Move on with our next speaker today, is not the largest in Canada by revenue, but certainly a large-scale player, but perhaps the largest by market cap now. If you guys want to brag about that for a second, although I know you still think your share price is, you know, is undervalued and not fully appreciated, but you're getting more credit than the others these days, Doug. So Doug French, the CFO of TELUS, thanks very much for being here today.
Looking forward to it.
I will just start off with a bit of a general question. I mean, you've clearly put up more resilient results recently, including in the first quarter than most of your peers with, you know, 3% revenue growth in your TTEC segments and, you know, 3% or 4% EBITDA growth as well, depending on if you include healthcare or not. Can you talk to me just in broad strokes to remind us what helped you drive that and what kind of confidence you have that those kind of growth rates can be sustained throughout the year?
Sure. We continue to leverage our diverse product set. We have, absolutely, planned and strategized around how do we get the most of all of our assets. When you look at our fiber build, which started significantly earlier, our healthcare platform, our ag platform, we've been first movers on a lot of items. If you get a little bit of a headwind or a lot of a headwind on one product, or wireless as an example, you have other products to make up the differential. The more you can bundle those, the more you can leverage synergies between those products, both from a revenue or cost perspective, then you can keep generating better than average results. Am I confident? I am confident to reiterate our guidance because obviously there's still, you know, some headwinds and some macroeconomic noise.
We're very, very proud of our asset mix and we're looking forward to what the next brings.
Are you more confident in the EBITDA outlook than the revenue target because of the efficiency initiatives and your ability to leverage TELUS Digital, or are you equally confident in, in both?
I would say more confident in the cost side, as you highlighted. If you keep peeling the onion within our results, you'll see, I think our cost reduction was probably more significant than our peers. When you think through why that may be the case, again, back to having fiber penetration, it is the most efficient network. We are getting more and more off of copper and decommissioning copper, so having one network versus two, and driving synergies through the product sets that we have would be, would be point one. Point two, to your point on TELUS Digital, having a subsidiary organization that does nothing but data, platforms, automation, and AI, has definitely helped us. It is going to continue to help us into the future. We're nowhere close to being done yet on driving some of those synergies.
but it also has helped significantly, right from, you know, churn propensity models to collection tools to, even where to spend your next marketing dollar because the odds of you being successful are greater here, here, and here instead of doing a shotgun across the board. They are developing all those tools for us as we speak to be more effective right from sales to service delivery, in addition to our technology advantages, that we have from being so far along in fiber and decommissioning copper.
That's great, Doug. I mentioned earlier you were in the room that a theme today is going to be spending almost as much time talking about non-telecom issues as we talk about telecom issues, given how much is going on. It will be no different with TELUS. Maybe before we get to wireless and wireline, can we touch on the leverage targets and any asset sale proceeds that you have underway or have announced, and just sort of reframe for us why you think you can or how you can get to three times leverage? Because a lot of people I think still struggle with getting the leverage that low by the end of 2027.
Absolutely. We started over a year, a year and a half ago on building a platform or portfolio of how do we delever, and how do we get back into our leverage zone that we want to be in for the cost of capital and building flexibility into our balance sheet. We identified, you know, as much as CAD 7 billion of opportunities to drive that deleveraging. That is not including, you know, the hybrid option that we have seen the market use, and we are very low in that hybrid market at the moment as compared to others in the industry. That being another lever should you need it. We are looking at it in three main buckets. Bucket one being our operational excellence. And so back to that product diversification and our growth rates.
You flow EBITDA down to cash flow, CapEx is a second one. We continue to talk that our CapEx intensity continues to fall. I think it was 11% this quarter, and still desirous to get in the 10% zone for the longer term. You then look to our deleveraging position and interest costs starting to decline. Interest over the past five years, I believe, has gone from like CAD 500 million to CAD 1 billion of cash flow. Significant increases in interest cash paid. As we start to delever and as rates have come down, that will also start to decline and actually creep to free cash flow into the future. We have had elevated restructuring back to the cost efficiencies that we just talked about.
