Megacable Hldgs Sab Ord

Good morning. Welcome to Megacable First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. With us this morning, we have Enrique Yamuni, CEO, Raimundo Fernandez, Deputy CEO, and Luis Zetter, CFO. Let me remind you that the information discussed in today's earnings call may include forward-looking statements on the company's future financial performance and prospects, which are subject to risk and uncertainties. Megacable undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Enrique Yamoni.

Sir, you may begin. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. First, I would like to talk about the mixed macroeconomic environment in which once again we have delivered positive results. We continue to see a challenging scenario marked by a slower than expected decrease in interest rates. In addition, the FX has remained strong, but a weaker peso is expected for the end of the year. Inflationary pressures once again were present in the month of March after a positive February and finally the uncertainty from the upcoming federal elections in Mexico and the U.S. continues. In this scenario, the outlook for our industry remains positive as we expect penetrations of the broadband services to continue improving, thus bringing new subscribers to the market, while most of the industry shifts towards fiber adoption as a standard. Although video has a more conservative performance, we continue to leverage our growth in the content integration capabilities of our video platform, taking advantage of all the content available from many sources to offer our subscribers a complete video experience. In this context, MEGA remains focused on the execution of its two main tasks, the network evolution and network expansion projects, which would ensure our capacity to provide better services with higher bandwidth in line with the current and future requirements of the market. At the same time, we continue to see the outcome of the investments already made, which allowed us to post steady growth in net ads and an upward trend in revenue and EBITDA generation. Nevertheless, one of the highlights of the quarter is that we are cash flow positive in more than 788 million pesos. This is a significant milestone and just a glimpse of what we will be achieving regarding cash generation in coming periods. The mass segment revenues continue to grow at a double-digit pace, driven by a strong performance in net additions with record figures for the period. In the same line, EBITDA posted a solid performance with the EBITDA margin at its peak level of the last six quarters. and exceeding market expectations. As you can recall, starting in September 2023, the new territories became EBITDA positive and have continued to improve with each month as penetration in these territories rises. During the quarter, Megacable continued to make steady progress in the construction phase of its expansion plan. As you will recall, during 2023, we significantly exceeded our target for homes past, which allowed us to slow down the pace of construction and coverage requirements for this year. As we anticipated in our last conference call, the capex figure for the quarter already represents a lower number of homes passed and kilometers added during the period. We expect a full year with a capex to revenues rate below 35%. In this context, the company continues to look for the most efficient sources of funding, and at the end of March, we successfully completed the issuance of a long-term sustainable local note for approximately 4 billion pesos. This transaction will guarantee the required resources to support our ongoing projects. Even considering this additional debt, We managed to lower our coverage ratio for the period when compared to the fourth quarter of 23. We remain confident that the results of our initiatives will allow us to record top leverage of 1.6 to 1.7 times and decrease from their own. For 2024, our efforts will strive complete the construction phase of our expansion with a much lower investment pace with a subscriber and revenue consolidation phase beginning in 2025, ready to grasp benefits from all the investments deployed. In these regards, although the company is willing to analyze alternatives that could boost its commitment to value generation, Today, there are no relevant operations plan for the short terms other than the expansion project to which we continue to direct 100% of our efforts. Before concluding, I am pleased to share that in line with our commitment to drive the greatest generation of value yesterday at our annual ordinary shareholders meeting, The payment of a dividend of 2.6 billion pesos was approved, equivalent to 20% of the EBITDA recorded in 2023. With this milestone, Megacable stands at the top of Mexican publicly traded companies that pay off the most in dividends to its shareholders. Conclusion, we are the company with the most aggressive expansion plan in the sector in recent years. A plan that was supported by a solid financial position. We have been executed according to our efficiency culture and we are very proud of our progress and results. Despite having invested a significant amount over the last three years, we remain one of the companies with the lowest leverage ratio in the industry, and our perspective on value creation for the coming period is looking brighter. Now, I hand the call to Raimundo for his remarks on our operational performance. Raimundo, please go ahead.

