Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Anterix first quarter fiscal year 2023 earnings call. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen only mode, and we will open the floor for your questions and comments after the presentation. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Natasha Vecchiarelli. Ma'am, the floor is yours.
Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the Anterix first quarter fiscal year 2023 investor call. I'm Natasha Vecchiarelli, Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Communications at Anterix. Joining me on the call today are Rob Schwartz, our President and CEO, Ryan Gerbrandt, our COO, Tim Gray, our CFO, and Chris Guttman-McCabe, our Chief Regulatory and Communications Officer. Before we begin, please note that during today's presentation, we may make forward-looking statements, either in our prepared remarks or in the associated question and answer session. These statements are based on current expectations or beliefs and are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially. Risk factors that may impact our performance are identified in our most recent SEC filings. Our SEC filings can be found on our website or on the SEC's website.
Investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, and we disclaim any obligation to update or revise these forward-looking statements after the date of this presentation. Following our prepared remarks, we will have an operator-led question and answer session. In addition, at the conclusion of today's call, a replay and transcript of our discussion will be posted to our investor relations website. With that, I'll turn the call over to Anterix's President and CEO, Rob Schwartz.
Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining the call. With our last call being just several weeks ago, I'm gonna focus today's discussion on providing an update on our contract progress, customer pipeline, and industry movement, and then we'll open it up for questions. As we've said, our Anterix mission is to be the de facto private broadband solution for utilities. We fully recognize that continuing to close individual deals is a near term imperative. Our goal is to capture the sector. While accomplishing this goal will take time, I remain confident that we are uniquely built to succeed in this effort. Let me share three reasons for my confidence. First, we have the right team. With our Nextel lineage experienced in successfully pioneering a disruptive and transformative effort.
Nextel was the first nationwide wireless platform and drove a range of industries, public safety, construction, utilities, and more to adopt a single unified wireless solution. At the time, it was also difficult to predict how long it would take to execute on that mission. With our focus at Anterix on the utility sector, we have added considerable utility knowledge and experience to our seasoned wireless team to support and advance our efforts. We believe this combination of wireless and utility experience is unmatched and best positions us to continue to win customers and execute on our business plan. Second, our solid financial position is a core element of our strategy, designed to ensure that we have the time it can take to define a new market, move an industry, and secure our de facto mission. We own a unique and valuable nationwide spectrum asset.
We have a strong and debt-free balance sheet, operate a lean organization, and are a prudent steward of capital. At the end of the quarter, we had $86 million in cash and roughly $50 million in remaining contracted proceeds due to be paid in the next few years. Our capital efficient model allows the vast majority of contracted proceeds to result in free cash flow. We have multi-decade customer lease contracts with renewals with little to no churn, providing significant value well into the future. Third, we have the right unique product at the right unique time. Anterix is purposely positioned to help solve growing critical and complex challenges for utilities, including grid modernization, renewable energy integration, a new environmental reality, including wildfires and massive storms, expanding cyber and physical security risks, and a growing focus on energy equity and more.
These realities provide strong tailwinds of support for the necessity of private broadband networks. Accordingly, attention is expanding across the sector, reflected in the continuous growth and maturation of all three phases of our pipeline, as well as forward movement for a number of our larger, more complex deals. The public industry focus on Private LTE and Anterix is measurable. There is over 50% of our nationwide spectrum value represented in the combined participation from the C-level leaders of our new Utility Strategic Advisory Board, the utilities that have pursued experimental licenses at 900 MHz, and the membership of the Utility Broadband Alliance that we helped found. It should not come as a surprise that these are the utilities that we are aggressively working with to help them finalize their 900 MHz Private LTE plans.
Add to that our 80-plus member Anterix Active Ecosystem program and our three early adopters, and you can see the tremendous movement across the sector towards 900 MHz broadband for utilities. With that, let's dive into some details of our pipeline. We've heard from investors the request to provide more color on specific pending opportunities in addition to the pipeline stages and ROI status that we previously shared. In response, within the limitation of our NDAs, I'm gonna take you through four deals presently in phase III of our pipeline, as well as provide a few additional updates. To start, we've agreed to commercial contract terms including price, term, deployment schedule, and more with a large multi-state, multi-operating company utility.
