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

Hello, everyone. Thank you very much for joining us today. So, our next fireside chat is with Liberty Global CEO, Mike Fries. Mike, welcome and thank you very much for joining us.

Thank you. Always great to be here. We need to get this class seated.

Awesome. Thank you.

So Mike, since we sat down last year here in Barcelona, a lot has changed at the Liberty Global Group, the Sunrise Spin-off, of course, recently, the creation of Liberty Global Benelux, the U.K. NetCo as well and much more. Walk us through your strategy of maximizing the inherent value of the core assets. I thought it's good if we come back to basics and to the strategy. How did you come back to -- come to it? And how have you been executing on this so far?

Well, I mean, I don't know how many people have been following our stock or for how long, but I think we have always over-indexed among our peers when it comes to trying to close the value gap. Certainly an effort. We'll see about results, but certainly an effort. So I mean, if I go back to exiting Japan and Australia 10x and 12x, selling Germany to Vodafone for 12x, exiting Austria, Poland at 9x. We've always been trying to find -- figure out where that gap is and close it. Buying back $14.5 billion of our stock as another means to doing that. And so I think, look, having done all that, we believe those are the right moves. We didn't and haven't yet seen or we're starting to see the benefits of some of that, but we're not satisfied. I'm not satisfied. John Malone is not satisfied. We've got a lot of work to do yet. And so there's a sense of urgency, certainly, I have, he has, our Board has. And the Spin-off of Sunrise is an excellent example of how that urgency comes to life, right? This is a transaction that we announced 9 months ago. Not easy to spin-off a Swiss subsidiary when you're a NASDAQ stock. But we did it, closed, trading really well. Today, that company, which represented before the spin, roughly 20% of our proportionate EBITDA in our telecom group now is about 45% of our market cap. I'll let that sink in for a second. It was 20% of our telecom EBITDA on a proportionate basis, now trading at about 45% of our market cap when you add the two stocks back together. So it's been a terrific outcome for investors, and more to come. So really, it's just about looking at each of our markets independently and trying to figure out, and we'll talk about these, I'm sure, in each case, what we're doing, how we create value, what sort of steps we can take to create transparency and not just valuation transparency for shareholders, but to deliver value to shareholders like we did with the spin-off, which, by the way, was tax-free. So a tax-free spin-off to shareholders, where the dividend is tax-free, by the way. So if you are a Swiss investor, Swiss institution and you buy Sunrise today, you will yield about 8% dividend yield. That's pretax, and there is no tax for at least 5 years, maybe longer. So it's a pretty attractive security.

Very good. A lot to unpack there, and we'll go through the different topics, including the recent Sunrise Spin-off and implication on the rest of the group, of course. But looking back at 2024 business performance, Mike, what are the areas that you are particularly pleased with from a business performance standpoint? And where do you see more work to do across the group?

Well, there's always work to do. A couple of areas that we're happy with in each market, and this would be familiar to you, if you're following the telecom sector. I think we've defined the network strategy in every market. Why is that important? It's important to be competitive. It's important for cash flows. So I like what we've done in each market in terms of a defined network strategy. Our fixed business is performing pretty well across the board. So broadband as a whole in terms of -- and broadband ARPUs, I think we're up 2% ARPU in the U.K. in the third quarter. Four of the last five quarters in Holland, we've grown fixed ARPU. So there's some stability coming from price increases, better segmentation, greenfield growth, some positive things happening in our broadband business. Mobile is tougher. I think across the board, certainly for us, mobile is tougher. Part of that's competition, still quite a bit of CapEx in mobile. So there's a bit headwinds there, which I'm sure we can talk about. But look, we're going to hit our guidance with the exception of revenue in the U.K., which is almost all handsets, everybody knows the impact of that is very small on the profitability. We're going to hit our guidance. That's the most important thing. And if you had visibility to our internal budgeting, we feel pretty good about that, too. So EBITDA, operating free cash flow, these are the things that I'm measuring most importantly, and we're going to basically hit the numbers there, so.

