Earnings Call: H2 2020

Feb 24, 2021

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much for joining our presentation today. We are excited to discuss with you the latest December 2020 results. Without too much introduction, we will go to the presentation, and we welcome your questions thereafter. 2020, in a snapshot for us, represented revenues of EUR 1.3 billion, 8% increase year-on-year in comparison to 2019. An achievement of 18.1 million RGUs across the four geographies where we operate. What is probably notably important, and we'll come back to this later as well, the growth rate, we've added 2 million RGUs during 2020. A significantly higher number than in 2019, when the growth rate was 1.2 million. Romania and Spain are the driving forces of our growth, and we're extremely happy about it. EBITDA EUR 480 million. Adjusting for IFRS 16 results, the figure was at EUR 405 million, a 6.6% increase in comparison with EUR 380 million a year ago. As I mentioned, Romania and Spain are key drivers. Similarly, mobile broadband and pay TV are key growth drivers in terms of segments that achieved growth in 2020. Moving on. On our next slide, you see the snapshot of our main geographies. Romania achieved revenues of EUR 788 million, so quite close to EUR 800 million, with EBITDA margin adjusted for IFRS 16 impact of 41.2%. Spain, our second-largest geography at the moment, we surpassed Hungary some quarters ago at 2.6 million RGUs, and with sales of EUR 274 million, almost EUR 275 million, EBITDA margin of 20%. Certainly followed by Hungary and Italy with sales of EUR 200 million and EUR 23 million respectively. On a group level, we generated an EBITDA margin of 31%, almost 32%, and as I mentioned previously, with a total result of EUR 405 million. On the current slide, we see the evolution quarter-over-quarter. Sales achieved EUR 331 million in the first quarter from EUR 311 million a year ago. EBITDA, including IFRS 16 numbers, EUR 127 million. Excluding this, it was EUR 105 million in the first quarter in comparison with EUR 100 million a year before. Growth on all fronts. CapEx amounted to EUR 371 million for the full year, and in the first quarter, we spent EUR 100 million. We grew in all our geographies subscriber-wise, and I'll come to that also a bit later. We grew also in all geographies revenue-wise with a single exception related to Hungary, where revenues decreased from EUR 217 million to EUR 200 million. However, most of the impact is due to the exchange rate evolution in that market. We discussed the EBITDA. In any case, just commenting in general, also the results are just great to us. We're very happy with the outcome of last year. We have to say that certainly it was a difficult year for the entire industry, for us as well, also for other industries, not to mention people in general. COVID put a sort of brake both during certain times in our development across all markets, Romania, Spain, Italy, Hungary. COVID made our life and operations more difficult. Certainly, this is not to imply that our results could have been better. Nobody knows. During this difficult time, we tried to adjust and to adapt just like everyone did. This outstanding achievement is certainly due to very big involvement of our employees, of our partners, but also it's due to the confidence that customers have put into our services and into our abilities and capabilities. We are extremely grateful to all our stakeholders for their continuous support during this time. Moving on, just a few things on customer evolution. As I mentioned a bit earlier, we grew from 16 million RGUs in 2019 to more than 18 million RGUs in 2020. 2 million RGU growth all in all. Biggest part of it is certainly coming from Romania, more than 1.3 million RGUs. Biggest part in terms of segment is coming from the mobile segment, which grew by almost 800,000 RGUs during this year, followed by broadband, with an increase of 700,000 and followed by pay TV, with a growth of 600,000 during the year. Broadband and pay TV growth comes primarily from our Romanian market and again, it's notable that despite mature market, despite developed market, despite our well-established presence, we're still able to achieve growth and we are quite happy about it. I can't repeat it that 2020 brought us 2 million growth in services. In comparison, it was 1.2 million RGUs a year before. This was really an outstanding year, with very good growth and with robust financial performance. Having said this, I'll ask kindly Smaranda to present you our financial profile, our indebtedness, and thereafter we will be ready to speak to you and to answer your questions. Thank you, Serghei. The preliminary financial liabilities were at EUR 1.1 billion at year-end, with a stable leverage of 2.6x, both on a gross and on a net basis. In 2020 despite being a very challenging year, we managed to refinance our major debt instruments. Just as a recap, in February, we issued senior secured notes in amount of EUR 850 million in two tranches with a five-year and an eight-year maturity, respectively, and an