Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for joining us. My name's Kelley Buchhorn, and I'm with Three Part Advisors. Up next is ATN International. ATN is a recent client of ours, and we are very excited to have them join us today at their first of what we know will be many of our IDEAS conferences. ATN provides digital infrastructure and communication services to residential, business, and government customers in the U.S. and internationally in the Caribbean region. They operate through two segments, both an international telecom segment and U.S.
ATN is a Nasdaq-listed company, and they trade under the symbol ATNI. Joining us today is Chief Executive Officer, Naji Khoury, Chief Financial Officer, Carlos Doglioli, and Senior Vice President, Head of IR and Treasury, Michele Satrowsky. With that, I'll turn it over to Naji.
Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you, Kelley, for the introduction. It's a pleasure being here today. I'll be spending a bit of time before I pass on the mic to Carlos to give a bit more detail. Very excited to be here today. We've been meeting with different investors and opportunities. Please stop if there's anything else, or as we have Q&A at the end. I am Naji. I'm the CEO of ATN. I joined the company a few months ago, two months ago to be exact. A very exciting time. I come from a background with an incredible amount of telecom experience for the past 35 years.
I've done many acquisition, many merger, many integration through the process, and very happy to be part of the ATNI team. Carlos will introduce himself, but Carlos as well is our CFO. He's been in the industry for many years. He came through the telecom as well through the tower. We form a good team. I've met everyone. Very happy with the team so far. If you look at ATN, we have a very interesting story. To many, it might not make sense at first glance, but I'm hoping by the time I finish today after our 30 minutes, you'll have a good understanding of what ATN is about.
We are broadband providers. We are wireless providers. We put fiber in the ground, we put towers, and we provide mobile services that all of you use every day, services that you will not live without anymore. People need our services, and we're happy with that. ATN has close to 40 years of history. We had a founder that had a vision back then, executed the vision over many years, and the company had gone public. We've done so many acquisition along the way. Now we do our thinking based along two segment.
The international segment, which is mostly in the Caribbean Basin and part of South America, and the U.S. domestic segment, which is mostly Alaska and the Four Corners. I'll go into the detail and explain to you a bit how we are structured. Our enterprise value is north of about $1 billion, and as Kelley said, we trade on the Nasdaq with ATNI as our sticker. If you look at our revenue today and you look at our growth history and how we are structured, it might look a bit of a dull graph. You see the orange and the blue quite equal.
This is to the left is our U.S. segment versus our international segment. You look at it looks equal in distribution. You look at the right side of the graph, you'll see what's consumer versus enterprise. Again, it looks about equal distribution. The story is we're going to double-click, and we're going to look at each one separately, and you're going to see quite a different story. Through that story, I'm hoping that you will understand where the growth is going to come from and where the excitement that drove me to join this great company two months ago.
All right. We did guide in terms of our EBITDA for this year, close to between $183 million-$193 million. We have restated that guidance in the first quarter, back about a month ago. Let's double-click, go down to the international. Remember, international is basically four different asset. Bermuda, Cayman, the Virgin Islands, and Guyana. Right? Different markets, different structure, all of them extremely stable, all of them in a duopoly environment. All of them or most of them, we offer our fixed services, broadband services, and mobile services.
If you look at each one separately, you could understand a bit differently. The one that has a lot of excitement for me is Guyana. It's a country that's growing incredibly because of the oil and gas. We are the incumbent there. We have fiber in the ground. 80% of the home we cover with fiber. Penetration is low. Penetration is increasing. Our average revenue per subscriber is increasing. It is Guyanese dollars, but it is almost pegged to the dollar. We expect that the economy to grow significantly, and that's injecting incremental amount of growth in that portfolio.
It's mostly consumer, you can see on the next slide business is an opportunity. If you look up at penetration, it's almost there. We're not quite where the U.S. is. Broadband penetration could be almost at 80%, 90%, almost 100% in some area here. Those four countries are not quite there yet, right? There's room to grow there, and we are in a very well position to capture that growth. Let's double-click again and look at where our revenue stands. It's been growing steadily. Our margin has been improving.
You look at from 2021, 2025, we improve our margin by about 200 basis point. We think there's an opportunity to do a much better job at managing our operations and improving our cost structure. That number should increase. If we meet again next year, hopefully that number will be higher. If you look on the distribution, this is where you'll see that we are mostly serving our consumer versus our business and carrier, and this is where the growth also is going to come from. Right. That's also what I think is extremely exciting.
