Infrastrutture Wireless Italiane S.p.A.

Good morning. This is the Coruscall Conference operator. Welcome and thank you for joining the first quarter 2025 Inuit Financial Results Conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Fabio Ruffini, head of investor relations of Inuit. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining. We meet today at Diego Galli, Inuit general manager, and Emilia Trudo, CFO. Before we begin, please allow me to draw your attention to the safe harbor statement on page two. And as usual, we will hold a brief presentation and then open the floor to Q&A. Over to you, Diego.

Thank you, Fabio, and good morning, everyone. First quarter results display a solid start of the year in line with the 2025-2030 business plan. Revenues were up in the mid-single digits with a further expansion in EBITDA margins. MSA commitments are on track. There is continued momentum in smart infra, with revenues up more than 50%. Land acquisition pushes on, benefiting profitability and positive cash flow generation. From an industrial point of view, INWIT continues to invest in shared digital infrastructure at accretive returns. This means more sites, more POPs, more smart infra locations, and land ownership. These results were achieved in the context of the Italian telecommunication industry, which is evolving fast, with several important transactions announced and perhaps more to come. Two more results confirmed the resilience of the business model, based on shared economics, an enabler of greater efficiency for the telco value chain. We are well positioned in this evolving scenario. Counting on a strong market position with best locations. Exposed to Tier 1 anchors, incumbent and third challenger. Very protective MSA with all or nothing close and active sharing protection. Focus on the Italian market. In need to catch up on digitalization efficiency. Moving to main trends of the quarter on page 4. The key figures for the quarter, 150 new towers rolled out across MSA commitments and 5G next generation EU program. 740 new POPs, keeping us on track to meet the full year target. Tenancy ratio improving further to a record 2.35. Continued push on real estate transactions, reaching 450 in the quarter. Revenue growth by 4.6%, with smart infra up by 52% year-on-year. EBITDA after lease up by 5.5%, with margin up by 1% touchpoint to 72.9%. And recovering free cash flow growth by 5.4%, with leverage reduced to 4.6 times, improving quarter-on-quarter. Also, in-width and aims shareholder remuneration policy is now full in execution, with the first €300 million tranche of share buyback plans started in April. Ordinary dividends, special dividends and buybacks amount to about €1 billion in 2025, about 10% of market cap, confirming inuitability to combine growth and shareholder remuneration. In summary, a solid start of the year, confirming the strength and resilience of the business in an evolving industry environment. Now, I will turn it over to Emilia for a more detailed review of the results. Thank you.