average coupon rate of 2.9%. As per the senior secured notes, leverage is set at 4.25x, and the basis for the leverage computation is excluding IFRS 16. We used the proceeds that we raised at that point in time to close some of our senior facilities, which were outstanding at that point. Namely, we repaid and fully closed SFA 2018, and we partially repaid the senior facility from 2016. Afterwards, at the end of the year, in December, we refinanced the outstanding amount of the senior facility from 2016 as well. We signed a new facility on the 15th of December, which comprises of a term loan facility of EUR 100 million in lei equivalent, and a revolving facility of EUR 50 million in lei equivalent. At the end of December, we drew the term loan facility in amount of EUR 100 million in lei, and we repaid and closed the senior facility agreement from 2016. The new facility sets the leverage at 3.5 times net debt to EBITDA that is, and similar to the indenture covenants, the computation for the leverage is based on IFRS accounts excluding IFRS 16. All in all, at year-end, our two main debt instruments were the senior secured notes and the 2020 senior facility that was signed in December. Apart from these main facilities, we also have other short-term or working capital facilities throughout our geographies as well as finance leasings as they were before applying IFRS 16, that all add up to EUR 1.1 billion as presented in this slide. Having said that, we have reached the end of our presentation. If you would like to ask questions, kindly please use the chat box. Thank you. I believe we already have questions, so we'll start reading and also answering. The first question is from Gusler. "Hi, guys. My key question today is the reason for the CapEx increase in 2020 and the CapEx outlook for 2021. Thank you." Well, thank you very much for the question. Yes, we have estimated and revised for a few times, the CapEx, during last year. The truth is we did it every year on record, I think, since we are discussing with investors. The other truth is that it did not come neither as a surprise nor as something totally unexpected or unwanted. As you very well appreciate, we are a growth company. We are growth stock. That's how we want to see ourselves. We have great results, especially in Romania, especially in Spain. It certainly comes with certain cost. I mean, it doesn't come free. CapEx is the cost. The final figure for 2020 was EUR 370 million. Most of it spent in Romania, approximately 70%, with Spain being the second largest market. We spent on a group level approximately 30% as a share of revenue, and this indicator is quite constant across our three main markets, Romania, Spain, and Hungary. Once again, we are glad that we have the opportunity, and we are very much okay to continue this investment. To address the second part of the question, what's the expectation for this year? I think based on the current outlook of our projects and our developments, we see a CapEx profile in 2021 quite similar to 2020. While we're still quite early in the year, I would say that we are somewhere in the EUR 350 million-EUR 400 million range. From Alvaro, "Given that you have drawn fully on your RCF, what liquidity lines do you have at the moment? Coming back to what I mentioned earlier about the refinancing of the senior facilities, we fully drawn the term loan of EUR 100 million. The RCF, as to the revolving facility that is in amount of EUR 50 million, is still available to us as a liquidity cushion if we need it, and this is still undrawn at year-end. It has been undrawn at the year-end. It's not drawn today either. Yes. Next question from Alvaro, "5G plans in Romania in 2021, potential CapEx for the spectrum, and potential CapEx in 2021." Thank you. Basically, we have not too many developments since we discussed both in Q3 and in Q2. On one hand, we are waiting for the spectrum auction, which, to my recollection, was announced as not taking place before the end of Q1 or beginning of Q2 this year. This announcement was made somewhere at the end of last year by the authorities, while in the meantime, there was little communication on that subject. We don't have currently very good short-term visibility on when the auction is taking place. It's rather more reasonable to estimate that it will take place somewhere in the second part of this year, if it takes place this year at all. Again, no visibility. We'll see what is happening. Despite this, I think the question is omitting the fact that we are offering 5G services already in a number of major cities in Romania. This goes as it does, sorry, for more than one year and a half already since we launched the services. Yeah, no changes on our side. Again, a bigger rollout of 5G is certainly connected with the 5G auction. A question from Rohit Singh, "To what extent are your products in Spain targeting the Romanian expat community? How much more growth do you think is realistic in Spain from current levels?" Well, indeed, we started our operations in Spain back in 2008, predominantly or mainly oriented