Quebecor Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to Quebecor Inc.' 's conference call. I would like to introduce Hugues Simard, Chief Financial Officer of Quebecor Inc. Please go ahead.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to this Quebecor conference call. My name is Hugues Simard. I'm the CFO. And joining me to discuss our financial and operating results for the fourth quarter and the full year 2020 are Pierre Calterado, our President-in-Chief Executive Officer, and Jean-François Pruneau, President and CEO of Videoton. You will be able to listen to this conference call on tape until May 26th of this year by dialing 877-293-8133. access code 48006- and playback access code the same, 48006-. This information is also available on Quebecor's website at www.quebecor.com. I also want to inform you that certain statements made on this call today may be considered forward-looking, and we would refer you to the risk factors outlined in today's press release and reports filed by the corporation with regulatory authorities. Let's now start with our CEO, Pascal Pineda.

Merci, Hugues, and good morning, everyone. We're together today to review the fourth quarter and the full year 2020. So responding to the two ways of COVID-19 pandemic, which first took us by surprise, we quickly adopted the prudent, diligent, and disciplined approach to manage the varying impacts on our different businesses and resiliently continue to deliver comparatively superior results and performance, fulfilling our mission to keep Quebecers well-connected, informed, and entertained. Reviewing our financial results for the last quarter and the year, we demonstrated our resilience and our prudent cash flow management in all our business segments. we generated more than $345 million in cash flow from operation in the fourth quarter, up 33%, and $1.3 billion for the 2020 year, an increase of $168 million, or 15%. In light of these results, and following our plan to gradually increase dividends to represent 30% to 50% of our net free cash flows, I'm happy to report that Quebec War's Board of Directors declared yesterday a quarterly dividend of $0.275 per share on both Class A and Class B shares, up from $0.20, a 38% increase. Turning to operational matters and studying with telecom, Diderot managed to successfully navigate the highly competitive industry and promotional last few months of the year to maintain its market-leading market shares of gross wireless ads and a very strong growth in broadband subscribers, underlining, once again, our ability to compete against our main competitors as well as the resellers based on our superior products and unparalleled customer experience. Since continued to fuel our wireless growth, both in wireless and wireline, where, along with ELIX, which reached more than 677,000 Internet and video subscribers in just over a year, it decisively confirmed Vidéotron as the leader in telecom services in Quebec. The impact of the pandemic was, of course, much heavier on our media segment. with a significant slowdown in advertising revenues across platform, but also a reduction in programming, content, and production costs. The postponement of content and sports rights, as well as the receipt of government subsidies, which all in all, carried down to a net improvement of our media profitability. Our sports and entertainment segment was obviously, and unfortunately, for all intents and purposes idle for the last quarter and for most of the year but is working hard at planning the restart as much as we can and ensuring that we're ready as soon as events are once again allowed. On the regulatory front, we just learned this morning that the Supreme Court of Canada will not hear our appeal regarding the CRTC's decision on internet wholesale rates. While we're disappointed with the court's decision, does not change the fact that the CRTC must review its 19, sorry, its 2019 order and provide cable carriers with reasonable and fair rates, as we are the ones investing heavily in telecom infrastructures, which, among other things, allow the deployment of high-speed internet underserved areas. We're also awaiting the CRTC's decisions regarding MVNOs, as well as some form of action with respect to the CBC Radio-Canada operatory behaviors in advertising rates and content acquisitions. Speaking of anti-competitive practices, it would be remiss not to point out, once again, that our main competitors continue to block competition by, among other things, unduly delaying access to telecom infrastructures. With our growing list of allies, including many small regional competitors who are struggling to expand their networks, we are asking for quick action on this front. Bell said on Tuesday that the issue has been solved. From our perspective, this is once again just public posturing because we're far behind from seeing significant progress in the field. Let me be clear. We always have been vocal advocates of competition, as long as it is fair, equitable, and beneficial to all stakeholders, which is exactly what we did in wireless in Quebec. As confirmed by the recent ICED report on wireless prices, which shows that Quebec is the only province in the country to have achieved the target of 25% price reduction set by the federal government. We will continue to offer better pricing, better products, and continue to deliver good profitability because of our hands-on management, our clear vision, our proven business model, and our unparalleled desire to win. I will now let you review our consolidated financial results.