Thank you, Diego, and good morning, everyone. On page five, the focus is on new towers development. ING would build 150 new towers in the first quarter, consistent with the full year target of 800, following a strong year-end performance with 270 new sites added in Q4. We are pleased to see that Q1 sets the stage for another year of high rollout volumes. Demand for new towers, driven by data growth and densification needs, remains strong and in line with our expectations, supported by MSA commitments, and the 5G Next Generation EU programs. In the long term, we expect continued demand for new towers underpinned by data growth in urban areas, densification needs across suburban zones and transport corridors, rail and road. Our business plan reflects a balanced market view with potential upside in case of faster or more extensive densification. Moving to total POPs on page 6. 740 new POPs were added during the quarter in line with expectations, bringing the total to nearly 60,000 POPs, up 6% year-on-year. 290 additional POPs with STEAM and FASTA plus Vodafone, driven by MSA commitments, in line with the rollout of new sites, and consistent with the run rate implied by 2025 guidance. Other clients' new POPs were 450, a thing which continues to further diversify its client base. Other clients' new POPs mix reflects a decent number of new POPs from ILIA, a slight improvement in FWA, mainly driven by co-location POPs with open fiber, in a context of an FWA market, which overall remains soft. IoT clients, which continue to show good demand, particularly in smart grid applications. Next, on page seven, we review smart infrastructure. Growth momentum in smart infrastructure continues, with 52% year-on-year growth to more than 21 million euros in Q1. Revenue growth was driven by the addition of new locations served by indoor coverage solutions, leveraging DAS and repeater technologies, as well as by new tenants on our existing asset base. In the quarter, we added about 60 new locations across multiple verticals, particularly corporates, luxury hotels, shopping malls, and hospitals. bringing the total to more than 650 locations. I am also pleased to highlight that we went live with the first phase of Rome 5G project, bringing 5G connectivity to Metro Line A of Italy's capital in such an historic year for the city. The smart city and smart transport verticals continue to be areas of focus for our business development. Next, we'll review the P&L. Revenue growth stood at 4.6%, in line with the 2025 guidance bit point. Anchors were up, driven by MSA commitment and the CPI link. We lost recorded revenues of nearly 30 million euros, about stable, since new POPs are compensated by the non-repetition of other revenues, especially work and studies that previously flagged. But the infrastructure was up by more than 50%. EBITDA margin was stable at 91.7%, with OPEX growth driven by a larger infrastructure estate and smart infrastructure growth. EBITDA after lease improved by more than 5%, with margin up by one percentage point to 72.9%, one of the highest in the sector, driven by real estate efficiency, particularly full in by out. The income increased by 1.6% to 91 million euros, reflecting the expected trends in DNA, interest expenses, and taxes. Moving to the cash flow on page nine. Regarding free cash flow, was 158 million euros in the first quarter for a 65% cash conversion. This corresponds to more than 5% growth erronea, mainly driven by EBITDA growth, low recurring capital, which remains a structural feature of EWIT, no cash taxes, which are due in Q2 and Q4, about stable networking capital, which we expect to be positive for the full year. List payments were higher year-on-year, reflecting the usual Q1 seasonality with a higher concentration of prepayments. This is in line with full year expectations of about 200 million euros list cash out. Interest payments were also up year-on-year, consistent with the evolution of the balance During the quarter, we invested approximately 80 million euros in growth projects, particularly land buyout, new towers, and new indoor locations. The new renewable energy project will start seeing initial outlays in the second half of the year. Moving to the balance sheet, leverage is slightly down to 4.6 as a result of EBITDA growth. In line with business plan targets, It's expected at about 5.2 by year end as a function of industrial investment and stronger shareholder remuneration. We are pleased to report that in April, we completed two debt capital market transactions. We found new bond issuance and the potential buyback of 2026, the partial buyback of 2026 outstanding notes. This further strengthened in with debt structure extending its maturity profile and confirming solid market interest. With this, I hand it back to Diego. Thank you.

Thank you, Emilia. Just a few words to sum up Inuit Equity's story in a transitional moment for the telco industry after a solid start of the year. We have a leading position in a market with barriers to entry and secular growth trends. We build sites from the ground up, cover indoor locations, and invest in real estate at two-digit returns for an industry-leading return on capital. The business model is resilient with long-term visibility and protections in case of macro and industry evolutions, including in case of consolidation. Even in a challenging industry scenario today, we continue to grow a bit taller while delivering an attractive shareholder remuneration with a yield today above 5% with ordinary dividend alone. On top is a special dividend and the ongoing shareback. Beyond that, we are ready to take advantage of additional opportunities, both in terms of market developments and capital deployment. With this, I thank you, and we are now ready for the Q&A session.

Thank you. This is the Coruscall conference operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star N1 on their touchtone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star N2. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press star N1 at this time. In interest of time, we kindly ask you to limit yourself to one question at a time. We'll pause for a moment as participants are joining the queue. First question is from Andrew Lee, Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Yeah, good morning. Thanks for taking the question. I'm going to go for maybe one and a half, and then see whether you're prepared to answer two. The first question, not sure how much you'll be able to give on this, but just wanted to ask around Swisscom's commentary, which they maintained at their most recent results last week, that they are in discussion with you in terms of renegotiating the tower contract in Italy. I appreciate you're probably limited on what you can say specifically there, but any commentary that can reassure on the solidity of your contracts would be helpful. And then just as a follow-up, a bit better fixed wireless access-driven growth in the quarter, any commentary around the sustainability of that or what you'd need to see to be more confident in the sustainability of that fixed wireless access-driven growth would be helpful. Thanks.