at the quite large Romanian expat community that is living and working over there. However, in the meantime, the profile of Digi has changed significantly. While Romanians continue to be the largest ethnic group that we address to our services, I don't think they are representative. I don't know. They're certainly less than half of our total clients. I'm not sure if you understand the picture I'm trying to draw and the numbers I'm trying to convey. Again, while Romanians are quite important, they are not the only customers that we service in Spain. In relation to your second question, or put it differently, according to official statistics, I think the number of mobile users that we have in Spain exceed significantly the number of Romanians that work and live there. Coming to your second question on how much growth we still have and when will it stop? Unfortunately, I wish I knew the answer. I don't know. Certainly our desire is to continue. A question from Judith. Question regarding the expected impact of revaluation of property, plant, and equipment. Could you provide an estimate of the expected value? Well, this process of revaluation of the property, plant, and equipment is still ongoing currently. We are still analyzing, and the revaluation is not yet final. Therefore, we will refrain at this point in time of having any kind of estimates or comments on that. We will present in details, though, the differences coming from the revaluation when the annual report will be published. In about one month's time? Yeah. Yes. Second question, what are the expectations from the agreement with Vodafone from Italy? Do you think the business will have the same momentum as operations from Spain? Well, we wish it had. However, I don't think, from a business point of view or from statistics point of view, this is possible. We have had quite high growth rate in Spain already for a number of years, since the beginning. The growth rate continued at high pace, also after we became a large operator, the fifth largest in the country. In Italy, we're still small, and our critical mass is insufficient, and it's quite difficult for us to predict whether we can have a growth rate comparable to Spain or not. A question from Gusler. Can you please comment on free cash flow in 2020? Well, we run our conservative free cash flow generation profile. Our investment policy is high investments into growth projects, as long as we have the opportunity to do so. Basically, you see that with EBITDA of EUR 405 million, without IFRS 16, and with CapEx of EUR 370 million, we have a net result of EUR 35 million. From this point of view, I think, yeah, we just maintain our growth rate policy. The position of Digi Hungary on the broadband market dropped 2% from 24%-22%. Overall, RGU just increased with 1%. What is the company expectation for 2021, knowing that Digi still needs to invest a lot to mobile network? What is the expectation of Digi for 2021? Well, it's true that Hungary is one of our three largest markets, Romania, Spain, Hungary. Hungary has shown weaker results with little operational growth and, as I mentioned, also a decrease in top line due to foreign exchange rate. For 2021, we expect moderate growth as we are still busy upgrading both the mobile network, as you mentioned, which is true, growing our number of towers. We've also continued to be busy in upgrading the Invitel network from DSL and copper to fiber. We usually don't provide projections, and your question somehow implies one. However, we see a rather moderate outlook. We don't see high growth in Hungary in the coming future. A question from Francois. Can you remind us the size of the previous RCF? It was somewhat smaller. It was EUR 35 million compared to EUR 50 million today. Sorry, I could not hear properly. Is the new RCF fully drawn? No, the RCF of EUR 50 million is not drawn. EUR 100 million was the term loan portion, which is certainly fully drawn. Could you give us an update on Romania 5G auction? Is it set for the second quarter of 2021? And how much do you expect to pay for it? And when is the cash outflow expected? I think we touched this already, but I'll come back to this again. No knowledge, no precise information on when the auction will take place. If we are successful to buy any frequencies, we expect to need to pay on spot shortly after the auction is closing. In terms of how much money is to be paid, we don't know, and we cannot provide publicly our estimations. We think it's a competitive information. Do you intend to release more detailed financials as you used for previous quarters, notably detail of operating expenses? Certainly, we do. As usual, we are providing, for the fourth quarter, a short summary of our preliminary management accounts. The full accounts will be published at around 18th, 20 of January. 19th of March. 