Megacable Holdings, S. A. B. de C. V. (MEGACPO) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning. Welcome to Megacable First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. With us this morning, we have Enrique Yamuni, CEO; Raymundo Fernandez, Deputy CEO; and Luis Zetter, CFO. Let me remind you that the information discussed in today's earnings call may include forward-looking statements on the company's future financial performance and prospects, which are subject to risks and uncertainties. Megacable undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Enrique Yamuni. Sir, you may begin.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. First, I would like to talk about the mixed macroeconomic environment in which once again we have delivered positive results. We continue to see a challenging scenario marked by a slower than expected decrease in interest rates. In addition, the FX has remained strong, but a weaker peso is expected for the end of the year. Inflationary pressures once again were present in the month of March after a positive February, and finally, the uncertainty from the upcoming federal elections in Mexico and the U.S. continues. In this scenario, the outlook for our industry remains positive as we expect penetrations of the broadband service to continue improving, thus bringing new subscribers to the market while most of the industry shifts towards fiber option as a standard. Although video has a more conservative performance, we continue to leverage our growth in the content integration capabilities of our video platform, taking advantage of all the content available from many sources to offer our subscribers a complete video experience. In this context, Mega remains focused on the execution of its 2 main tasks, the network evolution and network expansion projects, which will ensure our capacity to provide better services with higher bandwidth in line with the current and future requirements of the market. At the same time, we continue to see the outcome of the investments already made which allowed us to post steady growth in net adds and an upward trend in revenue and EBITDA generation. Nevertheless, one of the highlights of the quarter is that we are cash flow positive in more than MXN 788 million. This is a significant milestone and just a glimpse of what we will be achieving regarding cash generation in coming periods. The Mass segment revenues continue to grow at a double-digit pace, driven by a strong performance in net additions with record figures for the period. In the same line, EBITDA posted a solid performance with the EBITDA margin at its peak level of the last 6 quarters and exceeding market expectations. As you can recall, starting in September 2023, the new territories became EBITDA positive and have continued to improve with each month as penetration in these territories rises. During the quarter, Megacable continued to make steady progress in the construction phase of its expansion plan. As you will recall, during 2023, we significantly exceeded our target for homes passed, which allowed us to slow down the pace of construction and CapEx requirements for this year. As we anticipated in our last conference call, the CapEx figure for the quarter already represents a lower number of homes passed and kilometers added during the period. We expect a full year with a CapEx to revenues rate below 35%. In this context, the company continues to look for the most efficient sources of funding, and at the end of March, we successfully completed the issuance of a long-term sustainable local notes for approximately MXN 4 billion. This transaction will guarantee the required resources to support our ongoing projects. Even considering this additional debt, we managed to lower our coverage ratio for the period when compared to the fourth quarter of '23. We remain confident that the results of our initiatives will allow us to record top leverage of 1.6x to 1.7x and decrease from there on. For 2024, our efforts will strive to complete the construction phase of our expansion with a much lower investment pace, with the subscriber and revenue consolidation phase beginning in 2025, ready to grasp benefits from all the investments deployed. In these regards, although the company is willing to analyze alternatives that could boost its commitment to value generation, today, there are no relevant operations planned for the short terms other than the expansion project to which we continue to direct 100% of our efforts. Before concluding, I am pleased to share that in line with our commitment to drive the greatest generation of value, yesterday, at our annual ordinary shareholders meeting, the payment of a dividend of MXN 2.6 billion was approved, equivalent to 20% of the EBITDA recorded in 2023. With this milestone, Megacable stands at the top of Mexican publicly -traded companies that pay off the most in dividends to its shareholders. In conclusion, we are the company with the most aggressive expansion plan in the sector in recent years, a plan that was supported by a solid financial position. We have been executing according to our efficiency culture, and we are very proud of our progress and results. Despite having invested a significant amount over the last 3 years, we remain one of the companies with the lowest leverage ratio in the industry and our perspective on value creation for the coming periods is looking brighter. Now, I hand the call to Raymundo for his remarks on our operational performance. Raymundo, please go ahead.

