Telecom Argentina SA

Good morning, and welcome to Cable Vision Holdings Conference Call. Today, the team will discuss fourth quarter and full year 2024 results, as per the earnings release distributed last Thursday, February 27, 2025. My name is Nick, and I will be your conference operator for today. This call is for investors and analysts only. Therefore, questions from the media will not be taken at this time. However, if you are a member of the media and have questions, please contact FIG Corporate Communications. Comments made by the company may contain forward-looking statements about Cablevision Holdings' future performance, plans, strategies, and targets. Such statements are subject to uncertainties that could cause Cablevision Holdings' actual results and operations to differ materially. Such uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the effects of the new impact of new or ongoing industry and economic regulations, possible changes in demand for Cablevision Holdings' products and services, and the effects of more general factors such as changes in general market, economic, or in regulatory conditions. Please refer to the disclaimer in the earnings report or presentation for additional information regarding forward-looking statements. If you have not received the report or need any assistance during today's call, please contact FIG Corporate Communications in New York at 917-691-4047 or the company in Buenos Aires at 5411 4309-3417. CVH has also posted the webcast presentation that can be found at www.cablevisionholdings.com slash investors. Following the presentation, there will be a question and answer session. You may submit your questions throughout the event by clicking in the submit a question box on your screen. I will now introduce our speakers, Mrs. Samantha Olivieri, Head of Investor Relations, and Julian Basquiat, Senior Analyst. For the Q&A session, they will be joined by Mr. Ignacio Gillette, CVH's Executive Director and Chairman. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Mrs. Samantha Olivieri. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Nick. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Today's call will begin with a brief macro overview and continue with a review of the company's income statements and operating results, followed by a review of the financial position. Having gone through the agenda for today's webcast, I will now pass the call to Julian for the macro overview.

Thank you, Samantha. After 13 months in office, the government has achieved better than expected results despite the inevitable short-term costs associated with drastic macroeconomic reordering. This reordering was based on a stabilization program with three key anchors, a fiscal anchor, an exchange rate anchor, and a monetary anchor. For the first time in over a decade, a fiscal surplus was achieved. The result of the recurrent fiscal imbalance is basically explained by the unprecedented cut in public spending made during the year of close to 30% and equivalent to almost four points of GDP. As a result, the monetary issuance derived from the central bank's assistance to the treasury was eliminated. On the exchange rate front, within the framework of currency controls, the government stabilized the currency through a crawling peg policy. Initially, it settled at around a 2% monthly adjustment. As inflation declined and the program gained more credibility, the crawling peg was recently reduced to 1% per month. The government also advanced in adjusting relative prices. particularly for regulated services. Regarding inflation, there was a significant progress in slowing down the speed of price increases. The CPI index closed 2024 with variations of 2.7% monthly and 118% on a year basis, well below the 25% and 211% of 2023. This inflation dynamic allowed monetary policy rates to be lowered from 133% to 29% nominal annual rate, while the interest rate remained above the base of the valuation to mitigate exchange rates and inflationary pressures. On its part, the central bank has focused on improving its balance sheet by eliminating remunerated liabilities and broadly rebuilding gross reserves. The tax amnesty program led to a nearly $33 billion in private USD deposits. a 77% year-over-year increase. The strong agriculture and energy exports and corporate bonds, which were particularly driven by the rigid tax incentive for large investors, boosted gross reserves from $21 billion to close $28.5 billion. In addition, market confidence in the economic program has shown signs of improvement. Since the beginning of the new administration, the country's risk index has dropped to levels of around 700 to 800 basic points, the lowest in the last five years. This is an encouraging indicator given the need to re-access international debt markets in order to strengthen the central bank's fragile reserve position. The stabilization program had a negative impact on activity and consumption. The GDP of 2024 averaged a decline of around 1.8% below expectations. The decline concentrated in the early months of 2024, after which a floor was reached, and global signs of improvement began to emerge. The monthly economic activity indicator has shown consecutive increases, surpassing preordering program levels. The best-performing sectors in 2024 were agriculture and energy, while the lagging sectors were industry, construction, and retail. Regarding perspectives, it is worth mentioning that even despite the advancement achieved in the macroeconomic situation, it has yet to prove itself sustainable in time. The reordering incentive in the fiscal balance has generated positive stabilization signals in the economy. However, the challenges to be faced are several, amongst which are the degree of adaptation to the new exchange parity of the different economic sectors, the dynamic of the external front, and in particular, the need to accumulate central bank reserves, and the final exchange and monetary regime to be adopted once the still in place currency controls are leased. Consolidating the fiscal balance in an election year in order to keep advancing in the deflationary process and setting the basis of a sustainable growth path will be this administration's main challenge for its second year in office. This concludes our macroeconomic analysis I will now pass the call back to Samantha. Thank you.