Going down to country by country, if you look at Guyana and you can see the trajectory, right, and that's going to continue. Again, it's a mobile network and it's a fiber network. If you look at Cayman, it's also a great story, and it's a fiber network. We're building fiber. We are the challenger in that market. We've done a pretty good job there. We're not a mobile operator. Again, that could be an opportunity for us to have mobile presence in that island. Bermuda, really good. We are the market leader. Well-recognized, liked brand, solid free cash flow profile.
CapEx is steady. We're converting from coax to fiber, which also should improve our cost structure. Virgin Islands, you'll see a bit up and down. The scales are not similar to the others. Don't be scared with the up and down, but this is not a big numbers. This is related mostly to some of the changes in the government subsidies after COVID, right? That's what you see a bit. Now it did stabilize going forward. Again, the USVI is a fixed network as well as a mobile network. We are the incumbent. We have the largest share.
There are other competitors, but again, the barrier of entry is very high, which we feel we are in a very good position to be able to defend our position. What's exciting about this market for us, again, is our fiber infrastructure, the fact we've been in those markets. We know the infrastructure really well. We know the market. Barrier of entry is very high. We believe that we can do a better job at converging subscribers between mobile and fixed. Some of you that probably are customers of some U.S. carriers, you probably are being marketed on both sides, broadband and internet, right?
In that part of the world, this is something new, and we're going to drive that. That's good to managing your costs, managing your cost acquire. Overall, there is growth in the international market, all right? There is a steady cash flow, which I think is important. Carlos will explain to you a bit why this is part of why we're excited. Now moving a bit to our U.S. segment of the company, and this gets even more interesting. U.S., think a bit about Alaska. Alaska is Alaska, right? Big state. The four corners. Within the four corners, our broadband operation is mostly in Nevada.
In New Mexico, I'm sorry. In New Mexico. Two separate segments or two separate opportunities there. One different than the other. Let me focus a bit on New Mexico. We sold the tower, and great extraction of value. Carlos will cover with more detail the numbers. Which shows a bit our discipline, ability to extract value, and obviously, being able to do something with the capital injection, which we'll discuss in a bit. What's interesting about the four corners is our ability to deploy fiber in a rural area where there's almost no competition.
We are the only fiber player in town. We're getting support from the government with BEAD funding to deploy fiber. Once we deploy fiber, we're in. We're the only game in town when it comes to fiber. We are either competing with old technology or competing with mobile-only services, and also to a certain extent, Starlink and satellite. Once we go with fiber, the opportunity is there, and that's exactly what we're doing. When you look at Alaska, we are the incumbent. We are the smaller player in the market. GCI, our largest competitor, has 90% of the market share.
We're building fiber, replacing copper, and we're taking share . You think in all the other markets, we have taken market share significantly. This is a market we're going to have to be a lot more aggressive. If you look at our CapEx framework for the past couple of years, we built a lot, now we're going to start connecting homes and increasing our share. That a bit explains a bit our margin on the left-hand side. You look at our margin is subpar compared to our peers. It's much lower. We have opportunity to improve our cost structure, which would also expand margin.
This is a two-approach. You improve your top line and you improve your cost structure. Right. You can see we do fairly well in business and carrier. We have an opportunity on the consumer side. Okay. We recently were awarded by the government a significant award by BEAD, which is about $120 million to build fiber in Alaska. Through that build, we're going to reach the target areas or target neighborhoods, but along the way, we're going to grab along every single neighborhood along the way. We're going to invest to be able to reach those home.
The majority of it will be covered by the reimbursable CapEx from the government. That's what makes this story extremely exciting. Why do I feel confident? I think we have the management. I think we have the know-how. We have proven it. We have invested a significant amount of CapEx a couple of years. Now we're a bit more stable. Right. Most important is that all of our markets are quite stable from a regulatory perspective, and the possibility of another disruptor coming in is almost nonexistent. Okay.
With that, I'll move it up to Carlos, and then we'll have time for Q&A at the end. Thank you. Carlos.
