Q2 2021 Liberty Global PLC Earnings Call

[music].

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by and welcomed.

Welcome to Liberty Global second quarter, 2021, Investor call. This call and the associated webcast are the property of Liberty global and any redistribution retransmission or rebroadcast of this call or webcast and in any form without the express written consent of Liberty Global is strictly prohibited.

This time all participants are in a listen only mode. Today's formal presentation materials can be found under the Investor Relations section of Liberty Global's website at Liberty Global Dot Com.

After today's formal presentation instructions will be given for a question and answer session.

2 of the slides details of the Companys Safe Harbor statement regarding.

At the forward looking statements.

Today's presentation May include forward looking statements within the meaning of the private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including the company's expectations with respect to its outlook and future growth prospects and the other information and statements that are not historical fact.

These forward looking statements involve certain risks.

Risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these statements. These risks include those detailed and Liberty Global and Liberty Globals filings with the security and the Exchange Commission, including its most recently filed forms 10-Q, and 10-K as amended Liberty Global disclaims any.

The obligation to update any of these forward looking statements to reflect any change and its expectations or and the conditions.

On which any statement is based I would like now to turn the call over to Mr. Mike Fries.

Thank you operator, and Hello, everyone and as always we appreciate you joining us today for the Q2 results call and we've got a lot of ground to cover so I'll begin with some operating results and a deep dive into a couple of topics that I'm sure will be of interest you all and have to Charlie covers the financials, we will get right to your questions.

I'll kick it off on slide 4 with 5 key.

Headlines that should capture of the broader narrative of the quarter and our value creation opportunity first of all of our goal of creating FMC champions in our core markets is working.

We made of very conscious and deliberate shift and our strategy of 4 to 5 years ago, we saw exit subscale markets and premium multiples and concentrated.

The resources into really 4 key countries, where we become the fixed mobile champions.

Im going to illustrate this more fully on the next slide, but despite reducing our geographic reach by 40% we increased aggregate revenue by 40% and now sort of a larger base 85 million fixed and mobile subs and those FMC champions of our drive.

Driving scale and growth supported by unrealized synergies of $12.6 billion from our last 2 deals and the UK and Switzerland, and Thats on an NPV basis and by the way given our ownership over $8 billion of that will accrue to our shareholders of <unk>.

The demand for fast and reliable connectivity and Europe continues to anchors.

Centralia on commercial momentum across our footprint I'll speak of the numbers and the second but we reported good revenue and subscriber growth and the standout quarter from Virgin video too.

Third we've talked quite a bit over the last year or so about our network strategy options yesterday, we made a big move and the U K announcing our plans to upgrade to fiber across our footprint.

<unk> stood at the moment, but.

But the main takeaways that we have great options and every market and 1 size will not fit all here.

Answered the question Preemptively cable and DOCSIS will continue to play a big role even in markets, where we intend to upgrade of fiber and given our speed leadership today and heavy investment in fiber rich HFC, we can approach.

This moment and and offensive posture with the clear focus on free cash flow and recruited returns on capital of force is becoming increasingly hard to ignore our ventures portfolio, which has been value by third parties of $3 billion of about $5 per share.

And that's around 20% of Archer and stock price and Im guessing very little is being <unk>.

Recognize today, we're going to continue to provide greater and greater transparency of our tech and content and infrastructure investments and E strategically aligned with the core operations and they also benefit from our unique track record and telecom and Treasury and M&A.

We also announced that we were engaged in non binding negotiations with Iliad Polish subsidiary.

And to sell UPC, Poland for $1.9 billion, that's about 9.3 times EBITDA, we don't normally announce these things, but Iliad was required to do so for other reasons and but I can tell you. These sorts of asset sales at these sorts of multiple should also help bridge the value gap and our stock and then speaking of our stock, we're making a big commitment today.

To put our money where our mouth is.

Rather than decide periodically how much and at what price, we're going to purchase shares we're announcing today, our commitment to buyback 10% of our market cap annually for 3 years, which means were adding $400 million to our current $1 billion program for the remainder of 2021.

And I just referenced.

And the transformation of our platform over the last 4 to 5 years and we've been trying to find a way to better illustrate the transition to and FMC champion and slide 5 does that I believe if you'd asked me 10 years ago. Do you think you could build a better stronger business by exiting half of your markets and concentrating all of your resources into a handful of.

Fully converged fixed mobile operations of probably would have said I don't know im not sure.

Oh, and broadband competition intensified and K.

Consolidations slowed and the demand for broadband capacity and mobility skyrocket, we rapidly pivoted and there are a much stronger and more valuable company today for it that involve 4 key steps.

And of course, we exited 5 subscale markets, like Germany, and Austria and premium multiples.

Mobile only players like of Telecom and Vodafone aggregate proceeds were 25 billion and of these guys needed of fixed network solution in their markets on 1 hand, this validated the underlying private market value of our cable operations.

It's something we continue to demonstrate even today with the potential sale of Poland, but on the other hand and that allowed us to focus resources on those markets, where we had a pathway to fixed mobile convergence by acquiring of emerging with mobile operators, specifically and Holland, Belgium, and Switzerland and of course, the U K, so even though we shrunk our geographic footprint by 40% with.

And with a concentration and 4 countries, we have $25 million more fixed and mobile subs and before $85 million and total and 40% more revenue 24 billion and total on an aggregate basis with a very balanced blend of fixed and mobile revenues.

And the benefits of that fixed mobile transformation are showing up and our results.

Solid quarter for our business is really across the board as you can see on slide 6.

We delivered positive revenue growth across all 4 key markets Charlie is going to walk through the details of that Vodafone and <unk> grew 3% Telenet and Virgin media grew 4% the latter representing just the 2 months.

Prior to the merger.

On the way for a good look at pro.

It was the financials of Virgin media and <unk> for the second quarter and restated for prior periods take a look at their fixed income release, we can't provide that data in our GAAP presentation. This quarter, but we will do that going forward Youll see that Virgin media <unk> combined revenue was up slightly and the quarter and EBITDA was up 6% on the back of cost.

Control and commission savings and the mobile business.

So a good quarter for broadband and postpaid mobile net adds which totaled around 250000 and the quarter across the group on an aggregate basis and here on the top left we do show full quarter results for Virgin media, and <unk>, which added 22000 and fixed customer additions, our fifth straight quarter of customer growth.

The format.

That was supported by 36000 broadband net adds up 8% from Q2 last year and 65000 postpaid Mobile Act.

You can see on the bottom left we continued to benefit from convergence with total fixed mobile convergence ratios up to over 40% in all operations.

Virginia the O 2.

By the way the above 40% with the addition of the <unk> subs, who subscribed the Virgin and Switzerland at 56%, which is clearly our medium term target for every market.

On the right hand side of the chart provides some operating highlights for each of the big 4 up goes I'm not going to go through all of this detail the Virgin media and <unk> is off to a great start as of June 1st.

First with record sales and the month and strong mobile and the team is working on some exciting commercial offers and is focused on driving the benefits of and expanding <unk> presence and the availability of 1 gig broadband across a 100% of the footprint by year end.

Sunrise and UPC continues to benefit from strong sales.

Now some of them and the early rollout of FMC offers the 6000 broadband adds and 41000 postpaid mobile adds in the quarter the.

And the integration and Switzerland is right on track in fact, the team just raise the synergy target by 50 million Swiss francs, which after cost of capture brings the NPV of synergies to $3.7 billion up from $3.1 billion.

Put up on the digital delivered its ninth consecutive quarter of revenue growth with fixed ARPA of increases and mobile postpaid adds and offsetting the loss of broadband subs and was the <unk> rolling out and 1 gig services rolling out there of the company is well positioned to deliver its 2021 and EBITDA and free cash flow guidance and finally telenet continues to be our most innovative operator launching.

And at the moment, yet another converged fixed mobile offer called <unk>, which helped the company deliver positive subscriber growth and video broadband and mobile for the quarters of each of our 4 key <unk> are performing well now let me switch gears to of subject on slide 7 and I know you are all interested in and I'm sure by now you've seen the announcement and read the press and analysts remarks about our decision to upgrade Virgin.

<unk> low twos fixed network to fiber over the next 7 years or so.

And already have fiber to the premise to about 7% of our homes through the lightning build so we're talking about $14.3 million homes to be upgraded and the costs of about 100 pounds per premise.

And lots of discussion around why are we doing this what does this mean for.

Cable and DOCSIS.

And as costs really that low and.

Let me start by reminding everyone that Virgin is today, the undisputed speed leader on $15.5 million homes across the UK average customer speed of nearly 200 megabits per second with the balance of the market around 40, megabits or so so speed matters and.

And the U K and of course, that's why Bt's building fiber, but today, the only pass about 10% to 15% of our on our footprint, we believe and we will be offering 1 gig services to our entire footprint and 5 short months from now so using and Olympic analogy, we all have our eye on advancing to the 10 meter diving platform. If you will over the next 7 years with 10 gigabit.

The speed, but today, we're already standing on the 3 meter platform and the rest of the market and our view just adds their toes and the water at the edge of the pool. It doesn't matter how fast BT gets to 1 gig and will always have an advantage. It's almost not a fair fight and all of that is attributable to cable and DOCSIS of which will be part of our network solution and.

For a long kind of come we're not decommissioning our cable network quite the contrary, we are simply expanding its capacity by pushing the fiber that's already there on the ground even closer to the customer and fact, that's why we can upgrade for a fraction of bt's costs already have fiber deep into the network and mostly urban markets.

You can access through our own underground ducting that will require far less digging and thats the most expensive part.

And for the same reasons upgrading the fiber is only marginally more expense of the DOCSIS 4 which is not the case and every market, but we made this decision pretty easy and the U K.

Like everyone else, we will incur cost of connected dropped to the home, but that will be of variable.

Variable costs based upon demand over time, it's also important to point out that these are gross capex cost. So they don't take into account the expected revenue uplift that could occur here you can see some of those economic benefits outlined on the right side of this chart, both DOCSIS 4 <unk> and fiber to the premise will make our BDC and <unk> services more competitive that's clear but.

But given the marketing halo around fiber and that seems to be building up and the U K and the benefits of symmetrical services to the enterprise market.

And fiber probably has a slight advantage and will derive more value.

Similarly, while cable can do wholesale just look at telenet and the likelihood of deriving value from the 1 billion pound wholesale market and the U.

If we chose to do it.

Which is quite mature and busy is enhanced by an all fiber solutions and since we only cover half the country, it's safe to assume that wholesalers want to keep their technology platform simple and seamless across providers and of fiber solution does and of course and beyond those economic benefits of fiber to the premise and the UK also provides.

<unk> greater confidence as we think through network expansion options beyond the steady lightning build today and we continue to evaluate that opportunity to add an additional 7 million homes sort of of supercharge lightening. If you will and we're in good discussions with financial and strategic partners about what that might look like so stay tuned and now in light of the UK announcement.

It's important to stress that there is no direct read across to cable or other markets from this decision.

The truth is we have multiple paths to 10 gig and every market and we are evaluating the right path on a case by case basis of slide 8 lays out how we're thinking about it across the <unk> approaches. The first of course is simple.

I think of assessing someone else's fiber network, allowing us to avoid the capex associated with the upgrade and providing some measure of market rationality of other than of pursuing the same approach of Sunrise has successfully done this and Switzerland with the Swisscom wholesale arrangements. The negatives are costs are also clear, though you're foregoing owner economics and your most important.

Port and product broadband and youre somewhat exposed to fluctuations and wholesale rates among other issues.

Obviously, DOCSIS 4 will be of transformational technology development when it arrives.

And it is a robust ecosystem of cable operators around the world, particularly in the U S supporting the innovation of the platform as we've seen and the transition.

Simply as to the DOCSIS 3 and then the DOCSIS 3.1 the cash.

