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During the Liberty Broadband (NASDAQ:) 2023 Year-End Earnings Call, executives discussed the company’s recent share repurchases, Charter’s market challenges, and TripAdvisor (NASDAQ:)’s performance. Liberty Broadband has bought back $255 million worth of shares since November 1, 2023, and plans to continue buybacks once it exceeds the 26% ownership cap.
Despite facing increased competition and headwinds in broadband growth, the company is optimistic about Charter’s future returns. TripAdvisor’s revenue rose by 10% in Q4 2023, with Viator achieving profitability ahead of schedule. The call also addressed Liberty Broadband’s financials, including cash and debt, and the potential discontinuation of the ACP program’s impact on GCI and Charter.
Key Takeaways
- Liberty Broadband has repurchased $255 million of its shares using proceeds from Charter share sales.
- The company is confident in Charter’s strategic investments despite near-term broadband growth challenges.
- TripAdvisor had a strong 2023, with a 10% revenue increase in Q4 and Viator reaching profitability earlier than expected.
- Liberty Broadband and GCI’s financials were discussed, highlighting cash and debt status.
- The ACP program’s potential discontinuation is expected to have minimal impact on GCI’s broadband but could offer a competitive opportunity in wireless.
Company Outlook
- Liberty Broadband will resume share buybacks after exceeding the 26% ownership cap.
- The company remains bullish on Charter’s long-term growth and strategic investments.
- TripAdvisor’s successful diversification and focus on long-term strategic opportunities were emphasized.
Bearish Highlights
- Charter faces near-term headwinds in broadband unit growth and increased competition from fixed wireless providers.
Bullish Highlights
- TripAdvisor’s revenue growth and Viator’s profitability are seen as positive indicators.
- The ACP program’s potential end presents a wireless market opportunity for GCI.
Misses
- Specific challenges in Charter’s broadband growth were acknowledged, with competition from fixed wireless access (FWA) services.
Q&A Highlights
- GCI CEO Ron Duncan expects minimal impact from the ACP program’s potential end on broadband, with a possible increase in bad debt and churn.
- Liberty Broadband CEO Greg Maffei believes the current 4.5x leverage level is appropriate but is open to shareholder feedback on leverage adjustments.
- Maffei discussed the competitive nature of fixed wireless, predicting a decrease in its attractiveness as broadband demands rise.
- The company is evaluating options regarding the callable (inaudible) but did not reveal intentions.
Liberty Broadband’s ticker is LBRDA. The company’s leaders provided insights into their strategic approach amidst changing market conditions, emphasizing a commitment to shareholder value through share repurchases and confidence in their portfolio companies’ growth trajectories.
InvestingPro Insights
As Liberty Broadband navigates through the competitive landscape, the company’s stock metrics present a mixed financial outlook. According to InvestingPro data, Liberty Broadband (LBRDK) has a market capitalization of $8.88 billion and is trading near its 52-week low, with a price of $60.43 at the previous close. This positions the company at a potentially attractive entry point for investors, considering the stock’s significant price drop over the last three months, with a 27.78% decline.
InvestingPro Tips suggest that Liberty Broadband’s stock is currently in oversold territory, as indicated by the RSI, which could signal a buying opportunity for contrarian investors. Moreover, despite the expectation that net income may drop this year, analysts predict that the company will remain profitable. This is supported by the fact that Liberty Broadband was profitable over the last twelve months, with a P/E ratio (adjusted) for the same period standing at 12.33, reflecting investor confidence in the company’s earnings potential.
Additionally, the company’s liquid assets exceed its short-term obligations, which could provide financial stability and flexibility in managing its capital structure, including the continuation of share repurchases as discussed in the earnings call. It’s worth noting that Liberty Broadband does not pay a dividend, which may influence the investment strategy of income-focused shareholders.
For those considering an investment in Liberty Broadband, InvestingPro offers additional insights with a total of 10 tips available at https://www.investing.com/pro/LBRDK. To explore these insights further, use the coupon code PRONEWS24 to receive an additional 10% off a yearly or biyearly Pro and Pro+ subscription, granting access to a comprehensive analysis that could help inform investment decisions.
