Liberty Broadband Corporation

Welcome to Liberty Broadband 2024 Q1 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. As a reminder, this conference will be recorded May 8th. I would now like to turn the call over to Claire Adams, Senior Manager, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning. 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 and 10-Q filed 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'll discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures for Liberty Broadband, including adjusted OIDA. 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 introduce Greg Maffei, Liberty's president and CEO.

Thank you, Claire, and good morning to all. Today, speaking on the call, we will have Liberty Broadband's chief accounting and principal financial officer, Brian Wenley. Ron Duncan, CEO of GCI, and Pete Pounds, CFO of GCI, will also be available to answer questions. Also during Q&A, we will be available to answer questions related to Liberty Trip Advisor. So beginning with Liberty Broadband, similar to last year, early in the year, we remain under the 26% fully diluted ownership cap, largely due to Charter's annual compensation grants. We do expect to resume sales into Charter's buyback this summer, and we also expect that the majority of proceeds, which have historically gone to LBRD purchases will continue somewhere going in the future. We will evaluate the best use as we receive proceeds. But I do expect in the near term, we will have a greater focus on debt reduction. So you might see some of us have a reduced pace of buyback in the near term. Looking at charter itself, internet ads have been challenged across the industry with lower growth across the board in the first quarter. experienced a 72,000 subscriber net loss, largely from continued elevated competition, early headwinds from the upcoming ACP expiration, and reduced move activity given, among other things, historically high interest rates, mortgage rates. The churn does remain at historically low levels. and the company did experience solid EBITDA growth at 2.8% in the first quarter. We are comfortable management can achieve EBITDA growth throughout the year while investing in the business and despite facing industry pressures, and they'll achieve that largely due to expense management, which is working quite well. Mobile, bright spot, continues to form nicely. Charters surpassed 8 million total mobile lines. and mobile service revenue accelerated 38% versus the prior year. We're quite pleased with the Spectrum One performance, and we're seeing improving mobile EBITDA as the promotional lines continue to roll off and the business achieves economies of scale. The Anytime Upgrade program is going to expand our market opportunity, and we do see increased stickiness with customers. Internet churn is down versus the prior year. As many of you know, unfortunately, the ACP program was not renewed. In light of that, Charter is offering a range of options to retain ACP customers, including the Spectrum Internet Assist Program, the Internet 100 product, and a retention officer of free mobile for one year. Looking briefly at the balance sheet at Charter, we do expect leverage will move toward the midpoint of the 4 to 4.5 leverage target while maintaining the buyback this year. Turning briefly to L-TRIP, many of you may have seen that we filed a 13D this morning, which outlined the ceased transaction discussions with third parties. We do continue to discuss strategic alternatives with TRIP Advisors Special Committee. We will not be able to comment further on this unless definitive documents are executed or discussions terminate. Looking at TripAdvisor itself, TripAdvisor had a good start to the first quarter, but it did also offer more muted guidance on its call this morning. Travel and experiences remain high priorities for consumers despite geopolitical activity and inflationary pressures. At brand TripAdvisor, hotel meta performance was driven by sustained pricing strength, offset by lower click volumes, trips AI tool is continuing to scale very well, and the addition of bookable experiences embedded in itineraries is generating 50% higher average revenue per user. Viator itself saw record app downloads, conversion growth, and app bookings. So with that, I'll turn it over to Brian to discuss the financials.