Liberty Global Ltd. (LBTYA) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Okay. Good afternoon, everyone. Just to introduce myself, I'm Andrew Lee, and I head up the telco team at Goldman in London. I'm joined by Yemi, my colleague, who works with me on Liberty Global. And it gives us great pleasure to also welcome Mike Fries to stage, CEO of Liberty Global.

Always good to be back here. You know school is in. Summer's over when Communacopia starts.

This is back to school. Yes, exactly. And it's nice that we're doing it in person for a change rather than virtually for the last couple of years.

Agree.

So the plan is, as usual, 40 minutes of fireside Q&A. And we'll -- if there's time at the end, we'll give it over to audience questions. But I think, hopefully, we'll try and tick off all the boxes of questions you've been asking us in recent weeks and months. And so with that in mind, we're going to start out by asking about the macro environment. And just a broad question, how is that, the macro environment, affecting your ability to grow and deliver improving returns?

Listen, Europe, I'm sure you've heard from a few people, here in these last few days, Europe is in a tough spot. That's for sure. We're not immune to those sorts of challenges, but having operated in Europe for 30 years now, I can tell you, we generally do a pretty good job of managing through economic uncertainty. What do I mean by that? Well, inflation, clearly, a challenge, depends on the market. It's as low as 2% or 3% in Switzerland where we operate. It's as high as 9, 10, 11 double digits in the U.K. But we're able to take price increases, which is critical. We're taking price increases ranging from 3.5% to 9%. And we're doing that and supporting that really with huge investments in our core business. When it comes to energy crisis, which is very real, for us, energy is maybe 1% or 2% of our OpEx. It's not a huge portion of our cost, and we're fully hedged this year and probably will be fully hedged in '23 by the end of this year. So we think we've managed that particular issue. Consumer confidence is clearly an issue as well in Europe. On the other hand, our products deliver great value. If the pandemic taught us anything, our connectivity is essential, so we're not seeing huge volatility in demand. We can talk about it market by market. So fundamentally, I think we're in a pretty good spot. And then when it comes to driving returns and things like that, we have some tailwinds that our peers don't, right? I mean number one, we believe in our business, so we're buying stock. We bought something like 50% of the shares in the last 5 years. And we're buying another 14% this year, 10% next year, so most telcos don't have that. We've got a great balance sheet. We're sitting on $4 billion of cash. Our debt is 7 years and longer, and 4% type of fixed rate, fully hedged. We're sitting on a lot of cash. So I think we all have some headwinds but we don't all have the same tailwinds. And I think in our case, it's pretty unique.

Yes. Well, I'd love -- we'll come back towards the end, actually, in terms of you buying back stock and seeing [ Charlie in the name ]. And public market's not necessarily seeing value in a number of stocks versus private investors.

Sure.

Could I just ask a couple of follow-up questions on inflation before we tackle some market by market? But there's obviously going to be -- even with the hedging that you're delivering on costs next year, there will be an incremental headwind. So how confident are you in those price rises that you're putting through being enough to fully offset the cost headwinds that you're going to see?

Well, they won't fully offset and they never do, and this is common to anybody in our business. When you put a price rise through, you have to ask the question, what percent of the subbase is getting the price rise? Is it -- can you contractually get out of it if you don't like it? What happens when you have to retain customers? Where are those retention discounts? Generally speaking, in a place like the U.K., where we put through a 6.5% price rise on fixed and a 9-plus percent on mobile, we keep half of that. So that helps. And fortunately, we're not seeing wage increases meaningfully higher than that. We're able to get wage deals done at reasonable rates still. So for the most part, it's helping us, for sure. It's not curing all aspects of inflation, but it's certainly helping.

Yes. Okay. That's helpful. And when we look at your business and the structure of your free cash flow, do you think it's more or less defensive to a macro downturn than it was, say, 10 years ago during -- or 15 years ago during the financial crisis?

I think it's meaningfully more defensive today. Why is that? For starters, we provide significantly more value to customers today, just look at the product. I mean mobile ARPUs are down 50% since the great financial crisis. So the product speeds are faster. The bundles are better. The prices are more competitive. So the value we're providing to customers is much better today. We're more diversified, right? Almost half our revenue comes from mobile. Back in [ the later '90s ], we're a cable company. Today, 45% is mobile, 20% is B2B, broadband and video make up the balance. So we think we're reasonably diversified. We've got great scale. So I think there's a lot of characteristics about -- if the pandemic again tells us anything, it's our products are essential. So it's unlikely that consumers are going to disconnect their mobile or the broadband products despite their confidence levels or the situations they may have personally. So it's a meaningfully better business today than it was then. And I think we're in a much stronger position than we were then for all those reasons.