Full transcript – Liberty Broadband Srs C (LBRDK) Q4 2023:
Operator: Welcome to the Liberty Broadband 2023 Year-End Earnings Call. During the presentation all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Afterwards, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions). As a reminder, this conference is being recorded today, February 16, 2024. I would now like to turn the call over to Shane Kleinstein, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Shane Kleinstein: Thank you. Before we begin, we’d like to remind everyone that this call includes certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual events or results could differ materially due to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those mentioned in the most recent forms 10-K, followed by Liberty Broadband and Liberty TripAdvisor with the SEC. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this call, and Liberty Broadband and Liberty TripAdvisor expressly disclaim any obligation or undertaking to disseminate any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statement contained herein to reflect any change in Liberty Broadband or Liberty TripAdvisor’s expectations with regard thereto or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based. On today’s call we will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures for Liberty Broadband, including adjusted OIBDA. Information regarding the comparable GAAP metrics, along with the required definitions and reconciliations, including preliminary note and Schedules 1 and 2, can be found in the earnings press release issued today, as well as earnings releases for prior periods, which are available on Liberty Broadband’s website. Now I’d like to turn the call over to Greg Maffei, Liberty’s President and CEO.
Greg Maffei: Thank you, Shane, and good morning. Today speaking on the call, we will have also Liberty Broadband’s Chief Accounting Officer and Principal Financial (NASDAQ:) Officer, Brian Wendling; Ron Duncan, CEO of GCI and Pete Pounds of GCI, will also be available to answer questions. During Q&A, we will also be available to answer questions related to Liberty TripAdvisor. So I’m going to begin with Liberty Broadband. We resumed repurchases of our Liberty Broadband shares using proceeds from the Charter share repurchases sales in October. From the 1st of November to the end of January, we repurchased $385 million of proceeds received $385 million of proceeds from Charter sales, and spent $255 million on LBRD repurchases. Remember the last year, under our 26% fully diluted ownership cap, the early 2024 grants that Charter made, slowed down their repurchases for our requirements to be repurchased. And therefore, we do not expect to sell into the Charter buyback in the next few months. Once we exceed the cap of 26%, we plan to resume the LBRD buyback. Looking at Charter itself, we certainly acknowledge there were near-term headwinds in the quarter which impacted broadband unit growth. The fourth quarter was also, it felt the delayed impact from the Disney dispute at the end of the third quarter. There’s been a consistent trend in 2023 of increased competition for fixed wireless, but we do believe the competitive noise will lessen over time. Fixed wireless assets will have capacity issues over the long term and the operators have been clear on their limitations. And we do believe that bandwidth demands will continue to increase among consumers which will favor higher speeds. We are long-term shareholders. We are confident that strategic investments that Charter is making will generate excellent returns and accelerate growth over the next few periods. Charter assets will provide the highest speed and the converged off — of a converged offering at the most competitive prices for consumers. Spectrum 1 is continuing to drive mobile growth and reducing churn. Charter was able to add 2.5 million mobile line net ads during 2023. That’s a nearly 50% growth over the prior year. And we saw no uptick in churn from the initial cohorts who were rolling off the promotional periods in the fourth quarter. As you would expect, the internet plus mobile customers are stickier than internet-only customers. Now, the positive news, the rural expansion is beating penetration, ARPU and ROI targets. The network evolution at Charter remains on course with fast low-cost upgrades at about $100 per passing. We don’t believe competitors can replicate that upgrade path over their footprint. As management has outlined, the long-term CapEx outlook, excluding BEID, is expected to materially step down from 2027 to normalized levels. Let me touch on Liberty Trip. We filed an amendment to our 13D. We were authorized by the board to engage in acquisition discussions. And we will not comment further on those discussions unless definitive documents are executed or discussions are terminated. Looking at TripAdvisor itself, TripAdvisor had a strong 2023 operating results, particularly in the back half. Q4 revenue was up 10% over the prior year. Q4 EBITDA and margin expansion exceeded expectations. There was outperformance at the recently renamed brand TripAdvisor. The Viator breakeven profitability was reached earlier than anticipated. And there were marketing efficiencies at brand TripAdvisor and Viator that allowed us to have better than expected performance. And we continue to move on cost-saving actions, which are improving margins. We’ve seen great successful diversification of the revenue at TripAdvisor, with the Viator and TheFork nearly being 50% of 2023 revenue. In comparison, they were less than 10% in 2015, and its experiences are now almost half the level of brand TripAdvisor. We’ve also seen increased repeat rates among customers. For example, at Viator, the Q4 gross booking value from repeat customers exceeded new travelers for the first time. Management is focused on long-term strategic opportunities and Gen-AI-driven product enhancements like Triptools to drive engagement and growth. And we think we are optimistic about those results. And with that, I’ll turn it over to Brian to discuss the financials.