Thanks, Enrique. Good morning, everyone. We are pleased to share that in line with the execution of our expansion project and the positive performance recorded in our legacy territories, this quarter will be the 5 million unique subscribers mark, mostly following a solid performance of our Internet and telephony services. During the quarter, 514,000 new homes were added to our network, representing 2,000 kilometers of new fiber. With this, we now have nearly 16 million homes passed through 95,600 kilometers of distribution network, bringing us closer to the culmination of our expansion initiative. This has already been reflected in the sequential soft landing of CapEx, which went from MXN 3.9 billion in the fourth quarter of 2023 to MXN 2.3 billion this quarter, as Enrique mentioned. We expect a CapEx to revenue rate for the full year between 32% and 34%, thus reflecting a clear deceleration in investment deployed. Unique subscribers were up 12.1% year over year to 5.1 million, representing 550,000 net additions, of which 143,900 were recorded this quarter. As for the Internet segment, in line with expectations, it registered a year-over-year increase of 13.7%, equivalent to 587,700 net additions, of which 151,300 were recorded this quarter, bringing subscribers to 4.9 million. It is worth highlighting that we remain committed to fiber adoption with the goal of becoming a full fiber player in the coming years. In that line, 67% of our subscribers are getting this service through this technology compared to 52% a year ago. Video subscribers reached 3.9 million, representing an increase of 4.4% on a year-over-year basis, or 167,000 net additions, of which 14,800 were registered this quarter. In this segment, our Xview platform continues to play a key role in our value proposal, as reflected in the 21.9% annual growth of its subscriber base, which reached 3.1 million, equivalent to 549,000 net additions. This implies that 78% of our video subscribers are already enjoying our flagship next-generation platform compared to 67% a year ago. Telephony subscribers grew 18.9% year over year, totaling 4.3 million. Out of these, 677,000 subscribers were added in the last 12 months and 173,000 this quarter. MVNO services registered a total of 461,100 subscribers recording a year-over-year growth of 22.3%, equivalent to 84,000 net additions, of which 28,000 were posted this quarter. Regarding RGUs, this amounted to 13.1 million this quarter, increasing 12.3% compared to the 11.6 million in the first quarter of 2023. This growth is from a larger subscriber base generated by our expansion plan and incremental market penetration in legacy territories. RGUs per unique subscriber increased from 2.56 in the first quarter 2023 to 2.57 this quarter. Churn rates were 1.8% for Internet, 2.1% for Video, and 2.1% for Telephony, remaining practically unchanged from last quarter. In the case of Internet and Telephony, the churn rates improved on a year-over-year basis. ARPU per unique subscriber went from MXN 420.4 in the first quarter of 2023 to MXN 421.7 this quarter. Compared to last quarter, ARPU per unique subscriber slightly decreased due to a seasonality effect with better collection of revenues in the fourth quarter of 2023. Turning to ARPU by segment. Compared to the first quarter of last year, Internet and Video grew 5% and 2%, respectively, while Telephony and MVNO decreased 7%. In this quarter, the solid performance of the Corporate segment when compared to the first quarter of last year is mainly due to the extraordinary revenues recorded by ho1a in the enterprise segment, coupled with the steady growth recorded by MetroCarrier with a significant performance in the enterprise segment. To conclude, as Enrique mentioned, our efforts remain focused on maintaining the operating efficiency and service quality that have characterized our company, while consolidating our infrastructure through our expansion and the evolution of our legacy territories. We want to ensure our capacity of value creation through the best network of the country, service quality, and the best profitability. Thank you for your attention. I will now hand over the call to Luis, who will provide a detailed analysis of our financial performance.

