Consolidated Communications Holdings Inc (CNSL) 2009 Q1 法說會逐字稿

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  • Operator

  • Good morning.

  • My name is Lindsey and I will be your conference operator today.

  • At this time, I will like to welcome everyone to the Consolidated Communications first quarter 2009 conference call.

  • All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise.

  • After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session.

  • (Operator Instructions)

  • Thank you.

  • I will now like to turn the call over to Matt Smith.

  • Please, go ahead.

  • Matt Smith - Director - IR

  • Thank you, Lindsey, and good morning everyone.

  • Thanks for joining us today on this first quarter 2009 earnings conference call.

  • With me on the call today are Bob Curry, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Steve Childers, Chief Financial Officer.

  • After the prepared remarks, we will conduct the question-and-answer session.

  • I will now review the Safe Harbor Provisions of the call and then turn it over to Bob.

  • This call may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Federal Securities laws.

  • Such forward-looking statements reflect among other things management's current expectation, plans and strategies and anticipated financial results, all of which are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and factors that may cause the actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements.

  • Please see our public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for more information about forward-looking statements and related risk factors.

  • In addition, during this call, we will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures.

  • Our earnings release for this quarter's results which has been posted to the investor relations section of our web site contains reconciliations of these measures to their nearest GAAP equivalent.

  • I will now turn the call over to Bob who will provide an overview of our financial and operating results.

  • Steve Childers will then provide a more detailed review of the second quarter financials.

  • Bob?

  • Bob Currey - President & CEO

  • Thanks, Matt, and thank you all for joining us today.

  • I'm please to report another solid quarter of results, as we added over 4,200 net broadband connections.

  • We increased the cash available to pay dividends in our ILEC access line losses have moderated.

  • Additionally, as we will discuss in a few minutes, the final phase of our North Pittsburg integration is scheduled to be completed in early June.

  • Revenue for the quarter was $101.7 million while adjusted EBITDA was $45.3 million, inclusive of approximately $900,000 of severance charges and costs to ratify a new 4-year labor agreement in Illinois.

  • Our cash available for dividends, increased to $17.7 million and our pay-out ratio improved to a very comfortable 64.3%.

  • Steve will discuss the financials in detail later in this call.

  • In regards to our operating performance, we again delivered strong DSL and IPTV growth in the quarter.

  • Net DLS lines and service increased by 2,700 or 3% sequentially, and by 10,200 or over 12% in the last 12 months, IPTV subscribers increased by 1,500 or 9.2%, and 5,200 or 40% for the trailing 12 months.

  • During the quarter, we also added over 600 ILEC of VOIP lines bringing the total subscriber count to 7,100.

  • Our residential VOIP product is always sold as a double or triple play package, and commits the customer to a term agreement of one or two years.

  • It's a very nice complement to our traditional voice products, and is used effectively in save, win back situations, and reduced the residential voice subscriber loss by 10% in the quarter.

  • The third quarter of 2008 was the first full quarter of completely launched voice competition.

  • While we are not ready to say we have turned the corner on the spike and line losses, we are please to see improvement in all of our markets, despite the economic headwinds.

  • We had an increase of approximately 1,000 business lines due to a one time billing adjustment of access lines that were installed in 2008 that were not reflected in our line counts until this quarter, excluding this one time out-of-period adjustment, we still experienced the 14% improvement in line loss over the third quarter of last year, and an 8% improvement on a sequential basis.

  • We are very encouraged by this trend.

  • For the Pennsylvania CLEC business, we had a small decline in access line equivalents for the quarter.

  • While economic conditions have put some pressure on business growth and expansion opportunities, a portion of the decline was due to our own internal initiative to move unprofitable customers to profitability, or move them to another provider.

  • While this initiative has added to CLEC churn, it is churn that makes sense for the business and will improve our margins.

  • Despite the recent access line equivalent decline, we still expect modest growth -- modest line growth for the year.

  • Now, let me provide a quick update on the Pennsylvania integration.

  • We continue to be on track and on budget with all phases of the integration.

  • We will complete the last of our 20-plus projects, which is ILEC billing in early June.

  • Also, much earlier than originally anticipated, we bought -- we brought the Pennsylvania directory business back in house during the quarter.

  • This allows us to leverage our existing team and systems across all three states.

