Q1 2021 Uniti Group Inc Earnings Call

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Thank you for holding your conference will begin shortly thank you for your patience.

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Welcome.

First quarter 2021 conference call my.

My name is Cynthia and I will be your operator for today's call.

Are you available.

Website, www dot Uniti dot com beginning.

2021, and we will remain available and 14 days at <unk>.

This time it depends on.

About.

And on the call will have the opportunity.

And these prepared comments.

The economy.

Do you that today's remarks include forward.

Results could differ materially from those projected and these statements and faster.

That could cause actual results to differ are discussed and the company's filings with the athletes.

The company's remarks. This afternoon will reference slides posted on its website and you are at.

First refer to those materials during this call.

Discussions during the call will also include certain financial measures.

And the per in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles.

Okay.

Yeah.

Reconciliation of those non GAA P. Pardon me, it's a pleasure to the most directly comparable.

And that's what measures can be thought of and the company's current report on form 8-K P. D day.

I would now like to turn this on over to Uniti Group, Chief Executive Officer, Kenny Gunderman you'd go on.

And Mr Gunderman.

Yes.

Thank you Cynthia.

Afternoon, everyone.

Joining me on the call today is our chief revenue Officer, Ron Mudry and move Mark given our strong momentum at Uniti leasing we thought it would be appropriate to make Ron available for this call.

Before I review <unk> operational performance for the first quarter I'd first like to highlight some trends, we're seeing and the communications infrastructure space.

Slide four of our presentation illustrates fiber is the mission critical connective tissue for virtually all current and future broadband delivery.

We're seeing an acceleration of the virtualization of our culture with <unk> mobile broadband and fiber to the home fixed wireless over the top video and other technologies, enabling greater usage of video conferencing.

Earning telemedicine.

Remote work environments, and and overall continued surge and broadband traffic.

And it is one of the largest independent wholesale fiber providers and the country and.

Provides fiber to a full range of communication service providers.

As such we're agnostic to competing edge technologies as we eventually benefit from virtually all of these broadband broadband trends.

Feed traffic to our fiber network.

And the past four years for example, our southeast fiber network has seen a roughly 10 times increase and peak daily traffic from 16 gigs to 160 gig and we expect that trajectory to continue.

Our wireless carrier customers are particularly active in an effort to keep their underlying infrastructure ahead of the explosive growth and mobile broadband.

And these carriers are increasingly looking for 10 gig upgrades on our macro tower backhaul circuits, while simultaneously continuing to push for C ran and small cell deployments and our metro markets and accelerating their fiber network densification.

As a result, our dark fiber and small cell revenue grew 30% from the prior year during the quarter and we.

Spec those trends to continue, especially with dish now becoming a more active customer.

Our non wireless carrier customers such as the fan group and National Msos are also active as they expand their cloud based services.

Satiable demand for high capacity long haul routes and particular continues to accelerate.

For example, we saw a 30% increase and the monthly MRI being quoted defense customers and March alone versus the end of last year.

Our residential and enterprise focused carrier customers are equally active drink driving broadband to more and more consumers.

Our dense metro networks day past 185000 buildings, and we're aggressively building deeper into commercial parks and neighborhoods through fiber to the home and fixed wireless builds.

Over the past three years, we've built over 7000 route miles of new fiber and.

And we expect that number to potentially triple over the next three years.

Turning to slide five.

Uniti continues to address the significant industry tailwind with the eighth largest fiber network and the country.

And a growing portfolio of small cells connected buildings macro towers and homes passed.

We've amassed as valuable and hard to replicate portfolio and only six years through our proprietary M&A efforts and organic sales strategy and our portfolio is growing every day.

As you know, we're very engaged with the M&A market and we know that private and strategic capital on valuing similar portfolios at 15% to 25 times cash multiples.

And we're confident that we're creating shareholder value every day.

As evidenced on slide six fiber provides an attractive shared infrastructure model that can drive meaningful returns.

Uniti acquires or builds new fiber with attractive long term anchor cash flow economics and.

And the mid to high single digits.

