ATN International Inc (ATNI) 2015 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Atlantic Tele-Network Q2 earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions). I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference call, Justin Benincasa, Chief Financial Officer. Sir, you may now begin.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us on our call to review our second-quarter and six-months results. With me here is Michael Prior, ATN's President and Chief Executive Officer, and as usual during the call, I will be covering the relevant financial information and certain operational data and Michael will be providing an update on the business.

Before I turn the call over to Michael for his comments, I'd like to just point out that this call and our press release contain forward-looking statements concerning our current expectations, objectives and underlying assumptions regarding our future operating results and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described.

Also in an effort to provide useful information to investors, our comments today include non-GAAP financial measures. For details on these measures and reconciliations to comparable GAAP measures and for further information regarding these factors that may affect our future operating results, please (technical difficulty) or to our 8-K filing provided to the SEC.

And with that I will turn it over to Michael for comments.

All right. Thank you, Justin. Good morning and welcome, everyone.

Starting with some highlights. The second quarter was one of strong year-on-year growth and operating income and EBITDA. The growth was driven by two main factors: the addition of our renewables business with its consistent cash flows and high margins more or less in line with expectations, and improved profitability in our international operations. Though some of that was the result of one-time benefits or favorable comparisons to anomalous costs in the prior year.

Our biggest segment, US Wireless, performed very consistent with expectations with revenue up 8% year on year due to network coverage and capacity expansions undertaken in the second half of 2014 and on into 2015, as well as growth in the small rural will retail business.

Operating profits for this segment were flat, however, due to lower rates, as I will get to momentarily.

Lastly, our cash continued to build following the investment late last year in our renewables business approaching $400 million again and I will talk a little bit about the opportunities for deploying that cash in a few minutes.

So let's turn to some more specifics starting with US Wireless. As I noted, US Wireless's results were consistent with our expectations. Revenue has leveled out a bit and we expect it to flatten further and then decline before we are able to find other opportunities to expand the business. As with the first quarter, wholesale revenue in the second quarter benefited from favorable year-on-year comparisons in the number of sites deployed.

However, as indicated, this favorable comparison will decline during the second half particularly in the fourth quarter where the data rate decrease impact will be more apparent in the aggregate numbers and thus we still expect revenue and adjusted EBITDA to be down for the full year comparisons.

As we have laid out at length before, we think the move to lower data rates in return for longer term and more strategic relationships is ultimately value enhancing for the business by reducing risks significantly and putting us in a better position to generate the long-term cash flows and a true outsource network model with investment attributes that we believe are quite similar to fiber backhaul.

We think the value proposition to carrier customers is compelling and our ability to deliver is proven but these are big players and it will take time and work to complete this shift in the model across the board.

Outside this high-level shift, the other drivers in this business were fairly consistent. Voice volumes continue to decline on a per-unit basis though they appear to have flattened out in areas. Data volumes per unit have grown and aggregate data volumes, which were up 161% year on year, have also benefited from the ongoing network expansion.

Lastly, part of the offset to declining rates was the steady growth in revenue and profitability of our small specialty retail business which serves tribal lands and other remote populations. We have had particular success working with our tribal partners in the Navajo Nation to bring a competitive and advanced offering to the region.

Moving on to International Wireless, revenues they were down 10% year on year similar to the first quarter and the sale of the Turks business in the first quarter accounted for a little more than half of the revenue decline with the remainder resulting from lower roaming revenue across the Caribbean and Bermuda.

We think the latter impact will catch up to itself by the fourth quarter of this year and that the exit in Turks will help further improve margin and cash flows in the second half.

The more important trend is that adjusted EBITDA in the Island Wireless segment alone increased by 13% year on year as cost savings measures in a number of markets more than made up for the significant increase in regulatory fees and others.

So we continue the work in this area discussed in previous quarters looking to boost growth in some international markets, defend share and improve margins in others.