  • As we near completion of the integration, the efficiency gains and other cost reduction initiatives have enabled us to reduce management headcount by 34 during this quarter.

  • We expect this to generate approximately $2.8 million in OpEx savings in 2009, and to generate future annual savings of approximately $3.8 million.

  • Before touching on the regulatory and economic landscape, let me remind you about our wireless interest which we haven't talked about much in the past.

  • We currently owned minority interest in five Verizon wireless partnerships -- three of which completely overlap our PA, ILEC, and CLEC footprints, and the other two, cover the Houston Metropolitan area and most of our Texas ILEC footprint.

  • These partnerships continue to perform very well, and we received over $5 million in pretax cash distributions for the quarter.

  • As you've probably saw, Verizon reported solid results in its wireless segment for the first quarter and we expect to continue to benefit as they grow the business.

  • While we don't enjoy losing any access lines, it does provide some comfort that the line loss to Verizon is partially recovered through our wireless partnerships.

  • Regarding the regulatory landscape, with respect to the Stimulus Bill, we continue to work both internally and through our industry associations to evaluate opportunities when the NTIA and RUS finally set the rules for grants and loans.

  • As we mentioned last quarter, we have not included anything in our forecast related to the broadband stimulus plan.

  • And, finally, before I turn it over to Steve, let me update you on the economy in our markets.

  • Consumers and businesses alike are looking more at the best package value for their overall communication dollars.

  • We have seen some impacts.

  • However, there is also an opportunity to attract new customers from our competitors with our well-targeted promotions.

  • With regard to the commercial projects, we have discussed in the past, the Westinghouse project in Cranberry, Pennsylvania is nearing completion and they will begin moving the first 400 of 3,500 total employees starting next month.

  • The KBR projects in Katy, Texas has seen a modest delay but we continue to work closely with their architects and engineers.

  • Also, with regard to our Katy, Texas market, the Wall Street Journal recently reported a Houston-based Pathfinder Energy Services intends to build a $20 million 225,000-square-foot corporate headquarters in our Katy territory.

  • And, finally, the clean coal project in Mattoon, Illinois known as FutureGen has been publicly supported by the Energy Secretary and President Obama.

  • While an exact start of construction date has not been established, the project is shovel-ready and could quickly generate over 2,000 construction jobs.

  • This is one earmark that we enthusiastically support.

  • I will now turn the call over to Steve for the financial review.

  • Steve Childers - CFO

  • Thanks, Bob, and good morning to everyone.

  • This morning, I will review our quarterly financial performance and then, update you on our 2009 guidance.

  • Operating revenue for the first quarter of 2009 was $101.7 million compared to $105.4 million for the same period of 2008.

  • Local service revenue declined by $2.3 million primarily due to continued access line erosion.

  • Network access revenue was down $2.5 million due in part to the line loss, lower minutes of use and rate reductions associated with our July 2008 Illinois and Texas price cap elections.

  • Data and internet revenue increased $2 million due to growth in DSL and IPTV despite increased promotional costs required to match the more competitive nature of our markets.

  • Total operating expenses exclusive of depreciation and amortization for the quarter were $64 million, compared to $62 million in the first quarter of 2008.

  • The increase is primarily due to $1.6 million in incremental pension and overhead expense recognized this quarter, as well as $2.2 million in severance charges, $792,000 in integration expense, and another $265,000 in costs associated with the ratification of our labor agreement in Illinois.

  • This compares to $200,000 in severance and $900,000 integration costs being recognized in the first quarter of 2008.

  • With respect to our first quarter 2009 operating expense, $1.6 million of the $2.2 million charged for severance expense, as well as the $792,000 in integration cost, qualify as add backs to adjusted EBITDA under the terms of our credit agreement.

  • Also, as Bob mentioned in his overview, the severance was associated with a 34-person headcount reduction at the end of the quarter that will contribute savings of $2.8 million for the balance of 2009 and approximately $3.8 million on a full-year basis thereafter.

  • Depreciation and amortization expense for the quarter was $21.7 million, a decrease of $1.2 million compared to the first quarter of 2008.

  • As a result of our liking to discontinue SFAS 71 Accounting on December 31, 2008, we have reevaluated the useful lives of our ILEC assets and we no longer set up regulatory liabilities through over depreciation for the cost removal of those regulated assets.

