Cogeco Communications Inc.

and welcome to Cogeco Inc. and Cogeco Communications in Q1 2024 earnings conference call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Patrice Ouimet, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Cogeco Inc. and Cogeco Communications. Please go ahead, Mr. Ouimet.

Thank you. So good morning, everybody, and welcome to this first quarter conference call, which Philippe Jappé and I will present. So before we begin the call, I'd like to remind listeners that the call is subject to forward-looking statements, which can be found in our press releases issued yesterday. Please go ahead, Philippe.

Good morning, and thank you everyone for joining us for the first quarter results of fiscal 2024. But before we start, on behalf of COGICO's management team and myself, we would like to extend our warmest wishes for the upcoming year to all of you. The first months of fiscal 2024 have been highlighted by significant milestones for our company. First, we secured additional wireless spectrum at attractive prices during the federal government's 3,800 megahertz auction, which now brings the spectrum coverage of our wireline footprint to 100%. In addition to providing valuable spectrum in the greater Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City, and Ottawa regions. In total, we have now either acquired or secured nearly 600 million worth of spectrum across several frequency bands that are considered optimal for 5G wireless services. We remain in NVNO access negotiations in Canada. as securing satisfactory wholesale rates for access to incumbent wireless networks is critical to the success of our mobile business. We cannot comment on the anticipated timeline or completion of the negotiations or potential arbitration that could extend this timeline. As a reminder, however, we don't anticipate a material rollout of our Canadian MVNO operations in the short term, as some preparation work remains. Beyond the regulated MVNO framework, we will remain open to have commercial deals for part of the service should they be of mutual interest to the parties involved. Additionally, our progress towards entering the U.S. wireless market through commercial MVNO arrangement in the states we operate in is going well and we expect to provide further updates in the near future. For context, it is easier to get into mobility in the US under reasonable economic terms as incumbent wireless carriers are willing to negotiate commercial MPNO arrangements. Further, the capital requirements to launch an MPNO service are very low as there is no need to acquire and deploy Spectrum and back office functions can be provided by third parties. The aim for our mobile offerings in both countries is not only to improve our bundling efficiency, but also to increase our addressable market, strengthen our product mix, add an important customer acquisition channel, and improve our customer retention and satisfaction. all the while being capital efficient and accretive to our business in due course. A second important milestone occurred subsequent to the end of the quarter. On December 11th, we bought back shares in both Cogeco Communications and Cogeco Inc. at attractive prices per share, following the acquisitions by the Caisse de Depot and Placement du Québec of all Rogers stake in both companies. These transactions provide several benefits, including increasing the net asset value of COGICO, increasing the public float of COGICO communications, and generating free cash flow per share accretion in both companies. This opportunity represented a unique and attractive use of our capital to build value for shareholders and increase trading liquidity, while strengthening our existing partnership with CDPQ, a leading global asset manager as an anchor investor in Cogeco Communications. As our financial performance for the quarter, our Q1 2024 results were in line with our expectations as we balance internet subscriber growth with financial performance. Our Canadian operations demonstrated strong internet subscriber growth, though declines in video and phone pressured revenue and adjusted EBITDA. In the United States, the ongoing economic and competitive challenges continue to be a headwind for our redesign operations. In both Canada and the United States, we continue to see the financial benefits from our fiber-to-the-home network expansion programs, which contributed to new internet subscribers in both markets. In Q1, we added more than 13,000 homes passed, bringing our total to 209,000 homes passed since the beginning of fiscal 2022, representing over 7% growth in our network. Many of these new broadband deployments were facilitated by government subsidy programs aimed at reducing the digital divide and allowing us to expand our fiber network in attractive areas. Going forward, we are preparing for the construction phase of additional projects in Ontario with funding support from the Ontario and federal governments. In the U.S., we are continuing our network edge outs, as well as expanding in Virginia under a state initiative to extend our broadband services to underserved areas. Additionally, we look forward to the upcoming launch of the 43 billion BID funding program, where each state will run its own process of allocating funds for fibre expansion in rural areas. Bidding is expected to occur in calendar year 2024 and 2025. If we're successful in bidding or funding, FTTH build-outs would then be undertaken over multiple years. On the radio side, our stations remain at the top of the ratings, confirming once again our leadership position in this market. Furthermore, our ongoing efforts to develop innovative digital solutions and adapt to a multi-platform audio content model are beginning to bear fruit, which we believe will put us in a good stead over coming quarters. I will now review our operational results. And I'll begin with Canadian operations. We continue to connect more homes in unserved and underserved communities in Quebec and Ontario, including through government partnerships and added nearly 7,800 additional homes passed this quarter, bringing the total to approximately 104,000 new homes passed since the beginning of fiscal 2022. Our Canadian team achieved its best first quarter of retail internet additions in the past 12 years, with nearly 11,000 new internet customers added in the quarter, driven by contribution from our digital Oxio brand. entry into newly served areas and effective sales and marketing and customer service in legacy territories. As for our U.S. operations, in Q1, our fiber network expansion program added nearly 6,000 new homes past bringing the total to more than 105,000 new homes past since the beginning of fiscal 2022. further expanding our total addressable footprint. Our network expansion program and ongoing demand from existing customers for our higher speed offerings, else offset customer losses at lower price points due to competition and challenging market conditions. Consistent with our internet-led strategy to improve our overall customer lifetime value, in Q1, we continued to see an improving product mix and customer tenure driven by a greater proportion of new connections taking faster internet speeds, resulting in a higher average revenue per unit. Our focus on cost efficiencies and product improvements such as our convenient self-install equipment, help deliver another quarter of higher adjusted EBITDA margins. Within OI, we have significantly improved the speed and the quality of the network and proactively swapped video equipment for our modern IPTV. We are continuing to focus on turning the internet customer base to growth as we focus on gaining greater brand awareness in the region. On that front, we have made solid progress that is beginning to show in our Ohio subscriber numbers, though we still have work to do. Outside Ohio, internet customer net losses were essentially in line with Q1 a year ago. For Cogico Media, Although the radio advertising industry remains on a long road to recovery, we are happy to report another quarter of year-over-year growth in revenue as our local advertising sales have been modestly rebounding. Having our stations at the top of the ratings, including 98.5 Montreal, Canada's most listened-to radio stations, positions us well to face the industry challenges. In the meantime, we continue to expand our multi-platform audio content options with more digital ad tech solutions, social media oriented formats, and state of the art studio facilities, which are now making meaningful contribution to revenue growth. Now, let me turn the call over to Patrice, who will provide more details on our financial performance for the quarter.