Lumen Technologies Inc at Citi Global TMT Conference Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Brian Badillo - Citi - Analyst : Great. Well, thanks again for joining us. I'm going to start out. It's obviously been an exciting time for you, guys recently, very volatile markets, volatile time for the stocks that, if you will, that are around the AI sort of atmosphere. But there's been some very positive news from your company recently. So maybe if we can just start out with the strategy of the company here as the financial performance continues to improve. If you can kind of talk about what investors should see going forward, what areas of improvement you're most excited about.

Question: Brian Badillo - Citi - Analyst : That's awesome. Great. Thank you. So kind of carrying along on that theme, as you sort of look at the portfolio, and you sort of have the growth parts of the portfolio and then you have some of the other parts of the portfolio in harvest mode and such, can you kind of talk to us about the assets that you have and the portfolio optimization, how you think about the future of those assets? And what kind of plans that you have for monetization on some of the more legacy type of assets like your voice assets.

Question: Brian Badillo - Citi - Analyst : That's great. As you sort of -- excuse me -- think about this growth mode, obviously, AI has a tremendous buzz around it right now. When you sort of think about investing in a theme like that, can you talk to the challenges and, I guess, the pros and cons of trying to invest for a theme? And how do you have the visibility to do so?

Question: Brian Badillo - Citi - Analyst : Great. And since you brought up those contracts, obviously, a very recent exciting announcement, can you talk more about those, I guess, starting with the structure of why you structured them the way you did. And then can you talk about when you might have some more visibility into the pipeline that you mentioned and when we'll see more updates on that?

Question: Brian Badillo - Citi - Analyst : So on the contracts themselves, one of the questions that's come up is around margins around those contracts because of the structure. Are you able to share any visibility on that? And how accretive those are?

Question: Brian Badillo - Citi - Analyst : Okay. Great. One of the areas that we've seen some movement in and some progresses on the public sector for you. Could you provide visibility on the public sector? Is that an area of growth for you? And what do those contracts look like?

Question: Brian Badillo - Citi - Analyst : Great. Thank you. Can we talk a bit about the core business versus the wholesale and with respect to the sales and trends in both of those businesses?

Question: Brian Badillo - Citi - Analyst : Great. And then some of the other businesses the services side, can you give us some sort of clarity on how those businesses can become sort of steady, if you will? Are you thinking about them as recurring sort of revenues? Or are those always going to be treated as more one-offs? And are you planning on growing that business, or is that maybe something you would divest?

Question: Brian Badillo - Citi - Analyst : Okay. Great. And while we're on divestitures, consumer is going to be the next one. Maybe you can provide an update on it? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. SEPTEMBER 04, 2024 / 4:30PM, LUMN.N - Lumen Technologies Inc at Citi Global TMT Conference

Question: Brian Badillo - Citi - Analyst : Great. By the way, if there's any questions from the audience, happy to just jump in, and I'll keep going. Can we talk about financial milestones? You kind of brought up debt there. Just in general, can you maybe talk about when you guys will be returning to EBITDA growth, revenue growth, and generate sort of sustainable free cash flow.

Question: Brian Badillo - Citi - Analyst : Great. And then I guess, just on that same thing because AI is becoming such a big part of this equation. That TAM expansion that you -- or the TAM you mentioned earlier, do you see that growing as those years go by? Or is the inference phase sort of take over, and it's sort of stabilized?

Question: Brian Badillo - Citi - Analyst : Great. Can you talk about the customer verticals? We kind of touched on them in high levels, but just sort of if you were to bucket them and the revenues across them and how you improve share in each of those buckets as you go forward.

Question: Brian Badillo - Citi - Analyst : Great. So macro, one of the things that's obviously topical given especially these choppy markets these days, and everybody is trying to figure out soft landing, recession, et cetera. Can you kind of talk about how that affects you? Do you guys think about that internally? Does it change your plans and how you invest and sort of any sort of enlightenment, if you will, and perhaps opine on interest rate impact as well? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. SEPTEMBER 04, 2024 / 4:30PM, LUMN.N - Lumen Technologies Inc at Citi Global TMT Conference

Question: Brian Badillo - Citi - Analyst : Sort of a broader question on AI just because you're so close to these customers. One of the big things that everybody tries to figure out is we're in growth mode for AI, but a big question is ROI for these businesses that are investing. Do you get any insight into that and how your customers are thinking about that and when there's actually a business impact for them that allows them to keep investing?

Question: Brian Badillo - Citi - Analyst : Any questions from the audience? I can keep going, otherwise. Yes, please. Unidentified Participant So you mentioned that you have some -- a number of customers like up to 10 for the $5 billion deal, and that's the situation. But given that they are hyperscalers, how big are the biggest customers and the $5 billion of the $7 billion opportunity? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. SEPTEMBER 04, 2024 / 4:30PM, LUMN.N - Lumen Technologies Inc at Citi Global TMT Conference

Question: Brian Badillo - Citi - Analyst : Just a question -- we're almost out of time, but just a question around the IRUs. With regards to the credit agencies, how do they view those type of contracts? Do they give you credit for those? And then can you talk about the tax treatment of that structure as well?

Question: Brian Badillo - Citi - Analyst : All right. With that, we are out of time. So thank you very much for spending the time with me, and I appreciate it.