I'm pleased to say that we are presently working through the utility's internal approval process with C-level support, which we believe will lead to a final sign-off on the contract terms. We are confident that we are on a solid path towards our next contract with what would be our largest customer to date. Through this experience, we continue to learn that, like all pioneers, it's difficult to predict the exact timing of when these deals close, as paths can and often do evolve as they proceed. As Morgan likes to remind me that Aristotle once said, "Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet." In our second example, involving a large multi-state utility, the customer's Private LTE network is part of a much larger grid hardening effort, which involves their transmission system, the significant integration of renewable energy, and the overall enhancement of resilience.
This broad and complex scope of this project prolongs the duration of their executive review, which is well underway. This relationship began as a 900 MHz pilot where the entity explored multiple use cases and has now evolved to include Anterix engaged up to their president while simultaneously helping their third-party expert to develop a strong Private LTE network business case. Our third example involves a multi-state IOU with several operating companies, resulting in an increased complexity, but in turn, a significantly larger scope of opportunity. Comparable historical commitments like this would have been achieved over many sequential years, one operating company at a time. For this utility, however, Private LTE is proving a different model, demonstrating a set of strategic benefits best realized across the entire unified service territory.
They've developed a comprehensive plan which has now been validated by multiple third parties and demonstrating, among other benefits, significant OPEX savings throughout the program life. This prospective customer has strong C-level support across their holdings and operating companies. The final opportunity that I'll highlight today is developing at the operating company level of a large multi-state holding company. This utility has successfully developed its strategic, technical, and capital plans to support their Private LTE network build-out. We've worked with this utility to align the goals of their deployment with state regulatory priorities and cybersecurity initiatives. They too have C-level involvement, given the strategic importance of the solution. These are four great examples pulled from our current pipeline of over 60 prospective customers, demonstrating the growing demand for 900 MHz Private LTE, our role in these strategic decisions, and the value we can bring to the sector.
Looking more broadly, I'm pleased to share that there are multiple utility RFPs under development where our 900 MHz spectrum is being specified. Additionally worth noting, based on inbound requests, we are now seeing interest from a number of entities that were previously opposed to Private LTE, which to us is another strong sign of progress towards our de facto mission. While we continue to stay laser-focused on the utility sector and our mission to become the de facto provider of private broadband solutions for our nation's utilities, we're receiving interest from a range of organizations in other sectors. This inbound interest is reflective of the private broadband network demand we are seeing across critical infrastructure verticals, including pipelines, gas companies, freight rail operators, and government installations.
We believe the majority of these entities and the use cases they are pursuing could fit well within a utility private broadband deployment, supported by our nationwide network of networks platform strategy. When you cut through it all, we are pioneering the transformation of the utility sector's communication capabilities as well as the monetization of our nationwide spectrum asset. We are creating an even more valuable and unique platform that supports the critical need to revolutionize our nation's electric grid, a process that we believe will be well worth the time invested. While there is considerable and growing attention in the marketplace regarding private broadband networks, we aren't just talking about it. We are uniquely converting large multi-state customers to commit to build the largest private broadband networks in our nation.
Additionally, the activity we have seen in Congress and with the administration, from bipartisan infrastructure legislation to the recent Inflation Reduction Act, supports our efforts and confirms the importance of the issues we're helping utilities address. With the growing tailwind of demand for private networks across sectors, the requirements to address our nation's decarbonization and grid modernization goals, and with an increasing focus on mitigating the risks to our grid caused by natural and man-made disasters, we remain confident that we can achieve our mission to become the de facto provider of private broadband solutions to utility and critical infrastructure sectors, leveraging our 900 MHz spectrum asset. With that, I'll turn it over to the operator for questions.
Certainly. Ladies and gentlemen, the floor is now open for questions. If you have any questions or comments, please press star one on your phone at this time. We do ask that while posing your question, please pick up your handset if you're listening on speakerphone to provide optimum sound quality. Once again, if you have any questions or comments, please press star one on your phone. Please hold while we hold for questions. Your first question is coming from George Sutton from Craig-Hallum. Your line is live.
Hey, thank you. This is Adam on for George. Thanks for taking my question. Rob, great to hear about the fourth contract under LOI. Is there an updated contracted proceeds to go along with that?
Yeah. Thanks, Adam. Good to hear from you. Well, one important point, right? I know last call we talked about thre LOI. This call we gave some illustrative color on four different deals. There's not a complete overlap there, and we're happy to say that because there isn't really a direct correlation of the numbers from before and this time. Ryan, maybe you wanna fill in some color on that.
