EchoStar Corporation (SATS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the EchoStar Earnings Conference Call for the Fourth Quarter and Year-End 2020. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Terry Brown. Thank you. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you. Good morning, everybody, and welcome to our earnings call for the fourth quarter of 2020. I'm joined today by Mike Dugan, our CEO; Dave Rayner, COO and CFO; Pradman Kaul, President of Hughes; Anders Johnson, Chief Strategy Officer and President of EchoStar Satellite Services; and Dean Manson, General Counsel and Secretary. As usual, we invite media to participate in a listen-only mode on the call and ask that you not identify participants or their firms in your report. We also do not allow audio recording, which we ask that you respect. Let me now turn this over to Dean for the safe harbor disclosure.

Thank you, Terry. All statements we make during this call, other than statements of historical fact, constitute forward-looking statements that involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause our actual results to be materially different from historical results and from any future results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. For a list of those factors and risks, please refer to our annual report on Form 10-K filed today with the SEC. All cautionary statements we make during the call should be understood as being applicable to any forward-looking statements we make wherever they appear. You should carefully consider the risks described in our reports and should not place any undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. We assume no responsibility for updating any forward-looking statements. Mike, over to you.

Thank you, Dean, and thanks to all of you that decided to join us today for our Q4 2020 earnings call. By all accounts, 2020 brought a share of challenges, but the EchoStar team rose to the occasion and once again delivered solid financial results. I'm very pleased with our 2020 performance as evidenced by growth over 2019 in both revenue and adjusted EBITDA. As we enter the second year of the global pandemic, we continue to supply the connectivity on which millions of consumers, enterprise, government agencies and communities depend. I'm also proud of the EchoStar team's efforts and operational accomplishments in delivering services that have never been more vital to our customers. Let me now turn it over to the management team to expand on their business segments before closing with some final comments and then the question-and-answer period. Pradman?