Very good. So now looking forward at 2025 and maybe in the context of the recent years, Mike, because recent years have been very eventful and quite unique that actually with different various new topics, for instance, 2020, 2021 was all about COVID. '22, '23, we saw various macro issues. '24 was about easing comps following the inflation issues that we got in the previous years, energy cost headwinds and also a path for declining rates. So when we are thinking about 2025, what 2025 do you think would be about for the sector overall and for Liberty Global in particular?

Well, we were just talking about this outside. I think, the sector is poised to start benefiting from some structural tailwinds. First on that list for me is regulatory relief. Anyone who's followed this sector for any period of time would know that regulators fundamentally determine much of what happens here in our -- in the structure of our industry. And I think wherever you look, whether it's the drug you report or how the commission is looking at things, what we think will happen in the U.K. with Vodafone 3, I think, we're starting to feel a little bit of relief. What does that mean? It means, you're going to see more consolidation. More consolidation means more rational markets, more rational competition. And then the second big theme is, obviously, we're in this CapEx tunnel. And some of you who are skeptics might say, you're always in a CapEx tunnel. What are you talking about? But for many players, us included in some instances, we're actually seeing the end of that tunnel. And when you get out of that tunnel, free cash flow starts to become a really, really thriving metric. And I think, we're reaching that or many have already reached that. One of the reasons Sunrise trades at two turns above us and a great free cash flow and dividend yield is because it doesn't have those CapEx challenges. So I think, the CapEx cycle, where we are in that CapEx cycle coming out of that CapEx cycle is a critical issue. Look, I think, you're going to see more equity market type transactions. It's not lost on any of our peers that Sunrise has been a raging success. We can spin-off this business that nobody bothered to think about when it was part of our group. And all of a sudden, it's trading very well, and we dividend it out $3.5 billion, $4 billion to our shareholders tax-free. So I think, you're going to see more, I don't want to say equity market, but equity-like type transactions where people are getting created. We know of companies, they are, looking to go public, for example, in 2025. So I think the equity markets might be more receptive to this sector, and that's a way of raising capital, rising tides. So I see a few positive things coming.

Yes, indeed, a number of fresh uplift in themes in this sector. So coming back to Sunrise, you have positioned the Sunrise spin-off as a levered equity story with a 4.5x net debt-to-EBITDA. Why this is the right capital structure?

I don't think it's a levered equity story. I wouldn't call it that. I wouldn't write that down. It's not a levered equity story. Why do I say that? Well, first of all, we just put in CHF 1.5 billion to delever it to 4.5x. So we clearly believe leverage needs to come down and will come down further. So we think it's a dividend free cash flow story. We think the free cash flow has the ability to continue to grow. If we're paying 70% of that free cash flow out, then we've got 30% to delever. We believe there's EBITDA growth. So it's 4.5x at the end of this year, but we see that declining, and I don't see anything bringing it back up. In other Liberty entities, we constantly recapped. If we could get more, we got more. And so 5x, 5.25x, we just hung around there. But in this particular instance, we see Sunrise not as a sort of levered equity story, but more as a dividend free cash flow story, which means over time, deleveraging is a big contributor to that strategy. So I think that's a better way to look at it.

All right. So looking at the next steps, do you see the Sunrise spin-off as being a blueprint for other potential future spin-offs across the Liberty Global portfolio? And if anything, what you'd do differently?

Yes. So as I mentioned a moment ago, if you look at our -- what we are calling Liberty Telecom, which is our telecom group, on an aggregate basis, Sunrise was only 10%. So we still have 80 million fixed and mobile connections in Liberty Telecom. 22 -- I'll use dollars, $22 billion of revenue, $8 billion of EBITDA. So Sunrise was an outstanding result, but a relatively small piece of our business. So what we do with the balance, quite frankly, is much the same. Number one, make sure we're driving commercial momentum in every business. Because without growth, without commercial momentum, there is no story. I think secondly, we're looking at the networks and opportunities in each market to monetize, crystallize, consolidate, upgrade, looking at the whole network story, if you will, the infrastructure story in those markets to get the most optimal outcome that we can in each market. And then third, we're going to look to, in each case, and there's ideas and strategies in each case, to see if there are ways to realize or shrink that value gap because we know this. If you look at our stock today at $12 something, we have cash and investments that are worth $15, and we're trading at $12.80 or something like that. So that means, there's either 0 to negative value for that Liberty Telecom Group, I just referenced. And so our job is to be sure that we're getting that value recognized. And it could take lots of forms. I'm not going to get into each one of those, but it could take lots of forms, listing spins, exits, acquisitions, partnerships. So we're going to -- we're working actively in every case to try to build a story for each market that -- where the end game is value realization. I think, that's the way to think about it.