Thank you. Thank you, Andrew. Yes, actually, no renegotiation is ongoing and the MSA is an all or nothing close. What we keep on doing in our focus is to keep on working with the customers on new opportunities to grow, to support growth, and to keep on creating efficiency for all. Let me also add that the MSA is a complex and solid contract. It also involves 5 billion investments by in-width. The features of the MSA is the 8 plus 8 automatic renewal cycle with the all-or-nothing clause, and also the market context, where in Italy the tower market is consolidated with two tower companies, and it's practically impossible to move a network from a tower company to another one. Having said that, again, our focus is to keep on working with our customers to create shared value and keep on creating efficiency in the value chain for all. On fixable success, yes, it was a good start of the year. On the market, I would say it's a little bit too early to call for a sustainable trend. let me say that overall the quarter is well on track with the targets, but again, early to call for some upside to it. Thanks, Diego. That was really helpful. Welcome.

Next question is from Roshan Ranjit, Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Great. Morning, everyone. Thanks for the questions. Just a quick follow-up on the previous one around the anchor pop at 290 in the quarter. And, Amelia, I think you said kind of in line with your expectation. I appreciate there is kind of volatility quarter to quarter, but should we see Q125 as the low quarter in the year for the anchor progression? And should we expect that to kind of accelerate a bit through the year? And second question, just very quickly, on the new services, you said that you had 60 new projects in Q1. I think my calculation, Q4, it was around 40 new projects. So are we seeing the kind of an acceleration in the project step up, which, you know, supports that revenue trend and anything you could say about the price and dynamics of those incremental projects would be very helpful. Thank you.

Hi, good morning, Rush, and thanks for the question. Yeah, for uncle pops, let's say that the round rate, our guidance was about 1,250 new pops in the year, so the round rate is around 300 pops per quarter, and I'd say that the Q1 is consistent with the full year guidance, so that is confirmed.

With regards to the Smart Infra, we are very pleased with the ongoing growth and the development of the business. For us, it's a key growth driver, and it reflects the market need for a better coverage in indoor location and transport infrastructure. The new location In the quarters, again, it's a confirmation of the positive growth. Though, let me say that among the quarters, there is a little bit of volatility. So it's, let me say, the revenue trend is probably the most meaningful indicator. And again, the development is moving on in line with our targets and in line with the returns the targeted returns.

That's great. Thank you.

Next question is from Fabio Pavan, Mediobanca. Please go ahead.

Yes. Hi. Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. I would like to follow up on your statement on the opportunities in particular. I was wondering if given the increasing appetite for infrastructure related to artificial intelligence solutions we may expect you to look at addition businesses in that part and also if we may expect some announcement and new opportunities to come this year or rather you think it is something that may come in 2026. Thank you.

Thanks, Fabio. I think that the strength, as I said, of our business plan is that we have a solid organic plan with solid growth and additional shoulder remuneration. And on top of that, we still have flexibility up to 1.5 billion for additional opportunities for growth. Our infrastructure is a distributed infrastructure. The towers are the element of the network, which is the closest element to the end customers. And when we manage towers, we manage infrastructure, we manage power, we manage land and real estate. So we have, we think, some industrial strengths which allow us to look at the potential evolution of technology and thinking about AI and the distributed computing capacity. One of the opportunities that we reflect in the business plan that we are assessing is which role we can play in the space of far-edge and edge computing capacity edge data centers, not the big upper scalers, but the computing capacity distributed at the edge of the network. That's a potential evolution, which, again, leveraging on the strengths of our business model, we may explore.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Next question is from Rohit Modi, CT. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks for the opportunity. Some of my questions have been answered. So just one follow-up around the OLO base. Looking at, you know, the question is, are you seeing more churn on the MBNO side of the OLO base? I know you have a guidance there. You have, you know, one-third additions coming from OLO and then the rest of coming from FWA and IoT. But when you look at the churn, if you can confirm, you know, the churn, how churn is shaping up in terms of, you know, we are seeing more outflow from the OLO and then how the mix is shaping up overall in terms of the OLO base. Thank you.