Yes, that's -- I guess, that's a good point. And in terms of the -- what you're looking out for, you mentioned consumer confidence. What -- are there any kind of lead indicators you specifically look at? Are you seeing any change in those in terms of indications?

Well, we look at what you look at, which is -- let me start by saying, I think Europe, in particular, is taking this crisis very seriously. Let me just say that. Interest rate's up 100 basis points. The U.K. and others are providing energy caps and subsidies for individuals. So I think the continent is taking the crisis very seriously. And if you bring inflation down, then confidence comes back up and everything starts to go the right direction. We're looking at the same things you're looking at. We're looking at subscriber growth, what's happening with gross ads, what's the market doing generally, how is churn. We're looking at ARPU. How much do we have to discount to retain? And how competitive is the front book and the acquisition pricing? So we're looking at all those factors, as you would expect us to, and I think we're seeing mixed results, right? I mean right now in fixed, there are some challenges in market -- depending on the marketplace because we have usually very high ARPUs in places like the U.K. So subscribers and ARPUs are a little bit under pressure. But in Belgium and Holland, they're not. Mobile looks strong across the board. I mean we have handset revenues down a little bit because people aren't out there buying the next iPhone necessarily because it's expensive. But mobile service revenues are doing great. So on balance, I think we can talk about the details of that.

Yes. And then just -- so just B2B, before I hand over to Yemi. So B2B we've seen quite some macro sensitivity in certain companies, so BT and Orange. BT has been an opportunity for -- B2B has been an opportunity for Liberty in the past. How do you think about B2B now in terms of the macro environment opportunity versus...

Yes. Well, I mean to begin with, we're a little less exposed than those other companies. B2B for us is about 20% of our revenue. So if you look at the aggregate business, we're about $25 billion of revenue, $9.5 billion, $10 billion of EBITDA in the aggregate. We don't own 100% of all that. And it's about 20% of our revenue. So we're a little less exposed than those guys. On the other hand, we're still a challenger. So in our case, they take the U.K. market, we're 11% share, we think. We've got nowhere to go but up. Places like Switzerland, we have 20% share in a duopoly marketplace. So we've got lots of opportunity to grow. And the biggest growth engine for us, of course, is SOHO and SME, which is roughly 40% of our revenue today. In a place like Holland, almost 80% of our revenue. So we've got a great growth engine in B2B. It's a -- if you look at almost every market, it's good growth quarter-to-quarter. As we look out the next 2 to 3 years, it's good, solid growth over the next 2 to 3 years. So for us, it's a big engine and they'll continue to be.

Thank you. Over to Yemi.

Thanks, Andrew. Mike, you've talked about how you've diversified the business and moved slightly away from cable in recent years, but you're still one of the largest owners of cable assets in Europe. And so you really sat at the heart of this investor debate that we've had around upgrading cable infrastructure, potentially moving to fiber. Could you maybe elaborate for us what you see as the key differences on a market-by-market basis? What makes the U.K. a clear case for fiber upgrade versus, say, the Netherlands, which might not necessarily see that same network evolution?