Thanks, Enrique. Good morning, everyone. We are pleased to share that in line with the execution of our expansion project and the positive performance recorded in our legacy territories, this quarter will be the 5 million unique subscribers mark, mostly following a solid performance of our internet and telephone services. During the quarter, 514,000 new homes were added to our network, representing 2,000 kilometers of new fiber. With this, we now have nearly 16 million home paths through 95.6 thousand kilometers of distribution network, bringing us closer to the culmination of our expansion initiative. This has already been reflected in the sequential soft landing of CAPEX, which went from 3.9 billion pesos in the fourth quarter of 2023 to 2.3 billion pesos this quarter, as Enrique mentioned. We expect a cap-to-revenue rate for the full year between 32% and 34%, though reflecting a clear deceleration in investment deployment. Unique subscribers were up 12.1% year-over-year to 5.1 million, representing 550,000 net additions, of which 143.9 thousand were recorded this quarter. As for the internet segment, in line with expectations, it registered a year-over-year increase of 13.7%, equivalent to 587.7 thousand net additions, of which 151.3 thousand were recorded this quarter, bringing subscribers to 4.9 million. It is worth highlighting that we remain committed to fiber adoption with the goal of becoming a full fiber player in the coming years. In that line, 67% of our subscribers are getting the service through this technology compared to 52% a year ago. Video subscribers reached 3.9 million, representing an increase of 4.4% on a year-over-year basis, or 167,000 net additions, of which 14.8 thousand were registered this quarter. In this segment, our XView platform continues to play a key role in our various proposals. as reflected in the 21.9% annual growth of its subscriber base, which reached 3.1 million, equivalent to 549,000 net additions. This implies that 78% of our video subscribers are already enjoying our flagship next generation platform, compared to 67% a year ago. Telephony subscribers grew 18.9% year over year, totaling 4.3 million. Out of these, 677,000 subscribers were added in the last 12 months and 173,000 this quarter. NVNO services registered a total of 461.1 thousand subscribers recorded a year-over-year growth of 22.3%, equivalent to 84,000 net additions, of which 28,000 were posted this quarter. Regarding RU's, this amounted to 13.1 million this quarter, increasing 12.3% compared to the 11.6 million in the first quarter of 2023. This growth derives from a larger subscriber base generated by our expansion plan and incremental market penetration in legacy territories. IUs per unique subscriber increased from 2.56 in the first quarter of 2023 to 2.57 this quarter. Shown rates were 1.8% for internet, 2.1% for video, and 2.1% for telephone, remaining practically unchanged from last quarter. In the case of internet and telephony, the shown rates improved on a year-over-year basis. ARPU per unique subscriber went from 420.4 pesos in the first quarter of 2023 to 421.7 pesos this quarter. Compared to last quarter, ARPU per unique subscriber slightly decreased due to a seasonality effect with better collection of revenues in the fourth quarter of 2023. Turning to ARPU by segment, compared to the first quarter of last year, internet and video grew 5% and 2% respectively, while telephony and MVNO decreased 7%. In this quarter, the solid performance of the corporate segment, when compared to the first quarter of last year, is mainly due to the extraordinary revenues recorded by OLA in the enterprise segment, coupled with the steady growth recorded by MetroCard with a significant performance in the enterprise segment. To conclude, as Enrique mentioned, our efforts remain focused on maintaining the operating efficiency and service quality that have characterized our company, while consolidating our infrastructure through our expansion and the evolution of our legacy territories. We want to ensure our capacity of value creation through the best network of the country, service quality, and the best profitability. Thank you for your attention. I will now hand over the call to Luis, who will provide a detailed analysis of our financial performance.

