Uniti Group Inc. (UNIT) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

March 15, 2022

NASDAQ US Communication Services Diversified Telecommunication Services conference_presentation 37 min

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

Matthew Niknam

analyst
#1

All right. Let's go ahead and get started with our next session. I'm Matt Niknam, infrastructure analyst here at Deutsche Bank. We are very pleased to welcome back Unity. We've got CFO and Treasurer, Paul Bullington as well as Bill DiTullio from IR, welcome.

Paul Bullington

executive
#2

Thank you, Matt. It's great to be here.

Matthew Niknam

analyst
#3

Great. Great. Well, why don't we go ahead and maybe start at high level. Can you talk about some of the top priorities for the business in 2022? And then we'll sort of dig into some other?

Paul Bullington

executive
#4

Sure, sure. So the core business is really strong right now. We had a really solid end to the year and a solid full year of 2021. Really strong bookings, particularly into the back half of the year, a couple of record quarters, really 3 in a row, record quarters of bookings with $1 million of monthly recurring revenue bookings in a row. So as we look into 2022, we really want to continue that momentum. So a lot of the things that we're doing well on the operational side of the business, continue to lease up our fiber. So Uniti Fiber, that means selling more high margin, lower capital intensity lease-up type businesses to enterprise and wholesale and wireless customers. On the leasing side, it really means capitalizing on the pipeline of business we've been able to build. So as part of the Windstream settlement in 2020, we got access to 2.2 million strand miles of fiber on the Windstream network, which we owned the large majority of prior, but Windstream had exclusive access to use them to lease. Now we have exclusive rights to lease some of those strands on that network. And that has really helped us to accelerate or the demand for that part of our business, the leasing part of our business, where we're selling to large carriers, international carriers, hypersaline and that business has tripled over the last a few quarters. The latest figure we had was $1.6 billion in total contract value in that pipeline. So we really want to continue to accelerate that and operationalize that and close as much of that business as we possibly can. That's a pipeline, so it represents a lot of deals in a lot of places. We'll win some, we won't win some, but the demand there has exceeded our expectations. And then beyond that, M&A continues to be a priority for the business. We want to -- we still would very much like to continue to diversify our revenue stream away from Windstream. That's important for us in the business. So M&A in 2022, while we're not putting a specific time line around it, we want to stay disciplined on it, it's will definitely be something we want to be active in, in 2022. And then the other thing I would mention would just be focusing on the customer experience, I think we deliver already a superior customer experience, but we want to get even better at that. And so we put some new focus into making sure that we're delivering the experience that our customers demand. And we think that will lead to good things as well.

Matthew Niknam

analyst
#5

Let's start with leasing. The elephant in the room. I have to bring it up around Windstream. Maybe just to start. So what does the relationship with Windstream look like today? And then how do you see that relationship progressing going forward?

Paul Bullington

executive
#6

Yes. So I think everybody probably set us an elephant in the room. We've had the public -- a bit of a public debate recently over particularly the 2030 renewal rent. And that's been -- I don't know, it's unfortunate from my perspective, I would rather not be that kind of the visibility that you guys get to the relationship between the 2. Because when you look at it from an operational standpoint, I think it's going well. I think it's progressed nicely since the settlement. The GCI investment, so we committed to investing up to $1.75 billion in that network. So it's our network, they operate it, but primarily for the overbuild of copper with new fiber their kinetic fiber-to-the-home business. And that's going really well. We've deployed over $300 million of capital already in that business. And so the mechanics of working with Windstream to evaluate particular projects and markets to get that approved and then for Windstream to go and execute and then come back and bring us those projects, once they're completed with the request for funding and to vet that and then fund all that kind of stuff requires a lot of coordination between the 2 companies, and that's going well. And then the other piece where we're coordinating more on a daily basis than we were prior to the settlement is around the leasing -- the fibers that I have mentioned. So on the Windstream network, we've got to coordinate with as we lease those fibers to customers of Unity, we have to coordinate with Windstream to make those fibers available, to get those supplied in and maintained and all those sorts of things. And so that requires coordination. So on an operational level, I think we're pleased with how things are going. We think the GCI program is the right strategy for Windstream. We think it's critical for their long-term success. We think it's critical for the value of that network long term. So I think things are progressing fine.