Thank you, Mike. I'd like to echo Mike's comments and say that I'm extremely proud of our performance and our financial results. Hughes 2020 revenue was our highest on record. Our adjusted EBITDA grew 7% in the fourth quarter and 8% for the full year compared to the same period last year. Our 2020 adjusted EBITDA margin was 38.9%, increasing from 36% in 2019. We grew our Hughes net subscriber base by approximately 87,000 during this year and were recently recognized by U.S. News & World Report 360 Reviews as the Best Satellite Internet Provider of 2021. This is welcome validation of our dedication to connecting the unconnected to a high-performance Internet service. We ended 2020 with 1,564,000 subscribers. In the fourth quarter, our subscriber base in the U.S. declined by approximately 27,000. As you know, our U.S. consumer offering is currently capacity constrained. As a result, we continue to manage our sales and marketing efforts to optimize service to our existing subs. We also continue to innovate to enhance the customer experience, applying advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence across our network. Driven by the ongoing strong demand for broadband services and our focus on offering ancillary services that enhance our customers' experience, our U.S. ARPU has steadily increased. We expect these trends to continue in the near term. In Latin America, in Q4, we grew our subscriber base by approximately 11,000 and improved ARPU over the previous quarter. Our sales slowed in this market relative to the third quarter as COVID-19 pandemic restrictions eased and many people returned to schools and offices on a regular basis. We saw an increase in churn, which we believe was partially due to changes we made in our collections process, impacting net sub additions. Community WiFi services, which we offer in partnership with Facebook Connectivity, continued to be an important offering for us in Latin America. We now have more than 1,500 of these Hughes-expressed WiFi hotspots deployed and are focused on improving monthly ARPUs with targeted marketing activities. We expect to see ongoing growth in these consumer markets in 2021. For our North American enterprise business, the team continued to drive an increase in orders relative to the first half of 2020. We closed upgrades and extensions with several large accounts and saw a significant increase in our field deployment activity. With the increase in activity through Q3 and Q4, we completed more enterprise deployments in 2020 than in 2019. Once more, the enterprise group received significant recognition in industry analyst reports during the quarter with both Frost & Sullivan and Gartner publishing research that highlighted the team's capabilities in the managed services market. We continue to invest in expanding our market-leading capabilities and in innovation across our managed services portfolio. Investments in artificial intelligence have allowed us to automate identification and resolution of network problems. These capabilities are being leveraged across our North American and international enterprise customers as well as our internal consumer operations. In the international enterprise business, we see projects resuming and new opportunities developing. One of the world's preeminent financial companies has extended its service agreement with us to provide managed services to their locations across the Americas, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. In India, we received an order to implement more than 4,000 ATMs in support of the State Bank of India. The new order brings our total to more than 50,000 ATMs being serviced in India. Also there, we received expansion orders from Reliance Jio to provide 4G backhaul services in 7 states and to add more than 600 VSATs as part of the BharatNet program to connect villages across the country. In the Asia Pacific region, we won a project with a large maritime service provider to deliver a Jupiter system and an initial order of 500 modems. In Africa, in support of one of the region's largest national governments, we've been awarded a contract by a service provider to deliver Jupiter system supporting land mobility for government vehicles. And we continue to work on closing our joint venture agreement with Bharti Airtel in India. This -- as previously noted, this is subject to regulatory approvals. For our defense business, 2020 was an outstanding year in terms of sales, culminating in the fourth quarter with follow-on orders from major prime contractors and classified customers. Our government enterprise group was chosen as an approved provider by the Georgia Technology Authority under its GTA Direct program that makes it easy for eligible agencies to procure essential broadband connectivity from Hughes. The team also continues to rollout networks for 4 state agencies across approximately 500 locations in Pennsylvania. We look forward to continued momentum in these business segments in 2021. Our Jupiter 3 satellite continues to progress at Maxar. In December 2020, we contracted for the launch of this satellite. We have received an updated schedule for Maxar, and we now expect to launch in the second half of 2022. This delay is due in part to the COVID-19 restrictions that every company is facing and in part to production issues with certain components. We are working diligently with Maxar to both mitigate these issues and identify ways to recover the schedule without risk to the satellite. In addition, our launch vehicle should limit the amount of time related to satellite arbitrating, which will assist our in-service schedule. Although we are disappointed with this delay, we remain excited about Jupiter 3 as that will bring significant additional capacity to our markets as well as the ability to offer higher speed service plans to our customers. In addition, we have started exploring potential architectures for the next-generation Jupiter satellites. We've expanded our role with OneWeb, the LEO broadband satellite company, with a contract to develop and manufacture essential ground system technology for the new LEO constellation. In a 3-year agreement valued at approximately $250 million, Hughes will produce the gateway electronics and the core module that will be used in every user terminal. Designed by Hughes, this core module is uniquely adaptable across fixed as well as aeronautical and maritime mobility terminals for either electronically or mechanically steered antennas. OneWeb resumed deployment of its broadband satellite constellation with the December 18 launch of 36 satellites, the first since the company emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Hughes operates in an evolving industry and a changing market, as we have for 50 years. We've learned a lot along the way. For example, we know that for the Hughes net customer, the top priorities are speed, bandwidth and price. We also note that the great majority of traffic on the Internet is video, which is insensitive to latency yet requires a significant amount of capacity. That's why geostationary satellites are ideal for the rural consumer and business markets that we serve, delivering superior economics and large volumes of capacity right where we need it. And make no mistake, due to the size of our addressable consumer market and the cost of other technologies in servicing low household density areas, we have a substantial opportunity for our Hughes net service. With the launch of Jupiter 3 and 100 megabit service plans, we expect to maintain our market-leading position in rural underserved markets. The demand is there, and it's growing. The satellite broadband connectivity market is large enough to support different service providers with multiple technologies. Even with new constellations and planned launches, there will not be enough capacity in the foreseeable future to meet the demand in our primary markets, let alone the rest of the world. In addition to our thriving consumer business, we possess a diversified enterprise organization and partners in our industry continue to rely on our engineering expertise to propel their businesses. Across all of these markets, our multi-transport innovations will bring the best available technology to meet our customers' needs. We have continued to progress and innovate as the market changes and thrive like we always have. All in all, it was a very strong quarter and year, and I look forward to another productive year as we celebrate a half century of satellite leadership in 2021. Let me now hand it over to Anders.