Thank you, Raimundo. Good morning, everyone. this quarter, representing an increase of 12% driven mainly by the solid performance of the mass segment. Mass segment revenues increased a double-digit rate of 13% year-over-year, amounting to 6.6 billion pesos. By service, internet grew 20%. The highest growth since first quarter of 2018. Video, 7%. MVNO, 12%. Telephony, 11%. Driven by higher subscriber volumes. And related to the execution, of our expansion and network evolution projects. Corporate segment revenues totaled 1.4 billion pesos this quarter, recording a 5% increase when compared to 1.3 billion pesos in the same period, 2023. This result is explained mainly by non-referring income in OLAF, while Metrocarril continues with solid performance in this regard. Poland Metro Carrier increases 23% and 7% respectively, while MCN and PCTV decrease 10% and 4% also respectively. As a result, the revenue share for the quarter came 82% from the mass segment and 18% from corporate. Regarding the cost of services and SG&A in this quarter, pesos respectively, representing annual growth rates of 8% and 14%, mainly due to the increase of the operation and costs associated with labor. In the first quarter of 2024, consolidated EBITDA reached nearly 3.7 billion pesos, growing 13% year over year. Likewise, the EBITDA measure expanded 40 basis points, year over year, reaching 46.1%, driven by the margin improvement recorded across expansion territories as the penetration continues to increase. In the same line, EBITDA for cable operations grew 12% year over year, totaling 3.5 billion pesos, with a margin of 47.3%. margins, in line with the rampant progress of new territories. As a result, we expect margins for the coming quarters to be higher than those of 2023. Net income went from 797 million pesos in the first quarter of 2023 to 801 million pesos this quarter, growing close to 1%. On a sequential basis, a 24% was recorded. The growth of the net income below EBITDA is impacted by higher financial expenses related to our additional debt. Moving into the balance sheet, the company's net debt recorded an annual growth when compared to the same quarter of last year, but a sequential decrease of 4%. given the resources held in cash from the recent issuance of the sustainable bonds. The annual growth was due to the resources raised in the last 12 months, same that were collected to support and accelerate our expansion and network revolution projects. In this context, our net debt to EBITDA ratio decreased to 1.4 times on the previous one. It's important to note that our debt level remains below the industry average. We remain confident that the leverage peak will be back to three and will not go beyond 1.6 times that debt evident. As of March 31st, 2024, our interest coverage ratio was 1%. 5.6 times, reflecting the stalling position to meet our financial obligations. As anticipated, CAPEX was down from 4 billion pesos last quarter to 2.3 billion pesos on this one. Although we continue with our expansion and migration initiatives, the amount of kilometers and homes passed of the last first quarter are significantly less when compared to those of 2023, as we get closer to our target figures. As a result, the capex to revenue ratio was this quarter reduced to around 29%. By full year, we expect, as Raimundo and Enrique mentioned, capex to revenues to remain at levels of 32% to 34%. Finally, we will continue pursuing a disciplined financial execution and plan to take advantage of the lower interest rate environment expected for the coming quarters. Drawing from our swift access to diverse sources of financing, which coupled with the maturation of new territories and strengthening legacy territories will certainly allow us to enhance profitability. With this, I conclude my remarks and turn the call back to Esau.

Thank you. If you have a question, please use the raise your hand button of your Zoom application, or you can also type your question in the Q&A section of the Zoom platform. Please make sure that you are not muted when it's your time to participate. Our first question comes from Marcelo Santos from JP Morgan. Marcelo, please go ahead.

Hi, thank you for the questions. Hello to everybody. I have two. The first, could you please update us about the CapEx expectations for the next couple of years? You gave very good range for this year, so I just wanted to know how this progresses going forward. And the second is more like an industry question. One of your competitors added a very high amount of net ads, but we are seeing the industry that the turn rates are going down basically for everybody. So What's your view of what's going on in the market? Are we seeing big penetration increase? Is someone losing a lot of subs? Are you losing some regions and gaining others? Just want to get your read on this evolution of the market. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Marcelo. Good questions both. Let me tell you about the CAPEX. Luis is doing a great effort since he's a little bit sore of his throat. But CAPEX, as we say, we are very pleased to announce and to present a decrease in the CAPEX in the first quarter. And also, that's the message that we will remain between 32% and 34% for the year. below what we have before and that's coupled with the decrease of the construction of the kilometers. For the years to come, we will see a decrease in capex and get to around the 20% level that we are expecting, that we all are expecting for a company that is much more mature after the expansion project by pretty much 2027 in that part. at the end of 2027 or 2027. That's the market that we have. After that, of course, we will be slightly before that, but that's our goal. The first one is to go down from what we have last year and get into this 32% to 34%, and you will see that decline in the coming years. That one is a commitment of the management, and that's part of the plan, and it's according to everything that we announced in the past. On the other question you mentioned about the competitive landscape, well, what we see is that we have a steady growth. I believe that we are presenting pretty much the same strategy quarter over quarter. We have an acceleration of our expansion and kilometers built. last year, and we will decrease this one. Now we need to continue to provide our gross ads and net ads in a very steady way. We keep our shown in the 1.8 to 2%, pretty much 1.8 is what we have for the broadband, 2.1 for the video. On that one, which is slightly higher than other competitors, which is normal too because we approach a big amount of lower economic levels on that part with the price strategy. For the rest, we cannot tell you. What we see is that, of course, for the market, we are surprised that we see that huge amount of growth or net ads for other competitors. I mean, it should be for them to ask what happened on that part. We don't see that in the market. We don't see more commercial efforts. We don't see our market research and penetration and the market share that we have has not been affected and changed. So we're also surprised to see what happened in the market regarding that part. What we can say is that from everybody, we have the most steady and continued growth on that part. And we're not surprised that other ones don't grow because they slow down every commercial effort we have. And for the rest, we don't see that much effort. Enrique, I don't know if you want to say something or that's completely Marcelo. I don't know if I answered your question. I agree with your comments.

