Liberty Global Ltd.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Liberty Global's first quarter 2026 investor call. This call and the associated webcast are the property of Liberty Global and any redistribution, retransmission, or rebroadcast of this call or webcast in any form without the express written consent of Liberty Global is strictly prohibited. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Today's formal presentation materials can be found under the Investor Relations section of Liberty Global's website at libertyglobal.com. After today's formal presentation, instructions will be given for a question and answer session. Page 2 of the slides details the company's safe harbor statement regarding forward-looking statements. Today's presentation may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including the company's expectations with respect to its outlook and future growth prospects and other information and statements that are not historical fact. These forward-looking statements involve certain risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these statements. These risks include those detailed in Liberty Global's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recently filed forms 10Q and 10K as amended. Liberty Global disclaims any obligation to update any of these forward-looking statements to reflect any change in its expectation or in the conditions on which any such statement is based. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Mike Frese.

All right, thanks, Operator. Hello, everyone. I appreciate you joining the call today. As usual, Charlie and I will handle the prepared remarks and the presentation, and then I have my core leadership team on the call with me and on standby for Q&A as needed. I've got a lot of ground to cover, so I'm just going to jump right in on the first slide, which provides some key takeaways from the quarter. To begin with, we delivered strong operational performance, and we'll go through it all in a moment, but one big headline here, this was our fourth straight quarter of steady broadband improvement across each of our big three markets, with fixed to mobile ARPUs remaining largely stable. Now, Charlie will walk through how this translates into our financial results, but if the punchline is, we will be confirming all of our 2026 guidance today. There are lots of reasons for this commercial momentum, including our multi-brand strategies, our network investments, AI implementations around personalization and churn and call centers. And we'll talk about all that a bit today, but really what we'll do in our second quarter call is do a deeper dive on our AI initiatives. So stay tuned for that. Equally important for this audience is the fact that we are making real progress on the value unlock initiatives announced this past February. The acquisition of Vodafone's 50% stake initiative in our Dutch JV is on track to close this summer, and we see no obstacles to getting that deal done on time. That, of course, is just one of the main building blocks underlying our strategy to spin off our Benelux assets in the second half of the next year. I'll walk you through each of those building blocks in just a moment, as well as the value we could and should create for you all by spinning off the Zigo Group. Quickly on Netomnia, that transaction in the UK is now officially in the regulatory process, and While the noise from one or two competitors has escalated recently, we're pretty confident this deal will be approved. It's a very positive development for the UK fiber market, which is in desperate need of rationalization, as you all know. And it's a great outcome for VMO2 for all the reasons we reviewed on the last call. And finally, you won't be surprised to hear that we are highly focused on capital allocation at the corporate level. Over the last two years, we brought our net corporate cost down by 75%. We talked about that on the last call. And we've articulated what we believe is a clear investment strategy around telecom and growth, and we've strengthened our balance sheet. After funding the $1.2 billion needed to close the Vodafone transaction and executing on around $700 million of asset sales from our growth portfolio, we should end the year with around $1.5 billion of corporate cash. And as noted here on the slide, through April, we've generated around $300 million in proceeds So we're sort of on our way. And finally, just one quick remark on the broader telecom environment in Europe. As you would know, the sector has performed well in the last 12 months or so. That's driven in part by improved operational performance, reduced capex, and a general rotation out of software and into industrials. You're all familiar with those trends. I want to add to the list what appears to be an improving regulatory climate in Europe when it comes to telecom broadly and more specifically when it comes to consolidation. Now, we await the formal release of the EU merger guidelines, for example, but these changes are expected to redefine the rules. And that's going to be a big positive together with an increasing commitment to sovereignty to our sector and the broader telecom industry. So I'm sure you're aware of that, but important to note. Now, moving on to the next slide, let me start by saying that there will come a point in time when I don't need to put this chart in the deck. But for now, I think it's helpful. To summarize our operating structure, specifically our three core pillars of value creation, Liberty Telecom, Liberty Growth, and the Center of Liberty Global itself, and to highlight the strategies we're executing to create and deliver that value. Liberty Growth, on the far right, houses our portfolio of media, infra, and tech investments, totaling $3.4 billion today. Here we're focused on rotating capital, investing in high-growth sectors with scale and tailwinds. We'll try to spotlight a few of those in each quarter, and today we'll lay out the thesis for the experience economy. In the center sits Liberty Global itself with $1.9 billion of cash and a team with decades of experience operating and investing in these businesses. And as we reported last quarter, we've restructured our operating model and reduced net corporate costs by 75% since 2024 to around $50 million this year. And these two asset pools alone, by the way, our cash and the market value of our growth investments exceed the current price of our stock by around 30%. which means, of course, that everything in our core Liberty Telecom business on the left, maybe $22 billion of revenue, $8 billion of EBITDA, and four incredible converged telecom champions, are receiving no value at all in our stock. In fact, negative value, if you give us credit for our substantial reduction in corporate costs. Now, as we've said over and over and over, our primary goal here in telecom is to drive commercial momentum and, importantly, to unlock value for shareholders. And that's was the impetus behind our Sunrise spin-off, which you all know about, and which we believe has worked extremely well for investors. And that's why on the last call, we described the formation of the Zygo Group, a combination of our Benelux assets in Holland and Belgium, and our intention to spin off our interest tax-free to shareholders in the second half of 2027. So where are we on that specific initiative? I referenced earlier the building blocks that form the foundation of our expected value unlock for the Zygo Group. And you can see The most significant ones outlined on the left-hand side of the next slide. Let me just say that each of these steps, each of these blocks, if you will, are centered around strategic catalysts, free cash flow growth, and deleveraging. And they each represent a foundational element of the value creation plan here. This is the primary blueprint we've been executing, of course, with dozens of overlays and work streams, but it should give you greater confidence and awareness of our plans here. Let's start with Belgium. The first step was, of course, separating Telenet from its fixed network, which is now a