Great question and the right question. And anyone who's a U.S. investor, let me first put your mind at ease a little bit here. HFC is a robust technology, hybrid fiber-coax (sic) [ hybrid fiber-coaxial ]. And from our perspective, it's why we sit at 30 million 1-gig homes today, essentially. It's why we're the speed leader in every market, 2 to 4x faster than incumbents. It's fiber-rich. It's hugely an innovation platform. So for us, it's delivered, 100% delivered. And DOCSIS 4.0, if you're interested in that technology debate, we'll also deliver probably faster and cheaper than people think to get to 10 gig. Having said that, we sit in a marketplace in Europe where every country presents different opportunities. And for us, as we look at the fiber versus cable question, it's pretty simple, we look at 3 things. First, what's the marketplace like? Are -- is everyone else building fiber? Is wholesale revenue an option? And what are the implications of that? How competitive is the market? And then, of course, we look at the economics. What does it cost literally to upgrade our HFC fiber-rich network to fiber-to-the-home and how does that compare to DOCSIS 4.0? And then I think we look at the strategic opportunities. Can we bring financial partners in? Can we bring in strategic partners in the local marketplace and take advantage of this opportunity? What impact on B2B does it have? In the U.K. was a classic case where fiber makes sense. Why is that? If you look at our 16 million existing cable homes, we've already got 1.5 million, 2 million fiber. But the other, let's say, the 14 million, we can upgrade those homes to fiber for GBP 100 a passing. DOCSIS was only slightly less expensive. And the benefits of fiber are meaningful when you think about the broader competitive marketplace, the wholesale opportunity. 50% of subscribers in the U.K. are using someone else's network. So there's obviously a wholesale revenue opportunity in that marketplace. So I think it was a much easier decision there. And of course, we've been able to do that. We've announced that we're upgrading our homes. We've also announced that we're going to -- you probably asked me about it, this JV to build out another 5 million to 7 million homes. Now in a place like Belgium, similar decision, different reasons. Belgium is a market where we are the incumbent essentially, 60% utilization rates right out the door. We kind of got -- not backed into it, but it made a lot of strategic sense to go this direction, some flexibility in how we spend the money, but the same basic equation. Holland and Switzerland, different outcomes. For all the -- just run through that little calculus, you get a different answer, and that's the logic we've used. And I don't -- you called us a cable company. Yes, we're heavily reliant on HFC networks today, but almost half our revenue is mobile, 20% is B2B and we are heading in a pretty exciting direction when it comes to technology.

Very helpful color. Focusing in on the U.K., you've -- beyond upgrading your network to full fiber, you've also recently announced that JV you were referring to in terms of expanding the network. But can you talk about what the ambition is there? How does that drive growth and profitability for the business over the next couple of years?

Sure. So this is a -- I mentioned it kind of indirectly a moment ago, but we're going to add another 5 million to 7 million homes to our 16 million homes, take us to 23 million homes, roughly 80% of all homes in the U.K., which makes us the clear sort of leader, if you will, or co-leader with BT as a national fiber network. That is the ambition. Fortunately, in this JV, we're able to bring a financial partner in. It's fully financed with attractive debt terms. We're each putting some equity in. And it has the benefits, multiple benefits for us. Number one, we already have the largest mobile platform in the U.K. This gives us greater reach on fiber for fixed mobile convergence. Just to begin, we'll start with that. We only reach half the homes today. We reach another 20%, 30% of them, we're now in a position to offer more and better services to those customers. Secondly, it's full greenfield expansion. We've been doing -- for the last several years, we've been building out something called Lightning. Forget the name, but we've added 3 million homes to our network, and we've been able to penetrate 30% with really strong ARPUs and great IRRs. Well, now, we can supercharge that, essentially turbocharge that and make it 5 million to 7 million homes, put all that off balance sheet so that our free cash flow is no longer burdened by that CapEx and have retained control essentially jointly with our partners over that expansion opportunity, but it also gives us more B2B opportunities. It's just a no-brainer from our point of view. And so far, so good. We're getting everything geared up, hiring management teams and putting everything in place to get started, but very exciting for us and a demonstration that we didn't beg these people to come in, this InfraVia partner, a very sophisticated financial investor. They were very excited to join us on this, so the returns are there.

Great. And in the U.K., in general, it's been a market that's been more proactive in terms of price rises and really capturing value. How confident are you in the sustainability of those kind of price rises with BT building in inflation? You're putting through, I think, 6.5% earlier this year on the fixed side.

They put in much higher. They were closer to -- yes, we put in 6.5%. The difference between us is BT basically puts in an RPI or CPI plus, 3.9% contractual increase, whether that's 14% all-in or 10%, that's what you're going to get. Ours are more -- we and Sky look at it more discretionary. We said, "Well, what should it be? Let's think about it." We make those decisions earlier on. We'll probably stay in that camp on the fixed side, but our mobile business does have the same RPI plus contractual right to increase on the service revenue side. I think there's arguments for the status quo. What do I mean by that? There are good arguments that we'll continue to be able to take reasonable rate increases. We're investing a ton of money in the marketplace, all of us are. 5G, fiber, whatever it is, there's a tremendous amount of investment in the U.K. market. And I think the regulators get that. Prices are reasonable. Everybody -- we're offering subsidies to people who are challenged. We're not leaving anybody behind. So I think there are good arguments, but we're not announcing what we're going to do today. We make those decisions really later in the fall and then roll them out Q1, Q2. But I think there's good arguments that the status quo can continue to happen.

