Q3 2024 Liberty TripAdvisor Holdings Inc Earnings Call - Q&A
Now he's on his private island.
Welcome to the Liberty Broadband 2024 Q3 earnings call.
During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode.
Afterward, we will conduct a question-and-answer session.
At that time, if you have a question, please press star 1 on your touchtone phone.
Speaker Change: As a reminder, this conference will be recorded today, November 7th, 2024. I would now like to turn the call over to Shane Kleinstein, SVP, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Shane Kleinstein: Thank you, and good morning. Before we begin, we'd like to remind everyone that this call includes certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Security Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual events or results could differ materially due to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those mentioned in the most recent forms 10k and 10q, followed by Liberty Broadband and Liberty Trip Advisor with the SEC.
Shane Kleinstein: These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this call, and Liberty Broadband and Liberty Trip Advisor expressly disclaim any obligation or undertaking
Shane Kleinstein: to disseminate any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statement contained herein to reflect any change in Liberty Broadband or Liberty Trip Advisor's expectations with regard thereto or any change in events, conditions, or circumstances on which any such statement is based.
On today's call, we will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures for Liberty Broadband, including adjusted OEB debt. Information regarding the comparable GAAP metrics, along with required definitions and reconciliations, including preliminary notes in Schedules 1 and 2, can be found in the earnings press release issued today, as well as earnings releases for prior periods, which are available on Liberty's website.
Speaker Change: Now I'd like to turn the call over to Greg Maffei, Liberties President and CEO. Good morning and thank you Shane.
Greg Maffei: Today, speaking on the call, we will have Liberty Broadband's Chief Accounting and Principal Financial Officer, Brian Wendling.
Speaker Change: Ron Duncan, CEO of GCI, and Pete Pounds, CFO of GCI, will also be available to answer questions.
Speaker Change: Also during Q&A, we will be available to answer questions related to Liberty Trip Advisor.
So beginning with Liberty Broadband
You may recall we filed a 13-D on the SEC with the SEC on the 23rd of September.
It noted that Liberty Broadband and Charter were discussing a proposed all-stock transaction.
The combination would
rationalize the dual corporate structure, provide enhanced trading liquidity,
Speaker Change: provide clarity to OSET's shareholders with regard to the certainty of a future transaction, and continue our strong partnership with Charter in the interim.
Speaker Change: Additional updates on any potential transaction will only be provided if and when definitive terms are agreed upon.
I would note that the LBRD NAV discount has tightened considerably, and since that filing is now in the mid-teens.
Giving ongoing discussions between Charter and Liberty Broadband, Charter did pause its buyback, which resulted in a limited amount of proceeds to Liberty Broadband from Charter sales during the period.
We're looking now at charter.
Speaker Change: Charter experienced strong subscriber results and accelerating financial growth in the third quarter.
Speaker Change: They experienced a 110,000 broadband loss, 110,000 broadband net loss, would have been growth absent the impact of ACP.
Speaker Change: I think Charter is managing its ACP disruption well, and I anticipate October will be the last month of meaningful impact.
Speaker Change: Charter also experienced revenue growth of 1.6% and adjusted EBITDA growth of 3.6% during the quarter.
Speaker Change: They benefited from prior cost actions and the strong political ad cycle.
Speaker Change: I would note that residential ARPU was up 1.8%, which is an acceleration versus the recent trend.
Speaker Change: Mobile continued to perform very well with 545,000 mobile net ads, which puts their base over 9 million lines.
Speaker Change: ARPU was growing in mobile due to the uptake of the Unlimited Plus tier.
Plus, it was driven by the Anytime Upgrade Program.
Speaker Change: Free cash flow was 1.6%, which was up 48% over the prior year. And net leverage was 4.22 times, slightly below the revised target.
Speaker Change: All of these were driven by high free cash flow generation and limited share repurchase activity.
Speaker Change: Turning briefly to LTRIP, discussions are progressing with TRIP and their special committee. Remain focused on the rationalization of our capital structure.
Speaker Change: As Tripp mentioned on their call, they did not repurchase shares this quarter given the ongoing discussions with L-TRIP.
Speaker Change: We will provide an update on this transaction only when such discussions reach a definitive conclusion are Limited what we can comment upon at this time
Speaker Change: Given discussions, TripAdvisor has also elected not to present at Liberty's Investor Day.
Speaker Change: I will at that day make some remarks in the business since the trip
will not be in attendance.
Speaker Change: But looking at TripAdvisor itself now, Brand TripAdvisor saw positive growth from some of its prized strategy work. MAU's returned to year-over-year growth year-to-date.