That will also be stabilizing more into the future and generating less of a drain, let's say, on free cash flow as we look into the future years. That would be bucket one. Bucket two then is obviously, call it asset sales or partnerships. You would have even seen today, we announced on the acquisition of Workplace Options, and we announced today the formal signing of our partner, that if we're going to be inquisitive, we have a budget everyone knows for M&A, and if we're going to exceed that M&A, we will bring in an appropriate partner, but a strategic partner. We will probably talk more about health in a moment, but a partner that's going to bring value. We feel we've thread the needle on that one, on this relationship.
Our tower opportunity that we've talked about, we are now down to a short list. I'm starting to meet with senior execs of that short list this week and into the next week or two with the rest of the leadership team, and making sure that we progress this quickly and answer all the questions that they need as being a strong partner of ours, moving forward. From that perspective, you can see those moving parts. We then have a bucket of divestitures internally. We have about CAD 800 million-CAD 900 million of a ventures portfolio. Not all of them have actually synergized to our business, but they do, they have generated value and they've been successful. Carving off a significant chunk of those, we are looking at as we speak.
You would have seen in Q1, we sold two small ag organizations or product sets that, again, have value, but not going to scale for us or not on our strategic roadmap. Continuing to prune the business, and there are definitely hundreds of millions of pruning the business that I believe we will still be able to monetize over the next little bit. We then went to copper monetization. We have talked about copper monetization and our REIT for the next little while. The REIT is probably closer in 2027. Copper will be steady for the next five years, unless we do a forward, and we are looking through those opportunities as we speak. Lastly, it would be partners and monetization of health and ag.
I do believe we will have in our goals to have our health asset to be, you know, CAD 10 billion market valuation or more by the end of 2027. On that timeframe of hitting a partner of substance or eventually an IPO of substance. I know, as I said, we'll talk probably most likely about health again in a moment, but that asset is extremely on the right trajectory. You would have seen that on our segmentation disclosure. There is a lot of the street was asking for it. We hit the threshold of, call it, materiality that said, yes, it's the right time. Hopefully that is providing value back to shareholders on that front, but showing the scale that we're moving to.
In ag, slightly behind that, but that would also give us an opportunity for partner or monetization of some capacity in the future.
There's a lot to unpack there. Let me try to clarify a couple of things. The ag sales in the first quarter, those came out of the venture portfolio or those came out of agriculture?
Came out of agriculture. There was one small venture in the CAD 66 million, and it was, you know, small double digits. The rest of it was ag.
There was a little bit of revenue in EBITDA.
A little bit of revenue, a little less on EBITDA.
The downward shortlist on the towers, you've been pretty clear in the past that towers can be interesting, but also you have the least liabilities that come back onto your balance sheet. Only the right deal makes sense. Does a shortlist mean you already have some idea as to what values are being talked about, that it's still worthwhile to proceed? Like, you're happy that this is a great deal?
As of right now, yeah. As of right now, it's still worthwhile to proceed, yes. There are some excellent partners at the table. I would say, even from putting it through the credit rating agencies, we're going to get a good credit for deleveraging within their calculations, not just our own. The combination of a fantastic partner and delivering concurrently, but then building this asset a consequence again. I do believe when you think through, you know, new entrants have to build their networks over the next five years. You think through the declining price of wireless services, if Rogers has a tower I can share, I'm going to go jump on their tower. I do not want to build my own as much anymore.
The same should go the other way where this tower code is actually going to be, I think, a growth engine for multi-use, and able to have more and more providers on it over time. I think that is what you are going to see in our industry to help bring down the overall cost structure in an environment where margins are currently being challenged.
Excellent. The last one I want to know back, last but not least by any stretch, and it will segue to a healthcare discussion that you mentioned is CAD 10 billion. Look, you have always been pretty good at throwing a number. I'll be honest, the timeframe seems to keep slipping a little bit as to when it is going to happen, but you sort of said 7-10. Then I thought you guys kind of wavered at maybe 5-10, and maybe we are talking more about 7. Now you said 10 again. Look, 10 today on what you have now disclosing EBITDA, CAD 10 billion today on the EBITDA you have would be a pretty heroic multiple. Is that what you are saying you think you can do, or do you think the EBITDA base is a lot bigger?