Right. And looking at the different markets, what's next?

I'm not going to take that bait. But I will tell you that in our year-end call, we will give you -- just as we did in February of this year, where we laid out a strategic plan, we'll update that plan and give you some greater guidance.

And is there anything that you consider as core?

Well, yes, I think everything in that Liberty Telecom portfolio is core from the point of view of we are investing time, money and effort into realizing value. But if you're asking me, is there anything in that portfolio of telecom assets that is untouchable? No.

Right. That's what I meant. Thank you. And so moving to the different markets, perhaps starting by the Benelux. You have created Liberty Global Benelux as a strategic holding company for your interest in Telenet and VodafoneZiggo. What is the rationale behind this?

Well, I mean, I think it's an idea. First and foremost, we do own assets in Belgium and Holland through a holding company. That's just the way it's held. But I think our initial thinking was that there are perhaps very good reasons why these two businesses belong together. One, they're contiguous; two, they both use Dutch language; three, they're relatively stable, mature markets; four, if you put them together, it's EUR 3 billion of EBITDA. That's sizable, something could happen there. So, and there might be some synergies, too. So there's good reason to think about that. But as I sit here today, I would say the more important piece of work is to look at them independently. Because the Dutch business to me looks the most like Switzerland. I had to be honest with you. It's generating meaningful free cash flow. It's a 2.5 player market. It has -- it's national scale. It is not going to build fiber as we sit here today. We don't see a CapEx cycle for building fiber there, except perhaps some very small instances. It's CapEx to sales ratio is in the teens. I mean, there's a lot about that asset that the incumbent who you're going to listen to later, maybe after me, trades quite well. So like Swisscom and Sunrise, I think it's an interesting market for us. We got a lot of work to do, and we'll talk about it. But Belgium, on the other hand, is slightly different. Belgium is really very much a NetCo-ServCo model. It is the probably most unique and interesting NetCo-ServCo in Europe. And the NetCo there has already been established. So some CapEx in front of us. It's a different kind of apples and oranges a little bit. So we're really looking at them independently for now, but we retain that optionality to look at them together.

Yes. And just talking about the Belgium CapEx, you've signed an MOU with Proximus in Belgium, so to share the fiber rollout in some areas in the country. Could you talk about the implication on the CapEx and perhaps the implications also on the free cash flow?

Yes. By the way, this is the best example of regulators stepping forward in a positive way. It's the only example I can think of where the regulator is encouraging us to not overbuild each other, we us in Proximus. You got about 4 million homes in Flanders and Brussels. We are already going to fiber 70% of those on our way to doing that. And if we did that on our own, we would have about 50%, 60% utilization of that network. That's world-class, right? That's an excellent business that we can sell, monetize, raise capital around. But the regulator has offered us the opportunity in about 50% of the country to not overbuild each other and to split it up. We'll build here, Proximus builds there, and we hold buy from each other. The benefit of that, of course, a little bit of CapEx avoidance for them, not so much for us, how we split it up. But that network becomes 100% utilized or 80% utilized, which then means it even has more value. If you don't understand network economics and infrastructure, many of you do, that's golden right there to have 80% of your network utilized. And then the remaining 20%, they'll use our HFC. So it's a pretty interesting example of regulators saying, "Hey, let's rationalize this. What is this craziness?" Aand so we're excited about it. I think, -- and Guillaume is here somewhere. I think it's a slightly better deal for them than us compared to the counterfactual, because we have a great story either way. And that's one of the reasons we're really holding the line with regulators who are helping. We're haggling with regulators on things like wholesale rates and everything. But if it happens, it's a really important milestone in Europe. And maybe we'll see more of that.

Very good. So moving to the Netherlands. VodafoneZiggo has a new CEO. So what were the top priorities that you have assigned to him alongside the Vodafone?

