Earnings Call Transcript - UNIT Q2 2024

Operator, Operator

Good morning and welcome to today's conference call to discuss Uniti’s Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Results. My name is Latif and I'll be your operator for today. Today's call is being recorded and a webcast will be available on the company's investor relations website investor.uniti.com, beginning today and will remain available for 365 days. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. Participants on the call will have the opportunity to ask questions following the company's prepared comments. It is now my pleasure to introduce Bill DiTullio, Uniti's Vice President of Investor Relations and Treasury. Please begin.

Bill DiTullio, Vice President of Investor Relations and Treasury

Good morning everyone and thank you for joining today's conference call to discuss Uniti's Second Quarter 2024 Results. Speaking on the call today will be Kenny Gunderman, our CEO, and Paul Bullington, Uniti's CFO. Before we get started, I would like to quickly cover our safe harbor statement. Please note that today's remarks may contain forward-looking statements. These statements include, but are not limited to, statements about the benefits of the proposed transaction between Uniti and Windstream, including future financial and operating results of either company or the combined company. Statements related to the expected timing of the completion of the transaction and combined company plans, and other statements that are not historical facts. Any forward-looking statements contained in today's discussion and materials speak only as of the particular date or dates indicated in the materials. Please also note that Uniti and Windstream, through the entity that will be combined, that will be the combined parent company following the merger, recently filed a preliminary form S-4 registration statement with the SEC that includes a proxy statement and prospectus regarding the transaction that has not yet become effective. Investors are urged to read that proxy statement and prospectus as it contains important information about the transaction. In addition, Uniti and Windstream and their Directors and Officers may be deemed to be participating in the solicitation of proxies in favor of the transaction. You may find information about Uniti Directors and Executive Officers in the company's most recent proxy statement. You may obtain a copy of the merger proxy statement and prospectus through the SEC website, Uniti's and Windstream's websites, or by requesting a copy from either company's investor relations website. More information on how to request these documents is available in the investor presentation that accompanies this call. Uniti does not undertake any obligation to update or revise any of this information in today's remarks, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Numerous factors could cause actual results that differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. For more information on those factors, please see the section titled forward-looking statements in the presentation and the risk factors section of the recently filed preliminary form S-4. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Kenny.

Kenny Gunderman, CEO

Thanks, Bill. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining. Starting on slide four, Uniti delivered another solid quarter of performance led by the continued strong demand for our mission-critical fiber infrastructure. As a result, we're reiterating our consolidated full-year 2024 revenue and adjusted EBITDA outlook. Our core recurring strategic fiber business grew 3% in the second quarter, fueled by exceptional growth in enterprise, wholesale, and dark fiber revenue of 12%, 15%, and 18%, respectively. When paired with our industry-leading 0.3% churn, we remain on track to deliver 4% to 6% monthly recurring revenue growth for the full year. We continue to execute well in our unique strategy of being a pure-play fiber provider in Tier 2 and 3 metro markets and on inner-city routes. We believe that if you build fiber first in less competitive markets, you secure a right to win for many years into the future. Turning to slide five, we had a strong quarter of new bookings. As we have discussed previously, the demand from hyperscalers driven by generative AI is real and represented approximately 40% of this quarter's bookings. We're increasingly confident that this demand will be sustained as a meaningful percentage of our entire wholesale sales funnel is from hyperscalers. While wireless bookings for the quarter were muted, we continue to expect a pickup in wireless in the second half of this year. We're not only seeing a meaningful pickup in wireless RFPs, but we're also starting to have conversations about 25-gig upgrades at tower sites. Growth in mobile broadband, fixed wireless, and fiber-to-the-home connectivity are all driving substantial data traffic growth, and we do not see any of those trends dissipating. Finally, fiber-to-the-home carriers are driving an increasing amount of demand procuring middle-mile and inner-city backhaul to connect our neighborhoods. The amount of bookings Uniti saw relating to fiber-to-the-home carriers increased threefold in 2023 versus 2022, and we expect a similar level in 2024. On a consolidated basis, our net capital intensity during the quarter was 31%, down from 44% in the same prior year period, and we believe it will continue to decline. There are a number of encouraging trends in bookings driving that capital efficiency, including our continued focus on lease-up and a higher mix of hyperscaler deals that generally come with higher non-recurring costs and therefore better than our typical anchor yields. We also continue to see price stability, especially in dark fiber sales. Turning to slide six, our growth capital investment program continues to provide positive results for Uniti, and given our pending merger with Windstream, we wanted to highlight a few key points which we believe the market is underappreciating. First, Kinetic and Uniti have invested a substantial amount of capital in its network with over $2 billion invested since 2015. These historical investments include backhaul fiber and ultimately fiber-to-the-node. In fact, prior to starting the fiber-to-the-home program in 2019, close to 100% of all broadband customers at Kinetic were already served by fiber-backed DSLAMs. Each of these DSLAMs has a minimum one gig backhaul link to the market-level central office and a minimum of 10-gig link from that central office to the network core. This historical investment helps enable Kinetic approximately $650 per home passing costs, as we estimate that backhaul equates to roughly 20% of the total cost of building fiber-to-the-home for others. I'll speak more on our pending merger shortly, but to complete our earnings discussion, I'll now turn the call to Paul.