Hello.

Well, concerning OLOs, POPs churn is limited, no churn. Actually, we see a positive development of the POPs for 2025, which is, let's say, by the non-repetition of, let's say, non-run rate revenues like Portugal started. For 2025, we do expect still all those revenues to remain flat, almost flat with respect to 2024 and starting again to go from 2026.

Thank you.

Next question is from Milo Silvestre, Equital. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everybody. Just a follow-up on the new services question. So if you can elaborate here on the trend and let's say why the trend quarter-on-quarter is broadly flat and if you are seeing an acceleration in the second quarter. And then if you can elaborate also on the run as a service opportunity, if you see some market opportunity there. Thank you.

Yeah, let me start from the first question. Yeah, on smart infra, Q4 was particularly strong. And there is a component of the revenues which is not recurring fees. Most of the revenues is like that, but not all. We also have some customers which do prefer to have more upfront payment and there is then an upfront revenue recognition. So there is a little bit of... trend in the quarters which has to be, how can I say, interpreted. What I think is key is the medium-term trend which shows the constant growth over time as we have seen last year and we continue to see in this quarter.

Milo, apologies, this is Fabio. Was there a second question after this one?

Yeah, on RAN as a service, if you see opportunities there.

Thank you. Yeah, again, back to our industrial plan and the financial flexibility that we do have. We identified two areas for additional investment. The first one already mentioned in terms of computing capacity at the edge of the network. The second one is related to run as a service. We are open about that. We do see, honestly, an opportunity for the medium term. consolidation in the market, in the industry goes through different layers. There has been basically consolidation of the passive network to the tower companies. There may be consolidation also on the active network, which can be an additional source of efficiency and value creation, which can be shared between all players. There are already examples in Italy as well as in other countries, and we are open to consider and invest to support the operators and to create additional efficiency through an additional form of asset sharing. Grazie. Thank you.

Next question is from Giorgio Tavolini in Termonte. Please go ahead.

hi good morning thanks for taking my questions the first one is a follow-up on the run as a service in particular i was wondering if you are assessing the what level of returns this opportunity could have when compared to the regional edge data centers and i was wondering given a team is open to Let's say for sharing with Wintree apparently or with Iliad. I was wondering if this agreement would be in the less populated areas and what kind of returns do you see in these areas? The second question is on DNA guidance. I mean, if you can provide some indication for the year since in the Q1 we saw an increasing trend. So I was wondering if it's safe to assume a trend for the full year, trending towards 400 million or even above that level. And the net working capital in the first quarter, we saw a release in working capital. So what level should we expect for the full year given this is one important moving path for your recurring free cash flow? Thank you.

Thanks, Giorgio.

Let me start from the first one. Yes, when we look at new opportunities, We look at them with the intention to replicate the current tower business model and the tower returns with clearly material investment up front and then long-term visibility of revenues and returns. And we think that even if RAN is different from passive infrastructure, there can be room to replicate or to build a model, a towerization of the model, so a model similar to the tower model. In terms of potential models, I would say it's absolutely early to say, though my opinion is that things may start with vertical dedicated areas and then eventually to grow with a modular approach, but again, it's early to say.

Hi, Giorgio. Well, concerning the DNA, they are consistent with the CapEx trend, so they have increased their own ER, and we are consistent also with the full ER, let's say, guidance of more than 400 million euros. networking capital was slightly positive in the quarter. We were expected to remain positive on a full year basis.

Okay, thank you very much.

Welcome. Mr. Ruffini, gentlemen, there are no more questions registered at this time.

Okay, thank you very much and have a great rest of the day. Thank you.

Thank you.