Rogers Communications Inc.

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Rogers Communications Inc. fourth quarter 2025 results conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. Following the presentation, we'll conduct a question and answer session. To join the question queue, you may press star then 1 on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may reach an operator by pressing star then zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to Paul Carpino, Vice President of Investor Relations with Rogers Communications. Please go ahead, Mr. Carpino.

Thank you, Gaylene, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Today I'm here with our President and Chief Executive Officer, Tony Staffieri, and our Chief Financial Officer, Glenn Brandt. Today's discussion will include estimates and other forward-looking information from which our actual results could differ. Please review the cautionary language in today's earnings report and our 2024 annual report regarding the various factors, assumptions, and risks that could cause our actual results to differ. With that, let me turn the call over to Tony.

Thank you, Paul, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to report that Rogers ended 2025 in the fourth quarter with strong financial and operating results. We executed well in a highly competitive telecom environment. In 2025, we delivered industry-leading wireless and cable margins. We delivered industry-leading combined net new mobile phone and internet subscribers. We invested in and delivered strong growth in our core sports and media operations, highlighting the quality of our world-class assets as we pursue future monetization opportunities. We executed on our plan to return leverage back to pre-shaw levels well ahead of our initial target. And importantly, we met or exceeded each of our 2025 guidance targets for growth, profitability, and capital efficiency. Our full year and fourth quarter results demonstrate our success in advancing a consistent and transparent long-term strategy. It's based on discipline, execution, regardless of market conditions, while maintaining an investment-grade balance sheet and investing for the future. In a low-growth environment, we are adjusting our cost structure, driving efficiency, and growing cash flow to deliver on the sustainable long-term value creation we are pursuing across our three pillars of growth. This includes continuing to lead with innovative first and transformative transactions. 2025 was a very significant, impactful year on this front. We closed on the acquisition of our controlling interest in MLSC to now hold a 75% interest in one of the world's premier sports and entertainment companies. We closed a $7 billion equity investment transaction, demonstrating the confidence investors have in Rogers and our world-class assets. We launched Rogers Satellite, the first and only wireless carrier in Canada to offer satellite to mobile. And we kicked off the new year with the launch of Screen Break, a new national program to help youth balance screen time. Let me now turn to our fourth quarter results. The wireless market remained highly competitive in a slower growth environment. Total mobile phone net additions were 39,000. Notably, during the holiday period, we opted for a disciplined, balanced approach while our competitors pushed on economic loading. We executed well in this environment. We improved post-pay churn again this quarter to 1.43%, down 10 basis points, and increased margin by 40 basis points to deliver an industry-leading margin of 67%. As the sector adjusts to the current low-growth environment, we continue to prioritize improving our fundamentals. We have demonstrated consistently that we will not lead or chase on economic loading. Instead, we are focused on delivering solid financials and balanced subscriber growth with the best value proposition. For example, Roger Satellite. Canadians can stay connected in areas where traditional cellular coverage isn't available, starting with text messaging, text to 911, and now also includes data streaming for emails, popular apps that offer voice and video calling, apps that offer maps, and more. Rogers Satellite is now included in all our 5G Plus plans in places where Canadians need it most, namely Atlantic Canada. And nationally, subscribers on select plans can enjoy Rogers Satellite at no additional cost. No other carrier in the country offers this technology or this coverage. Stepping back, our disciplined approach is essential to investment that has enabled Canada to build and maintain its world-class networks, and Rogers continues to lead on that front. In our cable business, our balanced approach in the fourth quarter resulted in solid internet subscriber net additions and industry-leading margins. Revenue for Q4 was up slightly over 2024 and adjusted EBITDA was up 1%. We've materially turned around performance in a business that previously was declining service revenue at a rate of 4% per year. And our Q4 cable margin of 59% is industry-leading once again. These strong fundamentals support the continued rollout of Rogers Xfinity services on the best entertainment platform with Canada's most reliable internet. Finally, in media, the business delivered stellar results, reflecting the success and potential of our world-class sports assets. Q4 revenue of $1.2 billion was more than double one year ago, and adjusted EBITDA was up more than fourfold. This was driven by two factors. First, the extended Blue Jays' postseason run. Game 7 of the World Series was the most watched Rodgers broadcast ever. and the most watched broadcast in Canada's history outside of the Winter Olympics back in 2010. The second major driver of growth was the consolidation of MLSC results in the second half of the year. The scale and strong profitability of our sports and media operations is impressive. Rogers Pro Forma 2025 media revenue and adjusted EBITDA, including MLSC for the full year and Blue Jays postseason revenue, was approximately $4.1 billion and $400 million, respectively. This is well ahead of our initial expectations. Clearly, Rogers has established a set of world-class assets with global appeal. And importantly, the strong financial and operational results position us well as we pursue sports monetization opportunities in the future, including purchasing the remaining 25% stake in MLSC later this year. We believe this will have significant upside in our communication business, and the synergies will further enhance our value proposition to attract and retain customers. We executed well on each of our core businesses in 2025, while successfully deleveraging the balance sheet back to pre-Shaw levels. We accomplished this a full nine months ahead of our initial three-year commitment. In essence, we successfully completed, executed, and integrated the purchase of two transformational assets and delivered ahead of schedule. Delivering on this plan has set us up to make the additional strategic investments in our sports and media business to drive long-term gains. At the end of Q4, debt leverage was down 3.9 times, an impressive 0.6-time improvement versus last year, and free cash flow was $1 billion, up 16% from one year ago. Driving greater CapEx efficiency is supporting this strong free cash flow. We reduced CapEx by 7% in the quarter, and capital intensity dropped to 15%, representing our lowest level since the second quarter of 2017. We expect this to decline further in 2026 as we deliver further efficiencies, but also as we further cancel projects that are uneconomical in this current regulatory environment. As noted this morning, our 2026 outlook outlines strong service revenue growth along with additional capital efficiency and higher free cash flow. Total service revenue growth is projected to be in the 3 to 5 percent range, with adjusted EBITDA growth of 1 to 3 percent. We are also targeting additional capex declines in 2026, as I just mentioned, at the $3.3 billion to $3.5 billion range. This would be down from $3.7 billion in 2025 and from our high point of $4 billion in 2024. And we're projecting free cash flow to be higher in the $3.3 billion to $3.5 billion range. Overall, 2025 was a strong year. We moved forward on growth, capital efficiency, and delivering, and we positioned our sports assets for future value creation currently not reflected in our share price. In closing, I want to thank our team for delivering strong results in a competitive environment. Our team's resilience, adaptability, and consistent, disciplined execution stands out in the sector. Thank you to this team for their hard work in 2025 and for their continued commitment to drive growth in our three core businesses. I'll now turn the call over to Glenn.