Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for standing by and welcome to the Tele2 Conference Call. I would now like to hand the conference over to the first speaker of the day, Ms. Carla Smits-Nusteling. Please go ahead, ma'am.
Thank you. Hello, everyone. Hopefully, you hear me better than the operator. My name is Carla Smits-Nusteling, and I'm the Chairman of the Board of Tele2. Thank you all for listening to our call today. With me here I have Anders Nilsson, CEO; Mikael Larsson, CFO; and Stefan Backman, General Counsel. The purpose of this call is to address the announcement we made this morning concerning Anders Nilsson's departure from Tele2 and the appointment of Kjell Morten Johnsen as the new President and CEO. I would like to start off by saying a few words about our announcement, and then I will hand over to Anders, and then of course, we open up the lines for questions. Earlier this year, Anders indicated to the board that he was considering stepping down from his role at some point in the future, provided a solid succession plan was in place.
Myself and the rest of the board have therefore conducted a structured process for CEO succession, which was finalized today, July the 6th, 2020, when we made the decision to move forward with Kjell Morten Johnsen's appointment. We know that Kjell Morten Johnsen's vast experience as a leader in global telecommunications will serve our company well, and I'm certain that Tele2 will continue to thrive under his leadership. While the board of course regrets to see Anders leave the company, we respect his decision and would like to thank him for his great contribution to Tele2. Under Anders' leadership, the Com Hem integration, which was expected to take three years, was successfully completed in just one year. This rapid and successful transformation created a lot of shareholder value while making the company much stronger and better prepared for the future.
On top of that, Anders and the rest of the leadership team have laid the groundwork for the next phase of transformation, which is expected to reduce costs by at least SEK 1 billion over three years and turn Tele2 into the telco of the future. Anders has indeed had a very successful and intense career as CEO of two public companies over the last six years, steering them through large transformations. On behalf of the board, I thank Anders for his contribution to Tele2 and wish him all the best for the future. With that, I would like to hand over now to Anders.
Thank you for the kind words, Carla. This has not been an easy decision for me, but it's the right one. There is a very bad sound in the background somewhere. I don't know where it comes from. You can go on mute. Excellent. I continue. The last six years running public companies, first Com Hem, followed by Tele2, have been the best and most memorable in my career. I've had the privilege to work with and meet so many great people, and I'm very proud of what the team has achieved. I spent almost all my career working in companies founded by Tele2's founder and largest shareholder. For me, this is an extra emotional decision.
Being CEO of companies going through continuous transformation at high speed takes full focus and the highest priority. After six years, it has led me to the decision to take a break and focus on other things in life for a while. There is never a good time to leave a successful company. However, the plans for the coming years are laid and being executed by the team, which should give us room for a transition of CEO without interruption in delivery of our plans and promises to the market. That is important to me and the reason I flagged to the board well in advance of making my decision so succession could take place in the smoothest possible way. I would like to thank the team here at Tele2. You are truly special. All our supporting shareholders, scrutinizing analysts, and my very supportive board.
You have all been important to me, and I thank you very much for your contribution to this journey. Now it's time for the next chapter in the Tele2 history to begin. With that, I hand over to Carla.
Thank you, Anders. We will now open up the lines for Q&A. Before we do that, first, I would like to remind everyone that we are in the silence period ahead of the Q2 2020 report. Well, we only answer questions that are related to today's announcement. Operator, could you please start Q&A?
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question over the phone, kindly press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To cancel your request, kindly press the hash key. Once again, star one if you have any questions. We have three questions just came through. The first one is from the line of Terence Tsui from Morgan Stanley, we have the question now.
Yeah. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for hosting the conference call. Anders, all the best in the future. It's been a pleasure following your progress at Com Hem and Tele2. Just a couple of questions, maybe firstly for you, Anders, I was just wondering why you made the decision now. What was it that prompted you to feel that now is a good time for change? It's quite interesting that the telco sector has been going through a phase of cost-cutting and heavy regulation. Did you find that some of these industry trends were just becoming a bit too tiresome or overburdening? Then the second question is to the board.
I was just wondering whether there was an option for maybe Anders to have stayed within the Board of Directors, maybe to ensure some continuity to make sure that the transition and the future strategy could be executed. Thank you.
Anders, do you start?
Yes, I can start. Thank you very much, Terence, for your questions and your kind words. For me, this has nothing to do with Tele2 or the business or where our industry is. I think we have a very good plan on how to develop Tele2 going forward, which we're now executing on. I have very good views on where this company is going to head in the future. This is more a personal decision. As you may imagine, the job I have and have had for six years, in order to do that in the way I've done it, I need to spend all my focus and prioritize that highest in life. Otherwise, I can't sleep well at night and feel that I deliver what I think I should deliver to the company and all the stakeholders.
After having done that for six years, I came to the realization that there are other things in life that I sacrificed. I think it's time for me to take a break and focus on those things. You may wonder, what are these things? Well, I have a family, which I would like to spend more uninterrupted time with. I love the sea, for instance, so I'm going to spend more time there. I have other interests, which basically have been in the back seat for the last six years, which I'm going to spend more time on. We'll see what happens after that. I see this as a break after having focused very intensely on work for six years. That's the reason for this decision, and I hope that answers your question, Terence.