The EBITDA will grow concurrently. The WPO transaction is another opportunity to do that. Even though it's not that big of an acquisition, it brings a tool set. It brings a delivery model that is more efficient, and even more, call it, effective to a customer base worldwide that we can bring back to our existing Canadian base, bring back to our existing customers. Even the TELUS margin on healthcare will improve because of that. Yes, it's going to be growth. It's going to be margin enhancement, in addition to a multiple that reflects that. We've talked about having 20% EBITDA growth for the foreseeable future, and to have revenue catch that because it has been a little bit lower. Those multiples and that EBITDA in the 2027 timeframe, you'll get to the math very quickly.
That sounds quite exciting. Can I make sure I level set the portion of the delevering target that could come just from that? I mean, if I go back to the TELUS Digital minority interest partnership with Bering, I mean, if I remember correctly, it was something like 25% that got sold to them. I mean, if you sold 20% or 25% of something worth CAD 10 billion, you almost get all the proceeds you're talking about for delevering right there.
In one scenario, and that's not how we built our plan, though. Why I invest in, and why I have CAD 7 billion of opportunities is things and timing, as you've pointed out, do not always work. Our goal is that we're going to hit this target through the CAD 7 billion. If we exceed on the opportunity such as health plus, plus, plus, you would then say, okay, what do I do next? Is it reduce needed faster? Is it share buybacks? Is it what's next? Like what is next if you deliver faster and get those proceeds from those one-time monetizations? That opens many doors that I am very happy to say I'm more confident we're going to have the opportunity to do that than ever before.
To close that loop then, you wouldn't necessarily net CAD 2 billion or CAD 2.5 billion out of healthcare because you'd reinvest.
You'd reinvest some into healthcare .
For more acquisitions or.
Some for sure. We don't need it all to do to hit our deleveraging target. It will actually be a what's next decision when the time's there.
I said we go to health more operation first, but you mentioned the DDRIP. I will go down that path for a second. You know, we can take a survey of the room if you want. There's a lot of frustration with the DDRIP. People do not quite get why you raise a dividend and are selling assets and issuing shares to pay some of your dividends still. If you can get rid of that faster, I think it is going to go a long way would be my opinion. Is it clear? I think your messaging is the numbers you put out are the outside targets for when you ratchet down the DDRIP, but if you can do it faster, you will, and the healthcare could be a piece of that. Is that fair?
That's a fair statement. We put in, in my mind, everything we put out is very doable without breaking anything along the way, from your asset allocation. Right from investing the business, strong balance sheet, and return to shareholders. Keeping that strong capital allocation, this step down leaves us in a comfortable spot that we can do that in a good way and make good decisions along the way without trying to cut back on something that I think would hurt us more in the long run than would help. I think on the dividend, we always look at a three-year model for the dividend. We look at, and you would have heard Darren's explanation on our call and on where that was going and why, but it's always looking at where is the puck going?
Where is the future going on our free cash flow and aligning a return policy to that? We do believe when you think through what we have done over the past 10 years where we built fiber to be world leading, we built an asset of healthcare, which is world leading while returning 7%-10% to shareholders. Yes, now having to deal with a bit of a leverage issue, which I think the escalation of rates, even the impact of certain of our operations that are negative EBITDA, have inflated that. Even just getting some of our operations back to flat would reduce our leverage by 15-20 percentage points. That is just, you know, taking away the dilution factor.
For us to be able to say we've got assets of consequence, we've done this along the way, while still having that return profile, I think we balance pretty well balance sheet operations and return to shareholders. Yes, we could do better. Yes, I want to get rid of the DRIP as quickly as possible. I think that balance is what we're looking to continue the next two to three years and make sure that we actually continue the track record we have of delivering on them all.
Excellent. Let's move back to health before we get into core wireless and wireline telecom. Maybe I ask the first question this way. Is there's a lot going on in your health business. It seems very exciting. We can't do it justice here today. I know you probably can, Doug. I know you're very familiar with the answer, but I mean, at some point, can you have an investor session with Naveen and go over healthcare? Can we get a bit of a commitment from you guys?