Costs are generally lower and of fiber solution as they build upon the existing platform before it and the rollout can be faster, but on the flip side docks.

DOCSIS does require a relatively substantial 1 time investment and the active and passive components of the network to enhance <unk>.

And from dock capacity and speed each time you upgrade the.

And also not clear on the technology will be available for commercial exploitation, but we are part of a select group of operators working together to accelerate that timetable and then finally, while DOCSIS 4 will get us to 10 gig. There is no current roadmap beyond that or forecast for what it will cost and get to say 50 gig.

And with the fiber sales both of those future issues of course.

And our announcement today makes clear building fiber to the premise of real and accretive option for us in certain markets I've already mentioned the clear path to 50 gig speeds the benefits of central services, especially of the BBB market and the significant opportunity that some markets offer around wholesale revenue the price for that.

His hire from costs, which vary significantly by market the decision about which path. We'll take always comes down to a few key questions and it's clear to us that we are likely to avail ourselves of all 3 options across our footprint and the varying degrees by market first of course is the competitive environment. What other operators are doing and are they building.

<unk> fiber how quickly second as I've, just mentioned is the relative capex costs associated with each option thats obvious.

And it starts to get interesting around the economic benefits that accrue from 1 approach to the other specifically the positive impact on the BDC and BTB competitiveness, the size and attractiveness of the wholesale market as a provider or.

And you are and of course, the strategic and financial partnerships conformed to support the plant I can share of that work is underway well underway and every market and you're probably familiar with telenet announced discussions of <unk> upgrade Flanders to fiber over time.

Ireland looks a lot like the U K to us of Switzerland is likely to be a hybrid approach and Holland is still in the early phases.

Or are you analyzing the best plan, but of fiber deep DOCSIS 4 strategy might make the most sense there.

And the and as we've done and the U K, we're going to be extremely focused on optimizing the medium term and longer term ability to compete grow and generate free cash flow as you'd make those decisions in every market now and my remarks on slide 9.

As of end of the quick recap of how we intend to create value for shareholders from this point forward and it comes down to 3 core pillars. If you will first and foremost.

And our focus on maximizing the value of our fixed mobile operations. These of the crown jewels of our business. We have worked hard to build scale and the number 1.

And number 2 player in each country. So we could shape markets radically innovate and make the important strategic decisions that are going to underpin growth for years to come how will we do that.

And as you've already seen and Holland, and Belgium and helps when you have of near term catalysts of synergies to kickstart growth and support cash flow longer term.

We also know that and increasingly competitive.

Imperative market convergence is working and drives cross sell and upsell of reducing churn and the customers happier nobody debates and anymore. The key is to stay rational on pricing and put the real effort into seamless digital experiences that keep customers coming back for more of.

The end game and every market and to generate distributable cash to the parent from free.

Free cash flow dividends recaps, whatever source, that's the metric that matters to us and thats the metric that will fuel our model now.

And now as we provide more visibility to our infrastructure and network strategies Youre going to see that these are largely offensive as of just gone through in many cases like the UK they come with significant strategic opportunities around the revenue streams.

We're financing and strategic partnerships hopefully also of re rating of our business and then lastly, we'll always look for ways to create demonstrable and transparent value either through asset sales like the potential sale of Poland and.

And possible public listening to markets, where there is serious pent up demand for local telecom champions.

The second.

And your pillar is becoming too big and too important to ignore and Thats of course, our growing ventures portfolio for the.

The focus investment strategy around tech content, and infrastructure and markets and services that are adjacent to our core operations. We continue to create value whether thats benefiting from some smart early venture capital deals such.

Such as plume of skills are watching some larger positions like the ITV Univision of Formula E. Appreciate.

We're also excited about our move into infrastructure, where we have of real right to play give.

And given our track record of telecoms financing and M&A, all and all of the portfolio is valued at 3 billion, which I mentioned about $5 per share and is starting to realize cash returned as.

Second major and 400 million and to the parent other.

We've begun the process of monetizing hidden assets and our op goes like towers, and Holland, Belgium, and the UK and could add about $2 per share net of.

The adjustments in the op goes and that's not accounted for either of the ventures group, it's not and that portfolio or and our stock So watch.

<unk> already Rebase and then of the third pillar is our Levered equity model of which is unique and the European landscape and distinguishes us from mainstream telcos in Europe at the core of this strategy is the prudent use of leverage and our case 4 to 5 times and our fixed rate currency hedged and siloed basis, and that creates the opportunity for recaps and greater equity appreciation.

This fall know and understand that strategy, but we combine that with the strong stock buyback plan that just got stronger today with our commitment to repurchase 10% of our market cap annually for 3 years and again that means were adding $400 million of this year is $1 billion program only 3 quarters of which we've spent so far and we will seek to purchase 10%.

And of the shares and 22 and 23, so that was a mouthful from me I know.

And let me turn it over to Charlie and then we will get straight to your questions and look forward to addressing all of those shortly Charlie over to you.

Thanks, Mike.

The stocking by highlighting our strong performance in Q2, where we achieved revenue growth across all markets and consolidated.

The revenue growth of 3.4%.

And now also the elements of the Covid recovery and areas like sports and broadcasting.

And very limited recovery and areas like revenue and we're seeing positive underlying growth across all of our businesses.

The UK grew 4.4%, which includes the roughly 2% benefit from premium sports with continued.

<unk> strong conversions volumes and B to B performance driving growth.

Total debt also realized strong underlying growth in Q2, the the near 4% growth rate does benefit from of $13 million year on year over year improvements and broadcast revenues.

And as we guided earlier, Switzerland has returned to revenue growth fueled by continued strong mobile volumes DCP.

Performance and our consumer business that continues to stabilize through positive broadband sub momentum.

Whilst Vodafone Zig of continues on the trend of strong financial growth posting of 3% year on year increase versus the prior year, which marks a milestone of 9 consecutive quarters of positive growth.

Q2 saw growth across all.

<unk> books, including mobile on both the consumer and beat the besides of the business as Covid drugs abated on.

The next slide we provide details of our adjusted EBITDA.

Of course to capture synergies continued to weigh on results from the UK and Switzerland.

Virgin Media performed in line with the prior year, despite $8 million of pre merger costs.

Segment capture and it's worth noting that the recovery and premium sports revenues is offset by increased programming spend year on year given the credits that we received in Q2 of 2020.

The Swift performance continues to improve and a 3.1% decline is explained by $9 million of cost of capture on high growth and related investments and marketing.

Cost of the Covid.

Synergy benefits of limited and the quarter. Despite the recent MBNA migration back to our own network. The those savings will become apparent and half 2.

Total net growth rate and suppressed due to the acceleration of prudently and rights and the prior year period as large sporting events were paused and the second quarter of 2020 the benefits of.

Of which we've seen on the Q1 results the.

The taken together telenet achieved nearly 2% first half year EBITDA growth.

And in the Netherlands of 2% EBITDA decline was expected given the estimate of 21 million euro of impacts of Covid related temporary broadcast suspension and the nonrecurring settlement in Q2 of 2020.

Both of them Zika remains.

And B type of full year guidance.

Focusing now on the OFC App, we presented a year to date view of outperformance illustrating the significant OFC of generation of our core businesses.

Despite the headwind of $58 million of cost of capture the consolidated group delivered 2.1% growth and the first half.

On trade OFC and grew 2.3% from the first 5 months of the year.

Reached the milestone of tuna Hoffman and lightning hubs and.

We continue to build efficiently on a cost per premise continues to trend lower and delivering on cost per home of 576 pounds and the quarter.

The Swiss team remained focused on the integration.

You had significant costs and the first half to achieve longer term synergy realization the $41 million of half 1 cost to capture help lay the groundwork for future net migrations it integration and the alignment of the product roadmaps, including be debate, although oses growth and Switzerland, but otherwise of being positive.

And.

And the OSF declined around 1%, whilst on the Netherlands OFC of grew 1.6% and the first half as we continue to invest and the network and we remain on track to have upgraded 80% of our footprint to 1 gig speeds by the end of the year.

Focusing on our core Liberty global performance metric of free cash flow, we delivered 717 million.

And belts of free cash flow and half 1.

Our strong first half performance indicates we are on track for our full year guidance of $135 billion.

And which represents 26% year on year growth with growth accelerating on a per share basis, as we continued to aggressively retire rostock.

As of July we've retired nearly 80 million.

And shares since the year end 2019 and.

On the next slide illustrates our year to date by about performance.

As you can see as of July we repurchased $765 million of Liberty Global.

Global scope as we approach our initial 1 billion total authorization.

As Mike announced with committed to repurchasing tempus.

<unk> of our market cap of the year over the next 3 years, which served to increase the 20% 21 buybacks of around $1.4 billion.

Supported by our significant free cash flow and our corporate liquidity, which includes a cash balance of $4.1 billion as of quarter and.

A bunch of portfolio is currently valued at $3 billion.

10% of flex the full color on <unk>, and ITV which we completed in early Q2, and the continued monetization of our skills stake and we've realized over $80 million today.

During the quarter, we also announced the creation of our Atmos and joint venture with digital colony utilizing our owned real estate to provide cloud providers streaming.

Services and enterprises with high performance edge of network facilities through which they can distribute low latency applications and services such as <unk> E gaming Iot and edge compute.

That transaction to close in Q3 of 2021.

To conclude we are executing on FMC strategy across all markets.

With positive revenue growth of across our markets synergies validates and the U K and upgraded and Switzerland.

And the U K, we're excited to announce the cost effective upgrades of full 5 of about 2028, and we are increasing our buyback program for 2021, whilst committing to repurchasing 10% of our market cap annually over the next 3 years.

Finally, we are confirming all guidance targets, noting Virgin media room to manage and we're not part of the merger clean team and as such are and the process of validating the combined business plan and with that operator, we'll take questions.

The question and answer session will be conducted electronically if you would like to ask a question. Please.

By pressing star or Asterix key followed by the digit 1 on your phone and order to accommodate everyone. We request that you ask only 1 question. If you are using a speaker phone. Please make sure. Your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment.

We'll pause for a moment to give an opportunity to join the queue.

This all right. We'll go ahead and take our first question from David Wright with Bank of America.

Yeah.

Thank you very on trend and taking the questions.

Day, Mike.

And I'm going to begin with something.

A little bit more couple of if you don't mind.

And the equity of your stock has.

As Bina.

I'd say, a disappointment and over the last CSC guys, obviously reflect gains from recent buyback for now the.

You and John are very frustrated with the common equity and the valuations given.

And we've managed to do all of these deals recently without equity.

And.

Are you having to justify the.

Big Capex spend and the U K 2 of market that is very focused on short term cash flows et cetera. When you are confident and the long term value creation and that's exactly the I think the frustration the led alien zone as Avia and Neil This morning to basically say well I didn't need.

Right and the global those short term cash flows and I know the rates along the value to be created and he's obviously made the move to buy the stock back in.

And do you find yourself sat around the table, you, Charlie and and maybe John saying why are we bothering with these equity capital markets why don't we just dive a lot of and we can lever up and we.

To best of we know best to create value. So just throwing that out and then Mike look to know your thoughts.

[laughter] quite a curve ball.

But not where we expected to start the conversation with the thanks, David I appreciate the question.

And I understand the question and.

And surely every.

The entrepreneurs CEO or chairman of the company that feels like it's achieving more than the market is recognizing wonders about those sorts of things why wouldn't we on the other hand, and I think it's important to point out that we are in a way.

Buying out the public right when you buy a billion for stock this year and you agree.

Can emerge as another 10% of the market cap by the way not the market cap of the share. So if the stock rises we're still spending.

Cost of <unk>, 10% of the share as I saw 1 analyst day, well that's on the $1 billion for every year that assumes the stock doesn't move it is the number of shares of stock doubles, we're still buying stock.

Of that 10.

Agreed upon and so we are in a sense doing what you're saying, but perhaps in a more measured way and perhaps in a less expensive way.