Well, listen, Stephen van Rooyen, many of you may know him, 17 years at Sky. I didn't have to do much. I just wound him up and shipped him off, because this is an individual who has incredible knowledge and experience in our industry, particularly around brands, content, differentiation, winning share. So he's there, I think, listening first, onboard only about 60 days. But what we would hope we get done there is, we kind of revitalize growth in our broadband business, which has had some tough quarters, that we get the mobile asset humming again, that we start to think about our differentiation in that market. How we differentiate technologically, how we differentiate from a content point of view. And he's going to be terrific at those. And then lastly, what's our long-term game plan here? You want to know. You want to know, you're asking me, what is the long-term plan here for value creation organically and inorganically. So I'm really pleased with so far. He's doing a great job. He's the right person, and he's enjoying it. So it's [Audio Gap] is we have it all. We have total optionality. We can give a gig or two gigs actually to all the margin or we can rent fiber if they have to have 10-gig in fiber. And right now, we're seeing a mix of that. Holland could go the same way. Now in Holland, 97% of our data traffic flows across a fiber line. We are fiber-rich, fiber deep. I mean, it is that one platform, which either doesn't require an upgrade of the modem at all or maybe in some cases, does, but very nominal network CapEx. So for us, it is a source of optionality of network optionality. And the build cost, we don't need to build another fiber network. Maybe that kind of rationalization in Holland would be a great outcome there, too. There's only really one fiber network, KPN, a couple of smaller ones. I'm not sure what will happen to them. They don't even overbuild each other. So it's quite rational. So we'll see. But I think the DOCSIS platform is very, very viable.

Very good. And just to finish off on the Netherlands, the partnership with Vodafone has worked well for VodafoneZiggo. What are the next steps for this partnership?

Well, it's hard to say in public. Yes. I mean, I think they've been a great partner for us, and they would say the same. But obviously, we're 7 years into this. You should assume there's lots of conversation about what's next, how do we do this? What should it look like? What do you want to do together? So I would just leave it there. I mean, we have a very good dialogue. I think, Margerita is terrific and the teams we work with are great. So right now, we just -- we are where we are.

So moving to the U.K., and I had a similar question for you on. So maybe I left on that one on Telefonica as well. So if we look at the U.K. market, a significant transformation is potentially ahead of us as the -- there's a consolidation deal on the table. Could you discuss your outlook for the market?

Yes. Listen, it's a competitive market. I don't have to tell anybody here that if you're following BT or Vodafone or it's a competitive market, right? We have four MNOs, hopefully going to three and then tons of flanker brands and MVNOs. We have at least four or five scale-based ISPs and then dozens of people building fiber. It's a complicated market. It's a competitive market. It needs repair. And I think we'll play a role in that. Vodafone 3 coming together will play a role in that. It's a complicated market. I think on the mobile side, in particular, we've had this sort of confluence of two things, neither of them particularly good, a slowdown in the overall mobile market. And at the same time, flinker brands, discount brands have taken up a lot of slack. So we've seen less volume in our mobile business, which means fewer handset sales. And so I think that -- but the fourth quarter is right here, we're in it. And I think the momentum is swinging. And as it always does, these markets do this. And so I'm pretty encouraged by what we're seeing today in the market. And the fixed business, as I mentioned, is very stable. We're growing ARPUs, where we will be taking price increases. I'm sure. Alison mentioned that this morning. We'll be taking price increases in the new manner. So I think, there's lots of things to be positive about there, but we have some work to do around the structure of the market. That's where I would pay attention if you're looking at that.

Right. And we discussed earlier in our conversation, the U.K. NetCo and the separation project. There is a debate in the industry about the merits of network separation. So why this is the right path to maximize value, you think in the U.K.?

