Hello, and welcome to today's Cable One fourth quarter of 2021 earnings call. My name is Elliot, and I'll be coordinating your call today. If you would like to register a question during the presentation, you may do so by pressing star followed by one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand over to our host, Steven Cochran, CFO. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Elliot. Good afternoon, and welcome to Cable One's fourth quarter and full year 2021 earnings call. We're glad to have you join us as we review our results. Before we proceed, I'd like to remind you that today's discussion contains forward-looking statements relating to future events that involve risks and uncertainties. You can find factors that could cause Cable One's actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements discussed during today's call in today's earnings release and in our recent SEC filings. Cable One is under no obligation and expressly disclaims any obligation, except as required by law to update or alter its forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Additionally, today's remarks will include a discussion of certain financial measures that are not presented in conformity with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles or GAAP.
Reconciliations of the non-GAAP financial measures discussed on this call to the most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found in our earnings release or on our website at ir.cableone.net. Joining me on today's call is our President and CEO, Julie Laulis. With that, let me turn the call over to Julie.
Thank you, Steven, and good afternoon, everyone. We appreciate you joining us on today's call. The fourth quarter of 2021 completed one of our strongest organic growth years on record. Excluding the impact of our Hargray acquisition, revenues and adjusted EBITDA for 2021 increased by 5.6% and 11% respectively on a year-over-year basis. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 53.5%, which is a 260 basis point increase year over year, over prior year. Our full year results, including Hargray operations, produced a 21.2% year-over-year increase in total revenues, a 24.5% year-over-year increase in adjusted EBITDA and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 52.3%, which was a 140 basis point improvement year over year.
Our unique, and at times, contrarian strategy has paid dividends as evidenced by our success since becoming a public, publicly traded company in 2016. Contrarian because of our pivot from video to focus on broadband years in advance of our peers. Unique because of our rural footprint we chose to operate in and the way in which we approach acquisitions and investments. All of this and more has resulted in strong financial results each year since 2015. In 2021, demand for our residential HSD product continued to outpace pre-pandemic trends, exceeding our projections. Driven by continued strong connect and low churn and strategic M&A activity, we added approximately 180,000 residential HSD customers year over year, an increase of 23.2%.
Excluding the acquisitions we closed throughout the year, we added approximately 50,000 residential HSD customers, representing an organic growth rate of 6.4%. While our expectation is that we will eventually return to pre-pandemic growth rates, our HSD penetration rate of 38.7% at year-end illustrates not only how far we have come, but the opportunities that still lie ahead. As of January 1, less than 28% of our markets had a competitor who offers residential broadband download speeds of 100 Mbps or higher. This relatively small increase in competition across our footprint came about primarily as a result of our acquisitions. As I've said before, we run our business as if every market is highly competitive, offering superior products and services and maintaining a local focus on customer needs.
During a time when some are pointing to an increasingly competitive broadband marketplace as a negative for all Internet service providers, we achieved our second-fastest year in terms of organic customer growth. Demand for our premium HSD products also reached a new high last year. During the fourth quarter, nearly four out of five new customers selected a speed tier at or above 200 MB. Our Gb product, which we began offering nearly six years ago, is available across approximately 99% of the markets we serve. Sell into this service has more than doubled since 2020 to over 14%. These new sales, combined with upgrades of our existing customers and the offering of unlimited data, resulted in full-year HSD ARPU growth of 5.5% in 2021.
As demand for faster speeds continues to grow, we continue to evaluate our suite of service offerings and make adjustments designed to better align with customer needs and behaviors. Because our 200 MB offering has become the most demanded plan, near the end of the first quarter, we will be discontinuing our 100 MB speed tier and migrating those customers to our 200 MB speed tier at an initial increase of $5 more per month. We believe we are ensuring an experience that lives up to our customers' expectations while also maintaining a great value proposition. Turning to our network, although average data usage increased year-over-year to nearly 550 Gb per month. Our downstream and upstream utilization during peak hours is just 20%.
