Liberty Global Ltd Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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

Question: Robert Grindle - Deutsche Bank AG - Analyst : And thank you for taking us away from the UK budget. Look, I think there's a little bit of bad news for you on mix. But my question is on UK fiber, depending on how many Upp homes were incorporated. Organic build is perhaps closer to 200,000 homes in Q3 versus close to 300,000. Is this a change in momentum? Or just that it takes some effort to incorporate the Upp build? And at the same time, VMO2 fiber upgrade speed also seems to be modest versus your targets. Is there a tipping point on both builds, pending a UK NetCo wholesale deal? Or is it just the ebb and flow of the business?

Question: Maurice Patrick - Barclays - Analyst : Also, great, Lutz, to have you back. A couple for me, the quite dull modeling questions. But the first one is just to understand where 2024 central cash ends up. So if you start with your sort of $3.5 billion number that you gave for 3Q '24, just the moving parts. I think you have things like, for example, $120 million of Venture sales, you've got $220 million cash outperformance at (inaudible), presuming that's a Sunrise [1.4 billion], more buybacks. So just the moving parts to help us work out where you'll end up around Q4 will be helpful. And the second question, just on the Sunrise EV. It's obviously a very topical time with the spend that you're doing. I mean, you cite the number of CHF8.2 billion being a consensus of analysts. But I'm just curious to understand that the CHF8.2 billion makes adjustments for things like, for example, the CHF30 million TSA that I think Sunrise will pay Liberty post the spin. If you adjust for things like LTIPs, I think Sunrise will pay $25 million, $30 million a year, LTIP, for example. Just help us understand what's in the CHF8.2 billion?

Question: Joshua Mills - BNP Paribas - Analyst : I'd like to ask Stephen actually a couple of things on VodafoneZiggo having recently joined the business. I was interested going through the first comments you've made in your press release related to that business. And in that, you talked about your confidence in restoring the best network REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. OCTOBER 30, 2024 / 1:00PM, LBTYA.OQ - Q3 2024 Liberty Global Ltd Earnings Call experience at VodafoneZiggo. I think it's obvious, from the comments and also the results, that you've been losing share and cutting price over the past few years with KPN and the AltNets have ramped up their fiber builds. So my question is, what do you think you need to do with this business in order to stabilize, if not grow the subscriber base going forward? Is it a case of upgrading DOCSIS 4? Do you need to invest in more fiber? And how do you get back to growth? And perhaps if I could just take a second kind of part to that question. You talked on the call about value over volume in the Dutch market. But that value may become harder to come by as the back book price increases are now coming in lower than previous years. So any comments you could give on how you plan to upsell customers? Perhaps any commentary on front book pricing trends as well with your relatives? Unidentified Company Representative Welcome. Thanks for the question. Can you hear me.

Question: Steve Malcolm - Redburn - Analyst : Yeah. I'll go for two if I can. Just on sort of [remain co] shareholder distributions and thoughts on. Can you maybe just sort of give us an update on where your thinking is on that and when you might sort of come back to us and give us a clearer view on how you want to return upstream cash when the spin is done? And then on just coming back to the UK, you mentioned the sort of the growing number of press stories or an augment distress and companies kind of almost giving up, got TalkTalk volumes trading in the kind of low 60s. Just maybe a sense from what and where we are on sort of market consolidation, whether you're seeing more companies knocking your door, whether we should expect 2025 to be a year of kind of fairly intense activity on that front? Because it feels like we're kind of waiting for the storm to hit, but it certainly hasn't quite happened yet, but that would be great.

Question: Steve Malcolm - Redburn - Analyst : Mike, just sort of clarify, I'm thinking more about the sort of pace of buybacks. Obviously, the Liberty Global post-Sunrise, excuse my description of remain co, it's going to be a smaller company. There's going to be a bit less liquidity out there. Should we still expect 100% of organic cash flow to be used to return to buy back shares? Just the thinking around that, clearly, you've got a million opportunity out there, but just buying back stock is going to be a little bit harder because liquidity is going to be lower. Just thoughts on that would be great.

Question: Ulrich Rathe - Bernstein SG - Analyst : I wanted to ask about broadband net adds in the quarter in Switzerland and the Netherlands. So first on Switzerland. In the release, you talked about reduced churn, but you qualified that by saying you have reduced churn in the main brand. Could you comment a little bit about what the flanker brand is doing in broadband in Switzerland at the moment? And the second question is on the Netherlands. There has been a slight step back in the quarter. I think in the release, you're talking about a slower quarter. The question I really have is, why is UEFA really no benefit at this point? I mean, you have started marketing it, as I understand it. Why don't we see a bigger effect than the sort of slight improvement? I think it was like 2,000 quarter-on-quarter improvement on the losses in broadband. Could you comment a little bit about what you expect from this UEFA marketing?

Question: James Ratzer - New Street Research - Analyst : Yeah. Thank you very much --

Question: James Ratzer - New Street Research - Analyst : Yeah. Thank you. Mike, can you hear me?

Question: James Ratzer - New Street Research - Analyst : Yeah. Great. Yes, James here, yes. I'd be really interested if possible, focusing on slide 15 in your presentation pack in the appendix where you've got some helpful breakdown showing the revenue trends for consumer fixed and for consumer mobile service revenue across your four main businesses. So kind of eight metrics there. And what I can't help but notice this quarter is that all eight of those, the trends have got worse from Q2 to Q3. And six out of the eight are in negative territory. That's between gigs and mobile across the four businesses. REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. OCTOBER 30, 2024 / 1:00PM, LBTYA.OQ - Q3 2024 Liberty Global Ltd Earnings Call So I'm certainly thinking kind of looking ahead into 2025, 2026, what do you think you need to do to actually turn that trend around to be more positive? Does this rely on price rises? Does this rely on adding on ancillary products? How do we turn that revenue trend around to be more positive? And specifically, given you give the disclosure, I also can't help but notice that consumer mobile for Virgin Media slipped from minus 0.4% last quarter to now, minus 4.8%. That's quite a big change in the quarter. Just interested in digging into that one in a bit more detail as well, please.