Thanks, Pradman. Good morning. In Q4, ESS revenue was $4 million, down slightly from Q4 of last year. We continue to pursue opportunities to lease our excess Ku-band capacity. The overall FSS market continues to be soft and declines in demand for IFC capacity has obviously impacted the current environment. We are staying focused on these markets, and we are ready to react when the rebound occurs. We mentioned last quarter that the first pair of NGSO S-band satellites for our EchoStar global subsidiary were in the commissioning phase. Unfortunately, both satellites have experienced technical anomalies that preclude them from fulfilling their intended regulatory milestone missions. Although I would like to note that our AG1 satellite is still operational, and we are using it for testing. We intend to seek regulatory milestone relief due to the force majeure events. And despite this setback, business development activities continue, and we've been pleased with the interest the EchoStar Global mission is received from a range of vertical players. Our third nanosat is expected to launch in either Q2 or Q3 of this year, and we are evaluating options for additional spacecraft. With respect to developments in Europe, EchoStar Mobile has successfully launched its new synergy service, a hybrid offering that seamlessly integrates satellite and terrestrial LTE roaming services in a single small, low-cost mobile terminal using a single subscription and management portal. We continue to see strong interest from our distribution partners in all of EchoStar Mobile's new products and services, and we are excited to see many of the new opportunities for application of MSS technologies to a variety of emerging verticals, including autonomous platforms and 5G integration. Additionally, we have launched several initiatives to deploy new hybrid satellite and terrestrial technologies and services on our E XXI platform. On the satellite IoT front, we are working with ProEsys and others to develop and deploy the first real-time bidirectional satellite delivered lower WAN services, which will leverage next-generation technology that fully integrates satellite and terrestrial services on a single chip. We expect the initial operations of the lower WAN service to begin in the second half of this year. We are also working with Sequans and others to develop hybrid services leveraging our complementary ground component licenses in Europe. These new services will focus on industrial enterprise applications such as utilities, transportation logistics and maritime as well as emerging verticals such as unmanned aerial systems and urban air mobility. Finally, as always, we remain focused on our longer-term strategic goal of full integration of S-band satellite services into the emerging global 5G network. I'll now turn it over to Dave.

Thank you, Anders. My comments this morning will be primarily on Q4 results and include comments on adjusted EBITDA, which is reconciled to GAAP measurements in our press release. Consolidated revenue in the fourth quarter was $489 million, down $10 million compared to the same period last year. Hughes revenue was $482 million, down $9 million compared to fourth quarter last year. Higher consumer revenue from increased ARPU and growth in Latin American subscribers were offset by lower equipment sales to enterprise customers, primarily due to the impact of the OneWeb bankruptcy in Q1 2020. In addition, we experienced negative foreign exchange impacts of approximately $10 million, principally related to revenue in Brazil. ESS revenue in Q4 was $4 million, down slightly as compared to the same period last year, and corporate and other revenues $3 million, also down slightly compared to last year. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA in the fourth quarter was $167 million, an increase of 7% from last year. Hughes adjusted EBITDA in Q4 was $188 million, higher by $12 million. Hughes adjusted EBITDA margin increased by 3.2 percentage points, largely as a result of growth in the higher margin of consumer broadband business. ESS and corporate and other were primarily flat as compared to last year. Net loss from continuing operations was $3 million in Q4, an improvement of $54 million from last year. This change was primarily due to higher operating income of $7 million, lower net interest expense of $47 million, driven primarily by $50 million of interest expense accrued in the fourth quarter of 2019 related to our fee dispute with the Government of India, improvement in foreign currency transactions of $6 million and higher gains on investments of $6 million. This was partially offset by higher income tax provision of $10 million. Capital expenditures in the quarter were $114 million compared to $104 million in Q4 last year. The increase was primarily due to spend associated with our J3 ground infrastructure, as we start to prepare the service launch. Free cash flow, defined as adjusted EBITDA minus CapEx, was $53 million during the quarter. In 2021, we are targeting both revenue and adjusted EBITDA growth. We plan to manage our U.S. consumer activity to maximize profitability and expect continued growth in our LatAm consumer markets. We foresee meaningful recovery in our enterprise equipment sales and services. With the lingering impact from the pandemic in this segment of the business, we believe second half of 2021 will be stronger than the first, especially internationally. The new agreement with OneWeb should provide incremental growth. We will continue to prudently manage all expenses, including those associated with the Jupiter 3 launch readiness. In December 2020, we bought back 1.7 million shares of our stock in the open market at a cost of $38 million. Through February 11, 2021, we had repurchased an additional 2.9 million shares for a cost of approximately $65 million. Our cash and marketable security balance at 12/31 was $2.5 billion, and our 7 5/8% senior unsecured notes of $900 million are due in June, and our intent at this time is to repay them out of current cash. With that, I'll turn it back over to Mike.

Thank you, Dave. As you can all see, we've had a successful year, and I remain extremely excited about our position within the satellite communications industry. Demand for global connectivity continues to outpace supply, and we remain well positioned from a technology and financial standpoint. Let me now turn it over to the operator to start the question-and-answer session.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Rick Prentiss from Raymond James.