  • Net interest expense for the quarter declined by $3.6 million to $14.5 million compared to first quarter of 1008.

  • The decline is mostly due to two things.

  • First, the current quarter include approximately $1.2 million in savings from the senior notes redemption that was completed last April.

  • And second, we recognize savings as a result of reduced overall rate on our borrowings.

  • Other income was $4.5 million, compared to $4.4 million for the same period last year.

  • For the quarter, we recognize $5.1 million in earnings from our interest in the Verizon Wireless partnerships and we also incurred a $600,000 loss on disposal of fixed assets.

  • Weighing all these factors, net income was $3.3 million, compared to $3.7 million in the same quarter last year while net income per share was $0.11 compared to $0.13 for the same period in 2008.

  • We believe it is appropriate to look at net income per share on an adjusted basis.

  • As detailed on the adjusted net income per share schedule in the earnings release, our adjusted net income was $5.5 million and adjusted net income per share was $0.19, compared to $4.7 million and $0.16 per share in the first quarter of 2008.

  • Adjusted EBITDA was $45.3 million, compared to $49.2 million for the same period last year.

  • The decline was primarily driven by the decrease in revenue and the increased pension and overhead expense, as well as the increase in severance and the Illinois labor ratification cost as previously described.

  • Capital expenditures were $10.2 million in the quarter.

  • From a liquidity standpoint, we ended the quarter with $13.3 million in cash and our $50-million revolver remains undrawn.

  • As a reminder, we have no debt maturities until December 31, 2014, which is the maturity of the current credit facility.

  • Also, as of March 31, 2009, approximately 84% of our term debt was acceptably fixed as a result of interest rate hedges and our overall cost of debt was 6.3%.

  • For the quarter, our total net leverage ratio, as calculated in our earnings release, was 4.7 times to 1.

  • Our leverage and coverage ratios were within compliance levels of the credit facility.

  • Cash available to pay dividends or CAPD increased by $2 million over the same period last year to $17.7 million.

  • We improved the dividend pay-out ratio to a very comfortable 64.3%.

  • Now, I'd like to reaffirm our 2009 guidance on CapEx, cash interest and cash income taxes.

  • First, capital expenditures are expected to be in the range of $42 million to $43 million.

  • Cash interest expense is expected to be in the range of $58 million to $61 million and full-year cash income taxes are expected to be in the range of $11 million to $13 million.

  • Our 2009 tax projections do take into consideration bonus depreciation allowed under the stimulus bill.

  • Finally, we'd like to provide updates to our prior estimates for 2009 pension expense and cash funding contributions.

  • Based on revised information from our actuaries, we now expect to recognize additional non-cash pension expense between $5.5 million to $6.5 million in 2009, compared to the $700,000 recognized for full-year 2008.

  • The range of the new estimate is up $1.5 million from what we provided on our March earnings call.

  • Also based on the revised actuarial valuations and consistent with last quarter's estimates, we expect to make cash contributions in the range of $9 million to $11 million to our pension plans.

  • We elected to make $8.4 million in cash contributions in the first quarter, so the bulk of our cash contributions for 2009 are already behind us.

  • Both our Pennsylvania and our Legacy Consolidated Plans are funded to at least an 80% level under ARISA guidelines.

  • With respect to our dividend, our board of directors has declared the next quarterly dividend of approximately $0.39 per common share payable on August 1, 2009 to shareholders of record on July 15, 2009.

  • With that, I'll now turn the call back over to Bob.

  • Bob Currey - President & CEO

  • In summary, we are pleased with our results and strong broadband performance in the quarter.

  • We continue to produce strong cash available for dividends in a very comfortable pay-out ratio.

  • We like our diverse markets that provide economic balance and we will continue to execute on our strategy and create positive shareholder value.

  • With that, Lindsey, I'd like to open it up for questions.

  • Operator

  • (Operator Insructions) Your first question comes from the line of Gray Powell with Wachovia.

  • Gray Powell - Analyst

  • Good morning, everyone.

  • Thanks for taking the questions.

  • I just had a few here.

  • On the 4,500 lines that you lost in Q1, can you just give us a ballpark as to how much is attributable to cable VOIP wireless substitution and just to weak economy in general?