Brian Wendling: Thank you, Greg. At quarter end, Liberty Broadband had consolidated cash and cash equivalents of $158 million, which includes $79 million of cash at GCI. The value of our Charter investment based on our shares held as of February 1st and Charter share prices of yesterday’s close was $13.5 billion. At quarter end, Liberty Broadband had a total principal amount of debt of $3.8 billion. Note that this excludes the preferred stock. We are updating our annual tax rate guidance on our Charter sales for 2024 to low double digits. This conservatively assumes the DRD. The dividend received deduction, does not apply to Charter sales for the book minimum tax under the Inflation Reduction Act. We are accruing for this higher tax rate in 2024, while additional guidance from the IRS and Treasury is pending. I note that any book minimum tax paid for 2024 will carry forward to offset regular income tax in future years to the extent regular income tax exceeds the book minimum tax, making this more of a timing impact. Consistent with prior years, we’re not providing specific tax guidance beyond the current year. Looking at GCI, 2023 was a good year for the company. With record revenue and adjusted OIBDA, GCI generated solid free cash flow and distributed $65 million of dividends to Liberty Broadband during the year. For the full year, revenue and adjusted OIBDA grew 1% to $931 million and $361 million respectively, driven by the strong performance in business data revenue, offset by declines in other revenue, primarily video and voice. In the fourth quarter, revenue was flat and adjusted OIBDA decreased 1%. While we continue to see strong business data growth, this was offset by declines in other revenue and increased costs, primarily in SG&A. Operationally, GCI added 1,400 consumer cable modem subscribers and 4,800 consumer wireless customers in 2023. GCI’s leverage as defined in its credit agreement was 2.9x at year end, and GCI has $397 million of undrawn capacity under its revolver. We’d note that subsequent to year end, GCI paid down an incremental $40 million under its revolving credit facility. In 2023, GCI spent $216 million on capital expenditures, net of proceeds received from federal and state grant funding. This is above prior expectations, largely due to the timing of receiving certain grant proceeds. GCI’s net capital expenditures for 2024 are expected to be approximately $200 million related to additional high returning investments in middle and last mile connectivity, with continued network expansion in our most important markets in rural Alaska, including Bethel and the AU-Aleutians Fiber Projects. Taking a proactive approach in rural connectivity projects is critical to securing necessary government funding. And with that, I’ll turn the call back over to Greg.
Greg Maffei: Thank you, Brian. And to our listening audience, we appreciate your continued interest in Liberty Broadband and Liberty TripAdvisor. And with that, operator, I’d like to open the line for questions.
Operator: Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. Our first questions come from the line of Michael Rollins (NYSE:) with Citi. Please proceed with your questions.
Michael Rollins: Thanks. Good morning. Two questions. First, what are your expectations as to whether or not the ACP program will be discontinued? And can you share your thoughts on the possible implications for each of GCI and Charter? And then secondly, just given the comments on being a long-term investor in Charter, does the current price for Charter change Liberty’s interest to sell shares into Charter’s buyback when needed to stay under the 26% cap? Thanks.