19th of March. You will have the opportunity to see the fully audited report with all details of the operational expenses and thereafter. A question from Oliver Burke. Can you give any color on commercial launch of mobile services in Hungary, either on timing or progress? We announced the launch of commercial services in October. I don't remember now, it was either October or November last year, with effect January 1, 2021. In the meantime, we were able to convert the larger proportion of our, how shall I say, promotional customers to paid subscriptions. We also continue adding customers. It is difficult for me to share the numbers with you. I don't have them ready. Again, the largest portion of our customers stayed with us, and you will see these results when we publish the Q1 numbers. Just looking at your liquidity profile, you had EUR 10 million of cash at year-end, plus the new EUR 50 million undrawn RCF. I see you have debt maturities totaling EUR 44 million in 2020. Are you comfortable that this is enough, especially given that you have been free cash flow negative in the previous years? Certainly, we are quite comfortable with our position. Just maybe to explain the logic or the rationale, if not all, but substantially larger portion of our CapEx is discretionary CapEx. We have the full freedom to decide where to do it, how to do it, or whether we do it at all. If you look at our profile with EBITDA in excess of EUR 405 million in 2020, you see that we have a sizable source of cash that is coming from all our operations across all our markets. It is cash daily because we are originally a cable business, and from this point of view, we have not changed our profile. Certainly from a technological point of view, we are a fiber business. Again, if a cable company sounds like something to you, we are a cable company. Coming back and just addressing your question, certainly we have no issue to address our maturities and our interest payments. These come first before CapEx, and should we need to adjust anything in our spending profile, we will cut CapEx immediately. A question from Rohit Singh again. Why do you believe that you have had difficulties with the Hungarian regulator, and do you have a plan to improve these relations? Well, we always intend to improve our relations with all involved parties, including the authorities. It has been somewhat difficult, challenging period of 1 year and a half, from mid-2019 till the end of 2020, also beginning of 2021. We did not have too much interaction with the authority, but the authority did not pay too much attention to us either. Twice it excluded us from the mobile frequency auctions. On one hand, it was the 5G auction that finally was concluded in March 2020, but started back in August 2019. Certainly the most recent frequency auction, whereby the incumbents have renewed their spectrum. Yeah, I wish this relationship was better. I wish we were allowed to participate in the auction. The result was opposite. I think the only party that lost in this thing or the biggest loser is the Hungarian society, which has less competition and basically has access to less diverse telecommunication services. Why the authority has chosen to behave so, it is difficult for me to understand and comment. Sorry, just coming back briefly to Oliver's question from before, and he's asking us to comment a bit on free cash flow of 2021 in addition to 2020. Yeah, I thought so that you were in the present year, not in the last year, but sorry. I just read what it was. I'd say our financial profile, first of all, as Miranda mentioned, and I think it's quite important to emphasize again, we closed 2020 fully refinanced. Our outstanding maturities are very small, as we mentioned, at around EUR 40 million, and they do not present a significant issue. We are addressing it from our current cash flow payments. I did mention the CapEx range, quite large, of in between EUR 350 million to EUR 400 million. That does not include participation in the frequency auction. We would have to borrow money if we were to participate in the frequency auction. Otherwise, we do not see a significant change in our free cash flow profile in 2021 as compared to 2020. Meaning it will be marginally positive. On one hand, due to increase or growth in EBITDA. On the other hand, we'll just make sure that we keep all things under control, be it repayments of principal, be it CapEx, to make sure that it all ends up neatly. Thank you very much. Next question is from Lioș. "Digi Hungary has 3 megahertz 4G frequency. What is the mobile RGU expectation knowing 3 megahertz is smallest bandwidth in Europe?" I think you are not totally right. We have spectrum in 1,800 and also in 3,400. Our spectrum is somewhat bigger, and we operate both frequencies. I think we discussed it various times during our previous calls that, yes, the spectrum is limited. However, this spectrum is sufficient for us to start operations. This spectrum is sufficient for us to run a 10% market share in the territory. We are quite confident that this spectrum allows reasonable operation of a fourth operator in the Hungarian territory. A question from Alvaro: "Would you be in a position to give us any guidance on revenues or EBITDA in 2021 and net leverage for that matter?" Sorry. This precisely we cannot