First, I know I'm glad, I think the market is also to see you put your balance sheet to work on stock buybacks. It looks like maybe close to $400 million left on the authorized plan compared to your $2 billion market cap. I just want to confirm that, that's right. And we think the best M&A opportunity is to buy your own stock where it's at. But what other M&A opportunities might be out there that you'd be interested in and might want?

Well, as you know, Rick, I mean, we've been looking at a lot of different opportunities over a period of several years. And I think we remain interested in transactions that make sense, where it grows our customer base, grows our technology base and provides for incremental growth. That's where we remain focused.

Okay. And on the buyback, it's about $390 million, maybe left, that ballpark?

Yes. I'm sorry, you had the numbers right. That's approximately correct as of the filing.

Okay. And then obviously, the Jupiter 3 has been delayed a little bit with Maxar. Are there any abilities to recover costs from them with the delay? And also as you think about growth, pre-Jupiter 3 launch, can you -- should we think of this quarter sub decline as kind of more similar to what you might experience until the launch? And obviously, ARPU increases can help offset that, but just trying to think through the delay and the impact?

Well, we're working all the options as far as the contract with Maxar. And I don't think I'm going to say anything more about that. We still need the spacecraft, and we're very disappointed in the delays. It's that simple. The issue with the U.S. sub count is that with the continued growing demand of each consumer in the Jupiter 2 and Jupiter 1 field, we try to manage the number of customers we can support along with the capacity constraints. We try to make sure the capacity is what our customers need. And therefore, at times, we do in certain beams allow the sub count to go down to ensure that we've got solid support of the plans that people are buying. So I can't totally predict it as people -- more and more people hopefully return to office and the work-from-home demand goes down, I would think that will have a positive impact on our ability to add subs, but I can't say for sure. I don't know what things are going to look like for the next 6 months. So yes, I don't expect major changes either up or down as we manage through customer requirements in turn.

And as we think of the Jupiter 3 getting in service, Pradman, I think you mentioned that the launch vehicle choice would reduce the time from launch to in-service. Can you give us an idea of how fast that might be? And I know people are very interested in knowing how much capacity will the Jupiter 3 bring on? And what that might do for growth as we look beyond the launch in-service dates?

Well, I think we've talked capacity in the past, and I don't see any reason to keep going over that. Nothing's changed as far as the spacecraft as it's gone through the design. The deliver capacity is expected to be pretty close to spec. As to the launch vehicle, the time through in-orbit testing and getting into service, I got to be honest with you, we're working it every day. And that is one area with the delay in the production of the satellite that there's a possibility of gaining back some in-service time. However, the opposite of that is we do not want to take -- we do not want to rush through in-orbit testing in a way that might have a negative impact on the spacecraft or our ability to meet spec as we get going. So it's a very precise activity we got to be careful of, but we're going to shave off every possible day from the time we launch till the time we're in service. But again, that's a work in progress.

Okay. Last one for me. Another work in progress has been the JV in India. A lot of business happening in India. Can you help us understand what you think of reasonable time frame is that, that deal might close as it continues to wait approval?

Yes. We're aiming for somewhere in the middle of the year.

So mid '22?

Yes. It's being held -- we have to get through a bunch of.

No, no. Mid -- yes. Mid '21.

Sorry. Mid '21. I misspoke.

Mid of '21. Sorry. Yes. We're actually working through some regulatory approvals. Everything is all set. As soon as we get the last couple of regulatory approvals, we should be ready to close the deal.

And then hit the ground running pretty fast?

Yes. Yes.

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from the line of Chris Quilty from Quilty Analytics.

Pradman, I wanted to follow up on the consumer ARPU, which you indicated was up both in the U.S. and international. In the U.S. market, is the increasing ARPU more a function of existing customers stepping up their plans? Or is it simply a mix issue of some lower-value subscribers dropping off?

Well, it definitely is the existing customers stepping up. As this COVID crisis has been obviously spreading all over and increasing the demand for the services, so people are stepping up, going up to higher plans, et cetera, which has good effect on the ARPU, but obviously, has an impact on the number of subs you can accommodate over these satellites. So that's one part of it. The other part of it is we're selling some additional ancillary services, which adds to the ARPU. For example, repair services, people don't want their unit down and are willing to pay extra money to have quick repair services, and we sell tokens for extra capacity. So there's a whole bunch of little things that add $1 or $2 to our ARPU for these subscribers, which is very good money because the costs against that are very little.