We then add additional tenants with very high margin and minimal capex, resulting in combined cash flow yields of approximately 17%.

We believe our past success is indicative of our future potential as we continue to see tremendous demand for new customer for new anchor customers as well as realized lease up success.

Turning to slide seven at Uniti leasing is a national wholesale provider across 42 states, we're driving highly profitable passively managed lease up revenue on our long haul and metro routes and Opportunistically growing our portfolio through proprietary M&A.

At Uniti fiber were targeting less competitive tier two and three markets largely in the southeastern U S and providing actively managed fiber solutions to wireless customers.

As well as enterprise schools and government entities.

Our strategy of targeting these underserved markets, along with our national scale and customer relationships is driving unique demands.

Slide eight highlights the success, we've had and leasing up our southeast fiber network, where we have substantial dense metro fiber.

To date, we sold over three times the recurring revenue on the major wireless anchor builds that have been completed.

Over the past five quarters, we sold approximately $17 million of annualized lease up and <unk> that is growth that is expected to generate incremental cash yields of over 50%.

Including the lease up to date, we've sold since we began construction on our major wireless bills and we expect to generate accumulative cash yield of 14% on these projects and doubling the initial anchor yield.

And he's relatively new networks remain highly underutilized and the expected additional lease up in the coming years, we will continue to increase our cumulative cash yield.

In addition to focusing on leasing up our existing network will continue to pursue select attractive anchor greenfield builds and lease up those networks and the mix of additional wireless and non wireless customers.

During the quarter as I mentioned earlier, dark fiber and small cell revenue grew 30% from the prior year, while enterprise revenue grew 17%.

Demonstrating that we're choosing good anchor markets to expand our network and a disciplined manner and that were executing well on follow on lease up.

Uniti fiber sales bookings and the first quarter were <unk>.

Approximately <unk> $5 million and MRI and 90% of our sales bookings came from non wireless customers.

Uniti fiber installed <unk> $5 million of MLR. During the first quarter was 68% of gross installs related to non wireless 24% related to wireless and 8% related to bandwidth upgrades.

I'll now turn the call over to Ron who will provide an update on uniti leasing.

Thanks, Kenny and good afternoon, everyone turning to slide nine.

Leasing we continue to actively market over 3 million strand miles of fiber that is available to lease to third parties, making us one of the largest players and the wholesale fiber market. Our sales pipeline today stands at approximately 1 billion of total contract value, which translates to approximately $60 million of potential annual recurring revenue.

This reflects the continued significant interest from our wholesale customers as well as the strategic value of these fiber strands approximately 75% of the deals utilized fiber we acquired as part of the settlement with Windstream and our success is the result of less than one year of actively marketing this new fiber.

We continue to be successful and monetize and monetizing our portfolio of assets and to date have execute on opportunities that represent total remaining revenues under contract of $765 million with an average contract term remaining of 2014, and a half years and incremental cash flow yields of approximately 12%.

Slide 10 illustrates we have executed and continue to pursue several different types of opportunities within our uniti leasing segment traditional dark fiber <unk> and dark fiber leases have driven over $60 million of upfront proceeds and $345 million and remaining revenues under contract primarily on the fiber we acquired from Illumina and.

Windstream these opportunities generate margins of 90% plus with minimal to no capex required.

Sale leasebacks or structures, where we acquired new fiber to expand our network reach and then immediately enter into a long term lease with a tenant to provide anchor return economics.

Our transactions with Tpa Ax cable south and others over the past years.

<unk> disease.

Opco propco transactions, where we sell our existing existing actively managed lit services revenue at double digit transaction multiples to an operating partner and then immediately lease access to the underlying fiber network, which we retained in the form of a 10 or 20 year high or you or lease.

These transactions generate upfront proceeds grow net contractual revenue and extend the average term of of revenue substantially for example, we sold on Midwest fiber operations as part of the Bluebird transaction and we recently entered into a transaction to sell on northeast operations as part of our average stream transaction.

Over the past two years, we have generated total upfront proceeds of approximately 400 million from these various transaction structures.