  • Bob Currey - President & CEO

  • Gray, this is Bob.

  • I thought you were going to -- I thought you said you had a couple.

  • I was pausing for it.

  • Gray Powell - Analyst

  • Okay.

  • I can go on and ask the rest.

  • Bob Currey - President & CEO

  • No, no.

  • Gray Powell - Analyst

  • I should do it one at a time.

  • Bob Currey - President & CEO

  • Yes, okay.

  • It's about half each -- half the cable and half wireless.

  • A little bit on the economy, but we're not going to -- I can't bound that.

  • It's certainly than about 10%.

  • Gray Powell - Analyst

  • Okay, okay.

  • Bob Currey - President & CEO

  • The good news is that the port outs are down, so that's the good news part of that story.

  • Gray Powell - Analyst

  • Okay.

  • That makes sense.

  • And then, even after you get past the five-quarter mark with the increased cable VOIP competition that's started, I believe, in second quarter last year, I'm guessing it's safe to assume that there are still some related line losses.

  • Can you just give us a sense as to how much you expect it to drop off or how much has dropped in past markets when you're seeing the initial cable VOIP launch?

  • Bob Currey - President & CEO

  • Yes.

  • We're being a bit cautious.

  • We don't want to declare victory and land on the ships some place, and then find out that the mission's accomplished, but clearly, we've seen some nice improvement.

  • And I think if you look at Pennsylvania, you see a nice proxy for what we expect to happen.

  • And in PA, it's down from the 10%, 11%, down into the 5% and 6% range and prior to this massive launch, we were in the 4% range, so that's where we'd like to hedge.

  • Obviously, it won't drop there in a quarter or two, but I would expect that you'd see that incremental drop quarter to quarter.

  • Gray Powell - Analyst

  • Okay.

  • That's good to hear.

  • And then, just switching topics -- am I correct in estimating that IPTV available to about 65%, maybe a little bit more, of the homes in your footprint?

  • And then, just where do you see that number going over the next couple of years and how should we think about the related CapEx trends with IPTV?

  • Bob Currey - President & CEO

  • Yes.

  • It's really about 55% of our homes, Gray, that we passed today, and what we've done -- we've got pair bonding in trial right now.

  • We've got 50 subs up on it.

  • We like the -- we like what we see on that, both from a performance basis and also from a CapEx.

  • We had slowed down the homes pass because we were into very expensive homes that didn't make a lot of economic sense.

  • With bonding, which we hope to launch commercially later this quarter, we think over time, that should move toward 70% to 80% of our homes passed.

  • And remember, we just launched it in PA last April.

  • Gray Powell - Analyst

  • Okay.

  • Bob Currey - President & CEO

  • So, we think -- we're excited.

  • We're excited about it.

  • The CapEx piece, there are still approximately $7 million to $8 million in our $42 million to $43 million that Steve gave guidance on that is directly related to success-based CapEx.

  • Gray Powell - Analyst

  • Okay.

  • And then, just final question on a total company basis with IPTV at about 12% penetration, I mean, I'm not sure if you can answer, but are we close to positive free cash flow in the initiative or just how should we think about that going forward?

  • Steve Childers - CFO

  • Hey, Gray.

  • This is Steve Childers.

  • Relative to free cash flow on IPTV, again, as we've talked about this in the past, it depends on the market that we're in.

  • We've always said that it takes 24 to 28 months from the time we launched in a particular market, so in PA, we've just been going at it for -- we started April of last year.

  • Texas, we're getting a little closer than that.

  • Then, Illinois, I'd say, we're maybe a little bit later based on the initial launch of some of the service experiences and recovering from that, I think we're getting closer on the Illinois side, but overall, it's still deluding on an all-end basis.

  • Gray Powell - Analyst

  • Okay.

  • Steve Childers - CFO

  • But we're basically returning that.

  • Gray Powell - Analyst

  • Okay.

  • That makes sense.

  • All right.

  • Well, thank you very much.

  • Steve Childers - CFO

  • Thank you for the questions.

  • Operator

  • Your next question comes from Frank Louthan with Raymond James.

  • Frank Louthan - Analyst

  • Great, thank you.

  • Can you give us -- just looking at one thing in the release -- I apologize, I missed this earlier.