Absolutely. We will do that.
I think that would help everybody in the room because it is a lot of moving pieces. In general sense, what are the key reasons why you were able to get up to 12% revenue growth, 30% EBITDA growth in the first quarter? How sustainable do you see that? Maybe you can tack on how the WPO acquisition augments those capabilities for the next little bit.
Yeah, I think it's very sustainable. I think from the revenue perspective, we're seeing, and had some of our best months ever, on building the funnel and turning the funnel into customers and then billable revenue. We've had a track record now for the last few months, quarters of internal execution on the revenue line. I would say that was, if anything, that we were completely honest on that we fell short on during the LifeWorks transaction was a cross-sell on revenue and the revenue uptick that we were expecting. It was delayed, but we're now, I would say, at a stage where that is executing extremely well. On the cost side, I think the integration that we've done, we've exceeded all expectations on our costs, and our integration of business.
Putting Lifeworks in and bringing all of the other related assets in and doing an integration of structure so that we could run the organization as a unit, not as individual silos, was huge in bringing down the cost structure and huge in that EBITDA generation that you saw. That is continuing. That has not stopped yet. When you look at WPO, WPO is both a reseller and an EAP provider to corporations around the world, doubling the scale we have in lives covered to over 160 million worldwide. That being said, our employer healthcare business, the two, the three things that come to mind is one, digitization is essential. How do you have a service delivery to your customer that is clean, crisp, and easy? WPO had a better upfront solution than that, than we did.
They had a better resource solution of bringing that delivery to the customers as well and a significant scale in multiple places around the world. Leveraging their technology and bringing our employer healthcare to them, our margins on after full integration will almost double what TELUS Health used to have to the WPO model while improving service. Because along the way, you can't drop service. If anything, it's going to be more service, at a better rate and more delivery at a better rate, more capabilities. That is the integration that we're currently going to be taking over the next year. I think you're going to see great outcomes from our employer health offering, let alone some of the other tuck-ins we've done on wellness and building wellness into those packages.
We will be a significant provider of, both in Canada and around the world, of this service. If you can nail the technology and make it relevant around the world, that is how you get scale and you get scale and ability to grow, while delivering first-class solutions and move from more, call it, people-oriented delivery to digital and automation. I think we have got the best solution possible because when you are dealing with business and situations, you want to make sure that you are dealing sensitively and a full digital solution does not necessarily address the needs of employees, especially in mental health, well-being, and other items. That balance of digital and physical and having both differentiates us from some of our U.S. organizations that are 100% digital or some of the legacy that are 100% physical.
We're now in on both ends with technology that I believe is going to be extremely successful.
Did you even keep the WPO as a reseller of somebody else's EAP? Can you interject?
The other way around. In the United States, there's a larger resell market. They are white labeling their service to other organizations. They are reselling to.
They use resellers to distribute their.
Distribute their product and put their name on it, but they're the back office and execution.
TELUS can try to assume some of that front office that.
We can work with them. We do not want to break that model. That model is very, very successful. You know, we have talked about the opportunity to wholesale and resell, and telecom and healthcare is exactly the same. If you have a very strong channel, use it. I think it could, it will, it is right now very successful, and we see that continuing.
I have one last question on health and then move on to wireless, but I'll pause in between in case the audience has anything. So be ready to put your hands up if you want to. The partner GTCR.
CR.
GTCR you announced this morning. Any particular color on why them, what they bring, and could they be a broader partner for TELUS Health in the future?
Absolutely. They are a company that's invested in a lot of healthcare. They have a lot of connections and organizations that would either be able to have commercial relationships or partnerships with what we are trying to accomplish. I think that it was a very strategic opportunity, as similar to the tower deal. We have a lot of really strong names at the table, but we really wanted a strategy organization that is going to bring other opportunities for the long run. Yes, they could be a long-term partner at the top TELUS level, for sure. I would expect they would participate in that in some form or another.
Anybody in the room want to put their hand up at this point? Yeah, we can wait for, sorry, to the microphone holder. The questions always seem to be at the exact opposite end of the room, but give me one second. Thanks.
