ATN International, Inc.

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the ATN International Q3 2024 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Michelle Ciotrowski, Corporate Treasurer. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. I'm joined today by Brad Martin, APM's Chief Executive Officer, and Carlos Doglioli, ATN's Chief Financial Officer. This morning, we'll be reviewing our third quarter 2024 results and providing additional insights on the 2024 outlook. As a reminder, we announced our 2024 third quarter results yesterday afternoon after the market closed. Investors can find the earnings release and conference call slide presentation on our investor relations websites. Our earnings release and the presentation contain certain forward-looking statements concerning our current expectations, objectives, and underlying assumptions regarding our future operations. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described. Also, in an effort to provide useful information for investors, our comments today include non-GAAP financial measures. For details on these measures and reconciliations to comparable gap measures, and for further information regarding the factors that may affect our future operating results, please refer to our earnings release on our website at ir.atni.com or the 8-K filing provided to the FCC. And now, I'll turn the call over to Brad.

Thank you, Michelle. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our fiscal third quarter 2024 earnings conference call. We remain focused on executing our strategy to leverage our upgraded network assets and manage the business prudently, aiming to increase cash flow, drive margin improvements, and deliver sustainable value to our shareholders and customers over the long term. Looking at our Q3 performance, it is a tale of two segments, with progress in the international segment and underperformance in our U.S. operations. While there are several bright spots in the third quarter, including strong free cash flow from operations, and international margin improvement driven by effective cost management, our top and bottom line performance was affected by a few key factors. These included lower levels of non-planned prepaid consumer mobility sales, slower consumer sales execution in key U.S. markets, and underperformance with enterprise and sales and delivery, specifically in Alaska. We had expected these revenue pipelines would offset more of the anticipated impact from the conclusion of the ACP and ECF government programs, but these have not transpired at the pace projected. As a result, we are updating our full-year financial outlook expectations. We are taking strategic actions to align our cost structure with current revenue levels while focusing on margin improvement and cash flow generation. These actions include advancing cost efficiency initiatives, optimizing value of our assets, and leveraging our upgraded network and offerings to maintain market share and drive customer conversion to higher value services. With that, let's take a look at our operational strategic highlights from the quarter within each segment. Starting with U.S. Telecom, based on our underperformance related to the previously mentioned dynamics, and compression in market multiples, we reported a non-cash $35 million goodwill impairment charge during the third quarter. We are assessing the best way to expand the value of the U.S. telecom segment as we focus on the growth of our business, carrier, and fiber fed consumer markets while deemphasizing certain markets for consumer fixed wireless and mobility services. We believe there is significant opportunity to maximize the value of our existing and recently enhanced assets, improve our underlying cost structures, and augment company-funded capital investments with available government funding, such as the BEAD program, to support our return to more normalized capital spending levels. Our reimbursable capital expenditures increased significantly year-to-date in Q3. This is due in part to the start of our construction phase and the previously announced grant wins totaling more than $280 million. These fiber-based projects will further enhance the longevity of our assets and addressable markets to deliver future value for the business. While there is more work to do in our U.S. telecom segment to stabilize and grow revenues and profitability, we are confident in our ability to leverage our position as a trusted partner with our carrier customers, our recently strengthened executive sales leadership, and our existing fiber-based network assets to improve performance. Turning now to our international segment. While revenue remains flat, we achieved double-digit growth in adjusted EBITDA. We experienced growth in sales for consumer and business fixed customers, as well as business mobility. This was offset by consumer mobility revenue declines in Guyana, primarily due to competitive headwinds impacting low ARCU prepaid customers. Operationally, we saw continued strength in our international markets with the conversion of subscribers onto our high-speed network with high-speed data subscribers up 4% compared with last year. In international mobility, we continue to make progress in the quality of our subscriber base by transitioning customers to higher margin services, which we believe will make them more resilient. This progress is reflected in combined post-pay and prepay plan revenue growth of 5.7% quarter-over-quarter and 28.3% year-over-year. We have now launched 5G in two of our international markets, and in Q3, 60% of our total mobility revenue came from these two new 5G-capable networks. These upgrades were essential to the improvements and the quality shifts we have seen in our subscriber base. A major milestone we achieved in Q3 and an important strategic step in our evolution was the launch of our new unified brand in our largest international market. One communications was rolled out in Guyana to drive a common brand strategy and efficiencies across our Caribbean markets. We expect the centralized go-to-market approach will enable the ATN international team to further strengthen their already dominant number one or number two market positions in mobile and in fixed through common technology architecture, and while continuing to improve profitability and cash flow. Before turning the call to Carlos, I want to reiterate that our priorities have not changed. We remain focused on capitalizing on our enhanced network capabilities and localized operations to capture high-value revenue opportunities, all while managing the business carefully to expand margins and improve cash flows. As we near the end of our three-year first-to-fiber and glass-and-steel investment cycle, we are reducing capital expenditures, although we continue to fund targeted network expansions to both internal resource and government grant programs. Additionally, we remain committed to a disciplined approach to manage our balance sheet with a long-term goal of gradually reducing leverage. While we're adjusting our expectations for 2024, we remain focused on executing our long-term strategy while acting nimbly to adapt to the near-term headwinds. We're committed to positioning the company for sustainable long-term growth and value creation for our shareholders. We could not achieve this without the dedicated and hardworking ATM team, as well as the continued trust of our customers and partners. And with that, I'll hand the call over to you, Carlos.