two-thirds, one-third JV called Wire. This restructuring accomplishes or has accomplished four key things. First, it isolates a significant fiber capex and debt capital needed to upgrade the HFC network in Flanders into an off-balance sheet vehicle. Second, it precipitated a comprehensive network cooperation agreement between Wire and Telenet on one hand and Proximus and its fiber asset, FiberClar, on the other hand, which I'm pleased to say was just signed yesterday, and will result in a single network, ours or theirs, in about 75% of Flanders. That's a great, great outcome. Third, it creates a cleaner, more consumer and B2B-focused Telenet, Servco, with a significant free cash flow turnaround story supported by declining mobile CapEx and mostly AI-driven OpEx reductions. And then fourth, it facilitates a reduction in Telenet's leverage from both the rebalancing of debt between WIRE and Telenet and the sale of a portion of our stake in WIRE, not a premium, by the way, which will be used to repay debt at Telenet. So really critical steps to getting where we want to be. Moving to the Netherlands, for me, the first strategic catalyst here was bringing in a new management team, one that could set the tone for a return to growth and for winning results in the Dutch market. And Stephen and his team have delivered exactly that. And the second strategic catalyst was, of course, reaching an agreement with Vodafone They buy their 50% stake in our Dutch JV. This deal, as I just said, is scheduled to close in less than three months. Now, not only is that deal accretive from a financial point of view, but it strategically unlocks about a billion euros in synergies we've referenced and provides the structural elements necessary to complete a tax-free spinoff next year. Each of these steps accelerates our commitment to reducing leverage at Vodafone Ziggo, which we'll accomplish through asset sales, a return to EBITDA for cash flow growth, and synergies. Now, on top right of this slide, you can see a side-by-side of Sunrise and the combined Zigo Group. If you look at 2025, the Zigo Group is bigger. It's about two to two and a half times larger in revenue and EBITDA and a bit more profitable. But importantly, you'll see that in 2028, we're estimating free cash flow of around 500 million euros and leverage of four and a half times, which presents a comparable financial profile to Sunrise when we spun it off in Q4 2014. On the chart on the bottom right provides an illustrative bridge to the 500 million in free cash flow, which is estimated to be 120 million euros this year. And the biggest components of that, as you can see, are the non-recurring nature of some costs this year in Holland, combined synergies, Telenet's mobile capex reduction, and organic EBITDA growth. We think the Zigger Group represents a compelling equity story, and it's anchored around four selling points. Number one, This is a strong regional business with two of Europe's most rational telecom markets that are best-in-class brands. Number two, we have clear network strategies here with declining CapEx as 5G investments subside and fiber costs are moved off balance sheet in Belgium and a cost-efficient DOCSIS 4 rollout in Holland. so declining CapEx and great visibility to the network strategies. Number three, rising free cash flow and declining leverage, and that's supported by organic growth, synergies, and 1.2 to 1.4 billion euros of local assets, sales I've already described, towers, property, et cetera. And then number four, a commitment to pay dividends from free cash flow, as we've done with Sunrise. So we have lots of work to do, but this plan and this path forward is clear for us, and we look forward to updating you each quarter on our progress. Now, what does it all add up to? I'm sure many of you are wondering, you know, what sort of value creation do we think is achievable here? The chart on the next slide is actually simpler than it looks, but it moves left to right, and it demonstrates how we have and how we intend to create value through this unlock strategy. Let's start on the far left. The day we announced our intention to spin off Sunrise in February 2024, our stock closed at $18. Of course, nine months later, we completed the spinoff. And using Sunrise's current stock price, we feel we delivered a tax-free dividend that's valued today at $13 per liberty share. So together with our $12 stock, you get to $25, or about a 40% value appreciation in the last 14 months or so. So far, so good. About two months ago, we announced the second step in our value unlock strategy, too, with our intention to consolidate Benelux and spin off the Ziggo Group in the second half of next year. So what might that be worth? These numbers are illustrative. Lawyers maybe say that, of course. But if you move to the right, to the third column, I think you'll see the answer. We believe a publicly listed Zigo Group, if it were to trade at, let's say, the same implicit valuation as Sunrise today, essentially an 11.5% free cash flow yield, could be worth up to $14 per Liberty share based upon the 2028 free cash flow estimate of 500 million euros that we just discussed. Without debating the point, we believe this could be conservative. As you would know, many of our peers, KPN, Swisscom, Orin, Zagona, they trade at free cash flow yields of 5% to 7%, albeit with different leverage profiles. So let's stick with the 11.5% free cash flow yield. The primary question then is where will Liberty itself trade post-spend? Remember, we believe that the entire Liberty Telecom Group, has negative value on our stock today of around $4 per share, despite our announced intentions regarding Zigo. With our cash and growth assets worth $16 and our stock at $12, that's the only conclusion we can reach. Now, to arrive at $14 post the Zigo Group spin, we simply added our pro from a cash balance after the Vodafone deal and asset sales, together with the value of our remaining growth assets, including our residual stake in wire, and we get to $14. By the way, these numbers assume that the market continues to assign no equity value, that's zero equity value, to our remaining telecom businesses in the UK and Ireland. Of course, we think there's substantial equity value in these businesses, but we don't need to agree on that to get to these numbers. So to recap, if you follow the light blue boxes, from February 24, the day we announced our plans to spin off Sunrise, to today, We created $7 on what was an $18 stock, so that's 40%. And we believe for those who had held on to the Liberty stock and their Sunrise stock, that number gets to 41 with the Ziggo Group spin. If you do the same thing with the dark blue boxes, for those who bought their shares after the Sunrise spin-off, we think we can take $12 today to as much as $28 by the second half of next year when we spin the Ziggo Group. Now, while there are no sure things in life, And plenty to do between now and then, trust me, the building blocks we think are in place and we feel good about the plans and these estimates here. Now, one of the reasons for that good feeling is the progress Stephen and his team have made over the last five quarters. This next slide summarizes some of those initiatives and some of the progress beginning early last year when we repositioned broadband pricing, changed the operating model, rejuvenated our campaigns, even expanded our footprint through the deal with Delta Fiber. As a result of that, we saw steady improvements right away in broadband, where we'd been losing over 30,000 subscribers every quarter. Those changes continued into 26 when we rejuvenated the Ziggo brand with a new campaign, the Everything Network, that was supported by our UEFA rights, by the way, which we just extended. We also launched broadband into our No Frills Flanker brand, bringing a simple and value-driven connectivity product to that critical segment. You can see at the bottom right, the broadband net ads have been moving in the right direction for four straight quarters. In fact, our first quarter result was the best in three years, driven by all the initiatives I just