Yes. I think, the way to think about that question, it's a good question, is it's not the right answer for everybody. You have to have a handful of things where you can check the box. That's just 100% right. And the U.K. for us checks the box. What do I mean by that? It's -- Simon is here from CityFibre, he knows it's relatively inexpensive to build fiber in the U.K. We can upgrade for GBP 100-plus a home, and we can build for GBP 500, GBP 600 a home. Compare that to Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, where we operate a fraction of the cost. So it's a very inexpensive -- why there's a lot of people there, very inexpensive fiber upgrade and fiber build. That's number one. Number two, there's a robust wholesale market. So if you're going to build a NetCo and attract new capital to that NetCo, there better be some revenue beyond your revenue. And there's a massive wholesale market in the U.K., obviously, that can be tapped into. It's a bit of a zero-sum game with BT, but she knows that's coming. Thirdly, we have scale in that market. We already reached 18 million homes, six of them are fiber, plus or minus, and we're going. So for us, we can get to 22 million, 23 million, 24 million homes. We'll see, but that's not far off from where she is. So you can get national scale, and that's not the case in every market. And I think there's interest in that market. There's consolidation opportunities. There's a way to kind of wrap it up or get it to be a much more rational market if you have a NetCo. And lastly, we think people are interested in helping us fund this business. So we're out in the market, I think, next week. So I think all those things are really important. And I can't say that in every country or every opportunity. So you're right. It's not for everybody. But if you can check the box on those four, five, six things, then it is for you.

Makes sense. Shareholder IPO rights kicked in from June 2024 for Virgin Media O2. So how should we think about the next steps?

Well, I mean, listen, the partnership with Telefonica couldn't be better, just we're doing all day yesterday, I really, think we see eye to eye on everything so far, which is terrific. But we have -- I think, it's a little early to be thinking about IPOs. It doesn't mean we aren't interested in it, but I think we've got to get through some of this market structure issue, get back the commercial momentum we know we have and can realize there. So -- but I believe that asset will be extremely attractive if when we get to the right moment to do that. And we'll trade at a premium to anybody in that marketplace today. So we'll see. It's a little early to be thinking about that.

Right. And to wrap up on the U.K., the shareholder distributions have slowed last year. How do you think about shareholder remuneration going forward at Virgin Media O2?

I think it's a balancing act like it is in every company. We're in the budgeting process right now. So we were doing that all day yesterday. What's important, what kind of investments do we make for growth? What kind of investments are we willing to defer? What does that mean for the bottom line, free cash flow dividend? So it's a balancing act. We'll give you the guidance when we get to it. But you should assume we're looking at trying to optimize that balance for the benefit of both parties and for the benefit of the company. So let's see how these NetCo discussions evolve. There's lots of moving parts in there. So it's premature, I think, to give you a view on it.

Right. And moving to the Liberty Global growth portfolio. So the Venture portfolio, which is now Liberty Global Growth, it has been highlighted as one of the key pillar where you, Mike, and the rest of the management team for value creation. Could you update us on the capital allocation strategy across the different buckets within this portfolio?

Yes. So we do call it Liberty Growth now, and people are wondering why we changed that name. I think, Venture, it was a term of convenience. We just sort of used to put it over there on the side and I think, sort of, implies risk and like a side hustle, whereas in this portfolio, which is we value or Deloitte values at $3 billion, we have some real stock. Not everything in that portfolio is core. And we already exited $900 million of stuff. We've been selling things and repurposing that capital into deleveraging Sunrise or other places. So it's a source of capital. I'll point that out, first of all, there's three, maybe four buckets in there for vertical. The tech vertical is a very specialized vertical. We value it today $400 million, $500 million, but literally, we're a Venture capitalist, be around in software, cloud, AI, technologies that we know benefit us, make us smarter. We've had pretty good success there. It's about $400 million or $500 million today. We returned $650 million and I think a high-teens IRR. So a really good tech team in Denver, and in Silicon Valley. I think that's a net zero, because it usually eats what it kills. Meaning, if it sells assets that reinvest, but we don't put money in it. And we might even bring a partner into that some, because we're good at that. The second vertical is media content, bigger $900 billion, something like that. And that has in it things like Formula E, stakes in media content company, there's some other sports stuff. There, I think we are definitely going to be rebalancing that portfolio. Some things we don't need to own, other things we want to get bigger in, like Formula E. And so, I think, you should assume that's going to be a mixed bag. We'll be exiting some things, and we'll be looking at some scale-based opportunities. The third is infrastructure. There, I think we are in. We have a relatively sizable digital infrastructure portfolio today. We know this business, and I think you'll see us probably invest some money into that. I mean, not billions, but keep that growing. A lot of the deals we do there we're doing with our own infrastructure. So we're taking property assets and vending them into a data center business. I mean, these are things that are just smart -- I think, anyway smart and strategic and tax-efficient ways to create value with the assets that we have. And then the last is, we call it strategic, but it's our stake in Vodafone. It's our stake in ITV. It's our publicly traded assets, that's probably $600 million. Do we have to own those? I don't know. So there's a source of cash. We'll have $2 billion of cash year-end after the Sunrise trade. And we think there's more cash we can realize both from the growth portfolio as well as from the Liberty Telecom portfolio, where there are non-core assets. Towers in Holland, more towers yet to monetize in the U.K. So there are opportunities even in the telecom group to get cash.