Very clear. And just on the competitive landscape digging a bit deeper, it feels like growth is improving, synergies are starting to come through for the business. What's your outlook over the next kind of 6 to 12 months in the U.K. market?

Well, we've got some really good growth drivers. Lutz, our CEO there, calls them growth waves, right? Begin with synergies. So our announced synergy target was GBP 540 million on an annual basis. We're not very far along there, maybe 30% along the way. We've got a long way to go, but so far, so good. And the NPV of those synergies are GBP 6 billion. So number one, we've got this tailwind of synergies, which is really going to help us. I think we have the opportunity for -- with this fiber rollout plan for new revenue streams, whether that be in the B2B space or in wholesale. We've got this greenfield opportunity as we continue to expand the network like we've done with Lightning. And we've got digital, which is really critical for us in the U.K. market, making things work better for consumers. All those investments and all those opportunities are going to drive growth. On fixed, we're seeing people are demanding more value right now, not surprisingly. If you just look at the ads and the campaigns in the U.K., it's all about value for money and reliability, which makes sense. Mobile and the market is pretty robust. There's a lot of activity, but it's not churn, a lot of flux as we call it. Mobile market, different. People are hunkering down. They don't need the new handset. Mobile service revenue is strong, but not a lot of handset revenue. And there's a lot of -- no margin in handset revenue, but that does impact the top line. So it's a mixed picture, but so far, we think we're -- we had a strong second quarter. We were -- we had more mobile sub ads, more broadband ads in BT. We -- and on a smaller footprint, we had, I think, 4% EBITDA growth. There was negative 1%. I'm not that -- I'm not infatuated with what they're doing. I'm simply saying, on balance, we had a good second quarter, and we hope to continue that kind of trend.

Great. And shifting to the Netherlands. It's been a very successful business that you've co-run with Vodafone over the last few years in terms of growth and free cash flow. But as we look forward, what do you view as the outlook for that business? There are some incremental tax headwinds. I believe, competitively, you've done better in terms of launching some new tariffs in the market. How do you see that business evolving?

Yes. So if anyone who's new to our business, if you want to kind of see what fixed mobile convergence means in Europe and why if you're not converged, you're probably in trouble, look at the Dutch market, I mean, for the positive case because we've delivered everything we said we're going to deliver there. Synergies delivered ahead of schedule, larger than budgeted. Convergence working across the board. NPS up, churn down. And the business has kind of low to mid-single-digit EBITDA growth consistently. And return to shareholders, EUR 3.5 billion over that time frame. It's a cash machine. We're probably generating EUR 600 million, plus or minus, back to us this year. So just the free cash flow alone shows you that these high-margin businesses run well with synergies are a very positive story line. There are some headwinds there. We lost some content rights. There's some fiber activity, of course, in the macro environment. But I think the management team is focused on all the right things. They have what they call a fiber response plan, which is really investing in quality of service with a longer-term plan of DOCSIS 4.0, which we think makes sense, with a stop at 2.5 gig along the way, which also makes sense. They're investing in cost efficiencies and customer experience, so all the right things to keep that business steady. It looks like a growth business to me for a while, which is good to hear. I mean we have to make some investments, for sure. But it -- when you look at the 3- to 5-year plan, which I'm not sharing with you, it's a growth business with high cash flow characteristics and a very attractive business for us and for Vodafone, I think.

Can I just ask a quick question before we move on? The time line to -- you won't give us the 3- to 5-year plan, but what's the kind of time line to DOCSIS 4.0?

It depends on who you ask. Comcast will say one thing, Charter will say another. We would say 2024, but that stuff has to start happening in advance of that with your network. But DOCSIS 4.0 is going to work. I mean it's going to be robust. I mean it's the fourth generation. They all worked before, this one's going to work, too. You can't count this technology out ever, don't count it out, and we will deploy it when and where we need to. By the way, even if we go to fiber in the U.K., when we go to fiber in the U.K., our HFC network stays because for us, upgrading to fiber is just that last little bit, level 3 cabinet to level 4 cabinet. We're already fiber deep, it's just that last little bit this fiber. So we -- the HFC network, if you don't want a fiber-to-the-home product, we're going to keep you on the HFC network. It's an overlay. So it's still very much part of our future.