answer. No. Thank you very much. A question from Piotr: "Are you satisfied with your mobile segment performance in Hungary?" Well, certainly not. There's little to blame on our side. As we have discussed previously, we are somehow limited by the auctions of the authority, and we genuinely expected to have the right, to have the opportunity to bid for extra spectrum, both in 2019 auction and in 2020 auction, but we were wrongly and illegally excluded from these auctions. Nevertheless, I think I come back just to previous comments. We are good on track in developing our network, physical network. We are good on track in growing our market share, and we can certainly achieve, as I mentioned, 10% market share with the current asset portfolio, with this current spectrum, and it works technically very well. The next question is: "When do you see an opportunity to buy an additional spectrum in Hungary?" Well, I think that's difficult. I'm not sure if any other major auction is expected before 2029, so that is probably improbable for the immediate future. Unless, of course, our attempts to contest the current frequency auctions will yield any result, which is difficult to foresee, but we work on that as well. A third question from Piotr: "What price for 5G spectrum in Romania would you find reasonable?" I think, well, I mentioned we can't comment the prices of the upcoming auctions. Makes no sense competitively. Question number four: "Could you please provide us with some update on fixed line network development? What is the network coverage currently?" I did expect this question. Thank you very much. However, kindly have patience for about one month. We'll publish this information in our final end. Can you tell us more about net working capital?" I think it's premature, as we did not release these numbers today, and we will discuss this in our next call discussion. These questions come from Adrian, sorry. "How are new mobile packages doing in Hungary?" Well, they are doing very well. As I said, we have converted most of our promotional customers to paid packages, and we continue growing sales. I'm repeating myself. We will be happy to share with you the numbers at the end of Q1. "Do you build your own infrastructure for the Spanish business?" Well, I think it's a way too general question. First of all, on mobile, certainly not. We are an MVNO operator, and we rely on our relationship with Telefónica, which is the provider of the network for our mobile operations. Historically, mobile business is our biggest business, and again, we rely on a third-party network. In this case, it's the incumbent. In terms of fixed services, we have started providing fixed services in September 2018, and after quite positive response from our customers early on, we started providing these services similarly on Telefónica's network in 2018, just like the mobile services. Having had, let's say, positive response from our customers at that moment, we have decided to also build a fixed network in certain areas of Spain, which is still in its early development and in early phase. I hope I did address your question with this. What is the impact of new MVNO contract in Italy? And will you try to have more aggressive offers to attract more RGUs? I'm not sure if aggressive is a proper word, but certainly the new contract with Vodafone allows us to modify our pricing strategy in comparison with the old contract with Telecom Italia. Again, coming back to the comment, aggressive is a wrong word. I think the proper word is that we're able to provide more relevant offers for the market. Whether this will have success or not, we will still see. A question from Naresh. What is the FTTH, FTTB current ratio in Hungary after a lot of investment spent for changing the whole network to FTTH? Yeah, sorry. This is quite a detailed question. I don't have the information at the moment. Apology. A question from Radesh. Do you have any plans to increase the liquidity of the stocks? I think you refer to the shares which are listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange, not other stocks. The idea is that probably we, the issuer, the company, are captive in this relationship just like investors are. We certainly wish for us, for Digi, but also for the Bucharest Stock Exchange, to have a much higher liquidity. We try to be proactive with investors, discussing our results, just like we do at this moment with you and at many other occasions. We try to do our business, we believe, in the right manner, showing growth, generating growth, paying dividends. Yeah, but so far so good. We are where we are. Again, we empathize very much with your question. We wish the liquidity was higher, but we don't have a direct answer to this. A question from Piotr. What is the impact of the state regulation regarding free internet for students on your Hungarian segment, EBITDA? This impact is immaterial. I think we discussed it on the last call, but we don't have any significant effect on our operations over there. A question from Francois. Could you remind us if you use any