Thank you, Raymundo. Good morning, everyone. Consolidated revenues increased from MXN 7 billion in the first quarter of 2023 to MXN 8 billion this quarter, representing an increase of 12%, driven mainly by the solid performance of the Mass segment. Mass segment revenues increased a double-digit rate of 13% year over year, amounting to MXN 6.6 billion. By service, Internet grew 20%, the highest growth since first quarter of 2018; Video 7%; MVNO 12%; Telephony 11%, driven by higher subscriber volumes, and related to the execution of our expansion and network evolution projects. Corporate segment revenues totaled MXN 1.4 billion this quarter, recording a 5% increase when compared to MXN 1.3 billion in the same period 2023. This result is explained mainly by nonrecurring income in ho1a, while MetroCarrier continues with solid performance in this regard. Ho1a and MetroCarrier increase was 23% and 7%, respectively, while MCM and PCTV decreased 10% and 4%, also, respectively. As a result, the revenue share for the quarter came 82% from the Mass segment and 18% from Corporate. Regarding the cost of services and SG&A in this quarter, this totaled MXN 2.2 billion and MXN 2.1 billion, respectively, representing annual growth rates of 8% and 14%, mainly due to the increase of depreciation and costs associated with labor. In the first quarter 2024, consolidated EBITDA reached nearly MXN 3.7 billion, growing 13% year over year. Likewise, the EBITDA margin expanded 40 basis points year over year, reaching 46.1%, driven by the margin improvement recorded across expansion territories as the penetration continues to increase. In the same line, EBITDA for Cable operations grew 12% year over year, totaling MXN 3.5 billion, with a margin of 47.3%. We maintain our prospects of gradually recovering margins, in line with the rampant progress of new territories. As a result, we expect margins for the coming quarters to be higher than those of 2023. Net income went from MXN 797 million in the first quarter 2023 to MXN 801 million this quarter, growing close to 1%. On a sequential basis, 24% was recorded. The growth of the net income below EBITDA is impacted by higher financial expenses related to our additional debt. Moving into the balance sheet. The company's net debt recorded an annual growth when compared to the same quarter of last year, but a sequential decrease of 4%, reaching MXN 19.4 billion at the end of March 2024, given the resources held in cash from the recent issuance of the sustainable bonds. The annual growth was due to the resources raised in the last 12 months, same that were collected to support and accelerate our expansion and network revolution projects. In this context, our net debt to EBITDA ratio decreased to 1.4x at the end of the quarter compared to the 1.5x on the previous one. It's important to note that our debt level remains below the industry average. We remain confident that the leverage peak will be by Q3 and will not go beyond 1.6x net debt to EBITDA. As of March 31, 2024, our interest coverage ratio was 5.6x, reflecting the solid imposition to meet our financial obligations. As anticipated, CapEx was down from MXN 4 billion last quarter to MXN 2.3 billion on this one. Although we continue with our expansion and integration initiatives, the amount of kilometers and homes passed over the first quarter are significantly less when compared to those of 2023, as we get closer to our target figures. As a result, the CapEx to revenue ratio was this quarter reduced to around 29%. By full year, we expect, as Raymundo and Enrique mentioned, CapEx to revenues to remain at levels of 32% to 34%. Finally, we will continue pursuing a disciplined financial execution and plan to take advantage of the lower interest rate environment expected for the coming quarters, drawing from our swift access to diverse sources of financing, which, coupled with the maturation of new territories and strengthening legacy territories, will certainly allow us to enhance profitability. With this, I conclude my remarks and turn the call back to Esau.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Marcelo Santos from JPMorgan. Marcelo, please go ahead.

I have 2. The first, could you please update us about the CapEx expectations for the next couple of years? You gave very good range for this year, so I just wanted to know how this progress is going forward. And the second is more like an industry question. One of your competitors added a very high amount of net adds, but we are seeing the industry that the churn rates are going down basically for everybody. So what do you think -- what's your view of what's going on in the market? Are we seeing big penetration increase? Is someone losing a lot of subs? Are you losing in some regions and gaining in others? Just want to get your read on this evolution of the market.

Marcelo, good questions both. Let me tell you about the CapEx. Luis is doing a great effort since he's a little bit sore on his throat. But CapEx, as we say, we are very pleased to announce and to present a decrease in the CapEx in the first quarter. And also, that's the message that we will remain between 32% and 34% for the year, below what we have before, and that's coupled with the decrease of the construction of the kilometers. For the years to come, we will see a decrease in CapEx and get to around the 20% level that we are expecting -- that we all are expecting for a company that is much more mature after the expansion project, by pretty much 2027 on that part, at the end of 2027 or 2027. That's the market that we have. After that, of course, we will be slightly before that, but that's our goal. The first one is to go down from what we have last year and get into this 32% to 34%. And you will see that decline in the coming years. That one is a commitment of the management and that's part of the plan. And it's according to everything that we announced in the past. On the other question you mentioned about the competitive landscape, well, what we see is that we have a steady growth. I believe that we are presenting pretty much the same strategy, quarter over quarter. We have an acceleration of our expansion and kilometers was built last year, and we will decrease this one. Now we need to continue to provide our gross adds and net adds in a very steady way. We keep our churn in the 1.8% to 2%, pretty much 1.8% is what we have for the broadband, 2.1% for the video. On that one, which is slightly higher than other competitors, which is normal, too, because we approach a big amount of lower economic levels on that part with the pricing strategy. For the rest, we cannot tell you. What we see is that, of course, for the market we are surprised that we see that huge amount of growth or net adds for other competitors. It should be for them to ask what happened on that part. We don't see that in the market. We don't see more commercial efforts, we don't see our market research and penetration and the market share that we have has not been affected and changed. So we're also surprised to see what happened in the market regarding that part. What we can say is that from everybody, we have the most steady and continued growth on the part, and we're not surprised that other ones don't grow because they slow down every commercial effort we have and for the rest we don't see that motion. Enrique, I don't know if you want to say something or that's completely. Marcelo, I don't know if I answered your question.