Matthew Niknam

analyst
#7

This discussion around the 2030 renewal. I mean I saw the slide in your earnings day where you sort of laid out but they're laying out and then a couple of different interpretations in your view. Is there going to be any sort of -- I mean, is this -- are we sort of just looking out 8 years from now? Is there going to be any sort of, I guess, decision made sooner? Like just how do we sort of think about that dynamic?

Paul Bullington

executive
#8

Yes. Well, we kind of just went through all this and hashed all this out in 2020, which was Windstream reemerged and bankruptcy, just really kind of 1.5 years ago. So we kind of passed all the way through all this and agreed upon the renewal process. So I mean, I think we're really talking about what's going to happen starting 5 years from now, but then out to 2030 and really 8 years with regard to the actual renewal. And we can get into the technical arguments, they do get kind of technical and into the weeds, I'm happy to get there if you want. But from a high level, I think it really boils down to 2 key points for us from our perspective. Number one is that the master leases are very clear that the renewal rent in 2030 has to be a fair market rent. And fair market rent is defined in the leases as the willing landlord and a willing tenant would enter into. And so within that context, the position that Windstream has made publicly about the rent falling to $200 million volume by really 70%. We think is counter to the trends in the industry and the investments that we're making that I've already talked about in the Windstream network. It just -- it seems counter to the direction of values and what would be a fair market rent for that network. So that's one. And then the other point is really around the fact that the leases also are clear that the 2030, when we get to an arbitration, 2 appraisers get one from each side gets higher. And those appraisers are charged with coming up with their value their determination of the fair market rent. It's clear in the 2030 -- I mean the master leases that those appraisers have to be consistent in their approach to the 2020 appraisal that was commissioned subsequent to the 2020 settlement. And Windstream's approach is not consistent in a lot of cases with that 2020 appraisal. And so what we put out that you just referenced, in our last earnings call was the -- that 2020 appraisal is not public, but we put out a little a little window into what the 2020 appraiser. So this is a big 4 accounting firm, professional appraisers that know the industry in fiber, what their viewpoint. And just in 2020, so just 1.5 years ago, really, on the 2030 renewal and they estimated -- and again, this is just an estimate, appraisers in 2030 are going to have to determine what the fair market value is then. But their estimate in that 2020 appraisal was $750 million. So very different from the Windstream perspective. So it really boils down to those 2 key big points.

Matthew Niknam

analyst
#9

But we're still -- we're not going to sort of get -- no one's going to get proven right or wrong until at least sounds like 4 or 5 years from now?

Paul Bullington

executive
#10

Yes. I think we're going to have to let all that play out and Frasers come in and do their work and what the fair market rent is going to be then I can't sit here and tell you with any specificity what it's going to be, but we're confident that it's going to be much closer to the numbers that we're talking about as opposed to a drastic reduction in the rent. I mean there could be some sort of a renegotiation of that and some sort of clarity around that, but that's not something we had envisioned doing because had all that in place and a process in place to go through that and do that in a bigger manner when it's time. Yes.

Matthew Niknam

analyst
#11

One other topic that came up that I wanted to delve into is just separating Windstream and non-Windstream assets. I think that's something that Kenny may have discussed on the last call. Can you talk through the decision process here and maybe how you balance the upside from unlocking strategic value relative to maybe some of the potential risks to pulling these 2 businesses apart?