Speaker Change: The direct channel monthly active users was up 30% versus the prior year. This reflects TRIP's ongoing efforts to increase engagement with updated app experience and engaging product features.
Speaker Change: For example, you need travel content, AI-powered review summaries, and hotel booking directly in the app.
Speaker Change: 11% margin that was solid growth outside of search experience solid growth outside of search and direct and low-cost channels and They continue to see stronger repeat bookings
Speaker Change: Turning briefly to the Fork, it was the best finance performance they had on record with revenue of 17%, adjusted EBITDA of $5 million, which achieved a 10% margin, the highest they've ever achieved.
Speaker Change: And they've had success adding B2B partnerships with MasterCard as well as a prior announcement with Vodafone.
Speaker Change: TRIP has a robust liquidity picture. As of the end of the third quarter, it had approximately 1.1 billion of cash and just under 500 million of unborrowed revolver capacity.
Speaker Change: And with that, I'll turn it over to Brian briefly to discuss the financials.
Brian Wendling: Thank you Greg. At quarter end, Liberty Broadband had consolidated cash and cash equivalents of $168 million.
which includes $47 million of cash at GCI.
Speaker Change: The value of our charter investment based on our shares held as of November 1st and charter share price at yesterday's close was $18.6 billion.
Speaker Change: At quarter end, Liberty Broadband had a total principal amount of debt of $3.7 billion.
excludes the preferred stock.
Speaker Change: Looking quickly at GCI's results for the third quarter, revenue was up nicely at $22 million increase over the prior year, driven by continued strength in data revenue. Business data revenue benefited from a strong upgrade cycle in school and healthcare corporations in rural Alaska.
Speaker Change: Adjusted OEBDA increased $11 million in line with the increased revenue, partially offset by some higher operating costs in SG&A.
values.
Speaker Change: Over the last year, adjusted for the reclassification from GCI Business, GCI Consumer saw a decline of 1,800 revenue-generating wireless subscribers. Cable modem subscribers declined by 3,800, with 3,400 of these losses driven by the expiration of GCI.
the ACP program.
around.
Speaker Change: Quarter-end, GCI's leverage was 3.1 times with sufficient cushion relative to the 6.5 times maximum leverage covenant threshold stipulated in the credit facility.
Speaker Change: And they had $367 million of undrawn capacity under their revolver net of letters of credit.
Speaker Change: And with that, I will turn the call back over to Greg.
Greg Maffei: To our listening audience, we look forward to seeing you on Thursday, November 14th for our annual investor meeting. You can tune in virtually or join us in person at our new location, Jazz at Lincoln Center.
Greg Maffei: If you plan to attend in person, please make sure to register by Monday, November 11th, as there will not be on-site registration.
Speaker Change: The link to register can be found on our website. John and Malone and I will be hosting our annual Q&A session. If you'd like to submit questions in advance, you can email InvestorDay at LibertyMedia.com.
Speaker Change: We appreciate your continued interest in Liberty Broadband and Liberty TripAdvisor, and operator with that, I'd like to open the line for questions.
Speaker Change: Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. The confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue.
Speaker Change: Our first questions come from the line of Ben Swinburne with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your questions.
Speaker Change: Hey Greg, on the charter approach or the proposals, I guess the question I have is sort of why now? Obviously, we're seeing...
other kind of rationalization in the liberty.
Speaker Change: But I'd love to just get you to kind of step back and explain the thought process of moving forward, at least discussion-wise, with this. And also, what kind of has to happen?
Speaker Change: from a process point of view, to allow charter to get back in the market, buying back stock, which obviously impacts Liberty and its ability to...
Speaker Change: And then I just want, I don't know if Ron can comment on this, but is there anything we should be thinking about from a regulatory point of view around change of control in Alaska that's different than what we might see in a typical cable acquisition, telecom acquisition?
Thanks, Ben. I'll start.
Speaker Change: We came up with a it's been proposed a structure that would work for both
Speaker Change: charter and liberty broadband in terms of allowing us to tighten the discount eliminate the dual corporate structure over time, but still provide
Speaker Change: support and a partnership in the interim until the closing. So I think it was just a meeting of the minds that this was an attractive time for both parties to construct something that worked to help both of our sets of interests.
Speaker Change: On the buyback, I think, you know, upon either the announcement of a signed deal or the cessation if they were unable to reach a deal, they would be able to begin their buybacks again. But I'm not the, that would be my understanding.
Speaker Change: Ron, do you want to comment on anything on Alaska regulatory? I know you guys do have a unique regulator to have to go through approval.