Greg Maffei: Thank you for the question. I’ll address ACP and the impact of Charter, my expectations. And then Ron, maybe you’d like to talk about ACP and potential impact to GCI. And then I’ll come back and talk about buyback. So whether ACP will be renewed or not is certainly a guess into the woolly world of Washington. There is an enormous amount of support for it among many of the congressmen and senators to our knowledge, and many of them are in red states, which actually received a majority of the ACP proceeds. So there is some reason for optimism. But trying to assume that there is a path forward that is clear and crisp in Washington is something that’s beyond my capabilities. The impact, a little unknown, many of the ACP customers at Charter were customers prior to the ACP program. We think the demands for bandwidth, the requirements that customers have for bandwidth have grown. One of the complaints among some people in Washington is that this is a subsidy program, which isn’t necessary because customers want the bandwidth, and that is a reason why some may not vote against it. That of course is not as helpful for us in getting, securing ACP funding, but it may also be correct that it indicates most customers will continue to take our broadband, even in the absence of ACP. So it’s hard to speculate on how much impact eliminating ACP would have or the cessation of ACP would have, but it’s going on a positive on the margin. Ron, would you want to add anything?
Ron Duncan: Just briefly. We’re expecting minimal impact from an ACP discontinuance at GCI. Most of the customers on ACP were broadband customers to begin with, and we have budgeted a slight increase in bad debt and anticipate probably a little bit of an uptick in churn. I think ACP for us was doing more to reduce the churn ratio among customers who may struggle from bill-to-bill. But at the end of the day, I doubt that the effects of the ACP shift will be perceptible on the broadband side. We do believe there’s an upside opportunity on wireless, because nationwide half of ACP goes to wireless providers, and with our GCI plus offering in the market being hugely less expensive than the less, than the least expensive AT&T and Verizon (NYSE:) wireless offerings, the disappearance of ACP for wireless should create a competitive opportunity for us to grow wireless subs at the expense of AT&T and Verizon as they phase their customers off of ACP. So we see more positive coming out of it from the wireless side and expect very little impact on the wired side.
Greg Maffei: I’d just add on that, that all those statements about wireless and the impact are likely to have the same impact or effect. The charter was how we’re pushing our spectrum one program. On the buyback issue, I think it’s the case that we believe that is long-term interesting, and the question about whether to raise, you know seek to raise the cap or continue to read and therefore not sell in shares to Charter or continue to buy back at our own, our own on the LBRD. I think look, you see us spending the majority of proceeds from Charter on LBRD repurchases. You’ve also seen some amount of debt reduction at LBRD use of the capital for that, and the reality is because we’re buying at a substantial discount to the LBRD price, via the LBRD price to the underlying charter, we still have the same set of incentives to use our capital for share repurchase and LBRD rather than raise the cap today, because the discount is so much larger than the tax leakage. So I’m not sure it actually changes our program.
Michael Rollins: Thanks.
Operator: Thank you. Our next questions come from the line of Barton Crockett with the Rosenblatt Securities. Please proceed with your questions.
Barton Crockett: Okay, thanks for taking the question. I guess two things. One just kind of big picture for Greg, and then another kind of nuts and bolts on numbers. So the bigger picture question Greg is, I was curious about your thoughts on some of the new skinny bundles or streaming bundles that are emerging from the media companies in terms of the legality or the appropriateness in an antitrust perspective. So you know specifically the skinny sports bundle from Disney, Warner Brothers, Fox, do you believe that Charter would have rights to offer the same kind of bundle or not and do you think there’s any kind of antitrust questions there? You know similarly I guess there’s some reports that Comcast (NASDAQ:) and Paramount have been discussing, perhaps combining streaming efforts and their streaming services include a lot of content from the broadcast networks NBC, CBS. There is a prohibition at the FCC on dual network ownership and some antitrust, I think, questions about the video market there. So how do you feel about antitrust and do you think that ends up being an issue that affects this? So that’s kind of the big picture question. And I’ll come back later with it with just a small numbers question.