Paul Bullington

executive
#12

Yes. So yes, we did mention that we were evaluating -- so the mechanics of how we would do that efficiently. Just because we think the optionality of being able to think about the potential of separating those businesses out could give us some optionality and could be a path to unlocking some of the value that we think is sort of trapped in the current structure. And so from an operational standpoint, we really don't perceive a lot of risk there because the Windstream operation -- the Windstream assets and the Windstream lease, particularly the ILET lease, it's really a completely separate business. It's not intertwined with our Uniti Fiber and non-Windstream leasing business at all from an operational standpoint. So there's not a lot of heavy surgery to do, really to separate those businesses. You don't lose really anything from an operational standpoint. I think the risks are more around the strategic piece of it, right? So is that the right. Is that the right decision for the businesses? How would you work through capital structure or other pieces of how you separate those businesses. I think those are the bigger -- I don't know if you call them risk or kind of just strategic decisions, but those are the things that I think we that we would need to evaluate before determining that, that was the right direction for the business.

Matthew Niknam

analyst
#13

Got it. Got it. Let's maybe go away from sea little bit I want to say on leasing because you referenced the sales funnel, $1.6 billion funnel. I think it represents about $95 million in annual revenue that's in the pipeline for leasing. Can you talk a little bit about the inbound interest you're getting the mix of potential customers that's coming from?

Paul Bullington

executive
#14

Yes. I'm going to flip that one to you, Bill.

Bill DiTullio

executive
#15

Yes. So Matt, we're getting a lot of interest on our fiber. And as Paul mentioned earlier, most of that fiber came as part of the settlement agreement with Windstream. We got the rights to 2.2 million stare mounts of fiber. Before that, predominantly had been the fiber we acquired from women CenturyLink back in 2018. And so all together, you're talking about over 3 million stem holes of fiber that we have the right to lease to other parties. Just to put it in context, the $1.6 billion of total contract value prior to getting that fiber from Windstream, the funnel was around $500 million. And before we even got access to that fiber, before we even closed on that settlement, we saw a tremendous amount of inbound interest before we even actively marketing those strands. And so that took our funnel from $500 million to about $1 billion at that point. And today, it sits at $1.6 billion. And again, that's about 1 year, 1.5 years since you reached settlement, got access to those fibers. And so yes, it represents about $90 million, $95 million worth of annual revenue. today. Most of that opportunity is coming from a lot of different types of customers, primarily both domestic and international carriers, so think about telcos, and these are customers that are looking to lease fiber from us on a long-term basis, generally, it's 20 years, but sometimes sort of 5 or 10. And the use cases of this is they either connect them to their data centers or connect offices. And so we've seen a lot of different use cases for that. You saw towards the end of last year, early this year, we announced 2 major deals, 1 with a hyperscale provider, one with international carrier where both those customers took pretty large segments of fiber over a long-term contract, 20-plus years that connected key different routes. And so those are the types of use cases that we're seeing and continue to see with the emergence of 5G and other technologies and other use cases of broadband needs and the need for fiber, especially as edge computing continues to become more and more prevalent, we expect to see a lot more demand for that fiber. And so the nice thing about it is when we acquired that fiber from Windstream, it was a good mix of not only just long-haul routes, which you've seen us lease up, but also metro fiber, too. So good example of that was the Everstream transaction that we announced a few quarters ago, last year. That was a good use of melt metro fiber and some long-haul fiber. And so again, with those assets, we have the ability to not also these long-haul segments but also use that metro fiber in support of 5G for macro, small cells, things like that, even to even use it for enterprise sales as well.

Matthew Niknam

analyst
#16

Great Why don't we shift over to Uniti Fiber. Maybe just to start, if you can talk about the expectations for that business for 2022 from both a growth and profitability perspective?