If you look back we have repurchased well over half of the company at varying prices, but do you generally prices that are less and today's price and for those shareholders, who believe and what youre doing it as a way of ensuring.

Percent day ride along with you.

And that slow go private if you will and if theres only 1 share remaining and when you own it and you've done well. So are we are in a sense doing the same thing, which is giving shareholders an opportunity to exit if they're frustrated and.

And understanding what we do.

No about our business, we're confident and putting our capital and our free cash flow to work to buy those shares. So that's all I'll say at this point.

On the.

2 businesses the Codell piece and if you look at <unk>, they have their own challenges and issues.

I don't think our shareholders would be thrilled if we put an offer out.

At 7 times EBITDA to take the company private and I don't think they'd accepted so those of unique circumstances, where perhaps those businesses have their own challenges that warrant those kinds of multiples I think our business is worth more I think most shareholders understand that and those who don't wear and the market every day buying stock.

We will take our next question from Robert Grindle with Deutsche Bank.

Okay.

Yes, hi, thanks.

Thanks, so much.

Expecting some guidance around the dividend from Virgin and <unk>.

<unk> group free cash flow might be getting but you've taken the different approach by committing.

The tier of buyback, which you've just been talking about and can you.

And give us some back.

Backgrounds and the thinking behind this is it because youre not sure you asked about the funding for fiber.

Supercharged project Lightning and whether to go alone or with someone else or is the some of the rationale behind this approach. Thanks.

I think it's pretty straightforward Robert.

Yeah.

We have spent quite a bit of time, putting together, we believe of fixed mobile.

The group a bit of group of fixed mobile businesses that are strong.

And have great cash flow prospects and great strategic and competitive positions.

<unk> also now have a very good handle on what the next 5 to 10 years of network and technology evolution means to those businesses.

And we are increasingly confident about the value of those businesses and so.

It seems to us a good time to.

Put a stake and the ground and reinforce our commitment to the to the stock and the business.

You know as we know more and have a better a better understanding of what our future looks like so I'd say, it's it's not a defensive move quite the opposite it's an offensive decision to take advantage of what.

We all need is and undervalued stock and to do and to show that confidence to investors of course by committing to a clear buyback strategy as opposed to and annual 1 where we let you know every 12 months of what we might or might not be doing secondly, I think it's helpful for investors.

<unk> when we can demonstrate our willingness to not just use free cash flow.

But also our cash balance if our stock appreciates, which we fully expect it should.

And we'll still buy back 10% of the of the of the.

The shares and that requires us to utilize cash.

As opposed.

Free cash flow to do that then we'll do that and that's also and I think of great statement of confidence plus it takes a bit of and overhang off.

As it relates to those investors, who feel like we should be deploying cash more quickly.

So I can't see anything, but good news and the statement it's not defensive.

It's hopefully something.

And most investors appreciate.

Our next question comes from Mike Hill, the Tony with J P. Morgan.

Yeah, Hi, good morning, Thanks for taking the question maybe I can focus on the use of it. Please.

You mentioned Mike.

At this stage the.

Virgin Media management, and human not part of the merger process, obviously, they've not been in the position to update us on the plans I just wonder if you could comment on when we might expect that do we expect the with the next quarter and they're gonna be a standalone event, where they'll give us an update so and how do we think about that and I guess more specifically.

Quickly when we think about the U K.

There's a lot of moving parts as you outlined in your introduction.

And what you think of the biggest decisions and be the strict strategic things that needs to be thought through by the management team and I guess, the 1 that we think about the law is the wholesale strategy. So maybe you can give us any sort of color on how you think.

About wholesale for Liberty, So if the Virgin sorry, that'd be really interesting too.

Sure I'll take the first 1 and and Lutz is on all.

And I ask him to address how the management team is coming together you know the progress he has made and the organization and his commitment to the board of the joint venture.

<unk>, 2 and he'll feel we've got a really good handle on next year and the in the years to come because lots of good work is happening there I think the biggest decisions in the U K should be pretty self evident.

And I've kind of directly or indirectly I mentioned some of those and of course, if we're as we commit to invest in fiber.

Fiber and Ah.

And the that and the balance of our footprint that isn't already fiber we want to be sure. We're focused on those things of that listed on the right hand side of the slide <unk>.

Namely ensuring that we're getting the benefit of that investment and our b to C and <unk> businesses first and foremost on.

Also though that we are examining.

Communities to work with financial and strategic partners and potentially.

The wholesale partners to further monetize and utilize net investment.

And we're specifically and by design not being.

The concrete about those plans today, because there's lots of work to do and lots of options to consider but.

And you should assume that we are.

Looking at this purely from an economic and and offensive point of view and we believe there are opportunities to explore the economic benefits that should derive from this network investment beyond simply being more competitive in the b to B and B to C space.

And also have to look closely at our decisions going forward around network expansion.

And we've talked about on many calls and I think we're taking 1 step at a time. This is obviously a first step.

But I think going forward, we will look very quickly at the the.

2.

We and the network beyond the current footprint and potentially do that with partners as well and an accretive way so lots of big decisions and I think.

The revolve around the network, but all of them and our mines.

Taken with the lens and you can.

You can bet that our partners of Telefonica and use the same lens of what value.

<unk> expanded create and what is the impact it will have on our cash flows and and dividends. So we're being very I would say thoughtful about this and we're going to make decisions and the best interest of all parties, including and mostly concluding shareholders. Luke do you want talk about the management team and how youre coming together on the broader strategic and operational.

Yeah sure sure.

So we have 4 priorities and BMO tool.

1 is integrated to both companies' second is cheap and accelerate the business momentum book.

Transformed the company into a digital and force find the right.

<unk>.

2 of the fixed network of extension.

On number of warm.

We had really a jumpstart so we have the top 100 of the.

The organization of nonsense of months and we have been just sharing our plan for this year with our board yesterday. So obviously the board has to decide.

Powell and the minute the bulk besides I think you would get the guidance, but I think what I can say is that this was very much in line with expectation from both shareholder.

We are working now on the new 3 years plan until October and after.

After that we'll get all the board approval and the.

And the offline with you guys and also we have already re confirmed.

The team is able to get to the 540 million run rate synergies what can we do this already because we spent quite a lot of time on.

On the pre merger activities.

Sure and if so so we built on a pretty strong foundation here.

The business momentum I think you've seen our momentum and.

And Q2 numbers looked look at our competitors look at what we are doing so we are approaching these integration with strong business momentum both across mobile and fixed digital.

I think if we shouldn't touch it now and.

And I'm sure we will find some time and we will transform our business entirely into digital and that sort of expansion I mean, its the right Mike Mike said it it's the big step it's an offensive move when the business profit and now we talk about finding the right solution.

Solution for these additional 7 million homes find the right balance how to invest our capital into 5 G and Forbes the capacity.

And find the right partner and model.

And so a lot to do good stopped with momentum.

Back to you Mike.

Okay. Thanks, guys.

We'll go ahead and take our next question from Nick why all of the Society Generale.

Yes, good morning, everybody.

The good bunch of the wholesale strategy. Please Mike because I mean, there's risks with this as well so.

And you're confident you can protect the high op of retail subs. If you were to do the have you sold through that yet obviously.

But have you could you share with us some thoughts from the U K business on that and any any conversations that's all what else coma and could I could I just clarify when you're talking about the wholesale you are including the cable.

HFC network to wholesale as well or is it just the incremental fiber parts of the network. Thanks very much.

Look it doesn't really good questions Nick and.

I'd love to dig to walk you through the.

The exhaustive amount of analysis that we've done at both the Liberty and the Virgin Media O 2 and telefonica levels around all of this but I prefer not to it think it's safe to say that if we were to.

And enter into any sort of wholesale provider.

Provider arrangements or consider that as a long term strategy than we would have thought through the impact on our Peru, the regulatory impact and.

And the best technology solutions to achieve that better to not get into.

Mike detailed today and you know the announcement is plenty to 2.2 and digest for investors and we want to focus on explaining how we got there and and how we'll achieve that but but I think it's safe to say, we have lots of time to think through how we.

Exploit and monetize that commitment beyond.

And the benefits to our own business and I would just give us a little time to you know the 2 to finish those considerations.

Considerations and the and you will certainly have plenty to talk about over the course of the next few quarters.

Sorry to be evasive I, just think it's a slippery slope, we could get into a lot of detail that's probably not helpful. Here no understood some of its Mike.

2 months got it.

We will take our next question from Steve Malcolm from Redburn.

Yes.

And guys just just on the U K fiber plans can you maybe just help us understand what is so unique about the UK network I should know the softer a million years doing this joke, but honestly.

The build of such a low cost relative to other networks on it yes.

And if I was in euros.

The fact that it's probably you're talking about I presume you don't think of any construction required and so what was it you can board of the fibers.

Directly and so all the docs for all the all the customers and I guess on 1 side that the project lightning spirits hasn't been seamless and the last 6 years, so and what lessons of.

You learn what confidence can you give us the the targets you set out yesterday aren't going to be the numbers you actually do that'd be great. Thanks.

Well, let you can you can prepare and henrique a little bit more color on why the we believe the numbers.

To be of course accurate and as you point out.

Less expensive than our peers and let me just make a comment on project lightning.

We have been rebuilt 2 and a half million homes at this point I think the your reference to the you.

You know slippage goes back 5 years, maybe for quite a while ago.

Since that early moment.

And I would describe it as very early on it it has been on machine and we have been extremely effective consistent and predictable in our execution of our network expansion in the U K, our returns and our penetration rates have been exactly what we said they would be and.

Our our capital costs have come down consistently as we ask S. P. A a and we get smarter and better at at.

And executing on this large construction project together with suppliers. So I don't think we have any I think we are as active and successful and predictable as.

And the U K market and you can just talk to the suppliers that we work with to confirm that our ability of our credibility or our ability to achieve this and Mike in my opinion is sound.

The sound and really not that questionable, but looser on Rico, you're welcome to dive a little bit more into the detail around 100 balance if you'd like to.

Yeah.

Maybe if you saw the right yeah sure I'll just make a couple of comments.

You know first of all of the the the number is the obviously on average over quite a few different scenarios, but in the case of this upgrade.

Great.

The.

Majority of.

Profit actually uses on existing docks and out of our existing <unk>.

The deep DOCSIS network allows us to really focus the upgrade capital.

And basically on the significant portion of the passive part of the network. There are of construction you're asking your question.

On the is it because there's no construction cost of our construction cost, but it's significantly lower than when you're building brand new territory like we are doing in the.

In light of the end of the final point I would make as debt.

The significant commonality between both of the technology as well as the.

The the.

The construction mechanisms between lightning and what we'll be doing it.

And this upgrade so we're pretty confident on that.

And we understand the the process and that we will hit those targets.

The follow up Mike and I think you said the Openreach is no cost of about 10.

The percentage of your network with fiber can you maybe just update us on what Youre seeing where they have passed with fiber you are seeing any particular change and the sort of customer on boarding at all for the guy dynamics and those areas.

And what you can address that.

Yeah. So I mean, you've also seen a steep that the new.

New wholesale prices.

And ounce and will kick in and for 1 gig that the stand and 22 pounds today right. The fiber prices are very very high and we watch it very carefully but look at our net debt.

So we don't see and impact at all at the moment will debt.

And they say no because we think that Ah right. If price is for higher speeds will go down a bit we would see a bit more competition here, but the on the other hand side like we have from now more than 40 per cent of our fixed customers, having lots of mobile with us and that will help all sorts of approach it and protect our customers from trung.

The other point I'd make is.

We are already 1 gig.

Pretty much and we will be at the end of this year, 1 gig of capable across 100% of our subscriber base.

It isn't as if BT or any <unk>.

Openreach customer will be providing a superior product to us.

And it's really a me too product and we're going to have the advantage of being there first.