Okay. Thank you very much. Very good. Thank you.

Thank you, Marcelo. The next question comes from Vitor Tomita from Goldman Sachs. Vitor, please go ahead.

Hello. Good morning, all. And thanks for taking our questions. So two questions from my side. The first one is that if you could explain is if you could give us some more color on how you see ARPU trends going forward. And our second question would be more on the very solid cash generation in this quarter. Looking at the balance sheet, my impression is that working capital trends seem to have improved this quarter as well. Could you give us some more color on working capital dynamics for the quarter and how you expect that part of the cash generation to trend going forward? Thank you.

Thank you, Victor. I will answer the ARPU and we'll see if Luis can answer. If not, I will help him. But ARPU trend, what we see is that we will have a slight increase in the ARPU. We continue to focus in market penetration and expansion of our project. And the ARPU is affected between the new territories and the existing territories on that part. So we will continue to see a new combat on a slight increase. it's not going to be a significant increase moving forward on that part. Regarding the cash generation, Luis, you want to say something? Yeah, I'll try. Okay.

Thank you for the question and sorry for the voice again. Well, you have to take into consideration that working capital has been benefited by several negotiations we did with our strategic partners, and we increased our commercial terms. So in this quarter, there's a combination of increasing revenue, these negotiations with commercial credits or commercial terms, and also the reduction in capex. But as we expect the capex to come to 32 to 34 levels in the remaining of the year, and the benefit of the commercial terms will hit us back, well, we expect, yes, to generate some cash, but with a different face or pace than what you saw in this quarter.

At the end, we are very pleased that we have a free cash flow on that part. As we said, partially because of the decrease of the capex, capex will remain at 32%, 34% for the year. That means we will have a slight increase of capex in the coming quarters. This is a seasonality part of that part. But it will not go above that 33% that we have over revenues. Revenues will increase. So in that amount, we will continue to provide free cash flow. And as we said, our working capital has been improving because of all the efficiency that we have. And also because it's normal that we have a better penetration and a better margin, a better penetration margin and EBITDA in the new territories. So this is normal. It was part of what we present the board and what we have been discussing with you, and it's part of our expansion plan going forward. So it looks really bright for the fusion.

Very clear. Thank you both very much.

Thank you, Victor. Just as I remind you, if you want to ask a question, please use the raise your hand button on your soup platform, or you can also use the Q&A section. Our next question comes from Emilio Fuentes from GBM.

Hi, thank you for taking my question. I just wanted to know if you have some color on whether you've experienced an increasing churn on expansion territories as times have passed from your plan and these territories have matured. Has there been some churn from customers that are leaving promotional periods?

Yes, Emilio, thank you for the question. No, we haven't seen an increase in churn on that part. The churn that we have in the existing territories is higher than the organic because of the high commercial effort that we do, which is normal for a much more expansion and larger expansion territories than the other ones. But no, we don't see an increase in the churn as we continue to provide service on those territories. That's a direct answer to that question.

Thank you. Very clear.

Thank you. Okay. Our next question comes from Fanny from HSBC. Fanny, please go ahead.

Thanks for taking my question. The first question is regarding your margin expansion. It did seem like you expanded very fast this quarter compared to last year. So is everything organic or is there some one-off items that is impacting your EBITDA margins? The second question is, did you raise all the capital that you need for this year or do we expect any further capital rise this year in terms of debt? Thank you.

Yes, the margin expansion, yes, it continues to increase. We're very proud. Again, we have always said that we will recover our margin levels according as we continue to expand and penetrate our markets. It comes because we have a higher penetration in the new territories, and that's bringing positive evidence, a bigger, larger margin than what we had before. And Just to understand, the margin or evident margin in the legacy territories was not affected. We will continue to be, I'm very proud of the largest and the highest margin in the industry that was affected because of the expansion. Now it is recovering. We will continue to recover margins as we continue to grow in those territories, as we said, until we reach the 2027 deadline. that timeline that we have on that. Regarding CapEx, as we said in the last one, we will target to 32% to 34%, and we'll continue to decrease and get to the 20% pretty much by 2020.

And to your question regarding additional fundings, we are not expecting to issue another bond. We will be buffering with the bank credit lines that we have for the remaining of the project. So it will depend on the cash flow generation. but we have some bank credit lines to use in case of any issue that comes.

And again, as Luis said over there, our peak in the ratio that we will have for the net debt, we're aiming not more than 1.6 times the net debt ratio, which is the lowest in the industry.

Perfect. Thank you, everyone.