Speaker Change: We do and it actually makes it fairly simple up here. Our franchises and our certificates come from a single state agency. They're not municipally based. Alaska regulatory approval, if there was a change of control, would be
Speaker Change: Anything, Ron, on the transfer? I actually don't know if you guys have FCC licenses, I apologize, but from a wireless point of view, anything we should be thinking about there?
Speaker Change: We have wireless, we have microwave, we have cable landing licenses, we are flush with FCC stuff, so there would be a normal FCC process in several different segments of the FCC. Okay. Got it. Thanks a lot.
Speaker Change: Thank you. Our next questions come from the line of CutGunMorale with Evercore ISI. Please proceed with your question.
Speaker Change: Good afternoon and thanks for taking the questions. Two quick ones on the charter negotiations and then since I assume you can't share much more a separate follow-up if I could. So on the negotiations I wanted to see if you can help us think about where PCI fits into those discussions.
Speaker Change: realistic scenario where GCI is not included in a potential transaction or is that unlikely given what might be
Speaker Change: a desire to potentially avoid complications around, I don't know, maybe taxes or having a...
Separate drawn-out process with a third another third party
Speaker Change: Relatedly, there's been some confusion around the mid-2027 closed timeline that both companies referenced. Is there any more context you could provide on that timeline? And assuming GCI is included in the deal, is there any reason why that date can't be moved up? And then I have a follow-up.
Speaker Change: Okay, so click on the, I think I can't comment because you've seen that the two proposals had differing views of GCI.
Speaker Change: I can't comment until there's a resolution of those publicly. On the question of the timing, I think it was outlined in some of the letter that went back and forth that the delayed timing was to compensate for the regulatory process.
Speaker Change: Give some opportunity to de-lever at Liberty Broadband and to continue the partnership for a period of time where it's known That they're eventually come together, but we can be supportive
Speaker Change: I appreciate that. And maybe switching gears a bit to a topic where you might be able to speak a little bit more on. Greg, we've seen a number of announcements and targets over the last few months be announced from the telcos around their fiber and fixed wireless ambitions. I assume you'll share a lot more of your views next week, but anything you could touch on in terms of how you see the broadband market and the competitive dynamics evolving in the coming years, and where?
Speaker Change: Charter sits within that as arguably one of the most attractive plays on convergence. Thanks
Greg Maffei: Yeah, I think you touched on the point as far as convergence.
Greg Maffei: Charters pursuing it aggressively with their mobile offering, Spectrum 1 and the other offerings like that that they've done which bring both broadband video and...
Greg Maffei: mobile together. Bringing that converged network is absolutely one of Charter's goals to take advantage of the strength of the network they have. The upgrade program that they have with
the high split
allowing symmetric
Greg Maffei: broadband up and down is an important part of that. And I think it leverages Charter's strengths and the strength of their coax network and coax and fiber network.
Greg Maffei: The trends in the marketplace suggest that we've seen less growth in FWA and more people looking at fixed plant and being desirous of fixed plant. And Charter believes, as do we, that their plant, particularly after that high split, is going to be
a powerful competitive weapon and make an attractive consumer offering.
Thank you so much.
Speaker Change: Thank you. Our last questions will come from the line of Barton Crockett with Rosenblatt Securities. Please proceed with your questions.
Speaker Change: Hi, thanks for taking the questions. I was curious about your thoughts on just antitrust
Speaker Change: you know, in a Republican administration, do you think if there was a relaxation of,
Speaker Change: views on antitrust, would that open opportunities that would be meaningful for M&A around charter, do you think? Or do you think you could already do what you want to do so that doesn't really matter?
Yeah, Barton, as far as, you know,
Speaker Change: charter being acquired, there are not that many substantive targets out there. Most of them, I suspect, could have been accomplished even under the current regulatory regime. As far as, you know, other larger combinations...
Speaker Change: I think it's too soon to tell what would be allowed.
Speaker Change: But, you know, could you see more convergence to build national networks? I think that would be a competitive strength, that would be interesting. Could you see more combinations?
Greg Maffei: Reflecting that converged network, that would be interesting as well potentially, but, you know, it's more likely than not, just looking as a casual observer that this regime, a new regulatory regime would be more open to that, but it's hard to know for certain.
Okay, that's it. Thank you.
Speaker Change: Thank you Bart. I guess operator we are through with the questions. Thank you for our listening audience for their interest in Liberty Broadband and Liberty Trip Advisor. As I said, we look forward to seeing some of you in person and some of you virtually next week.
And until then, be well.
Speaker Change: Thank you. That does conclude today's teleconference. We appreciate your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Enjoy the rest of your day.