Across the entirety of our footprint and we will be marketing aggressively both fixed and mobile products as well as 1 gig products well ahead of the vast majority of these operators because we're already there on this.

This is what our net.

When I said you know, it's not a fair fight because if BT is building to get to 1 gig we're already 1 gig.

And we're just basically further supercharging our networks for the next 10 years by ensuring that we will have symmetrical 10 gig when and if that market requires it so.

Hard to see us not being able to compete.

And with any activity from BT Openreach, given the fact that we're and so far ahead of them as we sit here today.

The 1 gig part of it.

And thank you.

We'll take our next question from Matthew Harrigan with benchmark.

Oh, thank you.

Another angle on on fiber 1 of your large U S peers.

Most of more of a parallel network topology of approach and it sounds like what you're doing global more complicated so you've seen the other Olympic analogy I hope and doesn't get the Simone Biles twisty isn't on the execution because it sounds a little involved but the other thing and.

It was real interesting on your U S peer, what's even though they have no and homes passed I mean, they didn't even call out the cost of operating of simultaneously with over a million homes passed because the cost of fiber were so low, albeit it wasn't the less than 5% capacity can you talk about the cost.

And on fiber or idea of sort of the dictum with some people as you're going to get about 30% reductions and consumer.

Such cost and related Capex, and then secondly on the ventures portfolio, you've got a couple of things that are.

I think the valuation of your carrying its probably pretty safe and saying you've got a couple.

Savings it would probably have a lot of sort of Kathy would type of appeal. If there was a flotation and something like Formula E. G as well as the edge computing and could you talk specifically about some of the possibilities around the formula E and whether it's the complement or of displacement of formula 1. Thank you.

Sure Matt.

I think and ink Enrique Wood wood.

Because of the comment that if the fiber network could easily and should reduce operating costs over the long haul I think it's important to point out, though and the U K, we're not decommissioning of the cable network, we're going to continue to utilize the DOCSIS 3.1 plant and it took us all the way the $2.2 gigabyte.

Things so we'll be at 2 gig pretty shortly here on the DOCSIS plant and we will continue to utilize that plant wherever and whenever necessary with the fiber really being and overlay as of.

2 of replacement.

<unk>.

And of the coax network that were of the HFC component of the.

Goodbye and anyway, and they'll share of tons of fiber to the 2 of the cabinet. If you will but beyond that will keep the HFC network viable. So the cost will be there shouldn't there'll be cost savings long term and capex savings long term, but I think you have to remember that those annual customers you may not be quite of seem to be and on the venture side, there's lots of assets within ventures.

The network that could easily find their way into the hands of other strategic owners of Ipos et cetera.

The 8 to 10 unicorns and the tech portfolio, which is about $800 million of the $3 billion and we have some relatively large businesses and the content portfolio. You mentioned, 1 formula E. But we have the stake in ITV which.

And it's relatively low basis in.

Both of the media and some other assets and so each of those have their own sort of storyline and opportunity and formula E is doing terrific and its seventh season.

And coming back strong from Covid with some really exciting things happening with the car and the technology next.

You have got Mercedes Porsche all of the right of manufacturers getting behind it and the product just gets better and better.

And with a with and I think we've got another 18 years of exclusivity with FIA on electric car racing. So it's going to be terrific to see how that platform evolves over the over the long haul.

We're always looking at ways to help our portfolio of companies the Chi.

And their goals, whether that's through of locations or mergers or whatever of fundraising. So stay tuned we'll give you more information on those assets as they evolve.

And over time or are you more likely to have the mobile traffic on the on the HFC network and some of the emergence of some.

The new technologies from Cisco and others or is that kind of be on the on the fiber.

If you don't mind my asking.

Well, we do backhaul today, and which can speak about that we provide quite a bit of backhaul services too.

Almost all of the mobile operators in the UK, including we will do so for O 2 typically utilizing fiber.

And I don't know if theres some the other element to that and regain and least you want it and you want to you can do it over both but generally speaking of the circuits are fiber.

Yes, the the mobile traffic is mostly on the part of the network and we'll continue.

The growing that direction, if there may be opportunistic of cases.

But we use the portion of the HFC network, but it's really the F of HFC that it's being the other issue.

Great. Thanks, Mike Thanks, and Richard.

Yeah.

Our next question comes from Andrew Beale with Arete research.

Oh, Hi, I was just wondering if we can develop.

The discussion about longest on fiber cost savings and in Belgium.

And I mean, as you blow of pool of Fiverr alongside the existing HFC network will come on.

And I guess, you can choose whether you sort of each existing on new customer of on DOCSIS of fiber.

And then longer term and you've got this opex saving when you switch.

So think result.

So what is your thinking at the moment, what are you prove and new customers.

Upgraded on fiber or do you just do it for customers seeking of certain high speed.

Or symmetrical or other services and then how many years of are you thinking it is the.

She switch of DOCSIS and an area of the.

And you've previously passed with fiber.

And I'm, just really asking about the the pacing of variable capex, but replacement of the current strokes with fiber versus the long term opex savings and don't confuse the of what you're thinking of is not.

Yeah. It's it's the right question and I think it's little early for us to provide any guidance around.

The the churn of customers will require or want of fiber connection and.

And the cost implications of of that but you should assume we're working that through we have worked that through but in terms of disclosing that and if it gets a little premature.

And I don't go on.

And Lutz can chime in here I think the cable network.

Will exist for quite some time.

And it will provide us with a seamless ability to serve customers, who don't require either of the benefits of the fiber network of the speed and capacity of the fiber network. That's a nice luxury to have but we can get people up the 2 gigabytes you know on the existing plant.

And so that's the basic strategy as we get as we go and move forward here and the the idea of sort of further disclosure on Virgin media outreach plan.

And when it's developed maybe we will do that will take some time on 1 of our future quarterly calls and really dive deep ease a little a little early to do that from the public today, but.

And you think you're on the right.

Right point, you know in terms of what percentage of customers will require a drop and the new CPE and how quickly will that happen you know and you can make your own assumptions about that we certainly have but I think it's too early for us to put that in and the publix and the profit yeah.

I mean, that's go ahead Todd.

So first of all we are we are on the luxury position.

And right that we can plan, the migration and predominantly customer demand driven and.

And that means the customer then 1 still have ISP then to the 2 gigabit per second right I mean, Mike said at the beginning today at Virgin media customer that's using 2 of net and it perfect and then as to the.

2 gigabit per second right. So that will take some time that's number 1 number 2 we have the luxury to have.

And 1 area. We can have 1 home then on fiber and the next total we can have on DOCSIS 3.1 and so we are not forced to really migrate entire regions onto fiber.

And I think number 3.

And play over time.

And we want to of a balance approach to really use the capacity of the fiber net book and balance with the $3.1.

And that's about right. So these are the factors and and it's.

As Mike said earlier right the biggest driver for office and not the cost saving with switching off the network right when you sit.

On the coupon network and and of stories a day back then you have to think about spiritual and when you sit on the DOCSIS network and.

And today, we see easily and we get to the 2 the 2 gigabit per second and then you absolutely want to leverage both networks, what's driving it is the best.

And as opportunities across.

All 3 of them on.

And b to be huge growth opportunity and to you and your.

Think about our market share is below 10%, we have more of a priority network and the fiber network.

Lots of things of possible and then the wholesale sales.

So I think stay tuned on that.

Okay. Thank you.

Yeah.

We will take.

Our next question from James Ratcliffe with Evercore ISI.

Alright, and 2 if I could first of all I noticed you the boosted the synergy expectations and Switzerland, and because of some additional cost to achieve how does that affect the time frame for seeing the cost of achievers of synergies flip positive.

On the country and that market and secondly, just going back to the buyback.

Can you talk about the thought process around doing is as a percentage of market cap rather than say, a fixed dollar amount or free cash flow plus the given dollar amount because and this has the effect of the more stock goes up the more you'd be buying back.

Thanks.

Yeah, I'll take the buyback question, and obviously and Andre if you want to prepare some thoughts around the Swiss question.

I want to make sure I'm fond of what Youre, saying, James and where were the clarify what we're what we're committing to which is to repurchase 10% of the shares outstanding.

The beginning of the year regardless of price.

You know over these next 24 months, so the amount of the buyback.

Or the dollar amount of that spend will vary.

Depending upon the price and that doesn't mean, we couldn't accelerate that if the price were.

Or to perhaps take and anticipate 1 of your follow up questions.

But we would continue to commit to that if the price were higher and therefore seems to us that where the.

<unk> now will be able to incorporate into their thinking around.

And the stock price.

The lower Roes and minimum of the 10% improvement in the share price. We hope based upon the buyback commitment. We've made so it seems to us to be and easier and more predictable.

And more beneficial approach to buyback and meaning that we're committing to that 10% number and.

And Glenn if it were a dollar figure hard to know what that impact would be right.

Got it.

Yeah Andre.

Yeah, well on your question and that's the higher synergy expectation has an impact on the time scale and I'll see realization.

No it doesn't and so we actually have seen that some of them and you.

Assumptions that we have taken on the realization of moving customers over to own infrastructure on from a whole bunch of infrastructure, where more conservatives and would be seen as no realistic to achieve.

And that does not really change the timeframe and in fact.

<unk> seen some synergies coming in even a bit earlier on you've seen and the presentation of that.

Moving to.

On the Nbn migration being executed ahead of schedule and the overall I would say we are rather ahead of schedule and behind so no real change to the timescale.

Thank you.

Yes.

Well go ahead and take operator the question from.

Go for it and Oh go ahead of revenue wasn't sure what's happening.

Well go ahead and take our next question from Ulrich Rathe with Jefferies.

Thanks.

So I have a question and then probably the 2 lots of Hum.

Does the the fiber on upgrade plan.

Ah require in footprint share gains and the consumer market and I understand the opportunities.

Beyond that but in terms of the surveys and the consumer market.

Is.

Thanks, very much and here that you think you can share the market share of thank you.

Okay.

Well I mean, we are currently winning market share right with the speed advantage and.

And we have not made any plan and get.

And then other kind of market share we are tending to win over the next 10 years, and we have and justify the plan by a win of a market share and consumer and like I said earlier on we have just started now after committing the budget for 'twenty, 1 and 2.

And to come up with the 3 year plan.

And beyond and and then we are working on debt, but it's.

Definitely an opportunity to.

Keep our customers and also to increase of share of wallet, so option care of home with our customer because if we keep winning market share as we do today.

Is that from time to figure.

All of that at all.

Okay.

I'd like to Mount the path.

As of the call back to Mike Fries.

Okay. Thank listen I. Appreciate you are staying on with US I know, there's other calls happened and today and so you probably already on your way.

But look at on 4 key takeaways from my point of view growth continues and our FMC champions and synergies are just now starting to show up so that's going to be a positive tailwind here and and in the medium term.

We're excited to start providing greater transparency around our network strategies with the UK being the first of those announcements.

And I can assure you we're looking at these things through and offensive and accretive lens and.

And we have the luxury of doing that because we have such of fiber rich network to begin with and a strong broadband base as we sit here today pay attention of the ventures portfolio, it's growing and value and significance.

And we will keep you posted on.

On the Polish deal, which is just another reaffirmation of the private market value of our businesses and lastly, you know we're excited about the buyback commitment it's a strong statement from us.

Think that's something you can take to the bank if you will on a year.

This year and for the next 2 years and that's got to be useful for investors, who want to see us deploy capital in and.

And 1 of the most obvious places and that's our own share. So I. Appreciate you joining we'll speak to you soon and have a great August bye bye.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes Liberty Liberty Global second quarter 2021, Investor call. As a reminder, a replay of the call will be available on the Investor Relations section of Liberty Global's website.

And also find a copy of today's presentation materials.

Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by and welcomed.

Welcome to Liberty Global second quarter, 2021, Investor call. This call and the associated webcast are the property of Liberty.