Hi. Just on the towers, I'm just curious because I saw a headline, but it wasn't clear to me what it meant. You're talking about your wireless towers? Okay. How many, what percentage of your towers are going to be part of this? It's going to be a sale and lease back, I guess?
We're selling minority interest, so we will still control the towers.
Okay.
It'll be minority interest and the organization will be run by an independent president, with the intent to grow the business. That would be the structure.
When you talk about partners, you say you got these strong partners at the table. These are weight structures? These are structures where they, similar to the U.S., I guess?
Yeah, we're not going to, like, because we're in the short strokes under NDAs, I'd prefer to just keep it as is, as we're very happy with who's at the table with us. We look forward to building a relationship that we can go together.
Okay. And so all of your towers will be in this.
A significant piece. There is some that will not, but it's a significant piece of them, yes.
And valuation.
The valuation, unlike this transaction, is very similar to a typical tower transaction. It is, you are buying into a real estate or type scenario. Yes, the leasing back is the revenue to this organization. The ability to put others on towers is, you know, the job of the CEO is to grow this business and make sure we grow it effectively and appropriately. That would be it. I am not selling throughput. I am not selling other revenue. I am just selling as if it was its own tower company. That is exactly how we have structured it.
We better move on to the last few minutes, to Canadian telecom. We'll start with wireless, Doug. I'm going to ask you the last question that scares me a little bit. You guys have this really good story on health growth and multiple other sort of vectors that have allowed your growth, especially at revenue, to be better than anybody else in the industry. You're doing that despite the fact that your wireless service revenue growth is now tied for last in the industry as of this quarter, - 0.8%. Is it, is there any chance that at a high strategic level, your management team is saying, "We actually don't mind if we cause some pain in wireless and everybody's suffering. We actually look even better on a relative basis because nobody else has the other vectors of growth"?
Is that crazy for me to even say that's possible? Or do you really want your wireless business to do better? Or is it just a question of trying to figure out how to make that happen?
Yeah, that's crazy talk.
Okay.
Yeah, we were not happy of where we are. We're not happy of where the industry is. When you think through the industry, there's three levels to profitability and a customer. There is ARPU, which is our monthly plan. There is the handset and how much do you give away. The third is there is the level in which you finance. What we call it, like what rate plan will you allow a customer to get a contract on? Those three will decide your profitability. We have seen in market, you know, a $29 ARPU and financing attached to it. If you think of a $2,000 handset with interest charges, a $29, and you end up having to have a subsidy because it's a guaranteed subsidy back to the OEMs, you cannot make money on that.
We have set a floor, that we will not provide financing unless it is a profitable area, i.e., it has to be over X. You will see in the market, you can only get financing from us and others now because the level has gone up a bit, a little bit less of the promotional activity, but it has been as low as 45, 55, and others even at 29 or 30. That is not the way we can turn this organization or this industry around if you are making the OEMs wealthy, and at the detriment of your own long-term profitability. We have really focused, and you would have heard a lot on our call on IoT, on bundling, on bringing enhanced services to the market in addition to customer care of how do we make sure, and we are not perfect.
We'd be lying if we were, but how do we bring a next level of opportunity to say it's worthwhile paying a slightly bit more for this service because you're going to be looked after through X, Y, or Z. It could be our energy program. It could be, you know, a service guarantee. It could be other things. Let's start to differentiate instead of just gravitating to the bottom. I think there is room. There is absolutely room for that. I do think the big measurement in all of this, they're managing those three pillars for ARPU, for margin, and not for loading.
Because at the end of the day, loading is becoming less and less of a good metric of profitability, because you can see, you know, high loading in certain areas, yet profitability isn't much better. Even though I may be tied for the bottom, I'm not far out of first. We can absolutely turn this around over time. We are looking at how we do that with our multiple products and our bundling, how we make the home the place that we can actually leverage our tools for wireless. That is how we're going to keep building out of this on service, on the products that we bring, on IoT and biz. It is growing very well now. We've had, you know, as much as connected devices isn't the same ARPU, we've had very good success on that.