And building on that in Switzerland, it feels like you've completed a rebrand. You've repositioned yourself competitively. How do you feel about your competitive position now versus a year ago? And maybe connected to that, you didn't take price this year. But what do you view as your opportunity to potentially take price next year on the back of that rebranding and repositioning in the Swiss market?

Yes, it's a small country, and I'm guessing a few of you spent any time thinking about it. But I just had my whole board there in July, and I'll tell you, Switzerland is living in a bubble. Inflation is 2% or 3%. And unemployment is at the same level or lower. GDP growth is pretty stable. The energy crisis is more perceived than real. I think only 15% of their energy comes from gas -- natural gas or gas of any sort. So it's a pretty miraculous market, and we're lucky to be in it. Let me start with that. Secondly, it's a duopoly really. I mean Swisscom is a -- obviously, the largest player there. But compared to where we were a year ago or 2 years ago before this merger, we now have 30% market share. We're #2 in all the products, 30% in all products. Swisscom would be 55%, 60%, and Salt would have the balance. So it's really a 3-player market, but really a 2 on -- a 2-player market. And a very rational market. The highest mobile ARPUs we have across Europe because GDP is so high. And the things that we're doing, we think, make all the sense in the world. We just converge all the brands around Sunrise and it matters, but it's a powerful brand in that market. We've got Roger Federer. We now sponsor the Swiss ski team. These things matter. And it's a pretty powerful brand. And we also have a flanker brand, which is sort of a digital-first brand to capture all aspects of the market. So it's been a really strong start. And of course, we have the synergies there as well. CHF 325 million in annual synergies, and we're a little farther, maybe halfway from the synergies there and delivering in every respect. Price increases. Because of the macro numbers I just gave you, price increases are rare in the Swiss market. And we didn't take them and nobody else does. If others did, we would consider it, but I don't think we should be bank -- if you're modeling it, don't bank any price increases into that marketplace because it's a stable market with already quite substantial ARPUs but moving in the right direction. I mean a lot of really positive things happening in the Swiss market for us and excited to see how that free cash flow grows.

And maybe just to touch on Belgium to take us across the markets. It seems to be more of a transition market. There's a new entrant on the mobile side in Citymesh, DIGI. Can you maybe talk about how much scale do you think that new entrant could ultimately achieve? Do you really perceive the market's perceiving quite a lot of risk there? I presume you don't. Could you maybe talk about where [ you'll go ]?

Yes. Well, I mean, again, I imagine many of you aren't following this, but it's a 3-player mobile market where they just licensed some spectrum that we had to buy for 5G. And a fourth entrant acquired a certain amount of spectrum, not enough really to be too competitive, but enough to get started. And this is an operator we've had experience with in Europe, right, in Hungary and in Romania. It's a very aggressive, disruptive kind of operator. But they have some challenges, for sure. One is they have some network rollout barriers to overcome. It's a very mature market with lots of low brand -- low-cost brands out there already. So you're coming in and you have to be converged. And it's unclear that they have convergence ambition. So I think it's tough. I think that they're going to have a tough time of it. But if they get to 5% or 10% market share, I think that would be exceptional. And we would figure out ways to manage through that, and it wouldn't necessarily come from us. So we'll have to see how it unfolds.

Yes. Maybe I think the more positive take is that Belgium seems to be the exception rather than the rule with a lot of other markets and potentially seeing consolidation, and we're seeing that play out in Spain, for example. How feasible do you think that could be in some of the other markets where you operate? Could you...

Well, we're already 3-player markets in every market, except the U.K. And will the U.K. go from 4 to 3? I think it's a high likelihood. If you look at the investment that we're putting into these networks, it's substantial. And I'll tell you, that Europe -- and you're reading about it in the Wall Street Journal. Europe takes a slightly different view on the telco operators as such. What do I mean? I mean even this initiative, which may or may not go anywhere, to try to force the big tech companies to pay their fair share of network investments because 50% of the global traffic is 6 companies and the European telco operators have convinced the European Commission to take a look at this issue just gives you the sense that they see our role as investors as a serious one and that we need to be looked after, if you will. And remember as well, when Telefonica and when O2 and Three, before our deal with O2, tried to merge and it was rejected, they challenged that in quarter 1. At the end, the deal was already done. It wasn't going to happen, but my point is it challenged the logic. So I think there's a high likelihood of 4 to 3 in the U.K. marketplace, and that's good. Three's plenty in these markets. It really does create sufficient competition but also allows for rationalization if it happens.

