thank you very much for your attention, and we're now ready to take your questions.

Our first question comes from Arturo Langa from Itau BBA.

Hi, thank you for taking my question. Good morning, everyone. I think the first question I have is, Alfonso you mentioned the new talent being incorporated into Univision. And on that note, you were also named Chairman of the Board for Univision. I was wondering what it means for you for TV and for Univision. I would love to hear your thoughts on that. And then second, the cost savings on the content side were very impressive. I know you've talked about some of that being more or less permanent for 2021. But I was just wondering if that has changed the results after fourth-quarter results considering you're seeing more of an inflection point on the ad advertising gross revenue. And then just lastly, I would also like to extend a very warm thank you to Carlos for all the help he's given me over the past two years. So that would be all of my side.

So thank you, Arturo. Moving to your first question about Univision; it's a very interesting story. Let me give you some color and background. As I mentioned before, Emilio, Bernardo, and I will serve as members of the Board of Univision. What happened was that after the closing of the acquisition, our new controlling partners originally offered the position to Bernardo and I have Co-Chairman, and Bernardo decided not to take it as he would rather stay focused on the execution of our strategic plan in these very turbulent times. So then it ended up with me, and Emilio and Bernardo thought that it was a very good idea, but I accepted. So it's not because of any personal merit of mine, obviously, it's because of my role at Televisa. It's interesting that Bernardo and I operate Televisa as Co-CEOs working as a tight-knit team, I would say, under what I can characterize as a very successful partnership, where all the decisions are made together, leveraging on each other's strengths. It has worked well for us. It's a different style, but I can say that it has worked well for us, and I believe for Televisa. In that spirit, I will serve as Chairman of Univision for an initial term and then we will be rotating and Bernardo will take over. As to the collaboration level between Televisa and Univision has been increasing over the last few months. The personal relationship that Bernardo and I have with Wade Davis and his management team is the best we've ever had with Univision. Wade is doing a great job and has reenergized the company. I believe Univision was kind of a sleeping giant. We're now fully aligned and understand that the closer we work together, the better for both companies; we will do many things jointly as we evolve into the digital transformation of both Televisa and Univision with the view of taking advantage of our combined scale, which means a lot. Together, Televisa and Univision are by far the largest media company in the Spanish-speaking world, and also by far the largest producers of content in Spanish, among many, many other things. So we're very happy with this relationship, and with all the things that we will work on as partners. Regarding your second question, many costs and expenses were permanently eliminated. Having said that, we think that in 2021, which we believe will be a more normal year, costs and expenses will be similar to those in 2018 in nominal terms; however, we have a lot of uncertainty. For example, we don't know whether we will produce and transmit the Olympic Games, which is a big line item for us in terms of costs and expenses. So we cannot provide a precise figure at this moment. But you can be sure that I mean, as you saw the other night, I have been obsessively on top of all the costs and expenses and will continue to do so.

Our next question comes from the line of Carlos Legarreta from GBM.

Thank you. Good morning. I hope you are all safe and healthy. My first question is to follow up on Univision; Liberty Global took a minority investment during the quarter. Could you please elaborate on what this means for Televisa and the relationship with UVN? Thank you.

Yes, thank you, Carlos, for your question. We're very happy to see Liberty Global actually made an investment in Univision. That was the preferred type of instrument. And this was together with Searchlight, ForgeLight, and of course, as a result of that, they became partners of ours. They saw this as a great investment opportunity considering the potential of Univision, especially if you look at the growing Hispanic market demographics, and also the great prospects that we have on the digital transformation side. They have also told us that they see a great value in the content we deliver and the huge library of thousands of hours that Univision can offer. What Mike Fries has mentioned to both Bernardo and me is that he made the investment to strengthen the relationship between our two companies. Of course, they would like to do many more things together in the US market. We really appreciate Mike making this investment. He has been an amazing board member. We're also proud and happy to see that a company controlled by John Malone, one of the smartest and most admired investors, decided to bet on the future of Univision. So we're very happy with our relationship with Liberty and with their investment and becoming partners.

Our next question comes from the line of Gordon Lee from BTG.