You know, our revenue is growing by double digits in IoT now, which will be more and more of a contribution into ARPU in the future by monetizing your 5G network. Our goal is to leverage all our tools to do that.
I'm going to use that same logic at the Leaf game I'm going to tonight. If they lose, I'm going to say, "At least we came in second place." Feel a lot better about myself.
No, and I did not mean that. I'm not happy with that as you are well. And churn, we're not happy. Even though we've led churn forever, we're not happy. We know our customer service has slipped a little bit.
Oh, and I'm happy you want to be sick. I asked the question in a way that I want you to call me crazy. I am happy that that was the answer. Now, throw out the word crazy again. You had at a recent conference thrown out, I think, the notion of maybe we should stop reporting subscribers. I actually thought it was crazy at the time, but now that I have seen what has happened in the first quarter with everybody's results, you mean, is that something to reconsider? I have actually talked to other carriers, you know, maybe too, because there is just such a fixation on loading, especially at the end of every quarter. It is self-destructive, it seems. If there is just no loading metric to fixate on and report, would that potentially help?
Absolutely. I have reached out to a few of my peers asking them, would they consider, do you want to dump reporting so that we can actually have better outcomes? None of them want to do it. I think I will still pursue leading that at some point. I do not want to leave people high and dry for the models. I want people to be able to do and say, "Yes, how are you going to do in the future?" I fundamentally believe that network revenue, to your point, and your margin are the key drivers of long-term success at the moment. That is what we focus on internally.
Okay. Anything you can tell us about halfway through the second quarter? Any early indications? Is the volume trends in the market a little bit better than we saw in the first quarter? Any changes or improvements in price promotion on average in the industry, or is it about the same?
It's probably a little better. I'm seeing a little bit better from first quarter, but it's still not on a year-over-year basis anywhere where it was before.
Even if it did get better, or continues to get better, how long before the pig goes through the python of contracts that have already been signed before we could actually see reported ARPU and service revenue growth get meaningfully better? Maybe another way of asking that is at the same time, can you give us any sense of what percentage of your base has probably already repriced lower in the past two years as this has been going on? How much more is to come?
Yeah, a substantial piece has already re-rated. I'll leave it for competitive reasons, but we're not necessarily assuming the whole, the whole pig's going through the python either, because there are some rate plans that we can enhance, rate plans that we can bundle with other products, and there are ones that customers have been very loyal to us. Being loyal back to them by offering them solutions in which will save them money in their home or protection for their families or healthcare for their families, et cetera, doing something like that concurrently does not mean that we have to ride the whole base to the bottom.
but it does mean we need to earn the right to show value to our customers, and we need to show the fact that we are a partner and an ally with them too, and show them the benefits. And, you know, our energy program that we're launching would be one that would be a good example of that. If your ARPU is over X, take the program for free. And if it saves you $20 on your home, on your home energy, on a monthly basis, then you keep the $20 and help pay for your wireless bill as an example. Those are the kind of things that we're looking at is how do we make, how do we continue to drive economic long-term value? and, you would have heard again a lot of that on our call just last week.
I can just give a last question on wireless and macro, and then I'll pause again in case the audience has any more courage to put their hands up. Anything particular to note on roaming, the decline in Q1 or the exposure as your base and the risk going forward, and maybe package into that macro of any, if there is roaming pressure, is it related to macro and economic concerns, or is it just a Canada-U.S. dynamic?
Canada-U.S. dynamic. We saw a significant decline in U.S. roaming, especially throughout March break and the February timeframe. Similar to that macroeconomic backdrop, the sooner relations become calmer where Canadians feel that they're good to travel anywhere, then I would say that's going to be a bit of a headwind into the future still.
In terms of how big of a risk it is, can you give us some ballpark as the percentage of service revenue that's outbound roaming these days?
I probably can't. I mean, at the end of the day, the decline in Q1 was significant, and we probably would have seen improvements over the run rate if we hadn't had that headwind on U.S. roaming. I also don't know the pickup of, are we going to travel elsewhere to Europe and other places, and is that going to be the destination of choice? I don't know the answer to that. I think my predictions right now internally would be that we're going to have a bit of headwind for a while. What else are we going to do to drive long-term value, ARPU, and make sure we have our appropriate cost associated with that?