Paul Bullington

executive
#17

Okay. I want to let you keep going the Sure. doing a good job. So for Uniti Fiber. So for 2022, we expect top line revenue to grow about 6%, adjusted EBITDA 5%, which is consistent with our expectations. What we've been saying is we expect the fiber segment to grow mid-single digits over the long term. What's unique about 2022, though, is that where that revenue growth is coming from. So traditionally, it's our core recurring part of the business that grows the most, and then the nonrecurring is a little bit lumpy. In '22, most of that growth is coming from nonrecurring. And the main reason for that is and we called this out on our earnings call that we are expecting -- and we've been mentioning this for some time that there was going to be some churn related to legacy Sprint sites as part of the TMO merger. And 2022 is going to be a peak year for that churn. As part of that, for disconnecting those sites early, Uniti will receive what we call ETL fees early termination liability fees. And so they'll pay for those sites that they're disconnecting for the remaining term on those sites. That gets booked as nonrecurring revenue. And so '22, again, is a little bit of anomaly in that. The overall growth is consistent with our expectations and what we've been saying, but it's mostly coming in the nonrecurring side versus recurring. Once we get through this churn, which we expect to be $5 million to $10 million in total then I would expect to still see mid-single-digit growth at Uniti Fiber, but it's going to come back from the -- mostly from core recurring versus nonrecurring? And just to remind you all, nonrecurring other than early termination of ETL fees that flow through there. It also be related to onetime equipment sales and installs and any kind of construction revenue that we do that's core to the business.

Matthew Niknam

analyst
#18

And so what's sort of the outlook when you think about -- I think, implied margins are about 38-ish percent. What is the outlook for that look like as we think -- obviously, you're going to be doing more selling, leveraging existing fiber? You talked about some of the capital intensity moderating. But from an EBITDA margin perspective, where can that 38% go over time?

Paul Bullington

executive
#19

Yes. And so margins are pretty flat year-over-year in '22 versus '21, and that has something to do with the noise of the nonrecurring there. But generally speaking, we would expect to see margin improvement, especially as we get through this year going into next year, just based on the lease-up that we're selling. So the lease that we're selling and installing again, leveraging our anchor build wireless networks that have been building out for several years now. All those opportunities come on with high margin, 70% plus margin profile. Even when you look at the greenfield builds that we expect to continue to do, those are all generally speaking, high-margin opportunities as well. And so that 38%, 40% margin should continue to improve is going this year as we go on where it ultimately gets to be determined. But I think it's -- the cadence of gradual continued improvement there is one that we expect.

Matthew Niknam

analyst
#20

On the demand for lease-up, I mean what does that look like right now? Where is that coming from? How is the -- how have the components maybe of that demand for incremental fiber lease-up evolve or change as we've sort of as we're now sort of emerging from the pandemic?

Paul Bullington

executive
#21

Yes. So in terms of most of the lease-up we've been selling, as we look at our mix of bookings and they can fluctuate somewhat quarter-to-quarter. But generally speaking, our bookings have been more heavily weighted towards non-wireless versus wireless. Now if we get a large wireless win or an award, then that's obviously going to skew it. But the day-to-day lease-up that we're talking about is non-wireless. And what I mean by that is it's selling to enterprises in our markets. Today, we currently sell enterprise services in 20 markets. We have access to fiber in over 300 metro markets. So that gives you an idea of the potential of the markets we can increase. And in fact, on our quarterly earnings call, we said that we're going to deploy more sales, but we expect to deploy more salespeople into more metro markets. So that is going to be an area of growth there. Outside of enterprises in those markets, we sell to health care providers, financial institutions, to the federally funded E-Rate program. And so those are the types of -- those -- that majority speaking, that's the type of lease-up that we're talking about. But in addition to that, right, we're still going to pursue greenfield builds and we talked about Dish began opportunity. We've seen good bookings cadence from there, and we expect that bookings inflow to continue from there. Our '22 guidance really doesn't factor in from a revenue recognition standpoint, much from the DISH opportunity just given that the timing of the bookings and when that will get installed as positive more of a '23 opportunity, but there could be some potential upside if that were to come in sooner. So we feel really good about the DISH opportunity. And going back to my earlier comments about the churn, what we said is we expect that, that churn will be offset not only by the ETL fees, but also when you add in the DISH opportunity as well. So that's really where most of the lease-up is coming from. And it's not to say that we're not going to continue to do greenfield builds. We will. We at our height, we were probably doing 15 or 16 projects at a time. And our assumptions is that we're going to continue to do a handful of those that have really attractive anchor economics, but also really good lease-up potential as well.