Right. And just actually following up on your point on towers. We are seeing an interesting start of a debate within the industry about whether it makes sense for telcos to own towers or not. We saw KPN buying back some of their towers. So there is really a start of conversation there. So why do you think that the best value creation path for the Liberty Group is to dispose of towers?

I'm not sure it is in every case, but when someone pays you 17x, 18x, 20x EBITDA, you better sit up and listen. I mean, if I didn't, you'd fire me. If someone came and offer me like they did in Belgium, 25x EBITDA for my tower portfolio there that nobody bothered to worry about it and netted $800 million to us. I think, if I didn't listen to that, would be -- now strategically, you have to -- there are complexities. You've got to put all the arrangements in place, I'd say, make sure you're comfortable. But I don't know that there's going to be a seat change in thinking here, at least we're not picking up on that.

Right. And I wanted also to talk about data centers, which is a hot topic. Liberty Global has investments across two businesses, Atlas Edge and EdgeConneX. Could you talk about these businesses and also your expansion plans?

Yes. So quickly, EdgeConnex is a huge global data center business. We only own 5% of it. It's EQT's asset. I think, they have something like 800 megawatts of capacity, big business. We just sold a small piece of our -- 5% piece. But if you look at the value implied by that, it's a 4x on our investment. So I think, we sold $50 million. We have $380 million left, but it's been a great return. So the data center business, look, I mean, there is an insatiable appetite for power, space, connectivity and compute. And I don't see it going anywhere but up. So can we play in that? Should we play in that? Yes, we understand this business. We're network infrastructure players for 50 years. And so Atlas Edge is more of a homegrown approach to it. It's a 50-50 JV with a company called DigitalBridge, which you might know, publicly traded. And there, we're only at about 60, 70 megawatts, but we're hoping to get to 200 megwatts. If we get there, it's $300 million of EBITDA. We've got about $150 million in it. So you could see us leaning into stuff like that. We've got some energy transition things where we're creating charging stations off our infrastructure, things like that. But this kind of traditional digital infrastructure space, Edge and data centers, I think you could see us do some more interesting things.

Right. And moving to AI, another hot topic. Could you talk about how AI could impact the telecoms business model? What are the opportunities, but also any threats we should keep in mind?

I don't know what I can add here that you haven't heard from everybody else, except that I read a recent report just yesterday that was interesting. And it kind of said there's three phases to this AI journey we're on. There's the phase we're in, which is efficiencies, do things better, headcount, and we can talk about that. And that's real, by the way. Then there's this phase of personalization, where it really becomes truly a tool for incredible services and experiences for the individual. And then, there's this disruption phase that might follow that. Those two phases are ways off. Right now, everybody is completely focused on this efficiency phase. Everything we're doing, if you look at what we're doing around our call agents, you've heard this from everybody. But literally, we get 50 million phone calls a year. If I can reduce the time 30 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes, 3 minutes by simple AI tools, and I can reduce churn and increase retention by having these intent -- all this stuff figured out, which we're doing, that's powerful. Same thing with networks. If I can reduce the amount of power my networks utilize, that's positive. So I mean, we have billions upon billions upon billions of OpEx, hundreds of thousands of workflows. Every one of those is a target for some kind of AI efficiency tool. So we're doing it. Everybody is doing it. The real promise is in Phase 2 and 3, I think. And I don't know exactly when those things kick in, because we're also focused on driving cost efficiencies and improvements in customer experience and quality of network. So that's where we are today. The downsides are not insignificant, but we don't have in 6 minutes and 42 seconds enough time to talk about the existential risk of AI. That's a different conference.