I think you misinterpreted me. I'm not saying I need you to predict what's going to happen in the future. I meant, can you just level set us on what the percentage of your revenue today is from roaming? I mean.
Yeah, we haven't disclosed it, but it's sub five.
Sub five. Okay. You just disclosed it. Thank you. Greg, we'll wait for the mic for a second. You don't mind. Oh, can we get that mic up here for a question? Or just say it, Greg.
I can have this one.
Regulatory temperature.
I'll just repeat it. With Sylvester just coming, what is the regulatory temperature these days?
So far, it's been relatively calm lately. I think the whole fiber access is the one I would say that's probably been the most talked about lately. You know, Spectrum came, was more realistic. Divestitures and and/or acquisitions in general don't seem to be impacted. I think it really just comes down to why are you doing things, and are you doing the right way for divestitures and acquisitions? We even got approval on WPO through the U.S. very quickly. I don't see that as being an obstacle. I think, from the regulatory side, I think we all agree it's best for Canadians to have access and appropriate competition.
That would be the only one left, I think, that keeps getting brought back to the table again, even though it's been ruled on five times, that there should be access.
Any other questions in the room? Just broaden that question, seeing as it's topical with Melanie Joly being Industry Minister announced yesterday. Anything from your team that you've heard of, good or bad or indifferent on the new government and the Industry Minister specifically?
No, I think the, like the positive of all change lately has been how do we make Canada better? And so even, you know, the discussion yesterday on how do we make energy policy better, and the conservatives saying we will help and lean in to make the liberals successful if they make some of the policies Canada friendly. If that continues, I think there's a win-win for all, is that everyone's leaning in for the right purpose, removing provincial trade barriers, and huge in an item and in a country that you think, you know, it was kind of ridiculous to have it locked in in the first place. Telecommunications would fit into that. You know, access across Canada should be access across Canada. I think the tone right now and the government's too early to tell.
I think all of the right things are being said by both parties. Let's hope they can execute.
You're vending in your desire to access Bell's fiber network as interprovincial trade barriers?
Absolutely.
Okay. Just making sure. Let's segue back to Wireline. I mean, it's been a better news story than wireless recently with the, you know, revenue of 2.9% I think, in the first quarter. Can you unpack that a bit for us? Mostly just consumer broadband, or is there some growth in B2B you're finally seeing? Is there any significant contribution from the TPIA resale of Bell's fiber network in that number yet?
Yeah. No, it's not material from, I'll go reverse order. TPIA is insignificant in the big revenue stream. Yes, we're seeing improvements in biz, especially in SMB. We're seeing very good traction across the country, and that is actually helping on the revenue growth side. It's our consumer, our consumer strength. We're still finishing our fiber build. We're still rolling out platforms and solutions to our customers that I think are being very well received, right, from Home 2.0 to energy, to fiber being, you know, a product that is second to none on its delivery model. All of that is contributing to that growth. I think the 2%-3% growth rate that we've seen on that item, I expect to continue.
Rate increases as a component of that? Is that an incremental tailwind recently? It seems like everybody's put through some sort of price increase on broadband.
Yeah, a little bit is helped. There's still volume too. So we're growing both on volume and rate. And again, I think we're the only ones growing our TV platform. Our losses on home phone, which are, you know, almost 100% margin at the end of the day, are the lowest in the industry. And so we're trying to manage again the relationship in the home. It does mean lower rates for our customers, but it could still mean good margin if you do it effectively.
Make sure I understood SMB. SMB growth means it's less negative than it used to be? Or you actually have positive revenue growth in SMB now?
We have positive growth in SMB now.
Is it the first time in decades?
It started, yeah, it probably the, and it's been last few quarters. I'd say we're probably a track record of more than, you know, almost a full year now of them having that kind of momentum, but that would be the first time in a decade, yes.
Any, everybody seems very generous in the industry these days in terms of more disclosure and transparency, including you guys with health. I'll throw this out. Any chance we can start to see B2B operations separate? I mean, it's a totally different business than consumer, and we really can't unpack it very well.