  • What would the line losses look like if you netted out the customers that you did change over to Voice over IP?

  • How much of that has had an impact?

  • And is there any concern over any situation where Verizon could stop paying on those dividends going forward?

  • Thanks.

  • Bob Currey - President & CEO

  • Frank, on the first question, the VOIP.

  • I'm not sure I understood it, but if I did understand, if it was referencing the 10% line loss, it was roughly 400 to 500 customers, so if I missed that, come on back.

  • The second --

  • Steve Childers - CFO

  • Hey, Frank, this is Steve.

  • On the wireless, contractually, is Verizon obligated to pay those dividends?

  • Probably not, but if the -- but again, it would be a good practice for them to do it because obviously, Verizon needs the money to fund FIOS and all that, so we think we're aligned with the Verizon parent.

  • And just to put that in perspective, we received $17.5 million in cash distributions in 2008 from those partnerships.

  • And based on the budgets in forecast information that we have from Verizon for this year, we would expect those to go up at least 10% this year and based on -- or as Bob referenced, the earlier performance of those partnerships, we're actually expecting a little bit more than 10% increase.

  • Bob Currey - President & CEO

  • And there hasn't been a capital call in over 4 or 5 years on those, Frank, so they're at that inflection point where they're generating a significant amount of cash.

  • Frank Louthan - Analyst

  • Got it.

  • And on the line, I was just wondering if you have customers switching over to VOIP plans that are being safe.

  • Are they, for regulatory purposes, not counted in the access lines?

  • Is that making -- actually making your line losses look worse, whereas you're not necessarily losing customers, so that it's also staying at?

  • Steve Childers - CFO

  • Frank, that's correct.

  • When a customer does convert from our access line to VOIP, they're still counted as a total connection, but they're moving out of the access line bucket.

  • Bob Currey - President & CEO

  • Yes.

  • About half of it is conversions, Frank, and the other half are new inwards.

  • Frank Louthan - Analyst

  • Okay, great.

  • Thank you.

  • Operator

  • Your next question comes from the line of Tom Seitz with Barclays Capital.

  • Tom Seitz - Analyst

  • Thanks for taking the questions.

  • First one, could you just talk, generally speaking, about the level of competitive activity by the operator, by the cable operators?

  • Are they staying rational?

  • And then, you guys continue to put up good numbers and I'm just wondering if you've seen any tougher response from them or whether they're pretty happy with -- apparently, pretty happy with the status quo with respect to pricing and promotions.

  • And then, the second question, on FutureGen clean coal, I thought that was terrific that Secretary Chu came out and backed the project.

  • My understanding is that there was a cost study done that was rejected as too high or too low.

  • I don't know what the right terminology is, but does that have to -- is your understanding that they have to go back from square one and do another cost study or is this just something that they can modify?

  • Anything that they've informed the city elders that you could share with us would be great.

  • Bob Currey - President & CEO

  • Yes.

  • Thanks, Tom, for the questions.

  • While we like our competitive positioning and the trends in the access line losses, we, in no way, underestimate our competitors.

  • As far as specifics, I'll make a couple of exceptions to the general overall comment that, the way you said it, that things are still about the same.

  • The difference though would be in Pennsylvania where Comcast has about 30% of the territory, Armstrong has the rest.

  • Comcast has just gotten targeted very aggressive with some of their promotions in PA.

  • It's the first time we've actually seen them crank it up a bit.

  • Other than that, it's basically the same as it has been.

  • And again, we feel very well-positioned with finally now having a full IPTV product with HD.

  • We doubled the number of channels last year.

  • We're going to double it again this year.

  • We now have DVS across all markets.

  • We now have over a thousand titles in our video-on-demand, so -- and we've recently launched, expanded a little bit our ad insertion and made great progress in the network stability working with our different vendors.

  • So, we feel great as far as being able to compete.

  • We've also -- with the network stability over the last six months, we've also seen a nice improvement in the churn in IPTV, so that's probably more than what you wanted to hear on that, but I'm proud of where we are on that.

  • Regarding FutureGen, the cost study that you're referring to, that has been referenced.

  • However, the industry group that is underwriting a large part of this project has stated that they will absorb the overruns and that the federal government will only be held or expected to contribute that which was originally in the budget.