Total and any redistribution retransmission or rebroadcast of this call or webcast and in any form without the express written consent of Liberty Global is strictly prohibited at this time all participants are in a listen only mode. Today's formal presentation materials can be found under the Investor Relations section of Liberty Global's website at Liberty Global.

Liberty Guam.

After today's formal presentation instructions will be given for a question and answer session page 2 of the slides details of the Companys Safe Harbor statement regarding forward looking statements.

Today's presentation May include forward looking statements within the meaning of the private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 995.

<unk> dot <unk> and the Companys expectations with respect to its outlook and future growth prospects and other information and statements that are not historical fact these forward looking statements involve certain risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these statements. These risks include those detailed and Liberty global and Liberty.

The most filings with the security and the Exchange Commission, including its most recently filed forms 10-Q, and 10-K as amended Liberty Global disclaims any obligation to update any of these forward looking statements to reflect any change and thats expectations were and the conditions.

And on which of any statement is based I would.

The global to turn the call over to Mr. Mike Fries.

Thanks, operator, and Hello, everyone as always we appreciate you joining us today for the Q2 results call that we've got a lot of ground to cover so I'll.

I'll begin with some operating results and a deep dive into a couple of topics that I'm sure will be of interest you all and have you Charlie covers the financials and we'll get right to your questions.

I'll kick it off on slide 4 of which 5 key headlines and should capture of the broader narrative of the quarter and our value creation opportunity first of all of our goal of creating FMC champions.

<unk> in our core markets is working.

We made of very conscious and deliberate shift and our strategy for the 5 years ago, which sauce exit and subscale markets and premium multiples and concentrate our resources into really 4 key countries, where we become fixed mobile champions of me.

To illustrate this more fully on the next slide but.

By reducing our geographic reach by 40%, we increased aggregate revenue by 40% and now sort of a larger base of 85 million fixed and mobile subs and those FMC champions are driving scale and growth supported by unrealized synergies of $12.6 billion from our last 2 deals and the UK and Switzerland.

And that's on an NPV basis and by the way given our ownership over $8 billion of that will accrue to our shareholders.

Second the demand for fast and reliable connectivity and Europe continues to anchor strong commercial momentum across our footprint.

I'll speak of the numbers and the second, but we reported good revenue and subscriber growth and a standout quarter.

Order from Virgin video too.

Third we've talked quite a bit over the last year or so about our network strategy options yesterday, we made a big move and the U K announcing our plans to upgrade to fiber across our footprint I'll speak of that in a moment.

But the main takeaways that we have great options and every market and 1 size will not fit all here.

To answer the question Preemptively cable and DOCSIS will continue to play a big role even in markets, where we intend to upgrade of fiber and given our speed leadership today and heavy investment in fiber rich HFC. We can approach this moment and and offensive posture with a clear focus on free cash flow and recruited returns on capital.

And fourth its becoming.

Coming increasingly hard to ignore our ventures portfolio, which has been value by third parties of $3 billion of about $5 per share.

And that's around 20% of our current stock price and Im getting very little is being recognized today, we're going to continue to provide greater and greater transparency of our tech and content and infrastructure investments and the strategically.

We align with the core operations and they also benefit from our unique track record and telecom and Treasury and M&A.

We also announced that we're engaged in non binding negotiations with Iliad Polish subsidiary to sell UPC, Poland for $1.9 billion, that's about 9.3 times EBITDA.

Don't normally announce these things, but Iliad was required.

Wired to do so for other reasons and but I can't tell you. These sorts of asset sales at these sorts of multiple should also help bridge the value gap and our stock and the.

And speaking of our stock, we're making a big commitment today to put our money, where our mouth is rather than decide periodically how much and at what price we're going to purchase shares we're announcing today our commitment.

And to buyback, 10% of our market cap annually for 3 years, which means were adding $400 million to our current $1 billion program for the remainder of 2021 and I just referenced the transformation of our platform over the last 4 to 5 years and we've been trying to find a way to better illustrate the transition to and FMC champion.

Campion and slide 5 does that I believe is it.

And I asked me 10 years ago.

You could build a better stronger business by exiting half of your markets and concentrating all of your resources into a handful of fully converged fixed mobile operations and I, probably would've said I don't know im not sure.

Oh, and broadband competition intensified and cable console.

Patient slowed and the demand for broadband capacity and mobility skyrocket, we rapidly pivoted and there are much stronger and more valuable company today for it that involve 4 key steps first of course, we exited 5 subscale markets, like Germany, and Austria and premium multiples.

Mobile only players like.

The telecom and Vodafone aggregate proceeds of our $25 billion and of these guys needed of fixed network solution in their markets on <unk>.

1 hand, this validated the underlying private market value of our cable operations something we continue to demonstrate even today with the potential sale of Poland, but on the other hand that allowed us to focus resources on those markets, where we had.

A pathway to fixed mobile convergence by acquiring of emerging with mobile operators, specifically and Holland, Belgium, and Switzerland and of course, the U K, so even though we shrunk our geographic footprint by 40% with the concentration in 4 countries, we of 25 million more fixed and mobile subs and before $85 million and total and 40.

5% more revenue 24 billion and total on an aggregate basis with a very balanced blend of fixed and mobile revenues on the <unk>.

Benefits of that fixed mobile transformation are showing up and our results. It was a solid quarter for our business is really across the board as you can see on slide 6.

We delivered positive revenue growth across all 4.

4 key markets Charlie is going to walk through the details of Vodafone <unk> grew 3% Telenet and Virgin media grew 4% the latter representing just the 2 months prior to the merger.

By the way for a good look at pro forma financials of Virgin media for the second quarter and restated for prior periods take a look at their fixed income release.

Please we can't provide that data in our GAAP presentation. This quarter, but we will do that going forward Youll see that Virgin media <unk> combined revenue was up slightly and the quarter and EBITDA was up 6% on the back of cost control and commission savings and the mobile business is also a good quarter for broadband and postpaid mobile net adds which totaled around 250.

<unk> thousand and the quarter across the group on an aggregate basis and here on the top left we do show full quarter results for Virgin media, and <unk>, which added 22000 and fixed customer additions, our fifth straight quarter of customer growth by the way and that was supported by 36000 broadband net adds up 8% from Q2 last year and 65000 postpaid mobile.

Yes.

You can see on the bottom left we continued to benefit from convergence with total fixed mobile convergence ratios up to over 40% in all operations.

<unk> announced its above 40% with the addition of the <unk> mobile subs, who subscribed the Virgin and Switzerland at 56%, which is clearly and <unk>.

Medium term target for every market.

On the right hand side of the chart provides some operating highlights for each of the big 4 off goes I'm not going to go through all of this detail. The Virgin media <unk> is off to a great start as of June 1st with record <unk> sales and the month and strong mobile and the team is working on some exciting commercial offers and his focus and drive.

Driving the benefits of and expanding <unk> presence and the availability of 1 gig broadband across 100% of the footprint by year end.

Sunrise and UPC continues to benefit from strong sales momentum and the early rollout of FMC offers with 6000 broadband adds and 41000 postpaid mobile adds in the quarter the integrations.

And is right on track in fact, the team just raise the synergy target by 50 million Swiss francs, which after cost of capture brings the NPV of synergies to $3.7 billion up from $3.1 billion.

Put up on the digital delivered its ninth consecutive quarter of revenue growth with fixed ARPA of increases and mobile postpaid adds and offsetting the loss of broadband subs.

And in Switzerland, <unk> Rolling out 1 gig services rolling out there of the company is well positioned to deliver its 2021, EBITDA and free cash flow guidance and finally telenet continues to be our most innovative operator launching yet another converged fixed mobile offer called <unk>, which helped the company deliver positive subscriber growth and video broadband and mobile for the quarters of each of our 14th.

<unk> are performing well now let me switch gears to of subject on slide 7 and I know you are all interested in and I'm sure by now you've seen the announcement and read the press and analysts remarks about our decision to upgrade Virgin media <unk> fixed network to fiber over the next 7 years or so we're on.

Already have fiber to the premise to about 7% of our homes.

Through the lightning build so we're talking about $14.3 million homes to be upgraded and the costs of about 100 pounds per premise.

And lots of discussion around why are we doing this what does this mean for cable and DOCSIS is this costs really that low and.

And let me start by reminding everyone that Virgin is today the undisputed speed.

And Peter on $15.5 million homes across the UK average customer speed of nearly 200 megabits per second with the balance of the market around 40, megabits or so so speed matters and the U K and of course, that's why Bt's building fiber, but today, the only pass about 10% to 15% of our on our footprint, we believe and we will be offering 1.

Gig services to our entire footprint and 5 short months from now so using the Olympic analogy, we all have our eye on advancing to the 10 meter diving platform. If you will over the next 7 years with 10 gigabit speed, but today, we're already standing on the 3 meter platform and the rest of the market and our view just as their toes and the water at the edge of the pool.

And it doesn't matter how fast BT gets to 1 gig and we will always have an advantage. It's almost not a fair fight and all of that is attributable to cable and DOCSIS, which will be part of our network solution and the UK for a long kind of the come we're not decommissioning our cable network quite the contrary, we are simply expanding its capacity by pushing the fiber.

And that's already there and the ground even closer to the customer and fact, that's why we can upgrade for a fraction of bt's costs already have fiber deep into the network and mostly urban markets and we have access to our own underground ducting that will require far less digging and that's the most expensive part.

And for the same reasons upgrading the fiber.

As the only marginally more expense of the DOCSIS, 4 which is not the case and every market, but we made this decision pretty easy and the U K like everyone else, we will incur cost of connected dropped to the home and that will be of variable cost based upon demand over time. It's also important to point out. The these are gross capex cost. So they don't take into account the expected revenue uplift.

And occur here you can see some of those economic benefits outlined on the right side of this chart.

Both DOCSIS 4 <unk> and fiber to the premise will make our BDC and <unk> services more competitive that's clear, but given the marketing halo around fiber and that seems to be building up of the U K and the benefits of symmetrical services to the enterprise market, but argued and fiber.

Fiber probably has a slight advantage and will derive more value.

While cable can do wholesale just look at telenet and the likelihood of deriving value from the 1 billion pound wholesale market and the U K, if we chose to do it.

And quite mature and busy is enhanced by an all fiber solution since we only cover half the country, it's safe to assume that wholesalers.

Lift and want to keep their technology platform simple and seamless across providers and of fiber solution does and of course and beyond those economic benefits of fiber to the premise and the UK also provides greater confidence as we think through network expansion options beyond the steady lightning build today and we continue to evaluate debt opportunity.

<unk> and an additional 7 million homes sort of of Supercharge lightening, if you will and we're in good discussions with financial and strategic partners about what that might look like so stay tuned and now in light of the UK announcement I think it is important to stress that there is no direct read across to cable or other markets from this decision because the truth is we have multiple.

Past, the 10 gig and every market and we are evaluating the right path on a case by case basis of slide 8 lays out how we're thinking about it across the B approaches. The first of course is simply access and someone else's fiber network, allowing us to avoid the capex associated with the upgrade and providing some measure of market rationality of.

Other than pursuing the same approach of Sunrise has successfully done this and Switzerland with the Swisscom wholesale arrangements. The negatives are costs are also clear, though you're foregoing owner economics and your most important product broadband and youre somewhat exposed the fluctuation and wholesale rates among other issues.

Obviously, DOCSIS 4 will be of transfer.

Formation of technology development when it arrives.

And it is a robust ecosystem of cable operators around the world, particularly in the U S. Supporting the innovation of the platform as we've seen and the transition from DOCSIS 2 to DOCSIS 3 and then the DOCSIS 3.1 the <unk>.

Costs are generally lower than of fiber solution as they build upon the existing platform.

Platform before it and the rollout can be faster, but on the flip side DOCSIS.