Yeah, happy to. Yeah, just to correlate, like Rob said, you know, we weren't intentionally drawing a one-to-one relationship between the two, Adam. I'll say specifically though, you know, the four examples that Rob brought, walked through, you know, from phase three of the pipeline, two of those do specifically have LOIs and two don't. Again, reflecting what we said earlier about the optionality and kind of the multiple ways that we've seen customers really participate in the journey, you know, reflecting their unique needs and complications as they work their way through the process.
What we're really trying to bring attention to, you know, as we focus in on, you know, kind of the later stages of the pipeline, is specifically what some of those, you know, methods are that utilities are going through and being able to demonstrate specifically where some of these customers are in the pipeline. You know, just to highlight again, you know, really what the focus was of the four different examples that we walked through. You know, the first of course, you know, was really speaking to, you know, a specific example where there's a significant level of maturity in the deal. You know, the contract structure, the deployment timelines, the elements that Rob listed.
You know, we're getting to the element now of the executive approval cycle that all utilities go through in their same, in a similar shape and form. All have a unique cycle and process that we help stakeholder their way through. The second was really focusing on, you know, how LTE we found, you know, is a part of a much larger deal that the utility is working on. As we've talked a lot about the macro issues facing utilities today, you know, the focus on grid modernization or, you know, bringing in renewables and clean energy sources, you know, become really macro level projects, LTE is a relatively small part of.
You know, it speaks to the level of work that the utility needs to do, like their stakeholdering with much larger deals, excuse me, that we're a relatively small part in. You know, the third piece was really focusing on something else that we've talked about, the difference between the much larger holding company entities and the operating companies that sit underneath. We've spent significant effort, you know, really trying to develop, you know, and capturing some of the C-level interest that really has gravitated over top, you know, of the technical details of private LTE and broadband.
You know, the operating company level discussions have really matured, you know, which are by nature much larger transactions, encompassing the multiple operating companies that sit in underneath, but require a more significant level of due diligence. You know, we're working to educate and drive that stakeholdering now. Think of it in context of, you know, effectively selling and positioning into multiple different operating companies, that each have their own unique set of needs and ultimately their own regulatory requirements. But we believe the benefit, you know, of going after the approach that way, you know, far outweighs, you know, kind of the extra time and effort that it takes to be able to get there. The final one is really the reciprocal of that.
You know, we're continuing to see interest even at an individual operating company level, who finds a champion, you know, in a single utility and then brings that learning back, you know, across the holding company with time. While we believe that opportunity is likely to start at that operating company level, you know, it will with time develop into the rest of the holding company with learnings, you know, in the application of that experience.
That's great. Maybe if I focus just on, you know, phase three of the pipeline, any commentary on the mix there, whether, you know, these are opportunities at a parent company or operating company level?
They're split. You know, frankly, like I said, these examples kind of capture a few of them, but we're definitely seeing both. You know, the highlight I'll kind of take out of it, as we articulated in a couple slides, you know, some of the ones coming through are certainly starting to represent some of the larger opportunities that we're seeing in the pipeline, which we think is, you know, a great example of kind of the next to come in line after the first movers and the early adopters as we start moving more deeply, you know, into some of the larger companies out there in the national utility landscape.
Great. Thanks. I'll hop back in the queue.
Thank you. Your next question is coming from Philip Cusick from JP Morgan. Your line is live.
Hey, guys. Thank you. Two if I can. First, can you give some idea on the progress on these four deals since the May call, and are we talking about weeks, months, or years to get to the next signing? Second of all, you talked about a couple of companies that have multi-state in there. Can you give us an idea of how many states we're talking about? Is it, you know, sort of handful or you know, high single digits getting into the double digits? Thank you.
Thanks, Phil. I'm gonna let Ryan jump in there. Just one sort of set up on it. You know, as you said since May, we didn't give color on these four specific deals in May, but what I did say in my comments is that we're seeing progress across the pipeline, meaning that we're seeing advancements and growth in each of the phase of the pipeline. These are all of the large deals we're talking about now and some of the LOIs we talked about last call. These are multi-state deals that, you know, we're not gonna give you the exact number of states, but have a significant impact on sort of the overall footprint of our success. Ryan, do you wanna comment on the first question?