Hi, good morning, everybody. Thank you very much for the call. I'd like to join Arturo in congratulating Alfonso on your naming as Chairman, which is important for you. I also want to thank Carlos for his many years of help and support. I have a couple of questions. One is just a follow-up to the last two questions regarding the Televisa relationship with Univision. The comment you made on costs for 2021; I assume that the expectation that costs will be similar to those of 2019 in nominal terms does not assume any sort of additional ramp-up and potential joint initiatives with Univision that could benefit the cost side. If that were to happen, it would probably materialize later and would be incremental. My second question is on your upfront; I was wondering if you could maybe tell us a little bit qualitatively of whether you feel that your customers are now sort of approaching their ad spend in a more normalized way in the sense that they have adapted to COVID. And second, when you look at your upfront deposits, are there any sorts of shifts in terms of the industry or sector composition that you could detect? Thank you.

Hi, Gordon, thank you for your question. In terms of costs and expenses, all the AVOD projects that we have in Mexico have been considered in the budget, which will be very important for us. Launching the AVOD platform through Blim is captured there. We were mentioning that we haven't finalized the budget due to events such as the Olympic Games and whether they will happen or not. Regarding doing more with Univision, I think the initiatives we've identified and include in our plan have already been captured in the costs and expenses. Any additional initiatives would be growth opportunities and would be, of course, on top of what I mentioned. As for the upfront, we're seeing that our advertising clients are experiencing a better environment. We're observing an increase across the board, with some industries growing more than others. For example, advertising spending in food and beverage was up mid-single digits year-over-year. Retail, telecom service, and cosmetics experienced double-digit growth. Our clients have realized that the slowdown in ad spending during the first nine months of last year started to erode their brands, which has led them to increase their advertising in 2021. In today's environment, it's crucial for clients to get their messages across and begin to restore their revenue and sell their products. With our very strong ratings, we continue to provide the most cost-effective way of promoting their brands and products. So we feel optimistic about what Televisa is offering in terms of products and the capacity we have to promote those brands and products. Therefore, we're hopeful about 2021.

Our next question comes from the line of Marcelo Santos from JPMorgan.

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to get a bit more clarification on the upfront. So in terms of the previous year, was everything spent in 2020? If we think that the upfront growing mid-single digits and you have clients that buy outside of the upfront, do you think it's reasonable to expect a higher growth in advertising revenues in 2021? That's the first question. The second question is on the broadband growth. If everything is going well with the collection, are you still doing very well with churn or are you seeing some impacts from the weak economic environment in these numbers? Thank you.

Thank you, Marcelo. Yes, as to your first question, considering COVID and the dramatic drop in GDP, some clients that were not operating fully, or at all, during 2020 canceled some of our upfront plans, while others decided to push their commitments to 2021. As a result, they were unable to operate due to severe financial distress, like the tourism sector, airlines, etc., and some decided to cancel their plans. In other cases, we successfully negotiated to push their commitments to this year. Regarding your second question, I'll ask Salvi to answer.

Yes. Hi, Marcelo. We are very happy with the broadband growth that we experienced during 2020. There is no doubt that connectivity is extremely important for our customers, and we have an attractive offer. As you saw in our result, there was a slowdown in the fourth quarter, right? But I think that it's going to be industry-wide. We still have to see the results of some of our competitors. When you see Telmex's additions in the fourth quarter, they were also lower than in the prior quarters. There's no doubt that the economic environment has been challenging. GDP had a relevant contraction, and disposable income for many of our customers has declined, but they have been prioritizing broadband. Collections remain solid, and we are pleased. The use of the network has increased. So we have very competitive bundles. What some of our customers are doing is canceling video services. That is why we had a slowdown in video, but I think our broadband offers have allowed us to remain highly competitive.

And Marcelo, just to clarify, the upfront plan we are discussing with mid-single digit growth is when comparing last year's upfront plan with this one.

Our next question comes from the line of George Sonido from Goldman Sachs.

Hello, good morning, everyone. Hopefully, you and your family are safe, and thank you for taking my questions. Two questions on my side. The first one is if you could give us an update on how the other businesses segment has been recovering since COVID-19 and how much it was affected during 2020 and this first quarter. The second question is we saw another very relevant improvement in the market performance in content this quarter. Do you see any room for margin gains in other segments as well that we should expect from similar popular events? Thank you.