DOCSIS does require a relatively substantial 1 time investment and the active and passive components of the network to enhance the spectrum capacity and speed. Each time, you upgrade and it's also not clear when the technology will be available for commercial exploitation, but we are part.

Of that group of operators working together to accelerate that timetable and then finally, while DOCSIS 4 will get us to 10 gig. There is no current roadmap beyond that or forecast for what it will cost and get to say 50 gig fiber sales both of those future issues of course.

And our announcement today makes clear.

<unk> fiber to the premise of real and accretive.

Of option for us in certain markets I've already mentioned the clear path. The 50 gig speeds the benefits of symmetrical services, especially the the BBB market and the significant opportunity that some markets offer around wholesale revenue and the price for that is higher up from costs, which vary significantly by market. The decision about which path. We'll take always comes down to a few key questions and it's clear to us.

And that we are likely to avail ourselves of all 3 options across our footprint and the varying degrees by market first of course is the competitive environment. What other operators are doing and are they building fiber how quickly second as I've. Just mentioned is the relative capex cost associated with each option and that's obvious where.

And where it starts to get interesting.

The economic benefits that accrue from 1 approach to the other specifically the positive impact on the BDC and BTB competitiveness the.

Size and attractiveness of the wholesale market as a provider or user and of course, the strategic and financial partnerships you conform to support the plant and I can share of that work is underway well underway and every market.

And as around you're probably familiar with Telenet has announced discussions of <unk> upgrade Flanders to fiber overtime, Ireland looks a lot like the U K to us of Switzerland is likely to be a hybrid approach and Holland is still in the early stages of analyzing the best plan, but of fiber deep DOCSIS 4 strategy might make the most sense there.

And the and as we've done and the U K, we're going to be.

Keenly focus on optimizing the medium term and longer term ability to compete.

<unk> and generate free cash flow as you'd make those decisions in every market now and my remarks on slide 9.

The quick recap of how we intend to create value for shareholders from this point forward and it comes down to 3 core pillars. If you will.

Extreme first and foremost.

And we're going to focus on maximizing the value of our fixed mobile operations. These of the crown jewels of our business, we worked hard to build scale and the number 1 and number 2 player in each country. So we could shape markets radically innovate and make the important strategic decisions, they're going to underpin growth for years to come.

How will we do that.

<unk> already seen and Holland, and Belgium, and helps when you have of near term catalysts of synergies to kickstart growth and support cash flow of longer term.

We also know that and increasingly competitive market convergence is working and driving cross sell and upsell of reducing churn and make customers happier nobody debates and anymore.

And stay rational on pricing and put the real effort into seamless digital experiences that keep customers coming back for more.

And the endgame and every market is to generate distributable cash to the parent from free cash flow dividends recap whatever source, that's the metric that matters to us and thats the metric that will fuel our model now.

And now as we provide more visibility.

The key to our infrastructure and network strategies Youre going to see that these are largely offensive as of just gone through in many cases like the UK they come with significant strategic opportunities around new revenue streams network financing and strategic partnerships. Hopefully also of re rating of our business and then lastly, we'll always look for ways to create demonstrable.

And <unk> and transparent value either through asset sales like the potential sale of Poland and.

And possible public listening to and markets, where there is serious pent up demand for local telecom champions.

The second major pillar is becoming too big and too important to ignore and Thats of course, our growing ventures portfolio.

For the focused investment strategy around tech content.

Content and infrastructure and markets and services that are adjacent to our core operations, we continue to create value whether thats benefiting from some smart early venture capital deals such as plume of skills.

Watching some larger positions like the ITV Univision of Formula E. Appreciate.

And we're also excited about our move into infrastructure.

But we have of real right to play.

Given our track record of telecoms financing and M&A, all and all of the portfolio is valued at 3 billion, which I mentioned about $5 per share and is starting to realize cash returned has already returned 400 million and to the parent by the way we've begun the process of monetizing hidden assets and our op goes like towers, and Holland and Belgium.

And the U K and could add about $2 per share net.

Adjustments in the op goes and that's not accounted for either of the ventures group, it's not and that portfolio or and our stock. So watch this space and then of the third pillar is our Levered equity model on which is unique and the European landscape and distinguishes us from mainstream telcos.

Cozy and Europe at the core of this strategy is the prudent use of leverage and our case 4 to 5 times on the fixed rate currency hedged and siloed basis and that.

It creates the opportunity for recaps and greater equity appreciation, you all know and understand that strategy.

And we combine that with the strong stock buyback plan that just got stronger today with our commitment to repurchase.

And just 10% of our market cap annually for 3 years and again that means were adding $400 million of this year's $1 billion program only 3 quarters of which we've spent so far and we will seek to purchase 10% of the shares and 22 and 23. So that was a mouthful from me I know and.

Let me turn it over to Charlie and then we will get straight to your questions and look forward to addressing.

All of those sure Charlie over to you.

Thanks, Mike and <unk>.

Talking by highlighting our strong performance in Q2, where we achieved revenue growth across all markets and consolidated revenue growth of 3.4% now.

And I wanted an element of the Covid recovery and areas like sports and broadcasting and has been very limited.

The recovery in areas like roaming and we're seeing positive underlying growth across all of our businesses.

The U K grew 4.4%, which includes the roughly 2% benefit from premium sports with continued strong conversions volumes and <unk> performance driving growth.

Some of the also realized strong underlying growth in Q2, the the near 4%.

Growth rate does benefit from the $30 million year on year over year improvements and broadcast revenues and.

And as we guided earlier, Switzerland has returned to revenue growth fueled by continued strong mobile volumes <unk> performance on the consumer business that continues to stabilize through positive broadband supplemental.

Whilst Vodafone Zig of continues on the.

<unk> trend of strong financial growth posting of 3% year on year increase versus the prior year, which marks a milestone of 9 consecutive quarters of positive growth.

Q2 saw growth across all segments, including mobile on both the consumer and <unk> sides of the business as kind of of drugs abated.

On the next slide we provide details of our adjusted.

And EBITDA.

The cost to capture synergies continued to weigh on results from the UK and Switzerland.

Virgin Media performed in line with the prior year, despite $8 million of pre merger cost of the capture and it's worth noting that the recovery and premium sports revenues is offset by increased programming spend year on year, given the credits that we.

And Q2 of 2020.

The Swift performance continues to improve and of 3.1% decline is explained by $9 million of cost of capture on high growth and related investments and marketing and <unk>.

Synergy benefits of limited and the quarter. Despite the recent MD&A of migration back to on road network as those savings will become appear.

Receipt and half 2.

Total net growth rate was suppressed due to the acceleration of programming rights and the prior year period as live sporting events reported and the second quarter of 2020, the benefit of which we're seeing on the Q1 results.

The taken together the telenet achieved nearly 2% first half year EBITDA growth.

And in the Netherlands of 2%.

Apparently a decline was expected given the estimated 20 moment of euro impacts of Covid related temporary broadcast suspension and the nonrecurring settlement in Q2 of 2020.

But if and Zika remains on track for full year guidance.

Focusing now on the OFC App, we presented a year to date view of our performance illustrating the significant.

And OFC of generation of our core businesses.

Despite the headwind of $58 million of cost of capture the consolidated group delivered 2.1% growth and the first half.

UK OFC after 2.3% and the first 5 months of the year.

And the milestone of 2 and a half million lightning homes.

Continue.

And have it efficiently on a cost per premise continues to trend lower and delivering a cost per home of 576 pounds and the quarter.

The Swiss team remained focused on the integration and incurred significant costs and the first half to achieve longer term synergy realization the $41 million of half 1 cost to capture helped lead.

And to build the future net migrations it integration and the alignment of the product roadmaps, including the debate, although OFC half growth and Switzerland, but otherwise have been positive.

And Belgium, OFC have declined around 1%, while some of the Netherlands OFC after the 1.6% and the first half as we continue to invest in the network and remain.

And on track to have upgraded 80% of our footprint to 1 gig speeds by the end of the year.

Focusing on our core Liberty global performance metric of free cash flow, we delivered $717 million of free cash flow and half 1.

Our strong first half performance indicates we are on track for our full year guidance of $135 billion.

Which represents 26% year on year growth with growth accelerating on a per share basis, as we continue to aggressively retire our stock.

As of July we retired nearly 18 million shares since the year end 2019.

On the next slide illustrates our year to date by about performance.

As you can see as of.

July we repurchased $765 million of Liberty global slope as we approach our initial $1 billion authorization.

As Mike announced with committed to repurchasing 10% of our market cap of the year over the next 3 years, which served to increase the <unk> 'twenty or 'twenty, 1 buybacks of around $1.4 billion <unk>.

Supported.

Significant free cash flow and our corporate liquidity, which includes the cash balance of $4.1 billion as of quarter and.

A bunch of portfolio is currently valued at $3 billion, which reflects the full color on <unk> and <unk>, which we completed in early Q2, and the continued monetization of our skills stake and we realized over 80 million.

And <unk>.

During the quarter, we also announced the creation of our Atlas and joint venture with digital colony utilizing our owned real estate to provide cloud providers streaming services and enterprises with high performance edge of network facilities, 2 of which they can distribute low latency applications and services such as <unk> gaming.

Gaming Iot and edge compute.

That transaction to close in Q3 of 2021.

To conclude we are executing on our FMC strategy across all markets with positive revenue growth across our markets synergies validated and the U K and upgraded and Switzerland.

And the U K, we're excited to announce.

The cost effective upgrade of full fiber by 2028, and we are increasing our buyback program for 2021, whilst committing to repurchasing 10% of our market cap annually over the next 3 years.

Finally, we are confirming all guidance targets, noting Virgin media of to manage and we're not part of the merger clean team and as such are and the process of validating.

The combined business plan and with that operator, we'll take questions.

The question and answer session will be conducted electronically. If you would like to ask a question. Please do so by pressing star or Asterix key followed by the digit 1 on your phone and order to accommodate everyone. We request that you.

Ask only 1 question. If you are using a speaker phone. Please make sure. Your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment.

Cause for a moment to give an opportunity to join the queue.

Yeah.

All right. We'll go ahead and take our first question from David Wright.

<unk> with bank of America.

Yeah.

Thank you Barry on sugar and taking the questions today, Mike I'm going to begin with something.

A little bit more cash Paul if you don't mind.

And the equity is of your stock as Bina.

Sorry of disappointment over the last.

She is hey, you guys.

The reflected and some recent buybacks and.

The you and John and I'm very frustrated with the the talman equity and the valuations given.

And we've managed to do all of these deals recently without equity.

And right now and you're having to justify the.

Big.

Capex spend and the U K 2 of market. That's very focused on short term cash flows et cetera. When you are confident and the long term value creation and that's exactly the I think the frustration that led Eliana zone is off via email. This morning to basically say well I didn't need to deliver those short term cash flows when I know the raise long the value to.

It did and he's obviously you made the move to buy the stock back in.

Do you ever find yourself sat around the table and you Charlie and and maybe John saying just why are we bothering with these equity capital markets why don't we just by the law and we can lever up and we can invest as we know best to create value.

B, Craig just throwing that out of my Mike looked to know your thoughts.

[laughter] quite a curve ball.

But not where we expected to start the conversation with the thanks, David I appreciate the question.

And I understand the question.

And and surely every on.

Entrepreneur of CEO or chairman of the company.

And so.

Feels like it's achieving more than the market is recognizing wonders about those sorts of things why wouldn't we on the other hand, I think it's important to point out debt we are in a way.

Buying out the public right when you buy of $1 billion for stock this year and you agree to purchase another 10% of the market cap by the way not.

Company the cap the share so if the stock rises we're still spending.

Whatever it cost of <unk> 10 per cent of the shares and I saw 1 analyst say well that's the only 1 billion for every year that assumes the stock doesn't move it is the number of shares of stock doubles, we're still buying stock that.

At 10%. So we are in a sense doing what you're saying book.