Yeah, I'll add a little bit more color to it. I mean, we're seeing progress all the time, I think is the right way to think about it. You know, certainly, as Rob said, while we didn't specifically focus on these deals individually at May, you know, we're progressing all these activities in parallel with our growing sales and support teams every single day. You know, see momentum moving forward. Sometimes it's faster than other times, you know, like you see with any kind of complex transaction. You know, we're continuing to see them, move forward as the developments are working forward. In terms of the specifics on the states, as Rob said, you know, these cover a variety of different scenarios.
Can't get into specifics on how many are in them, but you know, definitely span some of the larger companies, you know, and utilities, you know, in the U.S..
Any idea of, you know, weeks, months, a year before we see one of these signed? Maybe you can't give an insight, but maybe rule out a shorter term rather than a longer term.
Yeah. No, I appreciate the question. I think as we re-emphasized in my comments earlier, you know, we're confident we're on a great path, especially in the first example that I talked about. If anything, we've learned our lesson about, you know, predicting the precision of that is not a good place to be. The overall movement and that specific transaction that we highlighted, we're confident we'll see that moving forward at a good pace.
Got it. Thanks, Rob.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question's coming from Simon Flannery from Morgan Stanley. Your line is live.
Great. Thank you very much. Good evening. Yeah, thank you for the color on those four examples. What's the status of the third LOI that was not in those four deals?
Look, I think, you know, as we said in the prior call, those LOIs were comprised of both phase two and three. You know, you can use your imagination, that like every one of these deals, we use an LOI as a tool. As Ryan said, it's not a necessity in every deal, but it's a tool to get alignment of commitment, right? It's a letter of intent. It states the intention of the parties. In one of those three cases, we used it earlier in the pipeline to be able to align on their priorities. In the other two, it was used later. What I can tell you is that every one of our deals, you know, nothing has fallen out.
Everything remains in the pipeline as before, and that's pretty important given our mission of being a de facto standard. It's not that we're losing deals to competition or to utilities not moving forward, just the opposite. Everything progresses. As Ryan said, there are good days and bad days about the speed of that progress, but we continue to push them all forward.
Yeah, just to wanna highlight one other point there too. You know, I think the most notable thing from the pipeline that I don't wanna overlook, you know, is the comment that we're seeing development in all phases of the pipeline. It means we're seeing overall growth in the pipeline. You know, we're seeing the development of accounts work their way through, and obviously that's inclusive of deals that we're working under the contract construct of LOIs and ones that we're not. You know, and we're seeing the kind of movement that I would hope to be seeing, you know, kind of, you know, into this phase of the process, you know.
The level of education and the momentum, the comments that Rob was making earlier about the activities in the market, it's resonating its way down into the activities we're seeing in the day-to-day activities that the sales team are driving. You know, it excites me, kind of the volume of that activity that we're seeing and, you know, puts us still on good track to keep the total market moving forward, which is the necessary objective for, to achieve the de facto standard goal that we set.
Great. I think while you don't wanna give specific forecasts, I think you did reiterate your confidence in the $1.8 billion on or around fiscal 2024. Is that still the case?
Yeah. Simon, it remains our target. You know, it doesn't bother us if, you know, plus or minus a quarter or two in that target. You know, for us, it's about the long-term value opportunity that I talked about earlier. It's about driving the industry adoption holistically. Clearly, we've gotta deliver on deals, and we know that, and we will continue to do so. The precision of that target, it remains our target and, you know, we're sticking with it.
Great. The big carriers are all starting to talk about the B2B opportunities, private networks, standalone 5G. You've got the hyperscalers in there as well. What are you seeing on the competitive landscape, and are they trying to compete against you and your utilities and maybe, you know, try to win some of those customers away from you?
Yeah. Look, Simon, you know, from our view and when we talked about being a pioneer, as you know, when we filed our FCC petition, you know, now over 6-7 years ago, it was about pioneering private networks as a concept, which then it was unheard of. Now, absolutely there's, you know, there's no shortage of people talking about it. I think what's important is what, as I said, what we're achieving. You know, I really think, you know, we are the leading private LTE movement, and we're leading the movement at this time. The footprint that we've established with just our existing customers, you know, already I think is bigger probably than everybody else combined from a scale standpoint.