Paul Bullington, CFO

Thank you, Kenny. I'd like to begin by reviewing our second quarter performance, followed by an overview of our current 2024 outlook. We had another solid quarter highlighted by near-record consolidated bookings of $1.1 million, 3% core recurring strategic fiber revenue growth, and declining consolidated net success-based capital intensity, which stood at 31% for the quarter. As I'll cover in more detail in just a bit, our 2024 outlook for consolidated revenue and adjusted EBITDA remains unchanged, as we expect to end the year within the previous guidance ranges provided. We have also provided Windstream's second quarter financial information in an 8-K filed with the SEC earlier this morning. Please turn to slide seven, and I'll start with comments on our second quarter. We reported consolidated revenues of $295 million, consolidated adjusted EBITDA of $237 million, AFFO attributed to common shareholders of $92 million, and AFFO per diluted common share of $0.34. At Uniti Leasing, we reported segment revenues of $218 million, and adjusted EBITDA of $211 million, representing an adjusted EBITDA margin of 97% for the quarter. During the second quarter, Uniti Leasing deployed approximately $70 million towards growth capital investment initiatives, with the majority of the investments relating to the Windstream GCI program. With the GCI amount funded subsequent to the second quarter in July, Windstream has now reached its GCI funding limit for 2024, and there will be no further GCI payments for the remainder of the year. At Uniti Fiber, we reported revenues of $77 million, and adjusted EBITDA of $31 million during the second quarter, achieving margins of approximately 40%. Both revenue and adjusted EBITDA during the quarter were higher than expected due to one-time non-recurring revenue items. Uniti Fiber net success-based capital expenditures were $21 million in the second quarter. We also incurred about $2 million of maintenance capital expenditures during the quarter. Please turn to slide eight, and I'll now cover our updated 2024 guidance. We're revising our guidance for business unit-level revisions, the recent $300 million add-on to our 10.5% secured notes, and the impact of transaction-related and other costs incurred to date. Our outlook excludes the impact from the expected merger with Windstream, future acquisitions, capital market transactions, and future transaction-related and other costs not specifically mentioned herein. Actual results could differ materially from these forward-looking statements. Our 2024 outlook for consolidated revenue and adjusted EBITDA remains unchanged. However, we are slightly increasing our Uniti Fiber revenue and EBITDA to reflect the one-time revenues I referenced earlier, while slightly lowering our Uniti leasing revenue and adjusted EBITDA estimates due to lower-than-expected non-cash straight-line revenue and the timing of delivery on a recent lease-up award that is now expected to start billing in early 2025. Given the expected timing of one-time sales, including strategic dark fiber sales to hyperscalers, we expect the second-half revenue and adjusted EBITDA to be more heavily weighted in the fourth quarter versus the third quarter. I will point out that current consensus estimates do not reflect this expectation, as third-quarter estimates are currently higher than our expectations, while fourth-quarter estimates are lower. We are also lowering our AFFO estimate for the full year 2024, primarily due to higher interest expense related to the recent $300 million add-on to our 10.5% secured notes. At Uniti leasing, we expect $250 million of net success-based capital expenditures at the midpoint of our guidance, of which approximately $230 million relates to Windstream GCI investments. Net success-based capital expenditures for Uniti Fiber this year are now expected to be $100 million at the midpoint of our guidance, representing a capital intensity of 34%, down from 40% in 2023 and 45% in 2022, further demonstrating the success we are having in transitioning to less capital-intensive, higher-return lease-up deals. We expect full-year AFFO to range between $1.33 and $1.40 per diluted common share, with a midpoint of $1.36 per diluted share. As a reminder, guidance ranges for key components of our outlook are included in the appendix to our earnings presentation. At quarter-end, we had approximately $619 million of combined unrestricted cash and cash equivalents and undrawn revolver capacity. Our leverage ratio at quarter-end was 5.97 times based on net debt to second quarter 2024 annualized adjusted EBITDA, excluding the debt and adjusted EBITDA impact from the ABS loan facility. As it relates to the ABS market, we continue to view it as an attractive alternative source of financing that complements our existing capital structure well. To that end, we continue to make good progress in replacing our current ABS bridge financing with a permanent ABS solution, which we expect to be in place later this year or early next year. With that, I'll now turn the call back over to Kenny.