Turning to slide 11 during the first quarter Uniti leasing deployed approximately $43 million towards growth capital investment initiatives with almost all of these investments related to the Windstream GCI program.

These GCI investments, where most of the ILEC related and added approximately 800 route miles and 38000 strand miles of valuable fiber communities owned network across 13 different ILEC states.

As of March 31, Uniti has invested approximately $127 million of capital to date under the GCI program with Windstream, adding approximately 3375 route miles and 122000 fiber strand miles. These.

These investments will be added to the master lease at an 8% initial yield at the one year anniversary the anniversary of beauty and making the investment subject to a 5% annual escalator and results and near 100% margin revenue.

The investments we have made to date will ultimately generate approximately $10 million of annual cash rent.

And 2021, we continue to expect to deploy $200 million of capital related to the GCI program, primarily within Windstream ILEC markets. Most of these markets are similar to our own tier two tier three markets, providing windstream with substantial growth opportunities over time.

As a reminder, the investments uniti is committed to make.

To making must meet certain underwriting criteria, including being long term value creative accretive fiber and meeting minimum threshold returns for our tenants.

Each requests made by Windstream is reviewed by unity to ensure it meets the criteria.

Said differently. The program is designed to not only ensure investments are being made to help our tenant now, but also facilitate future proofing uniti network for future renewals.

With that I'll turn the call back over to Ken.

Thanks, Ron.

Our guidance remains largely in line with our prior outlook.

Still expect to close our transaction with every stream and every stream and the second quarter of this year.

Upon closing on the transaction, we expect to record a pre tax book gain and $25 million related to the partial sale of our northeast operations and sales certain dark fiber or are your contracts.

The gain is excluded from both adjusted EBITDA and <unk>.

Turning to slide 12.

We reported consolidated revenues of $273 million consolidated adjusted EBITDA of $214 million <unk> attributed to common shares of 103 million and <unk>.

Diluted common share of <unk> 41.

Net loss attributable attributable to common shares for the quarter was $5 million or <unk> <unk> per diluted share and excludes $4 million of transaction related and other costs.

Uniti leasing we reported segment revenues of $195 million and adjusted EBITDA of $192 million up approximately six and 5% respectively from the prior year, while achieving adjusted EBITDA margin of 98%.

Uniti fiber and we turned over 160 lit backhaul dark fiber and small cell sites for our wireless carriers across our southeast footprint during the first quarter.

We currently have approximately 1100 lit backhaul dark fiber and small cell sites remaining and our backlog that we expect to deploy within the next two years.

Uniti fiber revenues of $78 million and adjusted and adjusted EBITDA of $30 million. During the first quarter were in line with our expectations we'll.

And with adjusted EBITDA up 8% from the prior year, primarily due to the wind down of our non core construction business and lower operational and maintenance costs.

Adjusted EBITDA margin for the quarter was 38%.

Representing a 270 basis point improvement from the prior year.

Turning to slide 13.

Revising our prior guidance for the impact from the recent issuance of our four and three quarters secured notes and related redemption, the impact of transaction related costs incurred to date and changes in estimates of depreciation and amortization.

At Uniti leasing, we continue to expect revenues and adjusted EBITDA to be $784 million and $766 million, respectively at the midpoint representing.

Representing adjusted EBITDA margins of approximately 98%.

On slide 14 highlights non windstream revenues and adjusted EBITDA continue to grow at a healthy pace and.

And are expected to be $55 million and $42 million, respectively up 27% and 17% from 2020 levels.

This includes the assets and dark fiber argue contracts, we acquired from revenue from Windstream.

And where the revenue is diversified across multiple third parties and the dark fiber argue leases that are part of the other stream transaction.

For full year 2021, our guidance continues to include lease up of our national fiber network with opportunities there.

And are expected to generate $5 5 million of annualized revenue when fully deployed.

As a reminder, the bookings associated with this lease up are expected to be more heavily weighted towards the back half of this year given the typical sales cycle.

Therefore, the full year revenue run rate impact is not expected to be realized until next year.