I agree with your comments.

The next question comes from Vitor Tomita from Goldman Sachs.

So, 2 questions from my side. The first one is if you could give us some more color on how you see ARPU trends going forward. And our second question would be more on the very solid cash generation in this quarter. Looking at the balance sheet, my impression is that working capital trends seem to have improved this quarter as well. Could you give us some more color on working capital dynamics for the quarter and how you expect that part of the cash generation to trend going forward?

Vitor, I will answer the ARPU, and we'll see if Luis can answer the other. If not, I will help him, but ARPU trend, what we see is that we will have a slight increase in the ARPU. We continue to focus in market penetration and expansion of our project. And the ARPU is affected between the new territories and the existing territories on that part. So we will continue to see, and you can bet on a slight increase. It's not going to be a significant increase moving forward on that part. Regarding the cash generation, Luis, you want to say something, if you can.

Yes, I'll try. Okay. Thank you for the question, and sorry for the voice again. Well, you have to take in consideration that working capital, it's been benefited by several negotiations we did with our strategic partners. And we increased our commercial terms. So in this quarter, there's a combination of increasing revenue. These negotiations with commercial credits or the commercial terms, and also the reduction in CapEx. But as we expect the CapEx to come to 32% to 34% levels in the remaining of the year, and the benefit of the commercial terms will hit us back. Well, we expect, yes, to generate some cash, but with a different phase or pace than what you saw in this quarter.

At the end, we are very pleased that we have a free cash flow on that part. As we said, partially because of the decrease of the CapEx. CapEx will remain at 32%, 34% for the year. That means we will have a slight increase of CapEx in the coming quarters. This is a seasonality part of that part, but it will not go above that 33% that we have over revenues. Revenues will increase. So in that amount, we will continue to provide free cash flow. And as we said, our working capital has been improving because of all the efficiency that we have, and also because it's normal that we have a better penetration and a better margin -- a better penetration, margin, and EBITDA in the new territories. So this is normal. It was part of what we presented the Board and what we have been discussing with you. And it's part of our expansion plan going forward. So it looks really bright for the future.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Emilio Fuentes from GBM.

I just wanted to know if you have some color on whether you've experienced an increasing churn on expansion territories as time has passed from your plan and these territories have matured. Has there been some churn from customers that are leaving promotional periods?

Emilio, no, we haven't seen an increase in churn on that part. The churn that we have in the existing territories is higher than the organic because of the high commercial effort that we do, which is normal for a much more expansion -- larger expansion territory than the other ones. But no, we don't see an increase in the churn as we continue to provide service on those territories. That's a direct answer to that one.

Our next question comes from Phani Kumar from HSBC. Phani, please go ahead.

The first question is regarding your margin expansion. It did seem like you expanded very fast this quarter compared to last. So is everything organic or is there some one-off items that is impacting your EBITDA margins? The second question is, did you raise all the capital that you need for this year or do you expect any further capital raise this year in terms of debt?

Yes, Phani, the margin expansion, yes, it continues to increase. We're very proud. Again, we have always said that we will recover our margin levels accordingly as we continue to expand and penetrate our markets. It comes because we have a higher penetration in the new territories and that's bringing positive EBITDA and bigger, larger margin than what we had before. And just to understand, the margin or EBITDA margin in the legacy territories was not affected. We will continue to be -- I'm very proud of the largest and the highest margin in the industry that was affected because of the expansion. Now it is recovering. We will continue to recover margins as we continue to grow in those territories, as we said, until we reach the 2027 timeline that we have on that. Regarding CapEx, as we said in the last one, we will target to 32% to 34%. And we'll continue to decrease and get to the 20% pretty much by 2026.

And to your question regarding the additional fundings, we are not expecting to issue another bond. We will be buffering with the bank lines -- credit lines that we have for the remaining of the project. So it will depend on the cash flow generation, but we have some bank credit lines to use in case of any issue that comes.

And again, as we said over there, our peak in the ratio that we will have for the net debt, we're aiming not more than 1.6x the net debt ratio, which is the lowest in the industry, too?