That's great. Thank you.
Okay, the question for the board. Implicitly, you say, could Anders stay? I think Anders has just explained that he wants to do some other things. We respect that as a board, of course, Anders has not been alone. We have a great leadership team. I have also very good board colleagues, we're all determined to continue on the excellent track that Tele2 is on. We believe an excellent new CEO with Kjell, we will all build on the strategy that has been set. Anders is also still available to consult, he's not done. We are truly confident that we continue on the track where we are. Next question, please.
Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Peter Nielsen from ABG. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Congratulations on your decision, Anders, and all the very best for the future. I guess we will have the opportunity perhaps to speak to you before you leave, but at least for now, thank you and all the best. I have a question for the chairman, please. From the board's perspective, you highlighted the integration with Com Hem is completed earlier than expected. From the board's perspective, where do you see Tele2 now in the company's strategic development, so to speak, and what are the main attributes you've been looking for in the new CEO? He's obviously replacing Anders, which has been a strong profile within Tele2. You mentioned that you're now embarking on the next transformation, executing on the SEK 1 billion OpEx cost reductions over the next three years. You didn't say anything about returning to growth or other factors.
Could you perhaps elaborate a little bit and say where do you see the company now? What have been the main characteristics in a new CEO you've been looking for? Thank you.
Yes, absolutely. Thanks. Where we are, and I will later on also ask Mikael to elaborate a little bit on this, our CFO. As said, in the Board, we want it all. We want both the cost reduction, but we also want a little bit of growth, as you know. That is also what we were looking for when we started to look at the candidates for the job. We had a great pool, both internal candidates as well as Swedish, as well as international. Tele2 is a great company. A lot of people would like to join us, and that's very positive. To embark on the journey where we're on. Your question on what were you looking for in the Board, a couple of things.
First of all, we wanted to have someone who knows the telco industry, who has vast experience. Second, we were looking for someone who can be on top of operations. That's, as you've maybe seen in the meantime, Kjell has quite a lot of operational experience and is on top of the operations. Thirdly, we want a great leader who can energize the team, who can live the values of Tele2, and who also has a track record in simplification of how to deliver telco services. From his background, as you've probably seen, Kjell has also worked in Telenor. He knows the Nordics markets. He has been in very difficult markets, and he has a huge amount of experience to build on the strategy and to make it even better.
I just said we will also give Mikael an opportunity to say some words for the next period of the transformation project road where we're on. Mikael, can you add on this?
Thank you, Carla. The plans are not changed by this announcement today. We will continue to execute on the FMC strategy for Sweden, to try to bring Sweden back to revenue growth again. This is unchanged. The plans are completely unchanged. Carla mentioned already in the introduction here that we will continue on the business transformation plan to reduce OpEx by at least SEK 1 billion over three years, with an annual effect of at least SEK 1 billion at the end of the program. Those plans are unchanged. We will continue to deliver on it. With Kjell, when he comes on board later this year, of course, we expect him to even further improve these plans and help us to realizing these savings over the period. They remain unchanged.
On top of this, of course, the highest priorities, other high-priority projects for us is the rollout of 5G and Remote PHY in the fixed network. Everything is unchanged, I would say. We of course expect Kjell to help us realizing these plans, and on top of this, come with new initiatives for the future strategy. I hope that answers your question.
Thank you very much, both.
Thank you once again for questions. Please press star and one on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from the line of Steve Malcolm from Redburn. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Just echo that. Congratulations, Anders, and good luck with the next stage of your life. Sounds great. I hope you enjoy it. Peter's pretty much asked my question, but I just wanted to come back to the board decision on sort of internal versus external candidates and just, as you said, the strategy's well laid out, well known. There's no great changes required. Maybe just elaborate a little bit on why you thought it was a good idea to bring in an external candidate versus promote someone internally who knows exactly what needs doing. That would be great. Thanks.
As said, we had a quite extensive succession planning, because we agreed together with Anders that we would make sure that we have the best leader in place before Anders is starting to go sailing and all the nice things you were just pointing out there, Anders. I almost get jealous. On the external, internal candidate pool, as said, Tele2 is an excellent company. We're not looking for a CEO for one year to execute on the road where we are. We're looking for someone who will also develop the next layers on the strategy, on the transformation where we are to find the combination of growth and cost reduction, and to build the smartest telco of the world. If you do that, I hope you appreciate that you also need some fresh eyes.
On one side, I think from the board perspective, we have it all. We have a great leadership team that stays in place, and we have someone coming in with a lot of new experiences who can help us build an even better company.
Okay, great. Thank you.
Thank you once again for questions. Please press star and one on your telephone keypad. Once again, to all the participants over the phone line, it's star and one for questions. No further questions over the phone line to continue.
Operator, there seem to be no more questions. Is that correct?
Yeah, no further question at this time, ma'am.
Sorry?
No questions at the moment, ma'am.
I would like to thank everyone for his interest in joining this press conference. We take it from here. Thank you, and enjoy your day, and have a nice day. Thanks for joining.
Thank you. That concludes our conference today. Thank you all for participating. Have a good day, everyone.