But perhaps in a more measured way and perhaps in the less expensive way.

If you look back we have repurchased well over half of the company.

At varying prices, but generally prices that are less and today's price and for those shareholders, who believe and what youre doing it as a way of ensuring that they ride along with you.

And that slowed.

Slow go private if you will and if theres only 1 share remaining and when you own it and you've done well and so are we are in a sense doing the same thing, which is giving shareholders an opportunity to exit if they're frustrated and understanding what we do know about our business, we're confident and.

And putting our capital and our free cash flow to work to buy those shares. So that's all I'll say at this point.

2 businesses you know the good old piece and if you look at Elia they have their own challenges and issues I don't think our shareholders would be thrilled if we put an offer out at 7 times EBITDA stayed the company private I don't.

They'd accepted so those of unique circumstances, where perhaps those businesses have their own challenges that warrant those kinds of multiples I think our business is worth more I think most shareholders understand that and those who don't wear and the market every day buying stock.

And our next question from Robert Grindle with Deutsche Bank.

Okay.

Yes, Hi, Bob.

Thanks, So much I was half expecting some guidance around the dividend from Virgin O..2 of the clue to add group free cash flow might be getting but you've taken the the different approach by committing to Europe.

Buybacks, which you've just been talking about and can you.

Give us some.

Backgrounds of the thinking behind this is it because youre not sure yet about the funding for fiber.

Supercharged project Lightning, whether to go alone or with someone else or is the some of the rationale behind the this approach. Thanks.

Well, it's pretty straightforward Robert.

Yeah.

We have spent quite a bit of time, putting together, we believe of fixed mobile.

Group of a group of fixed mobile businesses that are <unk>.

Strong.

And have great cash flow prospects and great strategic and competitive positions we.

We also now have a very good handle on what the next 5 to 10 years of network and technology evolution means to those businesses.

And we are increasingly confident of.

About the value of those businesses and so it seems to us a good time to.

I think where the stake in the ground and reinforce our commitment to the to the stock and the business.

As we know more and have a better a better understanding of what our future looks like so I'd say, it's not a defensive move quite the opposite it's an offensive decision to take advantage of what we believe.

Is and undervalued.

Stock and to do and to show that confidence to investors of course by committing to a clear buyback strategy as opposed to and annual 1 where we let you know every 12 months of what we might or might not be doing secondly, I think it's helpful for investors.

Believe when we can demonstrate our willingness to not just use free cash flow.

But also our cash balance if our stock appreciates, which we fully expect it should.

We'll still buy back 10 per cent of the of the of the shares and if that requires us to utilize cash.

As opposed.

Adjusted free cash flow to do that then we will do that that's also and I think of great statement of confidence plus it takes a bit of and overhang off.

As it relates to those investors, who feel like we should be deploying cash more quickly.

I can't see anything, but good news and the statement it's not defensive.

It's hopefully something.

Investors appreciate.

Our next question comes from the killed the Tony with J P. Morgan.

Yeah, Hi, good morning, Thanks for taking the question maybe I can focus on the use of it. Please.

You mentioned Mike.

And most of the.

At this stage the Virgin media management team and not part of the merger process, obviously, they've not been in the position to update us on the plans I. Just wanted if you could comment on when we might expect that do we.

Expense over the next quarter and they're gonna be a standalone event, where they'll give us an update so you know how do we think about that and I guess more specific.

When we think about the U K.

There's a lot of moving parts as you outlined in your introduction.

And what you think of the biggest decisions and be the strict strategic things that need to be thought through by the management team and I guess, the 1 that we think about the law is the wholesale strategy. So maybe you can give us any sort of color on how you think.

If it keeps up the liberty.

And so if the bedroom, sorry, that'd be really interesting too.

Sure I'll take the first 1 and then loses on.

I'll ask him to address how the management team is coming together you know his the progress you've made and the organization and his commitment to the board of the joint venture.

Your 2 and he'll feel we've got a really good handle on next year and the in the years to come because lots of good work is happening there I think the biggest decisions in the U K should be pretty self evident.

And I've kind of directly or indirectly I mentioned some of those and of course, if we're as we commit to invest in fiber.

Fiber and Ah.

And the that and the balance of our footprint that isn't already fiber we want to be sure. We're focused on those things of that listed on the right hand side of the slide <unk>.

Namely the ensuring that we're getting the benefit of that investment and our b to C and <unk> businesses first and foremost on.

Also though that we are examining.

The opportunities to work with financial and strategic partners and potentially.

Wholesale partners to further monetize and utilize that investment.

We're specifically and by design not being.

Concrete about those plans today, because there's lots of work to do and lots of options to consider but.

Assume that we are.

Looking at this purely from an economic and and offensive point of view and we believe there are opportunities to explore the economic benefits that should derive from this network investment beyond simply being more competitive and the beta b and B to C space.

And you should also have to look closely at our decisions going forward around network expansion.

And we've talked about on many calls and I think where we're taking 1 step at a time. This is obviously a first step.

But I think going forward, we will look very quickly at the.

And the potential too.

We and the network beyond the current footprint and potentially do that with partners as well and an accretive way so lots of big decisions and I think.

Revolve around the network, but all of them and our mines.

Taken with the lens and you can.

You can bet that our partners of Telefonica and use the same lens of what the value.

2 expanded create and what is the impact it will have on our cash flows and and dividends. So we're being very I would say thoughtful about this and you know we're going to make decisions and the best interest of all parties, including and mostly concluding shareholders loose you want talk about the management team and how youre coming together on the broader strategic and operational.

<unk> Yeah sure sure.

So we have 4 priorities and BMO tool.

1 is integrated to both companies' second is cheap and accelerate the business momentum book.

Transformed the company into digital and force find the right.

Value this towards the fixed network extension.

On number of warm.

We had really a jumpstart so we have the top 100 of the organization of nonsense of months.

We have been just sharing our plan for this year with our board yesterday. So obviously the board has to decide.

And the minute the bulk besides I think you would get the guidance, but I think what I can say is that this was very much in line with expectation from both shareholder.

We are working now on the new 3 years plan until October and.

After that we'll get all the board approval and.

Sure the outlined with you guys and also we have already re confirmed.

And that the team is able to get to the $540 million run rate synergies why can we do this already because we spent quite a lot of time on.

On the pre merger activities.

And so so we build on a pretty strong foundation here.

Business momentum I think you've seen our momentum and.

And Q2 numbers look look at our competitors look at what we are doing so we are approaching these integration with strong business momentum both across mobile and fixed digital.

I think if we shouldn't touch it now.

And I'm sure, we'll find some time and we will transform our business entirely into digital and that's where the expansion I mean, its the right Mike Mike said it it's the big step it's an offensive move when the business process and now we talk about finding the right.

Solution for these additional 7 million homes plant the right balance how to invest our capital into 5 G and forging capacity and.

And find the right partnering model and so a lot to do good stopped with the momentum.

Back to you and Mike.

Okay. Thanks, guys.

We'll go ahead and take our next question from Nick why all of a society Generale.

Yes, good morning, everybody.

The good bunch of the wholesale strategy, please Mike and I mean, there's risks with this as well so.

And you're confident you can protect the Ohio per retail subs. If you were to do the have you sold through that yet obviously.

But of your could you share with us some thoughts from the U K business on that and any any conversations at all with Ofcom and could I could I just clarify when you're talking about the wholesale you are including the cable.

HFC network to wholesale as well or is it just the incremental fiber parts of the network. Thanks very much.

Look it doesn't really good questions Nick and.

I'd love to dig to walk you through the.

The exhaustive amount of analysis that we've done and both the Liberty and the Virgin Media O 2 and telefonica levels around all of this but I prefer not to and think it's safe to say that if we were to.

And enter into any sort of wholesale provider.

Provider arrangements or consider that as a long term strategy than we would have thought through the impact on <unk>, the regulatory impact and the best technology solutions to achieve that.

To not get into.

Such detailed today and.

The announcement is plenty to 2 to digest for investors and we want to focus on explaining how we got there and and how we will achieve that but.

But but I think it's safe to say, we have lots of time to think through how we are.

Exploit and monetize that commitment beyond.

To my benefits to our own business and I would just give us a little time to you know the to finish those considerations.

Considerations and the and you will certainly have plenty to talk about over the course of the next few quarters.

Sorry to be evasive, but I just can't get the slippery slope you know we could get into a lot of detail that's probably not helpful. Here no understood some of its Mike.

You got it.

We'll take our next question from Steve Malcolm from Redburn.

Yeah. Good afternoon, guys just just on the U K fiber plans can you maybe just help us understand what is so unique about the UK network I should know the software of million euros thickness joke, but honestly.

Allows you to build such a low cost relative to other networks on the yes. So the second part is in euros.

And it's probably you're talking about I presume you anything of any construction required and so what was it you completed the fibers.

Directly and so all of the docs for the Covid.

Customers and I guess, the 1 besides on the project Lightning experience Hasnt been seamless and the last 6 years, so maybe what lessons of Yolanda.

You know what confidence can you give us the the targets you set out yesterday are going to be the numbers you actually do.

That'd be great. Thanks.

Well, let you can you can prepare and ori henrique a little bit more color on why the we believe the numbers.

To be of course accurate and as you point out.

You learn and expensive than our peers, let me just make a comment on project lightning.

We have been rebuilt 2 and a half million homes at this point I think the you referenced to you know.

Slippage goes back 5 years, maybe for quite a while ago.

Since that early moment and I.

I would describe that as a very early on it it had been and machine and we have been extremely effective consistent and predictable and our execution of the.

Our network expansion in the U K, our returns and our penetration rates have been exactly what we said they would be and our.

Our capital costs have come down consistently as we ask S. P. A a and we get smarter and better at it.

And executing on this large construction project together with suppliers. So I don't think we have any I think we are as active and successful and predictable as anybody.

And the U K market and you can just talk to the suppliers that we work with to confirm that our ability of our credibility or ability to achieve this and Mike in my opinion is it sound and really not that questionable, but looser on Rico Youre welcome to dive a little bit more into the detail around 100 pounds, if you'd like to.

Yes.

And maybe you stops right.

Sure I'll, just make a couple of comments.

First of all of the the the number is the obviously on average over quite a few different scenarios, but in the case of this.

Great.

At the.

George the of the.

The process actually uses of our existing docs and all of our existing.

5 of deep DOCSIS network allows us to really focus the upgrade capital.

Basically on the significant portion of the passive part of the network there are construction and you're you're asking the question.

Is it because there's no construction costs there are construction costs, but it's significantly nowhere day.

And then when you're building.

Brand New territory like we are doing and the.

And lighting and and the final point I would make is that the.

And the significant commonality between both of the technology as well as the.

The construction mechanisms between lightning and what we'll be doing and and it's upgrade so we're pretty confident the we we understand the the process and that we would hate those targets.

Photo of like I think you said, the Openreach snuck past and like 10 to 15 per cent of your network with Foie Gras and you maybe just update us on what you're seeing where they have coffee with 5 of your singly 6 of of change and that sort of customer on board and get off where the guy dynamics and those areas.

And then you can address that.

Yeah. So I mean, you've also seen a steep that the new wholesale prices right and now and and will kick in and for 1 gig that the send 22 pounds today right. The 5 of prices are very very high and we we watch it very carefully but.

Look at our and that that's so so we don't see and and pick that all at the moment will that they they say no because we think that Ah right.

Prices for higher speeds will go down a bit we would see a bit more competition here, but on the other hand tied like we have no more than 40 per cent of our shakes customers, having lots of mobile with us and that will help out of all its approach of to protect our customers from from.

The other point I'd make is we are already 1 gig.

Pretty much and will be at the end of this year, 1 gig of capable across 100 per cent of our subscriber base and.

And isn't as if the T or any openreach customer will be providing a superior product to us. It's really of me to product and we're gonna have the advantage of being there first across the entirety of our footprint and will be marketing aggressively both fixed mobile products as well as 1 of <unk>.