referenced, pricing adjustments, new campaigns, products expansion, network improvements. And by the way, we have the largest reach of two gig broadband services in the country. And we just launched field trials with DOCSIS 4 in anticipation of launching four and eight gig products later this year. So operationally, Vodafone Ziggo is in great shape and improving. Exactly what you want to see as we plan for a public listing next year. Now, the next two slides summarize Q1 operating performance across our four markets. We're going to do this quickly since the CEOs are on the call and they can provide color if needed. I think the main headline here is that we continue to see good broadband trends pretty much across the board and stable fixed and mobile ARPUs. Starting with Vodafone Ziggo, like I just talked about, our broadband performance improved significantly. for the fourth consecutive quarter, and post-paid mobile net ads also improved sequentially. We continue to invest in our fixed mobile markets in Holland, with both the Vodafone and Ziggo networks receiving outstanding awards in the UMLA test. With ARPU's merely 57 euros in fixed and 18 euros in mobile staying steady, this has been a good outcome. Turning to Belgium, Telenet delivered its highest quarterly broadband result in 10 years, driven by successful cross-sell campaigns and strong performance with our base, our flanker brand there, Post-date mobile results remain subdued in Belgium as the market's pretty competitive. And here, too, our base brand is outperforming, while both mobile ARPU at 16 euros and fixed ARPU at 63 euros remain largely stable ahead of upcoming price adjustments in Q2. Now, turning to UK on the next slide, despite a market that remains highly competitive, Virgin Media 02 delivered a third straight quarter of broadband improvement with just 6,000 losses compared to 43,000 losses a year ago. And this was supported by strong commercial and retention initiatives and, of course, low return. Importantly, and despite pressure on the overall market pricing, here our fixed ARPU remained relatively stable at 46 pounds 50 pence, supported by more and more personalized and AI-driven pricing. And with the Natamia deal working its way through the regulatory process, we continue our fiber-to-the-home expansion with 8.7 million fiber homes available today. In UK Mobile, we launched O2 Satellite. You might have seen that making us the first operator in the UK to switch on directed device satellite connectivity. In addition, our mobile network transformation is progressing with new RAN upgrade agreements and the transfer of the second tranche of spectrum from Vodafone 3. That's hugely important to us. O2 now has the largest 5G standalone footprint in the UK. Net post-pay losses of 60,000 were materially better than last quarter, as churned from the Q4 price adjustment, we've talked about that, subsided, and ARPU of around 17 pounds was broadly stable. In Ireland, lastly, we continued to execute strategically with growth in wholesale and off-net traffic more than compensating for retail pressure on-net. A fixed retail ARPU of 61 euros remained stable, despite no price rise in 2025. And importantly, our fiber rollout, this is critical, remains on track to be substantially complete in 2026, with nearly 20% of the retail base now taking a fiber product, and that will also drive free cash flow in 2027 and beyond. Now, just one slide on our Liberty Growth portfolio, currently valued at $3.4 billion, and centered around four key verticals you know and love, infrastructure and energy, technology and AI, services, and of course, media and sports. Now, the strategy here has been consistent for some time. We are exiting positions that are no longer strategic and using that capital to both invest in new opportunities as they arise and, as needed, provide capital for transactions that will unlock value in our telecom assets. That second point's really important. Historically, we've divested investment positions, totaling something like $1.6 billion since 2019, and we've targeted another $700 million in sale proceeds this year, of which, as I said, $300 million is already accounted for. Now, a few comments on sports and live events. Of course, we're already invested heavily here through Formula E, but we also believe there are significant structural tailwinds that warrant us evaluating additional opportunities, and we're doing that. These points are probably well-known to all of you, I'm sure, but there's clearly a generational shift from physical goods to experiences. That's live events, sports, travel, entertainment. Many of these markets are fragmented, and most are protected from AI disruption. So it's an interesting space There's also a clear momentum in the sector, right? Just look at sports. Global revenue in sports growing well in excess of GDP over the last 10 years and by almost everybody's estimation, poised to increase and accelerate from here. What's our right to play, you might be asking? Well, we know how to consolidate a fragmented industries, both in telecom, but also we've been doing that for decades and recently with all three media before exiting at a premium. We've got strong relationships across these sectors. Really, the deal flow is the easy part. And when you factor in our expertise in things like treasury, operations, and technology, it's a pretty strong combination. And we have a good track record in sports, specifically with Formula E, the fastest growing motorsport globally, and one of only eight global sports leagues, which is a great segue to my last slide. I always get excited when I talk about Formula E, sometimes too excited. But I think this moment is perhaps our biggest yet. Over the last 10 years, as you've been following this, we have constantly innovated. Investing significant energy and time in the car, the technology, and the racing. Well, the wait is over. Last week at the Paul Ricard circuit in France, Formula E unleashed the next generation race car, Gen 4 we call it. And the motorsports world is still reverberating. First of all, you have to see it in person. Yes, it is a beast, but it's a beautiful, beautiful race car. Step-up in power and performance is incredible. 600 kilowatts of power represents a 71% increase in base output over the current Gen 3 Evo car. The acceleration is insane, 0 to 100 kilometers in 1.8 seconds. That's meaningfully faster than an F1 car. And top speeds in excess of 335 kilometers an hour, nearly 210 miles per hour. We estimate, because it's an estimate at this point, that lap times will decrease 10 seconds on average from the current generation car. That's a lifetime in racing. It's also the first single-seater race car with active all-wheel drive all the time, which will provide incredible acceleration and torque out of the turns. And, of course, it meets all of our expectations from a sustainability point of view. It's made from at least 20% recyclable materials. It's 98.5% recyclable itself. And it allows us to continue claiming that our race-related carbon footprint for the entire championship would fit into one F1 team, by the way. Speaking of F1, yes, we might have taken a few shots at them since the Gen 4 launch. You know, might be deserved also. You're obviously aware of the issues they're dealing with currently and that they're going through with the hybrid engine. And it just reinforces our view that going halfway on anything does not make history. And, you know, we love the position that we're in technologically, competitively, from an entertainment and motorsports point of view. But, hey, just don't take my word for it. In the next slide. You can see, go ahead and scan social media, the motorsports press. There is widespread consensus. I know I'm quoting. This Gen 4 car is a quote-unquote monster. It's quote-unquote ushering in the most extreme era of electric cars. And it's expected to change perceptions of Formula E forever. Even Max gives it a thumbs up, as you can see on the bottom right. So I'm super excited about Gen 4 car and Formula E. And with that, Charlie, I'll turn it over to you.