Next with Wireline operations, total Wireline revenues were up nearly 4% primarily due to broadband growth in Guyana. Notably in that market we rolled out a significant speed increase for most customers for no additional charge and reduced rates for customers in areas where the plant does not currently support the enhancement.

We felt this was the right thing to do and are pleased that we managed to grow this revenue stream despite that approach.

In renewable energy, our acquisition was obviously an important contributor to overall second-quarter results and particularly to overall EBITDA growth. We continue to be very active in looking at opportunities to expand this platform organically and through strategic partnerships and investments. We've gotten close on some deals in the first half of the year but ultimately we were not able to pull the trigger because they did not meet our terms or we were unable to validate some of our initial assumptions. It has been somewhat frustrating but we will remain disciplined investors.

That being said, we are quite optimistic that we will find opportunities to expand this business in the near term and we are even more bullish on the longer-term opportunity.

Moving from that to the broader world of investment and expansion in general, we are starting to see some more interesting opportunities in the telecom space as well, better valuations, better fits, nothing specific of course but between that and renewables, we certainly believe that the skies over our balance sheet utilization are brightening.

So in summary, the quarter delivered a good strong advance in profitability and free cash flows. In addition to external opportunities, we continue to invest in network capacity expansion and quality in our domestic wholesale business, and as Justin will touch on, we expect that to continue through the end of the year. And there is additional potential in ongoing improvements and efficiencies in the other businesses.

So that does it for me. I will turn it back over to you, Justin.

Great. Thank you, Michael. For the quarter, total Company revenues were up 8% to $90.3 million. This increase over 2014 is primarily due to the addition of our renewable energy acquisition completed late last year which added $5.3 million and contributions from our US Wireless retail operations, which Michael commented on earlier.

Adjusted EBITDA at a margin of 45% continued to outpace revenue growth increasing 16% to $40.5 million. In addition to the continued strong performance in our higher margin domestic wholesale business, overall margins benefited from our renewable energy segment which posted an adjusted EBITDA margin of 74% for the quarter and from improved profitability from our international operations, some of it of a one-time nature.

Continuing down the income statement, the quarter's operating income was $28.7 million, up 33% from the same quarter in 2014. Operating expenses this quarter included $1.5 million of non-cash stock-based compensation expense compared to $1.3 million in the second quarter of last year.

Operating income for the quarter also included a gain of on sale of assets of approximately $2.8 million within our US Wireless segment related to the sale of 14 sites completed earlier in the second quarter.

I should note again that this quarter that are 46% effective tax rate is higher -- is much higher for the quarter and year-to-date due to the $20 million loss on deconsolidation we recorded in the first quarter which has no offsetting tax benefit.

Net income for the quarter was $9.5 million or $0.59 per share compared to $11.5 million or $0.72 per share reported in the second quarter of last year.

Looking at the balance sheet at the end of June, as Michael noted, we had cash and cash equivalents of $392 million and total debt outstanding of $35.9 million. Year-to-date the Company generated $81.1 million of cash from operating activities, up from $15.3 million in the similar period last year. Less capital expenditures of $28 million, we produced approximately $53 million of free cash flow in the first half of the year. Note that compared to 2014, much of this improvement in cash from operating activities was due to the high cash tax expenses in -- related to the ALLTEL sale that we made in 2014.

For the quarter, capital expenditures totaled $14.2 million of which approximately $7.8 million was incurred by the US Wireless business. $2 million was incurred by our International Telephony segment and $2.1 million was incurred by the Island Wireless businesses.

Timing is always a little hard to predict but we expect telecom capital expenditures to still stay in the range that we've reported in previous in the $65 million to $75 million range.

And so I guess some of the additional operating data for the quarter -- we ended the quarter with 787 base stations in our US Wireless territories, up from 654 a year ago but only up one from last quarter due to the sale of the 14 sites I noted earlier.

At the end of the quarter, International Wireless subscribers totaled 313,200. Fixed lines ended the quarter at approximately 153,000 access lines and broadband subscribers ended the quarter at 42,200.