Turning to slide 15, we still expect uniti fiber to contribute $305 million of revenues and $118 million of adjusted EBITDA, representing a margin of 39%. This year at the midpoint of our guidance, which is 300 basis point improvement from last year.

As we pointed out on our earnings call last quarter Uniti Fiber's outlook is impacted by the sale of our northeast operations as part of the average stream transaction and the winding down of our noncore construction business on noted earlier.

Adjusting for the impact of these two items revenue and adjusted EBITDA for 2021 at Uniti fiber and I expect it to increase 6% and 10% respectively from the prior year.

Turning to slide 16 for 2021, we continue to expect full year <unk> to range from $1 61, and $1 65 per.

Per diluted common share.

With a midpoint of $1 63 per diluted share.

On a consolidated basis, we expect revenues to be $1 1 billion and adjusted EBITDA to be $852 million at the midpoint.

Our guidance contemplates consolidated interest expense for the full year of approximately $395 million.

Excluding any deferred financing cost write offs and premiums paid relating to early retirement of our debt.

Reported interest expense and 2021 will include an additional $51 million relating to the write off of deferred financing costs and premiums paid on the early retirement of our 8.25% senior unsecured notes and 6% senior secured notes due 2023.

We continue to improve our financial flexibility and lower our borrowing costs.

On April <unk>, we successfully closed on the issuance of $570 million on senior secured notes due April 2028.

These notes will bear interest at four and three quarters percent Inc.

Interest at four three quarters per cent and were issued at par.

The proceeds from the offering were used to redeem in full the outstanding 6% senior secured notes due 2023, which occurred today.

Combined with the refinancing of our 8.25% unsecured notes, which were fully redeemed on April 15, we expect to realize annual interest cost savings of approximately $25 million and have extended our debt maturities by several years.

At quarter, and we had approximately $523 million of combined unrestricted cash and cash equivalents and undrawn revolver capacity.

Our leverage ratio at year end stood at 583 times based on net debt to annualized adjusted EBITDA.

In closing on slide 18 highlights unity remains a unique opportunity in the communications infrastructure space with a differentiated strategy and a unique hard to replicate REIT structure and portfolio of assets with attractive economics.

Including 95% recurring revenue monthly churn of 3% companywide net success based capital intensity of 30% and $8 billion of revenues under contract with nine years of average term remaining.

Our proven track record of organic growth execution, our proprietary value accretive M&A funnel.

And the fact that we're still early.

It's still on the early years of a multi year investment cycle provides significant growth tailwind for the foreseeable future.

With that operator, we are now ready to take questions.

Thank you we will now begin the question and answer session.

Other questions. Please press star and one on your Touchtone phone.

Kidney removed from the queue. Please press the pound or the hash key and.

Youre using a speakerphone you may need to pick up the handset first before pressing the numbers.

And once again, if you have a question. Please press star and one on your Touchtone phone.

And we are standing by for questions.

And our first question comes from Frank Louthan with Raymond James.

And they go ahead with your question.

Great. Thank you maybe walk us through the dish situation and how you see yourself benefiting from that and.

And then <unk> and <unk>.

How broadly across your network. Thanks.

Sure Frank Thanks.

Yes.

Don't like to talk specifically about customers, but.

Did I Miss on our press release at the end of last year as you know so happy to happy to provide a little more color and I think.

We've been foreshadowing this but we really think the second half of this year could be very very active with dish.

Especially in the southeast.

Got a number of markets.

On the on the on the list for them for deployment and we're gonna be active we think and those markets so and.

And I think that's just the beginning based on everything we're seeing and hearing.

And we look forward to the activity ramping.

Alright, great. Thank you.

And our next question comes from Phil Cusick with J P. Morgan.

You may begin with your question Hey, guys. Thanks.

Hi, Thanks, you mentioned growth and small cell deployments and metro markets, and and increasing fiber network Densification and you just expand on that and and what kind of spec and you're seeing deployed thanks.

Yes.

Phil This is Kenny I'm going to start with that and then ask Ron to add some comments because.

We're on it engages a lot with our big carrier customers, but.