Thanks, Mike. My first slide sets out the Q1 financial results for our Benelux companies. Now, as you can see on this slide, we're now presenting WIRE's financial performance for the first time separate to Talonet to give investors clarity on their respective financials before we complete the full separation of the two companies and their capital structures later this year. Vodafone Ziggo reported a revenue decline of 1.8% in Q1, driven by a lower customer base and ongoing repricing impact. Now, this was partially offset by the price indexation and higher revenue from Zyga Sports, and adjusted EVDA declined 6.4%, driven by higher marketing costs and some incremental investments in network resilience and service reliability, in line with our guidance in March. At Telenet, revenue was broadly stable in Q1, reflecting our strategic decision not to renew Belgian football rights, which was partly offset by a strong broadband performance, which was driven by effective cross-selling into the video customer base. Adjusted EBITDA grew 8.9%, driven by lower content costs following the exit from the football broadcasting rights. And at WIRE, revenue declined by 1%, impacted by the implementation of a new pricing model, which was partially offset by strength in wholesale growth. Adjusted EBITDA declined by 4.6%, and this was driven by an investment in build capability as we start to accelerate WIRE's fiber build-out capability. Turning to the UK and Ireland, Virgin Media O2 delivered a total service revenue decline of 3% on a guidance basis. Now, this was impacted by competitive pressure in the consumer fixed market and lower B2B revenue, as the newly rebranded O2 business rationalizes its product portfolio to support its long-term growth in the mobile segment. This was partially offset by wholesale revenue growth, which was supported by growth in MVNO revenue, and adjusted EBITDA declined by 3.4% as a result of the lower total service revenues and a non-cash provision for legal matters recorded in the quarter. This was partially offset by cost reduction initiatives. At Virgin Media Ireland, revenues declined by 1.4% in Q1, impacted by intense competition in the consumer fixed and mobile markets, as well as a decline in advertising revenues at VMTV. This was partially offset by a strong wholesale performance, Meanwhile, adjusted EBITDA declined by 7.1%, driven by these top-line pressures, and was also impacted by a one-off benefit in Q1 last year. Turning to the next slide, we remain committed to our disciplined capital allocation model as we rotate capital into higher growth investments and strategic transactions. Starting in the top left, Telenet reported €10 million of free cash flow during the quarter and is expected to deliver at least €20 million of free cash flow for the full year. Additionally, Liberty Corporate delivered adjusted EBITDA of $-2 million, putting us firmly on track to achieve our full-year 2026 guidance of $-50 million. Turning to the bottom left, CapEx has meaningfully stepped down at Telanet and Q1 on a guidance basis, driven by the 5G upgrade nearing completion at the end of 2025 and lower spend on digital platforms. Capital intensity remains elevated at the other opcos, reflecting investments in our fixed networks and also 5G upgrades. Moving to the Liberty Growth Walk in the top right, the fair market value of our growth portfolio remained broadly stable versus 2025 year-end at $3.4 billion. This was driven by modest investments in Atlas Edge, Egg Power, Next Fiber, and Edge Connects, offset by the partial disposals of our ITV and some of our Edge Connect stake, as well as a positive fair market value adjustment at Edge Connects, along with the recent decision to move Liberty Bloom out of our corporate and services segment and into the growth portfolio. Turning to our cash walk on the bottom right, we ended the quarter with a consolidated cash balance of $1.9 billion. Q1 distributable free cash flow was impacted by high capex levels related to the fibre-to-the-home rollouts at WIRE and Virgin Media Ireland. In addition to working capital movements at Telenet, now it's worth noting, we continue to anticipate that WIRE will draw on its standalone facility following BCA approval and will fully repay the short-term funding provided by Liberty Global consolidated cash via Telenet. As a reminder, we are aiming to end 2026 with around $1.5 billion of corporate cash, despite the expected outflows associated with the incremental Vodafone stake, and also to a lesser extent, the Net Omnia acquisition. And finally, turning to our full-year guidance targets for 2026, we are reconfirming all guidance metrics of VMO2, Vodafone Zigo, and Telenet, as well as our guidance for corporate costs. And that concludes our prepared remarks for Q1, and I'd like to hand over to the operator for Q&A.