Matthew Niknam

analyst
#22

So a couple of follow-ups. I guess, first, in terms of churn. So is 22 sort of a peak from Sprint? What else is left maybe beyond '22?

Paul Bullington

executive
#23

So yes, spring churn, we're just calling out because it is a sizable number compared to our normal churn. But from other turn, I mean, when you look at our overall company, even the churn today, it's -- monthly churn is 0.2% to 0.3% on a consolidated basis. And even if you were to look at our churn and just Uniti Fiber, we don't have much there. And the reason for that is when you look at the wireless side, we have some customers moving from lit to dark which is good for us because into a dark solution because in that instance, they're trading a 5-year term for a 10- to 20-year term. So that naturally lowers churn. Even on our enterprise side, we're a pretty new entrant in most of these markets. And so we're still in the early phases of that. So we're not seeing a lot of churn there. And then you go to Uniti Leasing, again, we're talking 10, 20-year dark fiber IRU contracts, again, not much churn there. So when you look at an overall company, our churn is very low. We think we're one of the best in the industry. And so we don't have many concerns about that overall churn. The reason we just pointed out the Sprint 1 is, again, it was something we knew about coming and the exact timing wasn't known, but now we have a feeling that '22 will be the peak year there. And there may be some that spills in into next year. But overall, we feel really good about our churn profile.

Matthew Niknam

analyst
#24

When you think about wireless customer demand for fiber, A lot of these, obviously, you mentioned have been sort of anchor greenfield builds. Has there been any moderation -- I only mentioned it because we hear so much about focusing on macro sites, broadening the coverage maps. Has that had any impact in terms of the demand you're seeing for your fiber assets from the carriers?

Paul Bullington

executive
#25

Yes, definitely, especially 5G. I mean you've seen 5G primarily roll out in the Tier 1 markets and it's starting to roll out more in the Tier 2, Tier 3 markets, and that's where we primarily operate, if you look at our Southeast footprint majority of that is in these Tier 2, Tier 3 markets and some really good markets in there, a lot of college towns, areas that are seeing a good population growth. And so with the rollout of 5G and the continued roll out with that, we already saw before it even rolled out, we saw some pretty good demand from the wireless carriers, but that demand has continued. I mentioned DISH again, they're looking to turn up their service as quick as possible. So they're leveraging existing networks. And that was one of the reasons why we were making other preferred fiber providers because we have a great dense fiber premier fiber network in the Southeast that they can pretty quickly deploy their coverage in. And so I think with 5G, it's really the precipice for what's driving a lot of demand that we're seeing. But it's just overall densification. I mean, even I talked about before edge computing, Unity, we're not really into that today, but we keep exploring different opportunities there. But we can provide fiber at the edge to other data providers or wireless carriers want to get into that. And so whatever technology are you talking about, either it be Edge or macro or small cell -- at the end of the day, it all requires dense fiber networks to operate seamlessly. When you talk about low latency, you need much more dense fiber. And that's where I think Uniti is uniquely positioned to capitalize on that because we do have a dense fiber number with a lot of excess capacity to meet those demands of our customers.

Matthew Niknam

analyst
#26

I want to hit on a couple of other topics in the time we have left. So I'm going to pivot to M&A. So I think on the last call, there was a note that pickup in discussions around in transformative M&A in the last 6 months. So I want to maybe better understand, is this related to Uniti Leasing or fiber acquiring assets? Or is it more related to Unity separating or selling its leasing or fiber business?