Thank you, Naji. Hi, everyone. I'm going to talk a little bit about the balance sheet liquidity and the capital allocation that we go through. In terms of, Naji mentioned a little bit, and it was on the announcements last week and in February. Last week, we had the initial close of a tower sale that we announced in February. The numbers here are the highlights. Those were 214 towers in the southwestern piece of the country. Total proceeds expected for the transaction is close to $300 million, $298. Last week, initial close brought $268 of those.
As part of the announcement, we communicated that we were going to be paying roughly $65 million-$70 million of revolver debt, which we did. Also, you've got to keep in mind that around 25%-30% of the proceeds go into taxes and minority leakage. It was a significant unlocking of value and certainly, strengthening of the balance sheet that we were able to accomplish, with the first close last week. This was on top of the strong liquidity picture. When you look at the liquidity that we were sitting on even before the transaction and the close, it is around $300 million between credit facility availability and cash.
Which was around $120 million at the end of the Q1. Our leverage ratio has been pretty reasonable for industry standards. We have been pursuing the deleveraging for the last several years. Before the transaction, we were sitting at 2.3, which for the industry is pretty low. One thing to note that we have on the slide is that approximately 60% of the debt is at the subsidiary level and non-recourse to parent. Anyways, strong balance sheet, even strengthened by the transaction that we closed initially last week.
From a capital intensity and capital allocated to CapEx, this is a picture of the last five years. On the left-hand side, we have the U.S. telecom CapEx numbers, and on the right-hand side, the international. You can see at the top the capital intensity of each of the segments compared to the revenue size of each segment. The orange charts on the U.S. telecom segment reflect the money or grants that we received from government that was allocated. That is not included in the percentages at the top. You can see how after going through a period of heavier investment in 2022, 2023, we have gone back to what we consider a more normalized investment level of 10%-15%.
In the U.S., part of our strategy is to use those grants, because in some of the rural areas where we operate, they become very important to keep the economics attractive. In terms of grant funding that we received, we are very excited about the bid that we announced that we were awarded. It is around $150 million, which when you look at the level of CapEx that we had last year, we are talking about 3x what we invested in the U.S. in 2025. It is a significant amount of money that gives us a good catalyst to pursue some of the more consumer-oriented opportunities in the U.S. markets.
Part of the capital allocation return to shareholders, it has been a very disciplined approach. There has been uninterrupted quarterly dividends since 1999. If you look at the amount of money that we have returned to shareholders in the last five years, it is close to $100 million. Very disciplined in that sense also for the company. Naji mentioned a little bit about the guidance. This reflects the updated guidance that we provided as part of the announcement of the initial close last week, which reflects the impact of the sale of the towers and the initial close, with an adjusted EBITDA guidance of $183 million-$193 million.
CapEx is the same guidance that was provided before, which is between $105 million and $115 million. I guess if I want to leave, I am going to allow Naji to say some words after this. If you look at the company, it is a strong balance sheet with good amount of liquidity, even strengthened by the transaction that unlocked some of the value. We are excited about the BEAD allocation and what it's going to allow us to do in the U.S. We've been very disciplined in terms of return to shareholders.
Certainly, for those that might not know Naji's background, he's been, like he mentioned, he has 30+ years experience in the industry. You can tell that he's gone through even splicing fiber himself. He brings a lot of additional experience that we should be able to use to continue to expand our margins. We're very excited about him joining and about where we are right now. Naji.
Thank you, Carlos. Why now? I don't want to repeat too much of what Carlos has said, but definitely an experienced management team. I think that's important, as you all know. Our cash flow position is really good. Our balance sheet is extremely strong. The markets we operate are very attractive. They're mostly duopoly. If they're not duopoly, they're likely going to end up to be duopoly, because probably the third or the fourth will might not survive. We know how to extract value. We have proven it.
I think we can do a better job at managing our operating structure, which we are doing, which will extract some better margin as well. You put all this together, I think ATN will succeed. I am very optimistic, and that's one of the reasons I jumped ship, and I came to join ATN. I lived in sunny Puerto Rico, and I end up in Boston. Different weather. Very happy to do so. With that, I think we have time for questions. If you're not from the telecom industry, and you want to ask any questions, please feel free, I'll try to answer it as best as I can. Thank you. Yes.
I was putting a contemporary question. What do you think about those satellite-based solutions and their potential impact on the ground-based infrastructure?
Yeah. No, perfect. Thank you. Let me repeat the question for the audience. If I understand your question correctly, is what's the impact of satellite on our industry and how we see that going forward?