And with that, operator, I will turn the call over for questions.

(Operator instructions). Ric Prentiss, Raymond James.

A couple of quick ones. First, you mentioned how the retail business and the US Wireless business is fairly small. Do you anticipate providing any stats in the future, or can you get us an idea of kind of the magnitude that's adding?

Yes, we look at that for the future as it continues to grow. So at this time it is contributing to EBITDA, but it's not a significant number. It's a little more significant on revenue.

Okay. And you mentioned how you deployed I think 4G LTE to provide broadband to the Navajo Nation. What are the thoughts as far as LTE into more of the network?

I think we will get there. As we talked about before, it's really driven by the carrier customers. But I think what we're seeing now is those conversations are I would say accelerating. So I think we would certainly anticipate getting there in more areas over the next call it a year. That's not a hard and fast timeline but that's the way it looks right now.

And just to be clear too in the Navajo, it's not just a fixed wireless broadband. It's a mobile offering as well. In fact that's probably the more significant revenue piece.

That makes sense. And then, Michael, you mentioned that you're seeing some more interesting opportunities in telecom, better value. What's changed in the environment to maybe get some better values out there? Rising interest rate environment, or M&A, bigger deals falling apart -- just wondering what's changed the dynamics in the marketplace, do you think?

I think probably it's more a function of a lot of the competition is going after really big deals trying to capitalize on very cheap credit. And so there's some smaller, better fits for us that have more interest to us. But always hard to predict whether that means we can actually bring them home but we like that. And I think you see general signs -- this is not scientific -- but I think you see general signs that people are realizing that at some point that the music will stop. And so I think that brings a little more activity and maybe in some areas more reasonable activity.

All right. And my last question is, in the Islands and the International markets, we've seen a lot of convergence play start to happen where people are putting wireless and video or wireless and landline together. What are your thoughts in your different markets? Are there any opportunities there, or is there a desire for the customers to see that kind of offering?

I think that does have value, particularly in smaller markets, big fish, little pond. I think it's probably even more important in those markets, or more beneficial if you can have a full offering whether it's a triple play or a quad play whatever you want to call it.

I've never been one who believes that the one billing, one bill was the compelling part of it. But I just think it gives you an opportunity to have a more efficient operating structure, have the quality up overall and really you don't really care how people -- it's all about data now, right? You don't care how they get their connectivity, you offer them whatever they want and ultimately I think the same thing will be true on content.

So video is interesting. I don't think it's going to fall away in a lot of these markets as fast -- the traditional broadcast model as opposed to the pull model -- the push model as opposed to the pull. I think we will have a lower decline in some of these markets but in the markets where they haven't had a great push offering, I think they might leapfrog a little too more pull anyway.

So I think the important thing is that if you invest in that area you have to be focused on connectivity in the end.

Great. Thanks for the extra color.

Barry McCarver, Stephens Inc.

Good morning, guys and good quarter. My first question, Michael, in your prepared comments, you talked about some opportunities to boost growth in the international wireless business so I was wondering if you could give us a little more color on what you might be thinking about there and potential timing of anything?

Sure. I think in some markets, Guyana as an example, we think we can do better from a market share. We think the market overall has potential growth on ARPU. And I think we think there are benefits of what we have been doing on the Wireline side too. And so we don't know that we've been operating on an optimal basis from there in previous years and so we just see opportunity to do better. It's not going to be free for the taking but we think we can do better.

And in other markets, the growth potential -- they are more mature and the growth potential is more modest but as I said we found areas where we think we can make ourselves more efficient without sacrificing quality or customer experience.

And secondly, Michael, you mentioned that in Guyana you upgraded data speeds there and provided a discount to those that didn't qualify for the upgrade, or couldn't get the upgrade for the technology. Is the idea behind that to kind of boost usage or adoption in that market so at some point in the future there is a revenue opportunity or just kind of what's the thought process behind that move?