We've always said that small sales were not a central part of our strategy. They were more of a and addition to our core strategy and.

And we've also said that and our tier two and tier three markets small sales would be behind in terms of deployments behind meeting come later in terms of timing relative to the larger NFL cities and.

And we've also said, but eventually.

Those deployments would start to ramp and when they did us having fiber and those markets would give us a leg up on competition from a speed to deployment.

And just and economics point of view and.

And we're starting to see that we're in the early innings of that and eventually.

I think the spigot is going to be really opened and right now we're starting to see good deployments across the across the across the spectrum of large wireless carriers and so pretty.

Pretty excited about it again, it's not the core central part of our strategy, but it's really great.

Provide great economics, either as lease up on existing networks or they can be good anchor economic net works for us when we when we're able to deploy them and exist our current markets or adjacent markets. So Ron feel free to add to that if you'd like.

Sure. Thanks Kenny.

Phil.

Well I would say that the recent C band spectrum auction is going to be driving some significant demand.

And spectrum will be.

Put out on towers, they have other spectrum carrying on them as well so it's actually driving a very significant ramp up in bandwidth requirements and outlet sites.

All the way up to 10 gig is Kenny had mentioned we had multiple carriers looking for that now and and also increasing our demand for dark fiber. So I think that thats going to be a continuing trend over the next two to three years as the carriers look to activate that new spectrum is cleared.

Okay. Okay.

Thanks, Ron for the small cell side are you seeing one carrier mostly driving this or is it is it really.

More than one or all of the major carriers.

I mean, we have activity with all the major carriers I would say on the small sales space and.

Continue to see that.

Great. Thanks, guys.

Okay.

And our next question comes from Michael Rollins with Citi.

Hi, Good afternoon, just a few questions on <unk>.

Slide eight.

It looks like the incremental lease up.

In the Blue cumulative the MRO and the last is up about two.

$2 million off of <unk>.

Last quarter and just curious on that how to think about the pacing of this growth.

And how you would evaluate that outcome and the range of expectations you have.

And then on on slide nine.

Just a little bit more context about.

The growth of opportunities Youre seeing in terms of the quantity.

Numbers going from 140 to 186 and the contract value staying around 1 billion and is the mix or the.

On.

Type of business that you are now seeing and the pipeline today versus what you maybe saw a couple of months ago shifting a little bit.

Thanks.

Sure Michael It's Kenny I'll start with your first question and then ask Ron to comment on your second.

I think on on the lease up whether it would be at Uniti leasing or at Uniti fiber and we're really trying to show.

Both.

Lots of different ways to look at it but ultimately we're extremely pleased with both.

And the lease up.

Again lease up as wireless or non wireless could be the second tenant.

Second wireless editor of the third wireless senator or it could be enterprise or school or government entity, we're relatively agnostic to that and so in terms of the pacing and the trajectory I think it's been steady from.

And from the time, we have deployed many of these networks.

And its been steadily building as you would expect so you get into these markets Youre building more and more network, you've got you're establishing more and more of a presence with customers and more and more of a brand.

And it just builds on itself and that's exactly what we've been saying so.

We're pleased with it expect it to continue and I think importantly, we said this in the past I can't remember if it was on our prepared remarks, a day or not but most of these networks, including our National network is highly underutilized meeting there is a tremendous amount of capacity and the network already that we can deploy.

Without a substantial amount of additional capital so very very pleased with the progress there.

And Ron you want to comment on the second question about the <unk>.

Leasing funnel sure. Thank you so I would say.

If you recall, we've only been actively marketing this new fiber that we got through the Windstream settlement for a short period of time relative to the sales cycle and dark fiber has a much longer sales cycle and then let services does and as we've been developing the sales funnel.

I'd say the opportunities are becoming better qualified.

Of course, some drop out of the funnel because we closed on others drop out because they don't qualify for some reason, but overall, we've seen a steady growth and interest and the.

And the transactions are moving their way through the qualification design and and so forth phases of the sales cycle to get to and actual sale.