Paul Bullington

executive
#27

Yes. So I mean, it's really both, Matt. So we've talked about M&A historically kind of in 3 buckets, bolt-on, sale leaseback, propco type transaction is the second category, which we've done a couple of those in the last couple of years and then transformative. And I think historically, when we've talked about transformative deals, we have meant more along the lines of acquiring businesses large enough to really move the needle from a revenue diversification standpoint. So Windstream revenue concentration is about 65%, 67%, I think, percent is what we reported last quarter. And we see 50% really as a major threshold. And so historically, when we talked about transformative M&A, that's really what -- I think what we've meant is large enough acquisitions to move the needle enough to get us below that 50% threshold. But we've kind of expanded the definition of that conversation in the last couple of quarters. and expanded the definition of transformative M&A to think about the possibility of separating assets. So that's definitely been a part of what we've been thinking about from a strategic standpoint. And Kenny mentioned on our last call that we've been focus more on the transformative side, and I think that's really why because we've expanded that subset of possibilities to thinking about it a little bit more broadly. But that could be -- separation of assets could be a path that could we think unlock some value, like we mentioned earlier. And since it's incumbent upon us, I think, to think through that. because the conglomeration of the 2 businesses together seems to be undervalued a bit by the market. So I think it's incumbent upon us to look at that and evaluate those options and understand how -- if it could be done and how it could be done mechanically, so that's taken a little time and effort to think about that. But we don't want to lose sight of the larger goal of continuing to operate the business well and to grow the business well, and we want to continue to be vigilant for the additive types of M&A as well. So we certainly -- I certainly wouldn't put the larger transformative additive acquisitions off the table at all. We would still want to be very active in discussions for opportunities that might come our way on that side as well.

Matthew Niknam

analyst
#28

Is there like a timeline the company has in mind in terms of coming to a decision point on some of these larger transformative deals?

Paul Bullington

executive
#29

Yes. I don't want to put a -- we haven't put a timeline out there. I don't think we want to box it in completely. I think we need to give it its due and to give the time it takes to think through it. But it's not something we want to continue to drag out forever, I think we need to evaluate it. We need to do so in a relatively quick fashion and make some decisions about the most -- the optimal strategic path for the business and what those options are, and then we need to move on. And so I don't expect it to drag out I certainly hope it doesn't drag out forever as well. So yes.

Matthew Niknam

analyst
#30

When we think about acquisitions in terms of Tier 2, Tier 3 acquiring fiber assets I think in the past, there was talk of, hey, these assets tend to trade at a little bit of a discount. We have maybe a little bit more proprietary deal flow, he's been a big influx of private capital going after comm infrastructure over the last couple of years. How is that -- has that changed the valuations or number of opportunities that are proprietary at all?

Paul Bullington

executive
#31

Matt, you're definitely right. There's definitely a lot of capital out there chasing. And I think I wouldn't be honest if I didn't say that has an effect on what's out there and interest in those sorts of things. But I think it's not really new, I don't think. I think there's been a lot of interest in fiber from for a while. I think there are fewer strategics out there now because of the consolidation in the industry that are going after things. So I think competition has been there. I think high multiples have been there. We've shown an ability to do deals at a discount to some of those multiples. And that's because I think we've been able to cultivate and harvest a proprietary funnel. And that requires a little bit more patience, but we want to do deals that are accretive, and I think the most likely place where we will find that is through some of these proprietary channels. It doesn't mean we wouldn't be interested in or even participate in a more public type of an auction. But I think we want to be disciplined and do deals where the price makes sense and the value makes sense. And so that requires little bit more work on our part. We think the opportunity is still out there.

Matthew Niknam

analyst
#32

Okay. Okay. We spent a lot of time talking about inorganic. Let's maybe pivot the organic investment in CapEx. If you could talk about the outlook for CapEx this year and more broadly, where you see capital intensity for the business trending over the longer term?

Paul Bullington

executive
#33

So we have 2 main big buckets for CapEx. At Uniti Fiber, it's our net success-based CapEx. That's the CapEx we're spending on either greenfield builds or on the lease-up. And so you've seen that capital intensity come down. For 2022, I think we expect about $120 million, $25 million of not success-based CapEx, which is about a 12% decrease from last year. And so at the height, when we were building out all these greenfield builds, our capital intensity as a percentage of Uniti Fiber's revenue was north of 50% at the end of '21, it was around 40%, and we expect that to continue to decrease down to the, call it, mid-30% range as we go forward here. At Uniti Leasing, again, we do have some success-based CapEx related to the lease-up that we're doing, but primarily, most of that CapEx -- that success-based CapEx is related to the GCI program. And so for 2022, we expect to deploy about $250 million based on what Windstream's expectations are for spending that money. And so overall, when you look at our capital intensity of our business on a consolidated basis, it's around 30% today. And that's probably where it's going to be going forward for the next few years given the level of CapEx we expect to spend as part of the GCI program and then naturally capital intensity coming down gradually at Uniti Fiber.