That's fair enough. Mike, we talked quite a bit about consolidation today, the change of perhaps antitrust stance, what it could mean for telcos, but also consolidation on the infrastructure side, which is very important. So just to bring it altogether, because we mentioned it also in a number of markets. So what is your exposure across the different markets to this consolidation theme, both from an MNO perspective, but also on infra? Where are the markets where you see the most exciting opportunities, just to wrap up?

Around this regulatory issue. What I think all of our markets can benefit from that, I think, the U.K. is going to go through some relatively important and probably highly accretive for some and not for others, consolidation in infrastructure and fiber. They just can't have 100 people building fiber, it's not economic, we won't make it. So -- but there are many large platforms. And so how do you get these platforms to connect and reduce overbuild and waste of capital. And so, I think, the CMA and Ofcom are going to play a pretty big role in the U.K. market. I think the deal with Vodafone 3 will be approved. I think it's a positive for the market. We support it. We were able to get some spectrum out of it as well as clarity around our network sharing deal with Vodafone. So I think it's a win-win, win. Win for consumers, win for the market, win for us, win for them, that's four wins. So I'm positive on that view. And I think in every market, there are going to be moving pieces. And if the regulators allow those pieces to move based upon what the actors are suggesting is market rationalization, that's a good thing. Will there be more cross-border deals where you see Mario Draghi is really hoping for this pan-European telecom, behemoth. I don't think so. I think if we can just get regulators out of the way, maybe align some spectrum policy a little bit. That would be good. Look at in the U.K., Keir Starmer said it, when I met with him, if regulators are getting in the way of productivity and growth, I'm getting rid of that. I mean, he was quite clear. Now you may have a different view, if everyone has political views, but he said quite clearly to a group of us that regulators have to get out of the way. We can't be reasons for productivity and growth not occurring. And let's see what happens, and we'll find out, but it really is a critical issue. And I think, generally speaking, in our business, scale matters most. You need national footprints, rational market structures and then it's then everybody wins.

Thank you for the comprehensive overview. It's very helpful. So moving to the share buyback strategy. You have steadily continued to buy back stock. Now post the Sunrise spin-off, I wanted to ask you, Mike, about how complex is it now to continue the share buyback strategy?

Well, I think it gets easier on some level, right, because our market cap is now smaller. Because we spun out this relatively big piece of the business in terms of market value. And so, if we're spending $700 million this year to buy 10% of our stock, well, given our market cap, we'll be spending less next year. So on some one level, it becomes easier to keep reducing by 10%. I mean, we bought back $14.5 billion, something like plus/minus, 60% of the shares. If you own 1% when we started that process in 2017, now you own 2.5%. So of each business of Sunrise of Liberty. So is it -- we're not going private slowly. We're just like what we're doing and believe that there is a continued opportunity to create value here. So we'd like to own more of it. I think, that will be a part of the overall value creation strategy. It's no longer the main part of the strategy because just the quantums aren't there, as you say, a smaller market, but it's a big part of the strategy. And it's -- I think, it's a nice benefit. If I can say to you, hey, you're going to end the year with 10% fewer shares than we started with, everybody owns more if you're staying in. And if we get some of these things done that we want to get done like we did with Sunrise, that what you own is worth more.

Great. Mike, so I'll hand over to you, actually, if you have any closing remarks or any questions that should have asked, which I didn't.

No, I think, you did a great job. It's always good to be here. And I know we have a bunch of meetings. So I'm sure I'll see some of you in the next few hours. But no, okay, I think these are -- this one is a great conference because you get all the right people here. At the end of the year, everybody is in budget mode. So we're thinking about both next year and strategy and value creation. So it's the right time to do it. Don't change it from November. But it's great to be here, so I appreciate that.

Thank you very much, Mike, for the helpful for conversation. Thank you all for listening.

Great. Thanks.