Liberty Broadband Corporation

Welcome to the Liberty Broadband 2023 Year-End Earnings Call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Afterwards, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. At that time, if you have a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded today, February 16, 2024. I would now like to turn the call over to Shane Kleinstein, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Before we begin, we'd like to remind everyone that this call includes certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual events or results could differ materially due to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those mentioned in the most recent Forms 10-K, followed by Liberty Broadband and Liberty TripAdvisor with the SEC. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this call, and Liberty Broadband and Liberty TripAdvisor expressly disclaim any obligation or undertaking to disseminate any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statement contained herein to reflect any change in Liberty Broadband or Liberty Trip Advisors' expectations with regard thereto, or any change in events, conditions, or circumstances on which any such statement is based. On today's call, we will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures for Liberty Broadband, including adjusted OIBDA. Information regarding the comparable GAAP metrics, along with the required definitions and reconciliations, including preliminary note and Schedules 1 and 2, can be found in the earnings press release issued today, as well as earnings releases for prior periods, which are available on Liberty Broadband's website. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Greg Maffei, Liberty's President and CEO.

Thank you, Shane, and good morning. Today, speaking on the call, we will have also Liberty Broadband's Chief Accounting Officer and Principal Financial Officer, Brian Wendling. Ron Duncan, CEO of GCI and Pete Pounds of GCI will also be available to answer questions. During Q&A, we will also be available to answer questions related to Liberty Trip Advisor. So I'm gonna begin with Liberty Broadband. We resume repurchases of our Liberty Broadband shares using proceeds from the charter share repurchases sales in October from the 1st of November the 1st of November to the end of January, we repurchased $385 million of proceeds, received $385 million of proceeds from charter sales, and spent $255 million on LBRD repurchases. Similar to last year, under our 26% fully diluted ownership cap, the early 2024 grants that charter made slowed down their repurchases or our requirements to be repurchased. and therefore we do not expect to sell into the charter buyback in the next few months. Once we exceed the cap of 26%, we plan to resume the LBRD buyback. Looking at charter itself, we certainly acknowledge there were near-term headwinds in the quarter, which impacted broadband unit growth. The fourth quarter also felt the delayed impact from the Disney dispute at the end of the third quarter. There's been a consistent trend in 2023 of increased competition for fixed wireless, but we do believe the competitive noise will lessen over time. Fixed wireless assets will have capacity issues over the long term, and the operators have been clear on their limitations. And we do believe that bandwidth demands will continue to increase among consumers, which will favor higher speeds. We are long-term shareholders. We are confident that strategic investments that Charter is making will generate excellent returns and accelerate growth over the next few periods. Charter assets will provide the highest speeds and the converged off of a converged offering at the most competitive prices for consumers. Spectrum One is continuing to drive mobile growth and reducing churn. Charter was able to add 2.5 million mobile line net ads during 2023. That's a nearly 50% growth over the prior year. And we saw no uptick in churn from the initial cohorts who were rolling off to promotional periods in the fourth quarter. As you would expect, the internet plus mobile customers are stickier than internet-only customers. Another positive news, the rural expansion is beating penetration, ARPU, and ROI targets. The network evolution at Charter remains on course with fast, low-cost upgrades at about $100 per passing. We don't believe competitors can replicate that upgrade path over their footprint. As management has outlined, the long-term CapEx outlook, excluding Bede, expected to materially step down from 2027 to normalized levels. Let me touch on Liberty Trip. We filed an amendment to our 13D. We were authorized by the board to engage in acquisition discussions. and we will not comment further on those discussions unless definitive documents are executed or discussions are terminated. Looking at TripAdvisor itself, TripAdvisor had a strong 2023 operating results, particularly in the back half. Q4 revenue was up 10% over the prior year. Q4 EBITDA and margin expansion exceeded expectations. There was outperformance at the recently renamed brand TripAdvisor. The Viator breakeven profitability was reached earlier than anticipated. And there were marketing efficiencies at brand TripAdvisor and Viator that allowed us to have better than expected performance. And we continue to move on cost-saving actions, which are improving margins. We've seen great successful diversification of the revenue at TripAdvisor. With the Viator and the Fork nearly being 50% of 2023 revenue, in comparison, they were less than 10% in 2015. And its experiences are now almost half the level of Brand Trip Advisor. We've also seen increased repeat rates among customers. For example, at Viator, the Q4 gross booking value from repeat customers exceeded new travelers for the first time. Manage is focused on long-term strategic opportunities and Gen AI-driven product enhancements like TripTools to drive engagement and growth, and we are optimistic about those results. And with that, I'll turn it over to Brian to discuss the financials.