Our next question comes from Carlos de Legarreta from Itau. Carlos, please go ahead. Carlos, you are on mute.

The first one, on the Corporate side, obviously, we're seeing some mixed behavior. But if you can talk about what you expect for the year. I don't know, it's because it's an electoral year, you expect certain weakness. Maybe you can remind us the exposure that you have to government on the Corporate side. And then secondly, I know the regulator published substantial market power ruling against Megacable in a reduced number of markets. Obviously, I know you're contesting that, but if you can walk us through the logic, or the lack thereof, of the regulator, and what is your position regarding to that ruling, that would certainly be very helpful as well?

Well, we're very pleased also about our Corporate results. Ho1a had great, great quarter on some projects that we were looking at the third and fourth quarter of last year. We didn't materialize that period, so we did materialize on this one. That's the nature of ho1a in that part. Ho1a has 2 components: one is the IT and cloud services, which is very steady. And the other one are special corporate and government projects, which is nonrecurrent. On that part, that's why you see some good quarters and not such a good quarters, let's call it that way, in some of that part. At the end, we're very positive, Corporate segment will continue to be increasing. MetroCarrier posted good results to steady results at 7%. We have a slight decrease in MCM that affects us. That's part of some of the products with a special part of the segment that we aim on MCM, that decrease and affect our company in that area. We are already turning that around, and we are very confident that for the rest of the year, we will continue to provide positive results on that part. So Corporate looks good also, and we will continue to provide growth in revenue on that part. Regarding the government, you want to say something.

Yes. So regarding that ruling that the IFT came up with about substantial power, whatever you want to call it, in certain cities, in certain markets, I think 9 of them, we were very confident that we will appeal that, and we will win that, because that was the same thing that happened -- exactly it's a mirror case of -- that was with Televisa, and Televisa was able to turn it down. It's very simple. Those markets are some networks that we bought from Axtel 4 years ago or 5 years ago, I don't remember. And the analysis that the regulator did was really not taking into account all of the new applications that are in the market, like Netflix and Amazon Prime and HBO and Disney, all those applications that are sold directly to the consumer. And obviously we do not have a substantial power in those markets. So we are confident that we will win that even before it starts taking effect, the mandatory regulation that regulator mandated. I think that -- well, even though that the court is slow, we have time to turn down before it goes into effect. So we are not very worried. We are occupied in taking care of that, but we are confident that we will win the case.

But Enrique, we're very confident.

Just to clarify, there's no financial impact from this, right? If it were to go or to remain in place, there's no -- yes.

No. We don't see -- even if it stayed in place, it would represent some more days' work for us, but not an economic impact.

The next question comes from Alejandro Lavin from Santander.

Just a couple of quick questions on steady state, let's call it, assumptions, right? So let's call it by 2027, you mentioned that CapEx or sales could reach around 20%. That same number or assumption, what would you think about EBITDA margin in the same year? And lastly, how could these answers change if the FX goes back to, let's call it, MXN 18 to MXN 20 per $1?

Well, I don't see the peso staying at MXN 17 exchange rate. It's obvious that the conditions are going to make -- are going to change at some point. It's not going to be an abrupt change of the FX. But I think that it will go up eventually in the next couple of years, maybe to levels of MXN 19 or something like that. If you see the historic exchange rate ratios in the last 10 years, the peso is over evaluated by about 25%, considering the difference of inflation between both countries. This is a situation that it's benefiting some people and hurting other sectors, but the balance is, I think, not that bad. But the exchange rate will definitely, I think, move to more reasonable quantities than the exchange rate in the future.

And like Enrique is saying, Alejandro, our EBITDA margin will reach and will go back to normal levels, what we call normal levels, which are the highest level in the industry, between 47% to 48% by 2027 to 2028. And that's considering also reaching that 20% of the CapEx with that impact on the exchange rate at the levels that you are talking, Alejandro, and Enrique's comment.

It seems that we do not have more questions, so I'll turn the call over to Mr. Yamuni for final remarks.

Okay. Thank you very much, Esau. And thank you all for your interest in Megacable. And we hope that you are satisfied with this report and the results of the company. We will continue delivering great results in the future. Even better maybe than the one we delivered today. Please feel free to contact our Investor Relations department if you have any other or more questions or more doubts. It was a pleasure to discuss our results with you and have a wonderful day. Thank you very much.

Thank you, all.