Unlikely.
Say think about it.
Okay, I'll think about it.
Thank you, Doug. Give me, you know, now I can feel better about myself tonight.
You got me on five, so isn't that enough?
Come back to the last three minutes. Your CapEx and free cash flow topics dear to everybody's heart, with you guys. You know, our job sometimes is to microdissect the way you guys phrase things. I want to make sure I'm clear on what you're saying, because it had been 10% or less, I think, by 2026 for capital intensity. Now you're saying get close to 10% longer term? Is it?
It's still the same timeframe. So.
Still 2026?
Yeah, I'm hoping. I'm hoping.
But by close to 10 means 10.49 rounds down to 10?
My modeling's still not that accurate. No, I don't know if it's going to be 10.2 or 9.8. I don't know the answer yet, but, when you look back through, some of the opportunities we've been able last year, it was the first year we underspent capital to target. We're going to leverage capital to the extent if there are challenges in the market and the ROI is not there, we're not going to spend it. The good thing is when we have fiber so far along, we have 5G so far along. Now the only spectrum left to come is millimeter wave, and that's very selective on how you roll it out. I think we're in a great position to leverage the premium assets we have, including fiber, without doubling down and more CapEx.
and our growth businesses, yes, they will need a little bit more feeding. The telecom investments have always dwarfed that. I think we'll continue to be able to feed ag and health appropriately on CapEx, still bring our CapEx intensity down, and hit those targets.
Excellent. That'll take me to the last question I have. I don't think we'll have time for the audience, but really just in cases, is free cash flow relative to dividends? Maybe just a sub-question first to make sure I understand the cadence properly. The dividend growth is still on the 7% per year for throughout this year. We should see another roughly 3.5% dividend increase with your third quarter results. The new 3%-8% starts with Q1 next year. Do I have that right?
I hadn't really thought through November yet, but November's decision is the January payment. I'll have to get back to you on that one.
We could start the 3%-8%
It's a good start on the November announcement.
This would change my math slightly, but it will not change it much if that is the case, because I am still assuming another 3.5% in November. Even if it is only 1.5%, it does not change it that much. If I map out to 2028 and grow the dividend 3% a year after this year, I get to $1.85 in dividend by then. You said you want to get down to a 60-75% payout ratio. If I take the very high end of that at 75%, it is approximately CAD 3.8 billion in free cash flow that you would need to be generating. Is that what you are kind of telegraphing? Because it is a heck of a long way up from where you are doing right now.
Maybe it's possible. I just want to make sure that's level set as to what you think is achievable.
Yeah, I think, you know, your math and my math might be slightly off, but close. I would say, when we look forward to things, one, our dividend payout is on a perfect basis. I don't know if you're using retro or not. That dividend at that point has to be covered by the 2028 free cash flow, not 2027 in our definition.
Yep.
If we are slightly higher than the 75 and the, I do not think it is going to be an issue as long as we are well below one. There might be a little variability for imperfection on that end. I think it comes down to our delivering and initiatives. If I continue to execute on that CAD 5 billion-CAD 7 billion as well, there will be more opportunities either for accelerated and further growth, either less or more deleveraging, so less interest and/or share buybacks to the extent there is excess cash in that 2027, 2028 period. All of that would also help hit those numbers that you are referring to. We are not one to shy away from what we think is the right operational cadence for the investments we have made. I do think we have a plan to hit it.
It's not going to be easy, but it's going to be the variables that we've talked about all through today on free cash flow, interest reductions, restructuring reductions, capital flat to down, an EBITDA growth rate that, you know, everyone can make assumptions on for the next three years, our delivering plan, cash generation from non-core assets, and then what does that look like in 2027? You put all the parts together, and I think we'll be in that time zone or in the zone to be able to get to our payout ratio, close to 75%. If, and then as I said, if it's rounding a little bit higher, but lower than one, I think everyone in the room would think that's success.
I would agree with that. That's a great way to end things off. Lots to look forward to, Doug. Thanks very much for spending the time this morning and sharing your insights. Before we clap or anything, just, we got a 15-minute break and we'll resume here at 11:00 A.M. Thanks very much.