Kenny Gunderman, CEO

Thanks, Paul. As a reminder, we announced last quarter that we've reached a definitive agreement to merge Uniti and Windstream, creating a national fiber powerhouse. We continue to expect the transaction to close in the second half of 2025, and we're making great progress on our timeline. In fact, we've already received six of 18 required PUC approvals, including from Washington, D.C. Given the transformative nature of this transaction, I wanted to reiterate a few key highlights. Slide 12 showcases the reach of new Uniti’s and insurgent fiber network, extending our successful strategy of targeting Tier 2 and 3 markets for wholesale and enterprise, now into residential fiber to the home. Our strategy is building fiber first in less competitive markets, giving us the right to win for many years into the future. Including connected buildings, fiber to the tower and small cell connections, connected points of presence and data centers, and the 4.3 million total homes within Kinetic's current footprint, Uniti will have the potential to reach over five million connected on-ramps in largely unique locations, each driving increasing amounts of bandwidth onto our own wholesale network. Please turn to slide 13. Kinetic is a unique fiber-to-the-home platform for a number of reasons. First, fiber to the home is indisputably a superior product from a latency and reliability perspective, and will be for our lifetimes and beyond. Second, incumbent providers have a big advantage when providing fiber to the home, given the embedded network benefiting from years of investment. Thirdly, over 50% of Kinetic's footprint is located in the southeast. We believe the southeast is a terrific place to invest from a competitive and demographic point of view, as evidenced by our success in Uniti Fiber. Just as importantly, 75% of Kinetic's footprint has 20,000 or fewer households, reinforcing our focus on Tier 2 and 3 markets. Kinetic is also building fiber passings at what we believe to be an industry-leading cost of $650 per passing. As I highlighted earlier, the historical GCI and TCI investments have given Kinetic a head start from a cost and network quality perspective. In addition, owning the backhaul network will be a tool to disincentivize overbuilders from entering our markets, as in many cases, our backhaul network is the only one available. This helps segue into the final point. Currently only 15% of the footprint today has a true overbuilder, and that number has held relatively constant for the last five years. We certainly don't expect this number to grow meaningfully in the future, given we're increasing our offensive posture on a combined basis. Slide 14 highlights how Kinetic compares favorably to other providers in the industry. I've already discussed the lack of overbuilders and the attractive cost to pass, but you can also see on this page that Kinetic compares favorably on penetration levels, ARPU, and of course, the support of the expansive owned backhaul network. Moving to slide 15, you can see Kinetic has been demonstrating strong success over the past few years. Initial penetration levels on early cohorts have consistently averaged between 15% to 18% in the first year, increasing to about 25% on average by the second year. Recent cohorts have been demonstrating initial penetration rates of up to 30%, as Kinetic has ramped up a customer-focused, digitally enhanced, local go-to-market strategy. As I said earlier, and as Kinetic has begun to demonstrate, an insurgent mentality really matters and can move the needle on penetration and churn. Windstream reported solid quarterly results yesterday, so on slide 16, we've taken the liberty of showing a consolidated year-to-date view of revenue and adjusted EBITDA for new Uniti by each segment we expect to report on post-close. Both Kinetic and Fiber Infrastructure consist of a highly predictable core recurring revenue base that continues to grow and yield attractive margins. As a reminder, a fiber-to-the-home platform will continue to be branded as Kinetic. Fiber Infrastructure will include our current Uniti fiber and Uniti leasing segments, along with the Windstream wholesale segment, all of which are highly complementary and will combine to create a premier fiber infrastructure company with both national and deep regional capabilities, and a fiber network that is predominantly owned and operated. As you can see, the core fiber business demonstrated solid top-line growth for the quarter. Managed Services is made up of Windstream's cloud-based enterprise business and is not core to our fiber infrastructure strategy. The current strategy at Managed Services is to focus on retaining existing customers and upselling those customers instead of focusing on top-line growth. This strategy has led to a stable to growing adjusted EBITDA. New Uniti intends to continue that strategy in addition to evaluating other value-creating alternatives. Importantly, on a consolidated basis, the combined business is demonstrating solid EBITDA growth. Turning to slide 17, we expect steady, predictable top-line and EBITDA growth well into the future, and the combined business should be free cash flow positive in 2026. In the meantime, our current build plan and the next two years of cash burn are fully funded with on-hand or available liquidity. We believe this is another key highlight of new Uniti. It gives us confidence in our long-term leverage target and our ability to generate outsized equity returns. Our fully funded plan, steady, predictable results, and unique, hard-to-replicate fiber assets all suggest substantial intrinsic value in the new Uniti as highlighted on slide 18. Recent industry valuation multiples in the ABS market, the M&A market, and publicly traded comparables all reinforce this value. Further, we recently filed a proxy statement for our transaction, which includes a history of both strategic and financial interest in the combined assets of the company. The valuation metrics on this slide are further supported by those historical indications of interest. Turning to slide 19, while the closing of the transaction is still a number of months out, we have begun and will continue to make progress on key priorities, including demonstrating strong results at both companies and educating the market on the merits of the combined transaction. We're also using the time between now and close to actively evaluate refinancing opportunities that would allow us to collapse the dual silo capital structure. We're also actively working with Kinetic on an integration plan to achieve our synergy goals, as well as refining our fiber-to-the-home build plan to incorporate up to an additional one million homes. Lastly, we’re never idle when it comes to M&A and with this new exciting portfolio of assets together, there’s no shortage of interested counterparties with whom we’re engaging. In summary, on slide 20, let me reiterate our excitement for this fantastic combination and future prospects for Uniti. We'll be a premier insurgent fiber provider in the U.S. with a scaled platform for growth and a differentiated position in Tier 2 and 3 markets. Our enhanced balance sheet and cash flow generation will support growth, increasing our ability to expand the fiber-to-the-home builds. Looking ahead, this combination will deliver additional value-creative opportunities through meaningful synergies and M&A optionality. With that, we'd be happy to take your questions.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. Our first question comes from Greg Williams of TD Cowen.