Matthew Niknam

analyst
#34

How -- one thing that's been topical, I think, across many of the companies I've hosted it is supply chain issues, supply chain risk. Are you seeing these types of constraints impacting your business? And maybe if so, -- how has that impact trended over the last couple of months?

Paul Bullington

executive
#35

Yes. So 2021, I think our team did a really, really good job of staying on top of a pretty challenging environment and supply chain. And we really didn't see an impact to our business in 2021 from supply chain issues. And I think that's a testament to some of the work that our team does in our procurement group around relationships with suppliers, diversity of suppliers, having fixed price contracts, especially for our larger deals that we're deploying. When we go in, we signed up a big -- a large greenfield capital project, we're locking down prices, inventory on hand. I think all of those things contributed to us being able to navigate 2021 successfully. As we look into '22, I think we're expecting things to get worse before they get better. I think we are hearing from suppliers of both networking equipment and material inputs to fiber construction, that delivery time frames are elongating. And so we're working hard to stay on top of that situation. So ordering earlier in the processes, looking further out into our demand for certain types of equipment or fiber cable and other things and making sure that we're staying ahead of that curve. And I think we're confident that we're going to be able to navigate that, at least given the current outlook on that, and that it's not really going to have a material impact on our ability to deliver services to customers because that's really where it where it comes into play. If we don't have the fiber cable on hand, if we don't have the equipment on hand to build a network to a customer in a timely fashion or to light the network for a customer in a timely fashion, then that delays are our ability to take an order to delivered and installed and building. And that's something we want to manage through. We're confident that we can manage through. If things were to get a lot worse. I guess it's possible it could affect our business, but we're confident right now in our ability to continue to manage that.

Matthew Niknam

analyst
#36

Yes. And then last question given the time we have left leverage. You're sitting at about 5.6 turns right now. How comfortable are you with the balance sheet? How do you think about sort of leverage targets or optimal leverage for the business over time?

Paul Bullington

executive
#37

So we're very comfortable with the balance sheet. I think our balance sheet is as strong as really it's ever been. We did a lot of work in 2021 on the balance sheet pushing out near-term maturities, refinancing driving interest costs and out of the business and lowering our cost of capital. So a lot of really good work there. So our balance sheet is in a really good spot today, and leverage continues to improve and work in the right direction. We've stated consistently that our target leverage range is that 5.5 to 6x leverage. And while we were over times not too long ago with regard to leverage. Now our most recent last quarter annualized was 5.5x. So really, moving -- we're squarely within and even towards the lower towards the lower end most recently with regard to that target range. And I think we're comfortable with that range from a leverage standpoint. I mean I think -- for the right acquisition, I think we could even see ourselves levering up a bit more, maybe a little bit above that range for a period of time to process an acquisition. So I think we're very comfortable where we are, and that's the right leverage level for the type of business we are, the type of cash flows that we have and the long-term contracts that we have in place with regard to those cash flows.

Matthew Niknam

analyst
#38

Great. I think we've got us out there. We're just about out of time. Thank you, both.

Paul Bullington

executive
#39

Thank you. We appreciate it. Thank you.

Matthew Niknam

analyst
#40

Thanks.

This call discussed

For developers and AI pipelines

Programmatic access to Uniti Group Inc. earnings transcripts and 32,000+ others is available through the EarningsCalls.dev REST API. Plans from $24.99/month — full transcripts, speaker segments, full-text search, and the recently-added /api/v1/transcripts/recent polling endpoint for ETL pipelines.