Thank you, George. As I reported, other businesses were severely impacted by the closing of the economy as a result of COVID. In terms of operating segment income, we lost 92% year-over-year. It will depend on what happens with COVID and the relaxation of the sanitary measures and vaccination efforts. We believe it will be a better year; however, it all depends on those factors. For example, if we can open the soccer stadiums and have the public attending, or if the points of sale for the magazines can be operational, etc. We shut down 100% of the gaming operations; towards the end of the year, we were able to reopen some of them, but now they are pretty much shut down, and when we opened them, it was at lower capacity than 100%. It all depends on those measures, the relaxation of restrictions, and the effect of COVID and vaccination. I will ask Alex to address your second question regarding margins.

Hi, George. As you saw, margins were very solid across all our business segments, with cable and Sky above 40%. We believe that those margins can be similar in 2021. On the content side, the margin was close to 38%, which was also very solid and remarkable given the circumstances that we faced in 2020. As Alfonso mentioned, the costs and expenses will be similar to 2019, but we will maintain strict control over costs and expenses to make sure that we protect our margins in 2021 as well.

Our next question comes from the line of Gilberto Garcia from Barclays.

Hi, good morning and thank you for the call. I had a question about Cable, specifically the performance of Cable pay TV compared to Sky. It's understandable that economic pressures have affected Pay TV net additions, but what would you attribute the ongoing resilience in Sky to? Additionally, there was a decrease in the margin even with the resumption of sporting events. Can we expect the margin in the fourth quarter to reflect a reasonable assumption for this year's margin? Thank you.

Thank you, Gilberto. I'll ask both Salvi and Alex to take your questions.

Thanks, Gilberto. As I pointed out, the economic environment has been challenging, and disposable income has come down. Our customers are prioritizing connectivity; while we're losing some video customers, we are maintaining most of these households as customers. We sell three services, and then they can eliminate one or two. The bundle is very competitively priced; pay TV becomes affordable with the bundle. But if they have to reduce some costs, what we are seeing is that they take out video. We hope that if the economy improves, we will be able to recover some of those lost customers. Let me remind you that we sell on a postpaid basis. So customers must pay for the services at all times. They don't have the option to suspend temporarily the payment of a service as opposed to Sky. Now there's also a shift in preferences from linear channels to OTT; that's why we're including more subscription VOD services and becoming an aggregator. We also note that we had a price increase in September, right? So we experienced some additional cancellations, specifically of video during the quarter. As opposed to that, Alex can elaborate on the resilience of Sky.

Hi, yes. As you know, the bulk of our video customers are on prepaid packages. It's a very affordable offer and quite flexible as well. The prepaid product gives customers the ability to recharge when they have the money to do so. If they have to skip the following month because they don't have the means to pay, they can also do so. We increased the price of our prepaid products back in December, but it hasn't affected the business in a meaningful way. We have seen solid performance since the price increase. With regards to our broadband offer, we have a very competitive product. As demonstrated in our results, we added more than 270,000 broadband subscribers, while the outflow was 666,000. We continued to benefit from the pandemic, as you saw in our results in the second and third quarters. There was a slowdown in the growth of broadband in the fourth quarter compared to the previous two quarters, as well as in terms of net adds of video. However, there is no doubt that the 8.5% drop in the growth of the Mexican economy last year and the loss of jobs have an impact in 2021. That said, the levels of sales of our video and broadband products have returned to more normal levels pre-COVID. And our churn has been under control.

Okay, thank you. And on the margin side; was the amortization of sports rights that you posted in the fourth quarter considered a normalized level, or did you have to amortize any rights that would have occurred in previous quarters?

No, it's basically during the second and third quarters. There were various sports events that were deferred, and therefore we didn't amortize them. Rights that were deferred or canceled weren't amortized in the second and third quarters, but we did so in the fourth quarter. It's also a cyclical amortization that occurs each year with regards to our exclusive sports content.

Thank you. At this time, I'm showing no further questions. I would like to turn the call back over to management for closing remarks.

Well, I would like to thank everyone for joining us today. As always, feel free to contact us at any time for additional questions.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.