A – Greg Maffei: Okay Barton, you know I’m only good on the big picture, so thank you for starting with that. The skinny bundles, I’m not sure how skinny that bundle is, but and I’m also uncertain about the antitrust implications I’ve heard, knowledgeable observers on both sides up high and I really have not dug into it enough to have a firm view of my own. The question about charter, I think there is potentially an opportunity for — as bundles are created, that we are a distributor of that and has long-term positive, and that we’re making margin without risk and we are continuing to drive demand for broadband as those packages shift. So I think in the – well it’s, we certainly have not seen all of it at Charter and made a full evaluation of what it’ll do. On the margin it feels positive to me, both as an economic opportunity and as something which drives broadband.
Barton Crockett: Okay, great. And then just at the numbers question, I wanted to make sure I’m clear. When you say $200 million on CapEx this year, is that comparable to the $216 million or is that just on the expansion and the actual comparable number would be something different? There’s that. And then your commentary on the tax rate for sales of Charter shares, just I mean, can you give us just like a number? I’m not sure I quite followed what I should assume for a tax rate there.
Brian Wendling: Yeah, on the tax rate… (Multiple Speakers)
A – Greg Maffei: Brian or Ron. Go ahead, Brian. Thank you.
Brian Wendling: Tax rate, we’re just giving you low double digits at this point, Barton. And then on the CapEx, yes, it’s a comparable number, the $200 million to the $216 million.
Barton Crockett: Okay, thank you.
Operator: Thank you. Our next questions come from the line of Ben Swinburne with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your questions.
Ben Swinburne: Thank you. Good morning, Greg. I think these are big picture, so I think for you.
A – Greg Maffei: Don’t scare me with those details. Come on, Ben.
Ben Swinburne: Thank you. I ask you the question I asked John back in November on Charter, which is, why is 4.5x still the right leverage level? I think I know what your answer is, but obviously the market is – has spoken at least for now on where they – what they are thinking on Charter stocks. So I’d be curious if there’s a scenario where you think lower leverage is actually optimal. And then looking back on the Disney dispute, and you mentioned it in your prepared remarks that that’s weighed on subs. Do you think that the objectives and the sort of what was extracted from that agreement by Charter has been worth some of the disruption in the business? Again, broadband net ads have an outsized impact on Charter stock versus their video business. So just wondering how you reflect on that.
Greg Maffei: I’ll start with the, obviously with the leverage part. The question is, certainly we have some shareholders asking the question and we’re weighing the relative merits. But we have at the Charter management team has shown the Board I think, multiple scenarios about what lower leverage or higher leverage might mean. And for the moment, we’re pretty confident that riding the course, given the diversity of maturity, the length of maturities, the likely movement in interest rates, that even under most scenarios, we’re better off holding the 4.5x leverage. It’s certainly a question that’s open in the sense of our, we are responsive to our shareholders in general. I think the – I can say for the 26% holder, and I think probably not speaking for them, but correctly relaying their views for the 12% holder at Advanced Stinghouse, I think we’re in agreement with management’s proposal that 4.5 is the right number. But we certainly look at it and to the degree that there was massive pushback from shareholders, you would want to pay attention. I don’t think we’ve received that yet. I think we’ve received questions on the margin. And I think what’s happened to the stock price is not a function. It may be exacerbated by the leverage, but it’s a function of perception of broadband growth and how we’re doing competitively in the marketplace rather than net leverage. Disney, look, it’s a long-term bet. It’s a long-term play, rather than just what do we feel the impact in a quarter or rolling, bleeding into a second quarter, on how to have a stable video business, where we are more aligned and partnered with people like Disney, and I think you can make the same argument as we get to the sports bundle, that having that, if it occurs or when it occurs, having ourselves aligned with them, having a role where we can be a distributor of that, and having a role in these over-the-top offerings is the right strategy for the long-term and I think management still stands by that view and I think we’re on the same page.
Ben Swinburne: Got it. Thank you.