Greg Williams, Analyst

Great, thanks for taking my questions and congrats on some solid bookings here. And that's what my question is really about—what sort of the cadence of the deals going forward? Are we going to see plus $1 million in bookings in many quarters going forward? And I think you mentioned 40% of that is from the hyperscalers. Is that percentage mix going to maybe hold as well? How many Huntsville-type deals are in the funnel and for how long? Any color there would be great, thanks.

Kenny Gunderman, CEO

Hey, Greg, good morning. I don't think you should expect million-dollar-plus quarters sequentially. I think there'll be a little lumpy. Wholesale deals are lumpy, as we've always said, including the hyperscaler deals. But I think in general, you're going to continue to see solid bookings. And over the mid-to-longer term, that's going to persist. We're increasingly confident in a more regular cadence of hyperscaler deals. And we're confident in saying that based on the building funnel we have. A funnel is a leading indicator of bookings. We've got an increasing number of opportunities in there that have been through costing and pricing, vetted through sales engineering, and embedded through the grant of authority, approval levels at Uniti, and presumably at our customers. We feel good about those opportunities. But equally importantly, when you hear what the hyperscalers say publicly about the opportunity around AI, they're extremely bullish on it. Comments range from there being greater risk to under-investing than there is to over-investing. They are raising CapEx guidance and materially increasing CapEx related to AI next year, for example. We just think that opportunity is meaningful and will persist for some time. We expect to achieve at least our fair share of it, especially as we continue to hear that hyperscalers are looking to grow into markets with less stressed power grids and less stressed distribution grids. We're interacting more and more with utility partners to talk about ways to collaborate, as they also view the hyperscaler opportunities as significant. I see this as a terrific opportunity, and we’re going to get our fair share.

Greg Williams, Analyst

Got it, thanks, Kenny.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of David Barden of Bank of America.