Thank you. We will now begin the Q&A session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to remove that question, please press star followed by two. Again, to ask a question, press star one. As a reminder, if you are using a speakerphone, please remember to pick up your handset before asking a question. We will pause here briefly as questions are registered. Our first question comes from the line of Carl Murdoch-Smith with Citigroup. Carl, your line is now open.

That's great. Thank you very much. Two questions, please. Firstly, I wanted to ask on Virgin Media O2 about the wholesale service revenue growth. In the release, you say that that included 15 million pounds of fixed pre-enablement and installation income. Am I right in saying that that increase was due to a change in accounting treatment, meaning that it's now recognised as revenue, whereas previously it wasn't? I recognise that it's low margin, but that has provided almost a 1% boost to service revenue overall in Q1. So my question is, did you know about that change in treatment when you issued the guidance in February? Or does it provide a potential upside? to the revenue guide of 3% to 5% decline, particularly as you've come in at the very high end of that range in Q1. And then secondly, I just wondered if you could expand slightly on the O2 satellite news and your kind of level of excitement around that how much customer interest are you anticipating more broadly just what what is your view on the role of satellite um in in telecom to the the complement or competitor going forwards thank you satellite question about you over to newt's first but let me just say that

As we look at the satellite space generally, we think, of course, satellite broadband, Starlink broadband has a role to play on the planet. There will be plenty of people who will utilize that broadband service and need that broadband service. We believe the direct advice mobile opportunity is far more limited by technology, by market access, but we do like the idea of having a satellite service attached to our mobile network. We think it adds, you know, just another level of service and commitment to customers. And of course, the UK is the first market to where we have done that. So Lutz, I'll turn it over to you for satellite and then someone, Charlie, I guess we'll answer the wholesale question. Lutz?

Yeah. Hi, Carl. So we are very satisfied with the launch of AutoSatellite. Not disclosing numbers, but the fact that we have at the moment not the iPhone available we will have it available in a week from now and we have already quite high demand is leading us to the assumption that this is really a reliable service an interesting and attractive service for customers and also in combination with our improved mobile network our 5G standalone coverage we are really creating the right perception for customers, which means we have the most reliable mobile network from everybody in terms of coverage and data speed. And so therefore, we are very happy with that.

Charlie, you want to address the wholesale revenue? Just on the wholesale revenue, I think it was basically in budget. And that is a very difficult business to forecast by its very nature. But I think it was a pretty strong quarter. But do you have anything to add on that?

I mean, I can give some color, right? I mean, this, I think, Carl, you're right. It was not, we didn't account it the same way before. The reason for that was not to beef up our service revenue. As you see, we are coming currently more at the upper end of the guidance. The reason for that is that will be a growing and a continuous service revenue stream because we will more and more connect either from other networks or from other ISPs. So therefore, when you look at it that way, I think that change makes sense. But as you said yourself, we are coming in at the upper end of our guidance. And you could drag that number a little bit. It is 0.7% of it. if you want to accrue for it, but it won't change anything in the guidance. And I mean, we wouldn't change it. It's only one quarter, but so far we are happy with what we have.

Makes sense. That's great. Thanks very much, operator.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Polo Tang with UBS. Polo, your line is now open.

Yeah, hi. Thanks for taking the questions. I have two. The first one is just on UK competitive dynamics for Lutz. So could you maybe talk through how the recent price rises in April have landed? Because the percentage increase is quite large, and I think it's double digit for most subscribers. So I'm just wondering if there's been any change in terms of churn. Separately, your post-paid mobile losses are continuing. So how optimistic are you that this can stabilize for the year. Second question is just a broader question on use of cash going forward. So you've talked a lot in this, the prepared remarks about ventures, the focus on sports and media. I think press reports suggested you were considering buying a European NBA franchise. So are you pivoting the group more towards media and sports, or is the plan still to break up the group and return cash to shareholders? So any color in that would be great. Thanks.

Sure, I'll start with that, Polo. They're not mutually exclusive. That's point one. Point two is our primary commitment, and I think it should be clear, but I'll repeat it here, is to create value for shareholders. And we believe, as I've said a few different times, the biggest opportunity to do that is to highlight and find ways to illuminate value in our telecom business. So that is our priority. That is number one. And as I mentioned a moment ago in my remarks, when we look at the use of capital, that factors in squarely to the strategy. So as I said, we will use capital and rotate capital into growth opportunities should they be presented to us, but also into the telecom business if it helps to unlock value for shareholders. And then I think it went on to say that second one is an important point. So that's the first point. Pardon the answer. I'd say, secondly, we are opportunistically looking at and being presented with sorts of opportunities. Sorry, somebody's got this. Somebody's ringing. Anyway, with opportunities in that sports space and in the media space generally. And there's a reason why the portfolio was $3.4 billion large, because we have been very active in as an investor. And maybe it's been quiet and we don't spend as much time on our earnings calls doing it, but it's arguably the biggest component of our stock price today are the investments that we've assembled strategically and purposely over the last, let's say, five to seven years. And we're divesting ourselves of a huge chunk of those investments. And rightly so, because we need cash to do the things we've been talking about today. And then we will opportunistically look at new investments if they make sense. But don't get me wrong. We are committed to the unlock strategy. And that is priority number one. Lutz, you want to talk about competitive nature of UK?