Look at the sales funnel and obviously, we're very well diversified in terms of the different segments that we're that we're serving the regional carriers I would say have been and increase in interest recently and that's because the nature of the Windstream settlement fiber is a lot of regional.

Markets and tier two tier three reach and so forth as compared to our national long haul network that connects larger markets together.

And so overall, we've seen a lot of strong demand.

Actually just say, we had our best month and bookings and April since 2019, so things are definitely trending up.

Thank you.

And our next question comes from David Barden with Bank of America.

Hey, guys.

And so much from taking the questions.

So Kenny.

And can I ask this question.

There's a slide.

Nine.

186 opportunities out there.

And the Windstream bankruptcy was.

Reemerged months ago.

And what's about the time this was never about being and organic execution story. It was about being an opco propco unique REIT.

With a unique.

Private letter ruling from the IRS and improves cost capital you could help people do things they couldn't do on their own.

Is that not the story anymore, because I guess during the Windstream bankruptcy I was.

Hey.

I get it they can't do deals because the windstream bankruptcy is going on but now that it's been over for like nine months.

And I think it's really happening.

And.

And I'm wondering if if the whole story is different and.

And the focus on the execution of meat and and the.

Fiber deployments and the customer base is really about trying to get some kind of fiber and multiple.

Which other companies are trying to get as well and I'm just trying understand what the story is today.

And I guess the second question is.

With respect to this bite and infrastructure Bill.

Is this amazing news for you guys because you're in the exact spot where this money is trying to exploit.

On the.

Underpenetrated broadband opportunity or is it a terrible.

News.

Because.

And this money is going to go to.

The municipalities and other.

And cities in the markets, where you operate.

With the express purpose of competing with you guys.

Sorry.

Hey, David all good questions.

Look first of all to your comment about not anything happening I completely disagree with so let me go back and I'll eventually buildup to that our strategy from the beginning was to build and operating platform. In addition to being acquisitive from an M&A front. So we wanted to have and operating platform.

Norm, where we could have day to day active interaction with the big wireless carriers.

The data centric providers, msos and national carriers, and the real big consumers of.

Broadband.

And fiber and and have and have an outlet to deploy capital organically to build a fiber network and operate a fiber network in addition to being and M&A.

And M&A rollout play.

And if you remember our very first transaction back in 2016 was to buy and operating business. It was our it was our first acquisition out of the gate.

And for nine months after being spun out and 2015 and we got the question Hey, what's going on and what's happening and it took us a while to finally found the right one deal and then after that the floodgates will open and the acquisitions that we did were a combination of.

Platform companies that were combined with our operating business as well as portfolios of assets and <unk>.

Some of those.

Assets were structured to sale leasebacks and some of them are just straight acquisitions of assets. So it was really a and.

M&A roll up being a combination of per operating platforms and sale leasebacks and today when you fast forward to where we are.

I think that strategy is working exactly as we designed that we've got a really terrific operating platform is putting capital to work building, new fiber, adding new long term customers with with locked in attractive economics, and we're leasing up.

And at that fiber very effectively but we also have and M&A platform that yes. The M&A platform was.

Somewhat on pause for a year year and a half.

But as I've said repeatedly.

We've been very active and as we've always been we're going to be very disciplined on on the next opportunity. So I like and respect the questions about hey, when are you going to do another deal when you're going to do another deal because to me I think that as a compliment that means people liked our old deals and the ones. We've done in the past and they want to see more and and I'm all for that but one of the.

Things that that that that that led to those good deals.

Disciplined and we were careful about doing the right ones and.

And that's what we're going to do so we're active and youre going to see more of those.

On page nine I think.

And when you when you talk about these opportunities and the customers it's important to point out.

Most of those customers and most of those opportunities. The vast majority of these are selling dark fiber.

We're selling long haul wholesale contracts and.

And those are basically just opco propco relationships by another name I mean, we're selling access to fiber, where very passively managing that fiber.

Free light touch very high margin low capex and that's essentially the same economics.

That are being driven from that from the types of deals that you are referencing the opco propco and sale leasebacks, they're all very very similar and.

Nature, so locking in long term customers steady economics very low churn.