I think part of it is branding and making clear that you understand to the market that it's about delivering value. And if you're going to deliver lesser value to some than others, they should pay less. And we think that's an important message to get across and be behind and ultimately will pay off in the branding. So I think it's more that.

We do think there's almost an obligation to get as many people connected as possible. It is absolutely -- I'm not saying anything most people don't believe -- it is absolutely a productivity and standard of living enhancement just as powerful as voice or mobility alone.

And just one more for Justin. I think you touched on the effective tax rate in the quarter. Can you go over why it was so high again and what should we expect for the next quarter?

You should expect it to be consistent throughout the rest of the year, pretty much at that rate. And the reason why it's high is we had a $20 million loss on that deconsolidation in the first quarter. And that is a -- you can't take a tax benefit on that so it artificially inflates our tax rate and it's probably 10%, 10 basis points on that, or 10%, I should say on that rate impact. We would be more on a normalized basis down in the low to mid 30s.

Okay. Thanks a lot, guys.

But that will be consistent throughout the year though, that higher rate. Just to repeat.

Okay. Good. Thank you.

(Operator instructions). Hamed Khorsand, BWS Financial.

Just a couple of topics. First off, on the International Wireless end, do you think some of the competitive pricing pressure you've been seeing lately could be due to your main competitor filing an IPO and just looking to increase revenue and subscriber counts?

No. No, I don't think so. I don't think we've seen great pricing pressure in those markets. They've always been competitive. There's a lot of back-and-forth moves for share and customers but they tend -- sometimes it's a permanent pricing and sometimes it's promotional but there's been nothing different.

Okay. And then as far as the US Wireless end goes, the amount of adds on the cell sites count has been declining over the past few quarters even if I take into consideration the 15 cell sites you sold. Is this going to be the case going forward? Are you just -- you can't find new geographic areas to expand in? Is this more of a capacity growth story at this point?

What we've done in the past has been -- the past couple of years -- has been both coverage and capacity and I would say capacity probably had a bigger impact overall on the data volume increase.

But anyway, both were very significant and it's always been a bumpy. If you go back -- we've been in this business now 10 years -- we go through periods where we are building a lot and then we go through periods where we don't. It's definitely not a build it and they will come model.

So from a longer-term basis, I alluded to kind of where we go after the rate increases wash through and I do think there's opportunity to expand because I think where we are now on costs and rates makes a very compelling offering to carriers in a lot of areas that were not today.

So whether they will see that too and we can convince them of that, that's tougher but I think there's opportunity.

Okay. My last question is on the US Wireline, are you able to provide us any more input as to what the fiber line loop that you're running in Northeast is looking like as far as revenue and EBITDA goes? Are you able to break that out for us?

Yes, we don't break it out. And particularly because some of the other -- the legacy business within it is not -- we don't have a GAAP allocation within that we could do on the expense side. And there is some argument of even where they would fall in some of the revenues.

What I would say is that the fiber business is -- the on network customer business is growing well, particularly with enterprise customers in Vermont area, a little bit slower in New York and so those numbers -- those growth rates are good and healthy but you've still got a question of relative scale in some of the legacy business that's just pretty flat.

Okay. That's it for me. Thank you.

(Operator instructions). Ric Prentiss.

Wanted to ask a couple of other questions. Back eight months ago or so when you bought or announced the deal to get into the energy area, you talked a little bit about the changing tax incentive landscape and how that might affect transactions. Any update as far as what you're seeing as far as the sunsetting of the incentive tax?

Yes, good question, Ric, because that's I would say that probably a major contributing factor to the fact that we haven't expanded in the US since the transaction.

There is an absolute flurry of deals and builds to get it in under the -- you have to have the project operational and running by December 31, 2016 in order to qualify for the 30% ITC. On top of that there are some caps within states in terms of areas where you get some of the renewable energy certificate benefits, such as in Massachusetts that's been tapped out in certain areas, certain utility areas.