Operator: Thank you. Our next questions come from the line of Alex Nordhagen with Balyasny. Please proceed with your questions.
Alexander Nordhagen: Hey, thank you for taking my questions. I had two really around the cap stack. But on the first one, with the 2051s, the half coupon, offset coupon that are put and callable from March ‘25, what is the base case plan to deal with those, assuming that there isn’t any sort of transaction? I would think you’d need to have a plan in place given the low cash balance at Liberty Trip right now. And then the second question I had was, just in theory, if with respect to any acquisition discussions, Sotaras (ph) was involved, would that need to be disclosed to the market or not? Thanks.
Greg Maffei: Ben, are you there? Do you want to touch on our plans? I think we’re evaluating. We’re not going to go reveal all. But Ben, what would you want to add?
Ben Oren: Yeah, I think we monitor it regularly, Alex. We think about what the different strategies are for addressing either a repayment of those securities or an extension of maturity, but we’re probably not going to go into detail at this time.
Greg Maffei: And on, I think I’ve said I wouldn’t comment on it further. But I’ll just say, I think the disclosure we made about being approached is the only disclosure we’ll make until we comment further. And whether or not it was Sotaras (ph) or anybody else who made the offer is really beyond what we’re going to reveal today and what we’re obligated, we think, under the 13D disclosure rules.
Alexander Nordhagen: Okay. And thanks, Greg. And if I may just ask a follow-up then. Would the (inaudible) being callable from next month about six weeks away, do you have any intention to call it?
Greg Maffei: I think I’d refer to Ben’s comments earlier. We’re evaluating all these things. We’re looking at all our alternatives. But until and such time as we make that move, we are not going – if we do, we would not, we’re not going to disclose our intention.
Alexander Nordhagen: All right. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
Greg Maffei: Sorry to be unsatisfying, but at least, I know you tried.
Operator: Thank you. Our last questions will come from the line of Barton Crockett with Rosenblatt Securities. Please proceed with your questions.
Barton Crockett: Okay, thanks. So I took the opportunity to come back. Right, just hopefully this qualifies as big picture. Just for you, I’m just curious, the statement that fixed wireless is competitive now but won’t be over the longer term. Can you – do you have any kind of sense in your mind of how long it is before fixed wireless ceases to become competitive and becomes more kind of a source of win back for cable? I say that just, thinking that there’s a lot of consumers out there that are feeling pretty stretched and, I think it would be pretty sticky for a low price service, but there’s technical constraints. So what do you think is the timing here?
Greg Maffei: Yeah Barton, I think I would, the way you initially stated the premise that fixed wireless isn’t competitive. I would say that differently. I would say that there are certainly customers for whom fixed wireless is the answer that they believe they need. I think that customer set will be reduced over time as broadband demands grow. And potentially as FWA becomes less interesting as that network has more users and performance is less attractive, less performance. So, I’m not saying it’s a binary thing. I’m thinking it’s a relative thing. The relative attractiveness and the relative need for increased bandwidth, relative attractiveness of that network and the relative needs among consumers for more bandwidth. I think those shift in our favor over time. And then the question of when capacity is constrained. I mean, T-Mobile has been pretty clear about how many they are willing to go out with. You can judge how quickly it is. Verizon has been less clear. I would argue Verizon has been less clear about a lot of their plans in this space. But if you look at what reasonable expectations and what the run rate is, you can make your own judgment about when that starts to slow down. We’ve already seen it slow a little and we’ve already seen T-Mobile on the margin begin to increase prices for FWA, which seems to suggest that they are not at levitation, but they are recognizing that there’s not an unlimited amount of capacity for FWA.
Barton Crockett: Okay, thanks.
Greg Maffei: Thank you. I believe that is our last question today. Thank you all for joining. Thank you all for your interest in Liberty Broadband and Liberty TripAdvisor. And with that operator, we will end today’s call.
Operator: Thank you. This does conclude today’s teleconference. We appreciate your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Enjoy the rest of the day.
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