Unidentified Analyst, Analyst

Hi, thank you. This is Shipra calling in for David today. Thank you for all the details on the call, which we went through in the S-4. Of course, it was pretty dense. So I'm just wondering from your point of view, what in the filing on the merger are the most important pieces of information that we don't already have that we should take away from the filing? And if you could just go over the moving parts to achieving that positive free cash flow goal in 2026, particularly the CapEx outlook and how fiber expansion plans might impact the current outlook. Thank you.

Kenny Gunderman, CEO

Good morning, Shipra. I'll take the first one and then Paul, you can take the second. I think there's a lot of information in there for sure—pro forma financials, which obviously folks have been asking for. I think that should be a focus area, and there shouldn't be any surprises. We look forward to engaging with the market and answering whatever questions arise from that, but we still feel very bullish and confident in the forward trajectory of the business. Paul will comment on that regarding the bridge to free cash flow positive. I think a section that deserves a lot of focus and attention is the background reading of the merger. These sections often provide juicy details. In this case, we think there are interesting facts and circumstances in there, notably that Uniti and Windstream began thinking about our relationship strategically going back to the bankruptcy and even earlier. The settlement and the bankruptcy led to substantial strategic and M&A-related dialogue post-bankruptcy. I think it's important to note that there continues to be a lot of financial and strategic interest in our collective assets at valuation metrics validating the intrinsic value that we hold. Many data points in that background reading underscore that value. Finally, we never sit idle concerning strategic dialogue. We’ll continue engaging with the market, actively working with Kinetic on an integration plan to achieve our synergy goals. So, Paul, do you want to take the second part?

Paul Bullington, CFO

Hey, Shipra, this is Paul. I'll take your second question. Yes, as Kenny mentioned, this is a fully funded business plan to guide us through the combined company plan and cash flow inflection to positive cash flow in 2026. Executing on both companies' plans as they’re in place today is crucial. Continuing to drive fiber deeper into Kinetic while hitting penetration goals for the fiber product, fiber to the home at Kinetic, is key. Doing that at a cost that's projected is crucial; our cost per passing at Kinetic is about $650, which we believe is leading. Continuing to execute on the capital plan, bringing fiber to those homes, and achieving penetration rates is paramount. Regarding fiber infrastructure, it’s about executing plans, lowering capital intensity, and delivering higher-return lease-up deals. The Windstream business also must drive efficiencies and cut TDM costs over the next couple of years. We expect to see good efficiency gains there as well. So, executing on that combined plan will get us to positive cash flow by 2026. I should also note synergy; we're confident that the $100 million run rate of synergies we've included in our plan is conservative and achievable.

Kenny Gunderman, CEO

Yes, I agree with all that. I'd add, tying it back to the question about the hyperscalers. We don't anticipate reducing investment in our fiber infrastructure business, as Paul mentioned. However, the likelihood of seeing a higher number of our bigger deals—whether anchor deals or lease-up deals—having higher non-recurring costs as part of them will drive down capital intensity. Additionally, we expect to see higher Indefeasible Rights of Use fees going forward. Both trends represent positive additions to our original plan as we bridge towards that free cash flow period in 2026. We're genuinely excited about that.

Unidentified Analyst, Analyst

Thank you.

Operator, Operator

Our next question comes from Frank Louthan of Raymond James.

Unidentified Analyst, Analyst

Hey, guys. Good morning. This is Rob on for Frank. You might have spoken to this earlier. I didn't catch it. Are you expecting to do any builds for BEAD within Uniti Fiber, not within Windstream, in 2025, or is that more likely to be a 2026 event at this point?

Kenny Gunderman, CEO

Good morning, Rob. Currently, we're not having conversations about BEAD at Uniti. Those discussions are entirely at Kinetic, allowing us to communicate directly with Windstream about that, rather than being competing bidders. I believe that after the transaction is closed and on a go-forward basis, there will be opportunities to build in or around our Uniti Fiber network. We have attractive metro fiber markets, and leveraging Kinetic's expertise could present opportunities that we haven't fully evaluated yet. We consider this a significant prospect, particularly targeting Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets, where Kinetic currently excels. We're really leaning into this on a combined basis, and we’re excited about what that could mean.

Unidentified Analyst, Analyst

Great. Thank you, guys.

Kenny Gunderman, CEO

Great. We appreciate your interest in Uniti Group and look forward to updating you further on future calls. Thank you for joining us today.

Operator, Operator

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.