Do you think the current environment is a forcing function on that in terms of...

Could be. Could be. Yes, it could very well be.

Interesting. I'll pass it back.

Yes. So just -- I mean, really good to talk through kind of valuation and the markets on you factoring in as a kind of segue into that hot kind of issue [ for the moment is ESG ] and it's where the funds are coming in. And in European cities at the moment. And telcos just aren't featuring within that. They're underweight. And often don't describe themselves of having as being in scope really to. Do you have any views in terms of how industry investors should perceive your business?

Well, we take the issue very seriously. Forget what investors do or don't do with their capital, we take the issue very seriously. And I think the industry takes the issue very seriously. I was just on a call with our green coalition with Commissioner Breton, who was very impactful. We -- not only do we have to take care of our own house, but we have to provide the digital infrastructure for others to modernize and become more efficient. So we play a role on both sides of that equation. Just look at our case, I mean, we've brought -- I think, today, 90% of our energy comes from renewables. That was 25%, 5 years ago. We've got net-zero targets in every opco that are science-based targets. We are heavily focused on Scope 3, which, as you know, is a big issue. 75% of our energy is consumed in the home on broadband modems and set-top boxes. So this is a big role for our industry to play, and I think I'm proud of the way we're attacking the issue. And sure, I think we are probably not given enough credit for what's happening, and we'll have to just maybe speak a little bit about it, but we're holding ourselves accountable. We're putting out targets. We're not just talking the talk, we're walking it, and I think that will get appreciated. We've done several green bond financings, 3 or 4 others, maybe, have done as well. So we're out there pushing the narrative.

Yes. I mean it starts with your partner in U.K. Telefonica. They classify 52% of their revenues as being in scope for the [ taxonomy ], whereas the average telco says 2% of revenue. So there's this big gap of opportunity there. In terms of opportunity, so what we've seen most recently across Europe and European telcos as well is expanding conglomerate discounts. And at the same time as we're seeing that, we're seeing takeout multiples for cable assets, for example, from private investors at a much higher multiple than your listed multiple. So I wonder if you wanted -- you could talk through how we can bridge that valuation gap of Liberty Global valuation versus what private investors are currently buying at. I'm not sure how you think about that.

Well, again, U.S. investors would have some familiarity with, let's say, the Liberty philosophy, which I would describe as highly agile, opportunistic and generally tax efficient. We've exited 6 markets in the last 4 or 5 years, generated $25 billion of total enterprise value, I think, $12 billion in net proceeds and 0 taxes on those exits because we saw opportunities at 9x to 12x EBITDA to realize capital that we could redeploy. By the way, most of that went into buybacks at 5 or 6 or 7. So we like the long-term game plan here. Whether everyone else gets it or not, we like the long-term game plan, and we're going to keep doing that. So number one, we're agile. So our -- the gap in -- the value gap in our stock seems less warranted, right? Because I understand there's a big telco that's largely thinking about the future in a sort of hegemonic way. We're actually much more agile. I'm not suggesting the door is open for everything, but pretty much, in the sense that we're opportunistic as we should be. And there are catalysts in every one of our countries that could easily be utilized to create value if we wanted to do that. At the same time, we're operators first. And none of these saying, no, these catalysts come to fruition without a long-term game plan to run and operate the business for free cash flow. So that's number one. But to be willing to look at opportunities when they arise, so -- and we've demonstrated that. And by the way, we demonstrated it for years, it's not just in the last 5 years that we've done it. So I think the gap is unwarranted. But as long as we're buying back stock, I suppose it works for us in a sense because we're going to be opportunistic. And we're sitting on a lot of cash today. We've got this very interesting venture portfolio, and we've got 5 fixed mobile -- we reached 85 million fixed mobile customers with a big base that we can monetize and grow and create value with.