  • And therefore, what we've been told by Senator Durbin and what we've heard how President Obama feels about it, along with a couple of congressmen, that this is -- I'm much more optimistic that this is going to happen that I have been in the last two years.

  • We've just gotten a lot of good indications with this project and, particularly, with the President wanting to create jobs quickly, this one is shelved already.

  • Tom Seitz - Analyst

  • Great.

  • Thank you very much for the color.

  • Operator

  • Your next question comes from the line of Barry Sine with CapStone Investment.

  • Barry Sine - Analyst

  • Good morning, gentlemen.

  • A couple of follow-up questions on some of the questions that were asked already.

  • First of all, a little more granularity on your IPTV rollout plans.

  • I think during this quarter, you added about 1500 homes pass.

  • First of all, on the Pennsylvania markets, I think those markets had pretty good broadband capability when you acquired them, so if you could give us an update -- have you gotten to all those homes there and with all of the additional rollouts going forward with the pair bonding?

  • And the comments on the pair bonding, does that imply, now that that technology's going to be ready for deployment, that the numbers of homes pass should increase in the latter half of the year?

  • Bob Currey - President & CEO

  • Barry, let me try that.

  • We actually passed 4500 additional homes in the quarter and what I was trying to say on the bonding is that we had actually slowed down the offering of that product of homes passed because the cost per home passed was growing and we knew that the technology was coming for bonding.

  • So, we think it's ready for primetime and we're going to launch it later this quarter and the tradeoff is that the bonding allows us not to add the more expensive notes, so we still will drive growth.

  • The bonding does two things.

  • It allows you to pick up homes but allows you also to put more bandwidth out over the same distance.

  • So, for instance, currently, we might stop at 7,000 feet where we might get 17 to 19 meg.

  • In the trials that we're running, we're getting that 17 to 19 meg now out 15,000 feet.

  • So, you can get either more bandwidth to those closer, so then, you can enhance your IPTV product.

  • Today, our product allows three streams -- one HD and two standard definition.

  • Well, if you can get up to the 30 meg, you can add another HD channel to each home, so it enhances the product.

  • In fact, you could add -- you could end up with three HD channels in two homes, depending on where they are from the CO.

  • So, it's the advancement of the technology that's allowing us to expand the bandwidth, cover more homes or more throughput out to those existing homes.

  • Barry Sine - Analyst

  • So, with bonding available, does that imply that you would add in 2Q, 3Q, 4Q more than the number of homes passed that you increased in Q1?

  • Bob Currey - President & CEO

  • Yes.

  • Probably not as much in 2, Barry, but in 3 and 4, as we start to launch that and expand the number of homes where they're at, yes, you could see some additional homes.

  • We have targeted that it could be somewhere between 25,000 and 40,000 additional homes passed this year.

  • That's what's built into our construction budget plan.

  • Barry Sine - Analyst

  • Okay.

  • And in terms of the competitive situation, again, a little more granularity on that.

  • You specifically called out the Comcast offering in the Pennsylvania markets.

  • What is the plan that they're offering?

  • What are the price points and what are you countering with?

  • Bob Currey - President & CEO

  • Yes.

  • Barry, what they launched with was a $75 product and we countered -- we matched it.

  • The only thing we added was a two-year term.

  • We required the customer to take a two-year term and we met it head to head in the market.

  • Barry Sine - Analyst

  • Okay.

  • The last question I wanted to ask you is you mentioned that you're close to completion in terms of integrating the old North Pittsburgh properties.

  • What's your appetite looking forward for perhaps another acquisition?

  • Bob Currey - President & CEO

  • We'd love to have another acquisition, but I think in the past, we've gone to really have some very specific criteria that we look at and it was -- if it met those criteria and, specifically, the ease of integration, the quality of the asset and, obviously, free cash flow positive on day one.

  • And we're seeing some improvement in the capital markets and we hope that that continues because it's pretty difficult to get anything done in this current environment, but we're optimistic that markets continue, it seems, week to week to be getting a little better and open.

  • Barry Sine - Analyst

  • Thank you.

  • Operator

  • (Operator Insructions) Your next question comes from the line of Donna Jaegers with Davidson.

  • Donna Jaegers - Analyst

  • Hi, guys.

