Telephone and Data Systems, Inc.

Good day. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to TBS and U.S. Cellular Third Quarter Earnings Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants' lines 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 1 on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star 0. I would now like to hand the call over to your speaker today, Ms. Jane McCann. Please go ahead.

Jane McCann Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. We hope that you and your families are doing well. As many of you know, the TDS family of companies has a practice of long, orderly succession periods to ensure smooth and seamless transitions. And in that spirit, I will be transitioning the corporate relations role to Colleen Thompson over the next couple of quarters. Colleen brings significant knowledge of U.S. Cellular, where she has held leadership positions since 2012. I am excited to have you meet her. And after that transition, I'm remaining with the company in the role of corporate secretary for both TDS and U.S. Cellular. And as most of you know, we've historically held our calls at 9 a.m. on Fridays. But there was a calendar conflict this quarter, and we moved our call to accommodate that. But going forward, we do expect to move our call back to Fridays at 9 a.m. Central. We know it's a busy day, so thank you for being so flexible. I want to make you all aware of the presentation we have prepared to accompany our comments this morning, which you can find on the investor relations sections of the TDS and U.S. cellular websites. With me today and offering prepared comments are from TDS, Pete Cereta, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, From U.S. Cellular, L.T. Theravold, President and Chief Executive Officer, Doug Chambers, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and from TDS Telecom, Vicki Villacrez, Senior Vice President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer. This call is being simultaneously webcast on the TDS and U.S. Cellular Investor Relations websites. Please see the websites for slides referred to on this call, including non-GAAP reconciliations. We provide guidance for both adjusted operating income before depreciation and amortization, or OIDA, and adjusted earnings before interest taxes depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA, to highlight the contributions of U.S. Cellular's wireless partnerships. TDS and U.S. Cellular filed their SEC Forms 8K, including the press releases, and our Forms 10Q, As shown on slide two, the information set forth in the presentation and discussed during this call contains statements about expected future events and financial results that are forward-looking and subject to risks and uncertainties. Please review the Safe Harbor paragraphs in our press releases and the extended versions included in our SEC filings. In terms of our upcoming IR schedule, slide three, U.S. Cellular is attending the Wells Fargo Virtual TMT Summit on November 30th. And then in January, we are attending the Raymond James Deer Valley Summit in person on January 3 through 5, and Citi's Apps Economy Conference virtually on January 6. And as always, our open door policy can now be open door, open phone, open video. So please reach out if you're interested in speaking with us. Turning to slide four, we continue to make progress on our environmental, social, and governance, or ESG program. And most recently, we published TDS's very first ESG report. From our founding over 50 years ago, TDS believes that being a good corporate citizen is fundamental to our long-term success. This means serving as a good steward of the environment and enacting governance practices that align with our corporate values. and truly caring about our customers, our associates, and striving to enhance the lives of the people in the communities we serve. These responsible practices, which make up the F in ESG, are what we call our three Cs, customer, culture, and community. Going forward each quarter, we're going to briefly highlight a recent action that illustrates this commitment. Before turning the call over, I want to remind everyone that due to the FCC's anti-collusion rules related to the ongoing Auction 110, we will not be responding to any questions related to spectrum auctions. And now I'd like to turn the call over to Pete Cereda. Pete?

Pete Cereda Thanks, Jane, and good afternoon, everyone. Before speaking about the balance sheet, I want to recognize all the actions that both business units are taking. to lead to higher returns and stronger businesses over the next several years. As we've discussed on past calls, maintaining financial flexibility is one of the pillars of our corporate strategy. Over the years, we've worked to retain relatively low leverage levels, long-dated debt maturities, sufficient undrawn revolving credit facilities and term loans, and significant cash balances to make sure we have the financial resources we need to fund our businesses. On slide five, I want to call your attention to all the work that has been done to raise new capital to fund the growth in our businesses while at the same time lowering the average cost of our balance sheet. As you can see, we've raised $3.4 billion since the beginning of 2020 at an average cost of 4.9% and redeemed six separate bond series comprising $1.6 billion in debt with a weighted average cost of 7%. The annual run rate savings on this call debt is approximately $33 million. The new capital is a mix of low cost preferred stock and very long term retail bonds, along with shorter term EIP securitization debt and bank term loan debt. This fulfills a commitment we made at the beginning of the year to reduce the average cost of our balance sheet and diversify our funding sources. Going forward, we believe that we will continue to have excellent access to the debt capital markets through a variety of instruments in order to continue to fund our business. Finally, before turning the call over to LT, I want to point out that our income tax rate for the quarter was 29%. This is up significantly from the 2020 level, in which we saw significant one-time benefits from the CARES Act, which have not recurred. With that, I will turn the call over to LT. LT? LT GILMORE- Hey, everyone.