And so I think the customer base on page nine is highly consistent with that strategy.

And yes, we love the fiber multiple and that's exactly what we're aspiring.

Aspiring to because we're a fiber company.

And so I appreciate you pointing that out and lobbing that softball at me.

We're actually very excited about the infrastructure Bill I think I think first of all it's another example of the day.

And sort of the bipartisan.

Support for getting funding into the industry to help expand broadband.

And so you look at the two the two competing bills the Republican and Democratic builders. There is a lot of.

Disparity, but one area that's relatively consistent as they're both proposing substantial dollars for broadband deployment and we think that deployment is not at all.

Competitive to us it's highly complementary I mean these are.

And that are going to be spent at the edge of the networks either deploying fiber to the home in most cases, probably fiber to the home.

Or other technologies like fixed wireless or otherwise that are eventually going to drive traffic onto our fiber network. So we're not going to be direct recipients of any of this federal money.

But we will be a derivative beneficiary of it and.

And we've seen that and pass programs, whether it be cares and the cares funding or.

And.

E rate.

E rate you name. It these are dollars that get into the industry and they find their way to and infrastructure provider like us because of the service providers are using that capital to build network and they are coming to us to build that network or our sale leaseback customers.

And of course, I'm talking partially about windstream, but I'm also talking about.

Some of the cable companies the Msos. The other two are accessing our network through sale leasebacks or dark fiber.

There are substantial recipients of Argos.

For example, and we're having lots of conversations <unk> had conversations with carriers about accessing our network all over the country.

Deep into some of these rural areas as you would expect our network to go.

And we effectively.

<unk>.

Fiber deep into these areas and so many of these are tough.

Recipients need fiber out on to the edge Metro Metro rings fiber into the sea.

And in some cases fiber even to the home.

And so we're seeing an uplift and customer discussions related to using that art off money to expand their networks and eventually going to be big big beneficiaries of that so.

Look we're we're big supporters of the infrastructure the broadband deployment element of the and furniture Bill there is some other parts of it that we're not big fans of but we're big fans of Aztec and others.

Alright, Kenny Thank you so much I don't get the softball monitor and very often but I appreciate it. Thank you.

We never consider your question softball, otherwise.

[laughter].

And our next question comes from Simon Flannery with Morgan Stanley You may begin.

Great. Thanks, a lot and good evening.

And Ron one on one.

And we feel very positive about that so maybe we're left affected I don't know, but our enterprise initiatives seems to be on track to me and and I think it's just gonna get stronger as the economy continues to recover K.

Okay.

Great.

And Simon on your.

Winter and results questions. They are reporting I think and 10 10 days.

Can't get ahead of those results, we will be making some disclosure at that time.

So more to come there I will say and and this is a little bit related to David's question, but we are very very encouraged and please.

And the industry overall with respect to residential broadband successes and especially among the traditional telecom space, where fiber to the home is being deployed so whether you are looking at the very large.

Carriers down to some of the more regional ILEC some public some some private the.

The successes on broadband ads, especially where you're where fiber to the home deployments are being being made and even and the and the private markets where.

And infrastructure capital and otherwise are spending big dollars to acquire fiber to the home platforms and to put money to work on these business plans, we're very encouraged by that because it obviously.

Suggests some some some success for windstream and carriers like Windstream, but also and our view at least it validates our GCI program, where we're really spending a lot of dollars to overbuild.

Some of the copper portions of our network and and to future proof those those portions of our network with fibre.

And a lot of it being fiber to the home, so but more to come on Wednesday and results.

Great and I appreciate it thank you.

And we have no further questions at this time I will now turn it over to Kenny closing remark.

Okay. Thank you. We appreciate your interest and you would any group and look forward to update and you further on future calls. Thank you all for joining today.

Thank you.

And you ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today's conference. Thank you for participating you may now disconnect.

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Q1 2021 Uniti Group Inc Earnings Call

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Uniti Group

Earnings

Q1 2021 Uniti Group Inc Earnings Call

UNIT

Thursday, May 6th, 2021 at 8:15 PM

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