Thank you, Fanny. Our next question comes from Carlos de la Garreta from Itaú. Carlos, please go ahead. Carlos? Carlos, you are on mute.

The first one on the corporate side, I think we're seeing some mixed behavior, but you can talk about what you expect for the year. I don't know. It's because it's an electoral year. You expect certain weakness. Maybe you can remind us the exposure that you have to government on the corporate side. And then secondly, And I know the regulator published substantial market power ruling against Macaulay in a reduced number of markets. Obviously, I know you're contesting that, but if you can walk us through the logic or the lack thereof of the regulator and what is your position with regarding to that ruling, that would certainly be very helpful as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Carlos. We're very pleased also about our corporate results. OLA has a great, great quarter on some projects that we were looking at the third and fourth quarter of last year. We didn't materialize in that period, so we did materialize on this one. That's the nature of OLA in that part. OLA has two components. One is the IT and cloud services, which is very steady. And the other one are special corporate and government projects, which is non-recurrent. On that part, that's why you see some good quarters and not such good quarters, let's call it that way, in some of that part. At the end, we're very positive corporate segment projects. will continue to be increasing. MetroCarre posted good results, steady results at 7%. We have a slight decrease in MCM that affect us. That's part of some of the problems with the special part of the segment that we aim on MCM that decrease MCM. and affect our company in that area. We are already turning that around and we are very confident that for the rest of the year we will continue to provide positive results on that part. So corporate looks good also and we will continue to provide growth in revenue on that part. Regarding the government, you want to say something?

Regarding that ruling that the IFT came up with about substantial power, whatever you want to call it, in certain cities, in certain markets, I think nine of them, we were very confident that we will appeal that and we will win that because that was the same thing that happened. Exactly, it's a mirror case of... that was with Televisa, and Televisa was able to turn it down. It's very simple. Those markets are some networks that we bought from Axtell four years ago or five years ago, I don't remember. And the analysis that the regulators did was really not taking into account all of the new applications that are in the market, like Netflix and Amazon Prime and HBO and Disney, all those applications that are sold directly to the consumer. And obviously, we do not have a substantial power in those markets. So we are confident that we will win that even before it starts taking effect, the mandatory regulation that regulators mandated. I think that well, even though that the court is slow, we have time to turn it down before it goes into effect. So we were not We are not very worried. We are occupied in taking care of that, but we are confident that we will win the case.

Back in OpenRinke, we're very confident.

Thank you. That's very clear. But just to clarify, there's no financial impact from this, right? If it were to go or to remain in place, there's no... Yeah.

No, no, no. We don't see... even if it stayed in place, it would represent some more depth work for us, but not an economic impact.

That's very clear. Thank you, Enrique.

Thank you.

Thank you, Carlos. The next question comes from Alejandro Lavin from Santander. Alejandro, please go ahead.

Hi, good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking my question. Just a couple of quick questions now on steady state, let's call it assumptions, right? So let's call it by 2027, you mentioned that CapEx over sales could reach around 20%. That same number or assumption, what would you think about EBITDA margin in the same year? And lastly, how could these answers change if the FX goes back to let's call it 18 to 20 pesos per dollar. Thank you.

Well, I don't see the pesos staying, you know, at 17, you know, exchange rate. It's obvious that the conditions are going to change at some point. I mean, it's not going to be an abrupt change of the effects. but I think that it will go up eventually in the next couple of years, maybe to levels of 19 or something like that. If you see the historic exchange rate ratios in the last 10 years, the peso is overvaluated by about 25%, considering the difference of inflations between both countries. This is a situation that... You know, it's benefiting some people and hooking other sectors. But the balance, I think, is not that bad. But the exchange rate will definitely, I think, move to more reasonable quantities in the exchange rate in the future.

And like Enrique is saying, Alejandro, our EBITDA margin will reach and will go back to normal levels, what we call normal levels, which are the highest level in the industry, from 47% to 48% by 2027 to 2028. And that's considering also reaching that 20% of the capex with that impact on the exchange rate at the levels that you are talking, Alejandro, and Enrique's comments.

Great. Perfect. Thanks a lot.

Okay, it seems that we do not have more questions, so I'll turn the call over to Mr. Yamuni for final remarks.

Okay, thank you very much, Esaú, and thank you all for your interest in Megacablet, and we hope that you are satisfied with this report and the results of the company. We will continue delivering Great results in the future, even better maybe than the one we delivered today. Please feel free to contact our investor relations department if you have any other or more questions or more doubts. It was a pleasure to discuss our results with you and have a wonderful day. Thank you very much.

Thank you all.