So there's the combination of that. There is a tremendous amount of activity and I would -- I talked to one of the partners running our renewables business the other day and he described the US still as frothy. And just people are chasing yield and so that's made it hard for us to find things that we thought were worthwhile in light of other opportunities we see down the line.

Okay. And then, what about the update on the US regulatory side as far as the Connect America Fund or other type changes that might be coming?

Yes, I don't know where that all falls out yet, Ric. We've been a voice in their obviously about the funding of rural expansion, broadband -- some of it we like, some of it we don't think is very useful. But we think there should be further opportunity because we are -- if there's anybody truly hitting the underserved, I think we are a good poster child for it.

So if there are programs that make sense we will certainly go after that. If they make business sense with the subsidy and as you know we've done some of that and are in the midst of completing some of the builds that we qualified for earlier.

So there's a lot of back and forth now about what's the next step there. And I don't think it's all been sorted out yet I think the FCC has been somewhat focused on the 600 auction.

Sure. And speaking of 600 auction, any interest from your standpoint?

Yes, I think we will look at every auction and certainly that one is one that we would look at. We are not in the situation of desperation for spectrum, so we'll be very price sensitive but it's good spectrum for rural areas, clearly, so it has our interest.

It does feel like the Chairman wants to get it done pretty quickly.

Yes. I think I have no special insight but I definitely see that. I think that more and more people feel it is really going to happen. I think they will start the auction (inaudible) in fall and with any luck it will happen in the first quarter.

Okay. Thanks, guys.

(Operator instructions). Sergey Dluzhevskiy.

A couple of questions. So on the renewable energy policy, you mentioned a couple reasons why you decided not to pull the trigger on some of those deals. How do you expect the environment for deals in that space to evolve over the next six months, 12 months? And from your perspective, what are you looking for in renewable energy assets? What types of assets do you find particularly interesting?

I think in the US -- start with the US -- I think we think that there will be some breakage as you get closer to the deadline for the ITC drop, so through the end of this year into the early part of next year unless there's some major move on interest rates, we think probably continue the pace. But inevitably there's people who are overreaching and there's projects that just won't get in the funding line and some of those might be interesting. So there might be a good opportunity at more reasonable, more attractive returns in the second half of next year in the US.

And that's not to say we're not looking at anything in the US. There are some things we continue to look at that we think are more strategic in nature.

But we've also been looking a lot outside the US where there's a lot of markets with high solar resource, high power rates and not enough power generation, so they check, check, check on the things you'd want to see. Balanced against that is, one reason the US market is frothy is because it feels very low risk. You've got a contract with a high credit partner. The rules you feel are going to stay the same or that you're banking on when you do the deal are going to not change. So the political risk, currency, whatever is not there. But you can still factor those in in the other markets and find markets that are quite attractive just like we have in telecom.

So I think that may be more of the low hanging fruit for us but we continue to look in both areas.

All right. And another question on the competitive environment in Guyana. Obviously you made the pricing move on broadband or increased speeds and that had an impact. What do you expect in terms of competitive environment over the next six to 12 months? Obviously as it was mentioned, Digicel plans to IPO and I think part of the strategy -- part of the original strategy -- is probably to look for fixed assets, cable assets to become more of multi-service provider.

Do you see that playing out in Guyana? And I guess what's your general expectations are for that market over the next 12 months?

Yes, I think the right way to look at all the markets we are in is that they will continue to be at least as competitive as they are now and that in no area you have a walled garden. I think that's the way we try to look at the business.

And whether or not you get full throated competition in all aspects of your business -- you really do a lot better if you act like you already have it. And we could better in that regard in some respects but I think that's the attitude we all have both in market and at this level.

So I think there's some healthy aspects to competition. Of course everybody would take lackluster competition if they could get it, I guess, but we haven't seen that for a while and we feel we will do all right.

Thank you.

That concludes today's question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the call back over to management for closing remarks.

No further remarks. Everyone, thank you and we'll see you in another quarter.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for attending today's conference. This does conclude today's program. You may now disconnect. Everyone have a great day.