deconsolidating factoring programs? If yes, how much of that program is used at end December 2020? I'm not sure I follow the question. We use factoring as one of the instruments to support supplier finance, to support supplier relationships. However, factoring is certainly not a major instrument we're using. It's quite modest as a total value. Certainly all factoring related debt is shown on the balance sheet. We don't have any off-balance sheet arrangements. Again, we wouldn't know how this works, and I'm not sure we're interested. Question from Ekaterina. Due to your limitation in spectrum, should we expect write-offs in Hungary in the mobile segment? Thank you very much for the question. We hope not. We are doing our best not to encounter any write-offs now or later on. We hope not. A question from Matt. How is the adverse results from the Hungarian spectrum auction changing your strategy on mobile in Hungary? Well, I'll repeat myself, not from a discussion from today, but from a discussion during our previous earlier calls. Despite the decision from the authorities, we will certainly not stop here, and we will certainly continue developing our operations. I think it's important to emphasize and repeat, nothing has been taken away from us. Something has not been given to us. Which means we are still able to provide to generate and to operate as we did before. Indeed, the difference is that we wanted, we hoped, and we expected a higher rollout speed. With this, we'll have to see a lower rollout speed. With that's it. Again, a question from Oliver. Do you expect to utilize the 2019 bridge facility to finance the spectrum auction cost? And are you confident the size of this facility will be enough? No, sorry. First of all, the facility is fully drawn. Sorry. I think the question is wrong. We don't have a 2019 bridge facility in place. It's fully closed. The 2020 term loan is fully drawn, and we do not intend to use our RCF for the frequency auctions. We will finance the frequency auctions at a later stage, when needed and when appropriate. We certainly do not comment on the price, sufficiency of funds, necessity of funds, and so on and so forth. There's a question from Adrian if we expect a rise in ARPU. Look, I think this is a question that we review on a constant basis. We do not expect any increases now, or we have not decided. However, we may decide on a case-by-case basis, on a territory-by-territory basis, or on a product-by-product basis in the future. We maintain this freedom, but at this moment, we don't have plans to increase our prices. A question from Diana. Are you targeting any significant M&A this year? Can you share more details on this topic? Thank you. Well, it's a difficult question because we always look opportunistically at any targets or at any opportunities that are available. There's little to comment, or there's nothing to comment about, in particular at this moment. However, if anything of interest to the market and to investors and to us comes, we'll certainly inform the market. I think the importance is that we're certainly open. The question from Vlad. Can you provide any guidance at this time with regard to the next dividend payment? No, certainly not. At the time of publishing our annual report in one month's time, we will provide also the suggestion for the dividend to be decided by the shareholders at the next meeting of shareholders. Question from Francois. What is the new maturity of the new 2020 senior facility? Same question for the RCF. The maturity of the new facility is for three years time, both for the term loan and the RCF. Just to add to this, to Smaranda, the maturity is short and shorter than our previous maturities, just because as a general group policy, we prefer to delever, and timely payments of the term loan help us to reduce leverage in addition to the indirect effect of growth in EBITDA, which is also decreasing our leverage. It was quite an intense three-quarters of an hour. We have run out of questions at the moment. Yeah, apology. We have one more question from Flavio. Yes. I would like to ask you if you are bidding for licenses on the Portuguese 5G ongoing auction, and if you can confirm that you bought licenses in the first phase for the new entrants. I think this is a question we cannot address at this moment. As we were discussing M&A previously, similar to this, we are constantly looking at many opportunities in our existing markets, but also in new markets. When we will be ready to discuss with the markets more information and more details, we'll come back. At this moment, we cannot comment. As we just mentioned earlier, we have no further questions, and we will speak with you, I think, next time when we discuss the first quarter results in mid-May. In the meantime, you will certainly have the opportunity to see our full year report in one month's time, with significantly more details that we could share with you today. Thank you very much, and thank you very much for your interest, and thank you very much for the question and the discussion. Thank you. Bye-bye.