Yes. Good afternoon, Paolo. So in mobile... you see in our numbers that we have been tracking in service revenue around 3%. But this is before the price rise. And a reason for the net losses in Q1 was the higher price rise we decided for. Now, we are seeing this landing very well. We have the first month of the second quarter behind us, Polo, and our explanation for that is that those who didn't want to pay it left and before that has materialized now we don't see any spike in churn and obviously we also have to wait for the May but the findings here are so far so good on the fixed side the competitive situation is also unchanged I would say so all are very aggressive as we are now and also other competitors have to follow but here remember i said at the last course we have to optimize our prevention machine as we used to do it with the retention machine which we have done now so therefore we are we are quite proud about the fact that we have almost stabilized managed to stabilize our financial our fixed customer base in q1 and we expect something like that in the future and yes it comes at the cost of some rpu which is 1.6 percent but in the scheme of things that is a balanced approach and let me finish with uh remind you when we've given the guidance 70-80% of the service revenue decline is attributed to our expectation on the fixed consumer service revenue market, and that means that we are planning for recovery in mobile service revenue polo, and we are going to see this as we speak from the price-revenue computer.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Robert Grindle with Deutsche Bank. Robert, your line is now open.

Yeah, thank you. Afternoon, gents. I see the progress on the long-form agreement with Proximus, but approval for the collaboration is still outstanding. What happens if you're delayed for another six to nine months? Do you progress the build as planned, or is the project pushed back? And I think Charlie said the wire revenues were impacted by a new pricing model. Could the wire telnet servco financial change from here? Should there be a change in the wholesale rates associated with any approval? Or will this financial base you've given us now be effectively unchanged? Thanks.

Thanks, Robert. We've got John Porter on the line who's worked tirelessly on this Proximus transaction. And it's an outstanding result. outstanding result for Telenet and for us. Do you want to speak to the regulatory process from here, John?

Sure. Well, we've been in lockstep with the competition authority and the BIPT over the last two years. They are right up to date on every aspect of the transaction between ourselves and Proximus. We have very positive inclination from them and belief that they will expedite the final review of the transaction. There is then a necessary 30-day review at the European Commission. That is not an approval process. It's just a chance for them to reflect on the transaction and see if it has broader implications. So, you know, we are cautiously optimistic that we will complete this transaction over the next, say, six to eight weeks. It's a virtual impossibility that it would go longer than that because I think we'd all down tools. But I think that the main critical path has been achieved between ourselves and Proximus and everybody's ready to get going.

And let me just step in on the... We're separating the two companies. Sorry. I was going to say, we're separating the two companies There is a little bit of tweaking. For example, there is a bit of movement on the wholesale rate to tell on it, and there's also some management fees that are being re-evaluated. So I think we'll get a more stable view on the numbers in Q2, but I would say it's pretty good news for the Servco. I'd also say on the financing side, just a real shout-out to my Treasury team, the $4.35 billion of underwritten financing that's clearly in place and we could draw has now been fully syndicated, which is a great success, very successfully syndicated. And with the completion of the BCA approval, we're drawing that down and indeed paying some of the money that we decided was more efficient to bridge from our balance sheet rather than draw revolvers to do so. So I think it's all around good news for the eventual Ziga Group spin because I think the Telnet part of the equation is very much on track for the free cash flow target we set them in 2028. Great. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Joshua Mills with BNP Paribas. Joshua, your line is now open.

Thank you for the questions. Two from my side. One was just going back to slide six where you lay out the strategic plan for the New Zygo group. My question is around the leverage. There's a lot of moving parts here. Can you just remind us what the pro-forma leverage position of this business would be today if you put it together? How much you're expecting to bring in from the wire stake sale and then the other asset sales to make up the 1.2 to 1.4 billion? I just want to understand the assumptions underpinning that and what you're at today and then how you get down to the four and a half times. That would be the first question. And then the second question is just around the Dutch business. We've seen continued improvement in the the broadband performance. Can you give a bit more color as to what's driving that on the customer side on perception? Is it people happy with price? Is it that they've noticed a change in the network quality? Any detail you have would be great. And as a final add-on, your competitors have highlighted potential benefits from the data breach at Adido, I think in the Q1 and probably rolling into Q2, Q3, net ad trends there. How much of an impact have you seen from that on your own business in Q1 and Q2? Thanks.

Thanks, Joshua. Okay, Stephen will prepare answers to the Dutch questions. On the asset sales, the 1.2 to 1.4 billion euro, those consist primarily of towers and technical facilities, et cetera. And we're not really providing a breakdown of those numbers today because we're an active sale process. So we're not going to provide expectations or estimates of where we think that is. But we think that's the range of total combined asset sales, which would be used to pay down debt. Charlie, if you want to address the pro forma leverage, it really depends on what point in time you look for that number and what's happening to the wire state. Do you want to address that, Charlie?

Yeah, I mean, it's actually a very complicated question because clearly the Belgian assets that are going to go into the Zygo Group do not include, because there will be a full separation of the wire assets, with the $4.35 billion of underwritten and now syndicated debt, we will therefore be paying down debt at Telnet or Telnet Circa, but Telnet will be what we'll call it going forward. And it remains that because of the investment profile, Zygo is relatively high elevated. So there's a lot of moving parts in answering that question. I would just reconfirm what Mike said, is we're very confident in a path to get down to the around four and a half times by 2028. It does depend on some asset sales, but we feel pretty good about those being delivered. And with those asset sales and indeed continuing organic EBITDA growth, particularly in Holland, I think we should be there or thereabouts on target. Very happy to take it offline to go to some of these because there's a lot of moving parts about why.

But it's in the low to mid fives. The combined group is going to be in the low to mid fives. Telanet itself will be in the mid fours. will be higher, and then we'll start layering in the various deleveraging steps, additional steps as well. So there's a clear path, but perhaps next call, Joshua will give you a little bit more detail. But that is the general trend.

That's great. And just to be clear, this isn't any injection of cash from the

No cash from corporate, but I think it is important to know that we are putting our money where our mouth is. There's no distributions to Liberty Global in terms of equity distributions. We're reinvesting the free cash flow of Holland back in the business this year and indeed in Belgium. is a commitment to our bondholders and also to the fact that we are very competent in this growth profile.