Moving on, just digging in a little bit on those catalysts, but if we think about specifically how you might monetize, you've shown a preference for JVs in the past to keep your optionality high. But there's a lot of demand for infrastructure assets. We had a conference in June, and it was just full of private investors, which we can come on to as well. But how open are you to fully exiting a market? And what's the evolution of that?

Well, the JVs can -- many people may not know all of this, but we own -- we control 3 of the markets. 2 of them are JVs, 1 with Telefonica, 1 with Vodafone. And that was really by necessity, not preference. What do I mean by that? We want a seller, they want a seller. The only way to realize the benefits was to come together. So I wouldn't say that's a preference. I would say that's an -- we're willing to accept that outcome if that's what it takes to create these fixed mobile champions. And so we did that in those 2 instances. On one hand, it does create these catalysts, right? Because usually, shareholders agreements say, well, 5 years out, IPOs, something's going to happen. But on the other hand -- and it's been -- these have been great partnerships for us. They have been nothing but -- just getting started with Telefonica, really, but a fantastic partner. In Vodafone, I think, we'd each look back and say, "It's been brilliant, everything we've achieved in Holland." What's next? We'll figure that out. So I don't think there's a preference for JVs. Those just happened to be the way we could get it done. And I would say that I just mentioned that we exited 6 countries. So clearly, we're willing, if it makes sense, to look at alternative outcomes if that's the right solution for shareholders and value creation. By the way, that's something we've been doing forever. For the last 15 years, you don't know this, but we were in Norway and Sweden. So those have high multiples. We're in France. You're welcome, Patrick Drahi. We sold him that business. We were in Australia and Japan, great businesses, so those at 10x. So it's ever -- forever with us in this industry where private market multiples really do, I think, tell the true story. Public multiples, I appreciate the complexities sometimes in looking at businesses like ours. I appreciate the need for liquidity. I appreciate the challenges. I do -- really do get that, perhaps. But on the other hand, just looking at our history, we look at fundamental value in those instances. And what's driving those multiples, there are synergies, for sure, but these are strong cash flow-producing businesses with huge technology infrastructures, selling services into a space that has massive secular tailwinds, the demand for broadband and data is going nowhere but up, the only product I can think of that's going to do that. So why wouldn't you invest in these businesses?

Yes. And so if we think about those kind of catalysts or opportunities, you basically got sale, which you've explained that you've done a lot of. JVs were useful. There was a discussion about IPOs, if -- for example, if Switzerland -- at one point. And then if none of those are available, buy back and you can take advantage of that. Did I miss anything or...

You know what, we could spin, we could list, we could track. I mean I don't need to get -- create more complexity, but I just want to reinforce the point that we're looking at all angles as we should. But fundamentally, the exciting aspect of our story isn't just that. Those are tactics and tools, it's the fundamental business which we're excited about.

Yes, which is -- leads me on to my final question, which is -- that's what the private investors are seeing in many cases, right? And so I wonder if you could just talk about what -- how you see this prevalence of private investors in the space now? Do you see that as a threat or an opportunity for you?

Well, listen, for starters, I totally get it, right? I mean these are individuals, these private equity are in it for funds that have a lot of capital, long-term, relatively low return expectations. So putting that kind of money to work in businesses like ours makes a lot of sense. So I do understand it. And on one hand, yes, when they get involved, sometimes, it forces us to be more creative, more competitive to accelerate investments that could happen. On the other hand, these are -- I think it's more positive than negative. Number one, they're validating the business model. They're smart money. They're validating the business model. Two, they're rational economic entities. So they're not disruptors necessarily. They're coming in to make a return. So they're thinking long term about how to build value, and that's a positive thing. And sometimes, they're partnering with us. Or like we just did in the U.K., sometimes, they're acquiring our businesses. Sometimes, we're acquiring from them. So it creates a fertile ground for catalysts, if you will, which is, I think, one of the things we need to keep demonstrating the value in the stock. So I think it's not a threat. It's not an opportunity. It's really just a healthy thing in some respects, and we like to see it.

Yes. That's the end of our questions. I think what you've laid out is the evolution of your business and how we should think about your business and the changing nature of the business. But part of that is it's become more defensive, so a robust business as well. And I guess we look and watch out for the ability to monetize that better, the opportunity.

Absolutely.

I just wanted to thank you so much for your time, and...

Yes. Great. Thanks for having me.

Thank you. Bye.

Okay. Thanks.