  • My coffee didn't kick in early enough this morning, so can you -- Steve, can you go back over those one-time expenses that you counted out that were in?

  • I guess those were in costs of goods sold.

  • Steve Childers - CFO

  • Yes, Donna.

  • Let me -- hang on one second.

  • Basically, what we had in the quarter, we had $2.2 million in severance associated with the reduction of 34 employees, basically less payroll right at the end of the quarter.

  • And of that $2.2 million, under the terms of our credit agreement, we're able to add back $1.5 million to that, but $2.2 million is in total operating expenses.

  • Then, we also had about $265,000 one-time charge associated with ratifying a new four-year agreement for Illinois or our ILEC here in Mattoon ICTC.

  • That contract normally gets done in November -- should've been done in November of '08 with a contract got extended into this year, so $265,000 as a one-time event.

  • And then, we had $1.6 million in additional pension expense.

  • As I said -- I don't know if you caught the revised estimates for full-year pension expense.

  • Donna Jaegers - Analyst

  • Yes.

  • Yes, I did.

  • Steve Childers - CFO

  • Yes, going to $5.5 million to $6.5 million, so it's a significant increase, which we've already handled in the funding.

  • We're in great shape from a funding perspective on that for this year and let me check my notes one more time.

  • I think those are the major -- in the quarter too, again, according to our credit agreement, we had $792,000 in integration work, putting systems together, the final work on North Pittsburgh.

  • That will be an add back to adjusted EBITDA as well, but it is in the operating expense.

  • So, those are the major things that I highlighted.

  • Donna Jaegers - Analyst

  • Great.

  • And then, on the management headcount reductions, any specific area or just surgically around the Company?

  • Steve Childers - CFO

  • Well, as Bob said, I mean, based on the great progress we've made in integrating our three states, emphasis obviously on North Pittsburgh, integrating a three-state operation into one Company operation.

  • Basically, the headcount came out across the Company.

  • Some of it based on specific projects, some of it just being able to go in complete workgroups, so I wouldn't -- it was spread out through all three states.

  • Donna Jaegers - Analyst

  • Great.

  • And then, a follow-up on the previous question -- what debt to EBITDA ratio are you guys comfortable with?

  • Steve Childers - CFO

  • I'd say we're comfortable where we're at and we expect it to get better as we may continue more cost efficiencies and try to see the spike in the access lines, particularly in Texas subside and continue to work on the revenue side, as well as the cost structure.

  • So, again, I'd say we're comfortable where we're at, but we can improve it.

  • Donna Jaegers - Analyst

  • Great.

  • Thanks, guys.

  • Operator

  • Your next question comes from [Charlie Smith].

  • Charlie Smith - Analyst

  • Have you guys ever broken out your churn rate in your IPTV product by market?

  • Bob Currey - President & CEO

  • No.

  • We haven't by market, but I will share with you that in the first quarter, it was 1.6 and that's down from about 2.1 that we averaged in 2008, and that a great amount of that is this progress that we've made on network stability and the new products that we've launched.

  • Charlie Smith - Analyst

  • Okay.

  • Is there a typical time period after you launch a new product that your churn begins to normalize?

  • Bob Currey - President & CEO

  • Charlie, I don't know if that -- if you're relating that to IPTV --.

  • Charlie Smith - Analyst

  • Yes.

  • Bob Currey - President & CEO

  • -- or all products because they all have a little bit of different cycle time.

  • If you go back, maybe another proxy is DSL.

  • In the early years, you're stabilizing new technology.

  • You're training people.

  • You're training your customers.

  • Over time, you enhance the product and we virtually have no churn.

  • Particularly, we have almost zero churn from a quality standpoint.

  • You have some with people moving.

  • There's very little competitive or service churn on DSL and --

  • Charlie Smith - Analyst

  • It's obviously a very mature product.

  • Bob Currey - President & CEO

  • While the IPTV product is more complex, the goal is to get to that same level.

  • Charlie Smith - Analyst

  • All right.

  • Thanks.

  • Operator

  • (Operator Insructions) At this time, there are no questions.

  • Bob Currey - President & CEO

  • Well, let me thank you all again for joining us today and for your continued interest and support of Consolidated Communications.

  • Have a great day.

  • Operator

  • Thank you.

  • This concludes today's conference call.

  • You may now disconnect.