Do you want to answer the question? Yeah, and in terms of the operational performance of the broadband business. Yeah, can you hear me? Yeah. So in terms of the operational performance of the broadband business over the last 12 months, if you follow the story, we've done a number of very clear interventions. The first is We've got our pricing right for the broadband products that we're selling. We were mispriced in the marketplace. We fixed that a year ago. When we talk about the back book repricing, we're pleased with the progress we've made on that. You haven't seen that in the RP, so we've managed that, I think, pretty well. The second thing we've done is we've gone on top of churn. We've been much more proactive in how we manage our customer base, which I think has had an effect on bringing churn down. We're now down three points year on year. We've invested more in marketing by repositioning the business. The business was underspending on marketing and was out of sync with how, in my view, connectivity should be sold. We've invested, as you saw, in upgrading the speed to the network. So you've seen us launch with the only national 2 gigabit service. So we've taken speed as a headwind service. off the table for us. And then more generally, I think we've done a pretty good job of just tightening how we take the business to market. And you've seen that flow through sequentially each quarter as each of these initiatives have landed. And we have a series of initiatives coming through the rest of 2026 which we anticipate to continue to help us with the momentum behind the story.

The Odido question, Steven?

Great. I'm sorry, I missed the Odido question. Can you repeat that?

The question was, are you seeing any benefit from their cyber attack?

Yeah, it happened late in the quarter. It happened around week 10. So we saw some impact from that, but we didn't see a lot of it in the quarter. Because of the size of their mobile base, we felt a bit more of it in the mobile base. But nothing that I think is material in the Q1 results, because it only represented a handful of weeks.

Great. And I was more talking about the Q2 results. Obviously, it happened later in the first quarter. But are you seeing any impact so far in Q2?

No, we're happy with our progress on Q2 so far, but it's quite early. We'll have to come back to you when we do the Q2 results in a couple of months.

Thanks. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of James Ratzer with New Street Research. James, your line is now open.

Yes, good afternoon. Thank you for taking the question. So I had two really both around Belgium. So in Telenet, you obviously had a very good quarter in terms of broadband net ads. And I'd love if you can just give a bit more color behind what's driving that. Is that now growth out of footprint in Wallonia? Is that coming on your kind of base brand growth? within Flanders, or is it something else? I'd be interested to kind of get just a bit more color on the drivers there of broadband subs growth. And then secondly, just going back to the point that was raised earlier about wire revenue growth, which was down year on year in Q1, is that a kind of one-off for this quarter, Charlie? You were mentioning around pricing, and it goes back to growth following quarters. I'd just love to understand a bit more about the kind of dynamics there between kind of P and Cube, as I've been thinking that with kind of pricing there, we should see Wire as a top-line growth company. Thank you.

John, you want to take the Belgian question?

Yeah, I can take it. So on the broadband, the BAU has been strong, particularly in the base brand, and their growth is is about 50-50 between the televent footprint and growth in the south. So we are steadily growing and that growth in the south is increasing incrementally. There is a what will be a year-long enhancement of that growth as we migrate out of DVBC and into full IP for our video distribution. So we are the last operator in the market to have DVBC where you don't require internet to get television, but we are shutting that down over the next year. So we're expecting to see continued strong growth, but As you can see, the quarter ending 25 in the first quarter of the year, very strong, and those are the main drivers. On the wire revenue, we implemented a wholesale deal, a new wholesale deal on the HFC, which is making, essentially structuring the higher speed tiers to be more accessible. The wholesale price is going down a little bit, and that's what you're seeing flowing through. That will be part of the overarching deal done with Proximus, and we'll be able to give you more detail on that down the road. But the drop will not continue to drop, but it is the new HFC wholesale price. Thank you, John.

So from those new prices, do prices then rise with inflation from this slightly lower level looking into 2027-28?

There is an inflationary component to both the fiber wholesale and the HFC wholesale.

Great. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Matthew Harrigan with Stonex. Matthew, your line is now open.

Thank you. This is very much a conjectural question rather than kind of blocking, tackling valuation anomalies. But you made a quick reference to more benign regulatory environment in your markets. But what's even more interesting on a macro basis is the emphasis on Europe's industrial base and defense. And clearly, You know, telecom is a vital, you know, pivot in defense. Is there any possibilities for your telecom business or, I guess, particularly your venture portfolio in that end? I'm sure, you know, Charlie and Lutz aren't going to be manufacturing drones, but it still feels like something that could be an interesting, you know, tailwind, particularly since you're involved in so many areas, verticals. Thank you.

Hey, Matthew. Listen, the whole sovereignty debate, it's no longer a debate, it's a verifiable conviction, is net positive for us in the telecom space. Now, we won't all benefit equally, but every telecom player will benefit from the European Union and countries within the European Union's focus with their own cybersecurity, their own data protection, their own data centers, their own AI infrastructure. So inevitably, whether it's Atlas Edge or our investment in Edge Connects on the infrastructure side in our Liberty Grow portfolio, whether it's our opcos themselves and their ability to provide services and B2B services and connectivity to governments and others, I think it's a net positive for telcos in Europe, which is why I mentioned it, along with the loosening regulatory framework, which I think will also be a net positive. We may or may not be part of any of that consolidation, but we know that consolidation itself brings benefits to customers as well as operators and investors. So I think it's a real positive step. In terms of defense itself, we're not. unlike perhaps some of our peers who are more closely aligned with the government, we are not involved in any specific defense-type investments, opportunities, or infrastructure. But if we were approached, we would certainly consider it if it was consistent with our overall strategy. I don't see us veering off, if you will, into that.