Egg products well ahead of the vast majority of these operators because we're already there. This is what I meant when I said and what's not a fair fight because it's b T as building to get to 1 gig we're already 1 gig and.

And we're just basically further supercharging or of networks for the next 10 years by ensuring that will have symmetrical 10 gig when and if that market and requires it so.

Hard to see us not being able to compete with any activity from B T. Your openreach given the fact that we're and so far ahead of them and we sit here today.

And the 1 gig.

Mhm. Thank you.

We'll take our next question from Matthew Harrigan with benchmark.

Oh. Thank you another angle on on 5 or 1 of your large U S. Peers is taking the most more of a parallel network topology approach it sounds like what you're doing all the more complicated. So you you know there's 1 thing and then I'll do I hope on <unk> doesn't get the Simone boil twisty and on the execution because it sounds a little and fall.

But the other thing and it was real interesting on your U S P or what day, even though they have no and homes bath them and they didn't even call out the cost of the operating of simultaneously with over a million homes payoffs because the cost of the fiber was so low I'll I'll be <unk>, what's the what's the 5 per cent.

<unk> can you talk about you know the cost of of even fiber and you know sort of the victim with some people is you're gonna get about 30 per cent of reductions and consumer touch cost and related topics and.

And then secondly on the the answers portfolio of you've got a couple of things of that.

I I I I think the valuation of your carry on and it's probably pretty safe and say and you've got a couple of things that would probably have a lot of sort of Kathy would type of appeal. If there was a flotations, hoping like formula E.

As well as the I, just computer and could you talk specifically about some of the possibilities around the formula E and whether it's a compliment or displacement to to the formula 1. Thank you.

<unk>, I think <unk> and they're gonna be gay wood wood the echoes.

Echoes of comment that of fiber network could easily and should reduce operating costs over the long haul I think it's important to point out, though and the U K, we're not decommissioning of the cable network. We're gonna continue to utilize the DOCSIS 3 that 1 plant and kick us all the way to 2.2 gigabytes. So we'll be at 2 gig pretty shortly here on the docks and.

Plant and will continue to utilize that plant wherever and whenever necessary with the fiber really being and overlay as opposed to a replacement and of the coax network. The order of the H F. C component of the network anyway, they'll share tons of fiber to the to the cabin and if you will.

But beyond that will keep the HFC network viable. So the cost will be there soon and there'll be cost savings longterm and capex evenings longterm, but I think you have to remember the those annual cost of them you may not be quite it's gonna be and on the venture side, there's lots of assets within adventures.

[noise] that could easily find your way into the hands of other strategic owners Ipos et cetera, and we have at least 8 to 10 unicorns and the tech portfolio, which is about $800 million of the 3 billion and we have some relatively large businesses and the content portfolio of you mentioned, 1 formula eat, but we have the steak and I T V, which we have the relatively low base of.

The sin Buffy media and some other assets and so each of those have their own sort of storyline and opportunity and Formula E is doing terrific and it's 7 season coming back strong from Covid with some really exciting things happening with the car and the technology next year, we've got Mercedes.

<unk>, alright, and manufacturers getting behind it and.

And the product just gets better and better with a with and if you've got another 18 years of exclusivity with F. I E. On the electric car racing. So it's gonna be terrific to see how that platform evolves over the over the long haul and we're always looking at ways to help our portfolio companies the cheese their goals, whether that's through flow.

Patients or or mergers or or whenever fundraising. So stay tuned we'll give you more information on those assets as a ball.

Oh overtime or are you more likely to have the mobile traffic on the on the age of seating and at work and some of the emergence of some new technologies from Cisco and others or is that gonna be on the on on the fiber.

And that worked and if you don't mind my asking.

Well, we do back all the day, and which can speak about that we provide quite a bit of backhaul services to almost all of the mobile operators and you can't including you'll do so 4 O..2 typically utilizing fiber, but I I don't know if there's some other element to that on the game at least you wanted and you want you you can do it over both but generally speaking of the circuits are fiber.

Yes, the the mobile of traffic is mostly on the 5 of them at work and will continue to the growing that direction. It that made the report the mistake cases English we use a portion of that you took the network, but it's really the F of HFC that is being the other issue.

Great. Thanks, Mike Thanks for the <unk>.

Yeah.

Our next question comes from Andrew B O S. I tell you the research.

Oh, Hi, I'm just wondering if we can develop the discussion about uhm amongst on find the cost savings and and Virgin and I mean, as <unk> and <unk> or approve of 5 or alongside the existing at your C network will correct I.

I guess you can choose what he said of each existing on new customer of <unk> DOCSIS of Fries are and and then the longest time, you've got the sofa saving when you switch the doses of.

So what is your thinking of the moment, where do you prove a new customer of the upgraded on 5 or do you just do it for the customer <unk> speaking of something in the high speed too or symmetrical or on the side of the services and then and how how many years off are you thinking it is that you actually switch off DOCSIS and an area that you previously.

With the Fry the I guess I'm, just really asking them about the the pacing of variable Catholics. The replacement of the connect strokes with 5 of us as the link Okay. So I didn't go for Tuesday, and what you think he is not.

Yeah. It's it's the right question and I think it's a little early for us to provide any guidance around what percent of customers will require or want of fiber connection and you know the cost implications of of that but you should assume we're working that through we have worked that through but for in terms of disclosing that I think of.

The little premature and.

I don't go Enrique and lose can chime in here I think you know the cable network will exist for quite some time and.

And and it will provide us with a seamless the ability to serve customers, who don't require either of the benefits of the fiber network of the speed and capacity of of of fiber network. That's a nice luxury to have that we can get people up to 2 gigabytes you know on the existing plant. So that's the basic strategy.

As we get the move forward here and and the the idea of of the sort of further disclosure and Virgin media Oh choose plan.

And when it's developed maybe we'll do that will take some time on 1 of our future quality calls and hear the dive deep the the little little early to do that for the public today, but you know you think you are on the right point you know in terms of of what percentage of customers will require a drop and the new C. P. E. How quickly will that happen you know and you can make your on assumptions about that we certainly have other things too.

It really for us to put that in and of <unk>.

<unk> and the top of the X.

I mean, let's go ahead and <unk>. So so first of all we are we are on the luxury position right that we can plan the migration predominantly customer demand driven and that means across the mother and 1 still have I S. B then to go up to gigabyte per second Alright, I mean, Mike said like.

The beginning today, a bunch of media customer of choosing to omit the and it took like and then as to the 2 gigabit per second right. So that will take some time that's number 1 number 2 we asked the luxury to have well in 1 area. We can have 1 home and then on fiber and the next <unk>. We can have on DOCSIS 3 dot com alright, So we are not.

Forced to really migrate entire regions onto the fiber and I think number 3 obviously over time, we want 12 of balance approach to really use the capacity of the 5 on that the book and balance with the 3 dark on Doctor.

Dr. Pepper alright. So these are the factors and it and like I said earlier right. The biggest drive off of off is not the cost saving with switching off the net work right. When you sit on a coke on network and and of stories 80, Mac and then you have to think about the Mitchell when you sit on it.

Sit on the boxes network and today, we see easily we get to the 2 the 2 gigabit per second and then you you absolutely want to leverage both networks, what's driving it is the business opportunities across the consumer and.

The to be huge growth up a T and T and you think about the oil market share Schillo 10 per cent, we have and all of a 5 G network and the fiber next book.

Lots of things of possible and then the whole total touch and so so I think stay tuned on that.

Okay. Thank you.

We'll take our next question from the screams Ratcliff with Evercore ISI.

Alright, and 2 if I could the first of all I noticed you the boosted the series of your expectations and Switzerland and cause of some additional cost to achieve how does that affect the time frame for foreseeing the cost of achievers of synergies slipped positive and that market and secondly, just going back to the buyback.

Can you talk about the thought process around doing as a percentage of of market cap rather than say, a fixed dollar amount or free cash flow plus of given dollar amount cause and this has the effect of you know the more stock goes up the more you'd be buying back.

Yeah, I'll say goodbye back cushy, and obviously and Andre and do you want to prepare some thoughts around the Swiss question.

Want to make sure I'm fond of what you're saying James if we're we're that'd be clarify what were what were committing to which is to repurchase 10% of the shares outstanding.

The beginning of the year, regardless of price you know over the next 24 months. So it the amount of the buyback.

Or the dollar amount of that spend will vary.

Depending upon the price at that that doesn't mean, we couldn't accelerate that if the price were lower to perhaps take and anticipate on 1 of your follow up questions and.

But we would continue to commit to that if the price of our higher and therefore seems to us that where the investors now will be able to incorporate into their thinking around stock price and growth and a minimum of of 10% improvement in the share price.

We hope based upon the buyback commitment we've made so it seems to us to be and easier and more predictable.

And more beneficial approach to buy back meaning that we're committing to that 10 per cent number and if it were a dollar figure hard to know what that impact would be right.

Kind of.

Yep Andre.

Yeah, well on your question and that's the higher synergy uhm expectation and it has an impact on the timescale and I'll see realization no 1000, and so we actually have seen that some of them and.

And the assumption that we have taken on the realization of moving customers over to 1 of infrastructure on from hold on the infrastructure.

The more Conservatives and what the thing is no realistic to achieve and that does not really change the time frame and in fact, we have seen some synergies coming and even if the early you've seen and the presentation and move the looting too.

The N b and Oh migration being executed the head of scheduled and overall I would say we are kind of rather head of the <unk> schedule them behind so no real change to the timescale.

And gave.

[noise] [noise] well go ahead and take on writers question from Oh go correct Yep and they'll go ahead and upper edge of wasn't sure what's happening but [noise].

I'll go ahead and take our next question from all of that faith with the Jeffries.

And thanks very much I have a question and then probably 2 to lots of.

Does the the 5 are upgrade plan and.

Ah require and footprint share gangs, and the consumer market and I understand the opportunities beyond that but the and contentious literally the the consumer market and.

Is that an element here that you think and you can up the share the market share. Thank you.

Well I mean, we are currently winning market share right with the speed advantage and and we we have not made any plan and get what kind of market share and we are tending to win over the next 10 years and we have.

And justify it the plan by wouldn't of of market share and consumer and like I said earlier on we we have just started now after committing the budget for 21 and.

To come up with and 3 of plan and be on and and then we of walking on that but it's definitely an opportunity to keep our customers and also to increase as she of all of it so option polka home with all of our customer if we if we keep winning market share to S. We do 2 day.

Give us some time to figure out that on.

Okay.

I think the amount that passed the call back to my Kris.

[noise], Okay. Thank listen and appreciate you staying on with US I know, there's other calls happened and today to you probably already on your way, but looking at 4 key take away from my point of view growth continues and R. F. M. She champions and synergies are just now starting to show up so that's gonna be of positive tailwind here and and in the medium term.

We're excited to start providing greater transparency around the network strategies with the UK being the first of those announcements and I can assure you were looking at these things do and offensive and accretive lens and we have the luxury of doing that because we have such a fiber rich network to begin with and a strong of broadband base as we sit here and.

Today pay attention to the ventures portfolio, it's it's growing and value and significance and we'll keep you posted on the Polish deal, which is just another reaffirmation of the private market value of of our businesses and lastly, you know we're excited about the buyback commitment. It's the strong statement from US I think that's something you can take to the bank. If you will you're in and <unk>.

This year and for the next 2 years and that's got to be useful for investors, who want to see is to pull the capital in and 1 of the most obvious places and that's our own share. So I. Appreciate you joining will speak to you soon have a great August bye bye.

He doesn't gentleman. This concludes slurped Liberty global second quarter of 2021 and faster call. As a reminder, a replay of the call and there'll be available on the Investor Relations section of Liberty clubhouse website and.

And you can also find the copy of today's presentation of materials.