As you can see by what we talked about in the pipeline, right? All of the people who have publicly spoken in some way, right? I went through the folks who are involved in our platform, the experimental licenses, those who are now members of UBBA and which continues to grow. That's half of the nation. Half of the value of our spectrum in the nation, at least. Just as far as the impact we are having on private LTE, overall, yes, there's other. I would say others who are talking about it, but I don't think it's from a competitive standpoint, really talking about the wide area coverage that we're talking about.
When you measure it, whether it's on pops or square miles or otherwise, I'm confident we have, you know, a far more substantial position and see a lot more opportunity for growth.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you have any questions or comments, please press star then one on your phone at this time. Your next question is coming from Kathryn Noble from B. Riley Securities. Your line is live.
Hi, Dan. As you know, NextNav has a contiguous 8 MHz block of 900 MHz spectrum in the LMS band, between the up and down links of your 3-by-3 private LTE. NextNav only needs 5 MHz to broadcast the time signal requires those to point terrestrial GPS networks, leaving 3 MHz, so it says that potentially could be repurposed for communication. Question from me for you guys is do you think a 3-by-3 private LTE is enough for utilities, or are there some customers that might be better off going to a 5-by-5 if that were possible in the future? Thanks.
Yeah, let me take your second question first, and then I'll go to the earlier part of it. Yes, absolutely. We think our three-by-three as a starting point for a private network is plenty of spectrum. There's a lot of good examples of it, not just the customers we've signed to date who have done their deep analysis of capacity planning. The Southern Company, who runs a private LTE network on that 6 MHz of spectrum as well, and they've made the conscious decision to also allow other third parties, other like-minded parties to utilize that network. They actually have capacity to handle their own needs as well as others.
You know, on your specific question about NextNav, and we know those folks and have a lot of respect for their business model, you know, serving the vertical aspect of location. I think the spectrum is really not directly comparable to what we have. You know, we have exclusive use of our spectrum specifically for LTE, and I think that there's some different kind of usage. You know, like I said before about the other spectrum bands, there's a lot of different bands that the FCC has designated for a lot of different uses. For us, starting with the 6 MHz and like every good, you know, carrier model, there's always opportunity to expand. As we say, that's a rich man's problem.
If you're able to fill up the capacity and utilize it all, it means you have such powerful use cases, and you can probably think about adding more spectrum, other layers to that layer cake as you expand the model.
Great. Thanks.
Thank you. Your next question is coming from Walter Piecyk from LightShed. Your line is live.
Hey, Rob. We're seeing a dialogue around CBRS, or at least, the variety of companies that you're talking to existing in LOIs and otherwise.
Sure. Thanks, Walter. The CBRS dialogue, I think, continues to grow as a complementary aspect to low-band spectrum. Like, you know, with 900 being sub-1 GHz serves a very different purpose of what CBRS does as a solution set. CBRS, you know, is great spectrum. I've heard it described by folks in that space as Super Wi-Fi, right? It replaces a lot of the use cases that Wi-Fi was okay at, but is more proprietary whether it's licensed or unlicensed. We have numerous both customers and prospective customers that CBRS is part of their either licensed or unlicensed part of their model. They continue to drive that dual band solution, right?
No different than, you know, everyone's using Wi-Fi in their offices and steps outside and goes onto a wide area cellular network. CBRS will be the same thing for a lot of these customers where in a factory, in an office, in a substation, they can use it for more capacity, and to complement. Another important point about it though is that, you know, we've got our Anterix Active Ecosystem that I mentioned earlier with 80 different companies and growing. Within that solution set, one of the key things we did was identify the need for communications modules that can bridge the gap between CBRS, narrowband, and even carrier bands. One of the opportunities we've got is we've driven that crowdsourcing of vendors to collectively drive a module maker to make a solution set just for that need.
It's a really good glowing example of why there needs to be an intermediary like us to help drive the solution set. It's one of many examples that you'll see that the ecosystem is driving.
Let me ask a question this way. When you're having discussions with your, again, existing licensees or people that you sold to, as well as the four LOIs, as well as other people at different stages of this. Hold on. I'm gonna have to turn this phone off. Nope.
Walter, you still with us? All right, operator, we can proceed, and we'll go back to Walter if he calls back in.
Certainly. Thank you, everyone. That concludes our Q&A session. I will now hand the conference back to our host for closing remarks. Please go ahead.
Thanks very much, and thank you, everybody, for your continued interest and time today. Look forward to talking to you all soon. Have a great day.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today's event. You may disconnect at this time and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.