Right, sure. Does that answer your question, Matt? Not Ryan Mattel. Absolutely. Thanks, Mike.

No.

You got it.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ulrich Raeth with Bernstein Society General Group. Ulrich, your line is now open.

Thanks very much. Thanks very much. Two questions. The first one is, Mike, you talked about improving regulatory climate with regards to consolidation. Other management teams in the sector have flagged mixed signals they perceive to come out of Europe. So could you talk through what specifically you have in mind there, what insights or news you have to share on which you base this more positive assessment. And the second question is on the one billion synergies that you talk about in SIGL. Can you talk about the sort of rough makeup of that in terms of operational and other sources of synergies? Thank you.

On the synergies point, I don't know if we've been specific, so I'm going to pause, you know, but typically you wouldn't be surprised to learn that it's consisting of three or four key line items. There's a financial synergy that's more of a, you know, more of, I would say, a free cash flow type synergy from from taxes, essentially. There's operating costs that we think are achievable and create more efficiencies around. There's procurement and CompX type synergies. So it's not going to be, and when we get closer to legal day one, we'll clearly provide more detail to you. Right now, we're still in the midst of closing the deal. But there's lots of things we can be doing and will be doing in those two operations and within and among them to create those synergies. And if I had to put my team on the spot right now, they'd say that's probably a low number. On the regulatory side, we did just get the EU merger guidelines released, and they are quite positive, at least in comparison to the kind of posture and position that the European Union would take previously when it came to in-market consolidation. I mean, they're looking at a much more, I guess, modern and pragmatic approach, and they're seeing that benefits could certainly accrue from mergers. versus just always seeing the negative in those mergers. There's always been a structural bias against scale. And now they're saying, well, actually, scale could increase investment, could increase innovation. And it's actually spelled out in the document that was released recently. So that to us is, you know, when it's in writing, if it's just a speech, I don't give it much credit. But when they put it in writing, as they have with these new EU merger guidelines, that is a positive step. Now, it needs to be put to the test, and there will be plenty of deals that will put it to the test soon, I imagine. But never before have they written down in black and white the sort of statements that we're reading today in terms of, you know, which are consistent with the arguments we've been making that consolidation in market is the first step to repair in the European telecom space.

Very helpful. Thank you very much. Yep.

Thank you. Our last question comes from the line of David Wright with Bank of America. David, your line is now open.

Okay, there, thank you. Yeah, last question. So a couple please, guys. Just on the, I guess it's for Ziggo, but DOCSIS 4.0, I think you may have said, Mike, that there are some trials ongoing. If we could just get some estimates of maybe the sort of trajectory of commercial launch for 4.0 in Holland? When do you expect the first sort of, you know, significant retail launch, et cetera? And, you know, is it something that you think you could even price a little as you move into the real sort of mega tiers of speed? And then the second question, maybe a little more conceptual, you know, that we're observing a lot of discussion around the kind of infracost-surfcoast split, and you guys have obviously discussed um sort of embrace that and you know there's obviously a clear sort of capital allocation justification and the ability to um you know to to separate the the two businesses that are quite structurally different but i just wondered does having a separate infra co make a more agile servco in terms of just day-to-day you know operations is is the business just you know, more able to respond and, and, and sort of change shaping in the sort of digital age. It's, it's a little more conceptual, might give you anything to add on that. I'd appreciate it. Thank you.

Sure. Sure. Um, Steven jump in here if I get it wrong, but I believe our, our four and eight gig trials are the latter part of the year. Um, maybe even late two, three, two, four, but what we did was get the field trials underway to demonstrate that it works. It works well. The technology we're using is really state-of-the-art even in relation to the U.S. operators. But as we get closer to going public in the latter part of this year, then we'll have more information. But it's happening, and we think it's going to be a big positive for the market and for our business for sure. On the Servco side, look at it. I mean, Belgium is the test. What does it do when you end up? taking the fixed network, you still own the mobile network, but taking the fixed network and putting it into a separate entity, I think, and John will agree, I'm sure, it forces you to be more efficient, more agile, and your margins change. All of a sudden, there's a wholesale fee in your P&L that you have to account for. In principle, Telenet will continue to be a very competitive brand and a very competitive B2C company and B2B company. With respect to its network, its fixed network, it will be renting instead of owning that network. But the relationship it's developed with Wire is highly integrated, with mutual benefits both directions. And so on balance, I think, and this is the only place we've done it, it really is Belgium. I think on balance and John can chime in, I think it does create a bit more energy in that serve, go a bit more focused on, on margins and on competition with a little less to worry about and a slightly better, you know, uh, uh, CapEx profile. And that CapEx profile frees up free cash. You know, I'm telling that we'll generate significant free cash here shortly as it has, and we'll have to figure out how to reinvest that pre cash, whether it's in leveraging or in actually new products and services, but any, any more to add to that, John?

Yeah, a bit. I mean, the CapEx we are spending, we are now concentrating on customer experience. I mean, we pivoted our strategy, obviously, away from network and product differentiation, because we have to, into customer experience. And the timing is right, because, of course, with a lot of AI initiatives around the company and a new Greenfield CRM platform, the focus is well and truly on you know, straight through digital journeys for our customers, which delivers better experience and a better bottom line. So it's been, I think, I certainly, your hypothesis is valid. Okay, good to hear.

All right, well, listen, we appreciate everybody joining us on the call. Thanks, David. It's been a good start to the year. I hope you agree, and we're really encouraged by the progress that we're making. And trust me, we are laser-focused on value creation and value unlock, starting, of course, in the Benelux, where we're not only performing well, but the strategic roadmap, and as I pointed out, the building blocks are all in place. So we'll keep you abreast and updated on those things, and we'll speak to you soon. Thanks, everybody. Have a good weekend.

Thank you. That will conclude today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.