Yeah.
Correct. Okay. Listen, it is a topic of discussion. Everybody's waiting what's going to happen tomorrow. Right? We can't hide from that fact. Listen, first, I know satellite very well. I've worked with it for 10 years, I know exactly how it works, and I know what it can do. It is not something that we should ignore. Okay? However, we have proven, and I've seen it in the past two years, the moment you have an infrastructure where we can serve homes with fiber, the Starlink penetration is very low. Okay? Starlink will never be able to compete.
Almost impossible to compete with fiber. Once you put fiber in the ground, it's infinity what you can put on that fiber. It's literally infinity. Satellite, that's not the case. You launch 1,000 satellite today, in two years, you're going to have to launch another 1,000 satellite, right, to increase the capacity because it's finite. Right. You have finite space and so on and so on. Fiber will always win over satellite. That I can guarantee you, and I will defend it every day of the week. However, if satellite is in an area where there is no service at all. They are going to win, and they are winning in some areas.
Once fiber comes in and prices are reasonable and your cost structure is correct, you can win in that area. It's a tougher process because it's not a virgin environment. It should work. We've done that in Alaska, we work with the satellite providers as well. We offer also satellite as a backup of our infrastructure. There are customers that need literally 100% availability. We deliver one delivery method, we use satellite as a backup method. That's another opportunity as well. We also provide services to some of these satellite providers as well, backhaul and so on.
It is to a certain extent competition, if you do a good job on the ground and you build fiber where you need to and a good service, you will continue to gain subscriber. I think pricing of fiber today is cheaper than Starlink as well. Price-sensitive customer, if they have a choice, we're going to be a much better opportunity.
How much is it being in pricing?
I'm sorry?
How much is that advantage in customer pricing?
The question is how much is the price advantage between satellite and us? Listen, depends on the market. Okay? If you look at Starlink today, for example, it's a few hundred dollars up front and somewhere roughly about $99, about $100 average per month. Our product today is easily in some of the market, 30%-40% less than that. It is significant with a much less upfront investment on the consumer. That's a bit. I think also, we are in a position with the fiber deployment to increase speed faster than you would do in a satellite environment ?
The satellite environment wins when you have no availability. All right? Where speed matters for you, but not to a certain extent, specifically upload speed. Power comes from the satellite, and to upload is a lot more limiting than download ?
Which is not an issue in fiber as well. Okay. Welcome.
When you say exciting growth, is it 8% instead of 3%? I don't understand what exciting growth is from telcos.
No, I mean.
It looks cool. I think it is a nice market to have, but I'm trying to understand what you mean by that.
Listen, the growth can be top-line growth or can be free cash flow growth, right? For me, success is defined where there is a higher percentage of growth at the free cash flow level than it is on the top layer. The top layer, you're probably going to be limiting some of the areas. You're probably limited, low single digit. In the larger market, you probably have a higher percentage. It's about how you manage your cost and how every dollar you bring in from the top, how much it translates to the free cash flow. That's the part that we're working on.
That's the CapEx intensity, which I think Carlos covered, and ability to manage cost along the way. The exciting part is translating at the free cash flow level.
What are periods without margin security and how much margin do you think you can pull out?
The question is what could be with our margin and what our peers are. Listen, I've operated a market in the Caribbean where margin is in between 40%-50%. The U.S. typically is in the mid-30s. We're within a U.S. segment where 10 basis point away from there, and our Caribbean segment is probably two to three basis point away. There is room. It takes discipline, it takes structure, it takes good management to be able to do that, and I do feel that we have the right ingredient and the right recipe to do it. Yes.
When you're competing with GCI in Alaska, you're laying fiber, they're copper currently?
Coax.
Coax. Are they planning to lay fiber, or is it uneconomical without some sort of subsidy?
The question is about if GCI is building fiber and whether it's economical for them to do or not in Alaska. Look, we have not seen sign of them building fiber to the home. Most of their fiber has been to businesses and enterprises. It's a big footprint, and likely without some help, which they gotten many years ago, it's going to be difficult. They do depend significantly today on subsidy on the revenue side, not on the CapEx side. Which we don't. It's on the CapEx side more than the revenue side. Good. Another question? All right. Perfect. Thank you. It's a pleasure. Bye-bye.