We understand how essential network reliability is, and these continued results are yet another example of our ongoing investment and commitment to providing a reliable customer experience. As we look into business services, a look into business services shows a model of resilience, with revenues increasing each successive quarter in 2021 and finishing the year with growth of 31.6% year over year or 8% when excluding both Hargray and Anniston operations. I'd like to round out discussing another quarter of strong growth by turning to the results of our minority investments, where residential HSD and business data customers grew by approximately 13,200 on a sequential basis from Q3. While these new customers are not reported in our results, the continued growth of these businesses highlight the value of our strategic partners to Cable One.
Keep in mind that Point Broadband net adds are now included in this figure. Moving to M&A. On December 30th, we closed on our previously announced acquisition of CableAmerica, a data, video, and voice provider in central Missouri, for $113.1 million in cash on a debt-free basis. As we bring CableAmerica into our family of brands, we look forward to learning from our new associates, as well as building on best practices from our prior integrations. Additionally, at the beginning of January, we closed on a joint venture transaction in which we contributed certain Clearwave and Hargray fiber assets to a newly formed entity, Clearwave Fiber. Clearwave Fiber intends to invest heavily in bringing fiber to the premise service to residential and business customers across its existing footprint and in near adjacent areas.
With this new joint venture, Cable One will not only have trusted leadership and equity partners to accelerate fiber to the premise investment opportunities at Clearwave Fiber, but we should also benefit from improved free cash flow at Cable One. The time and effort spent on Clearwave Fiber is directly correlated with our ongoing integration process for Hargray. Our teams worked diligently throughout the quarter to identify resources and platforms best suited for the new entity. As mentioned previously, we believe this joint venture has the potential to accelerate cost savings associated with the Hargray integration. While we are prioritizing the Hargray integration, Fidelity remains ahead of our original run rate cost synergy estimates laid out at the time of the acquisition. Before handing the call over to Steven, I'd like to thank associates across our family of brands for another outstanding year.
Together, we continued to face pandemic challenges, manage unprecedented HSD growth, and work to complete a multitude of projects, all with an eye on improving the customer experience. Our associates have no equals in fulfilling our purpose of keeping our customers and communities connected to what matters most. They are truly the heart of Cable One and the reason for our ongoing success. We continue to focus on creating a workplace in which our associates feel valued and included, and we were honored that our associates recognized that commitment to our recent ranking on the Forbes list of America's Best Mid-sized Employers, as well as in the results of our annual associate satisfaction survey. Our associates gave highest marks for taking associate safety seriously and pride in working for Cable One.
Responses to both surveys illustrate that our associates believe in our purpose and are committed to our organization and to serving the communities in which we live and work. As a reminder, at our upcoming Investor Day, next Thursday, March 3rd, you will hear even more from senior leadership and our Lead Independent Director, Tom Gayner, about Cable One's rich history, what makes us different, and the significant opportunities that still lie ahead. Now, Steven.
Thanks, Julie. Now let's turn to our fourth quarter results. Revenues for the fourth quarter of 2021 were $432.6 million compared to $336.8 million in the prior year quarter, a 28.5% increase. The increase, which included $77.8 million of revenue from Hargray operations, was fueled by a residential HSD increase of 27.6% and a business services revenue increase of 46.2%. Excluding the Hargray operations, our fourth quarter total revenue increased by 5.3%, residential HSD revenues increased by 11.3%, and business service revenues increased by 8.3%. Residential HSD PSUs grew by approximately 22,000 on a sequential basis from the third quarter, with approximately 14,000 acquired in the CableAmerica acquisition.
Operating expenses were $119.9 million or 27.7% of revenues in the fourth quarter of 2021 compared to $99.4 million or 29.5% of revenues in the prior year quarter, a 180 basis point improvement driven largely by a decrease in programming costs. Selling, general, and administrative expenses were $94.9 million for the fourth quarter of 2021 compared to $64.7 million in the prior year quarter.
These expenses were 21.9% of revenues in the fourth quarter of 2021 compared to 19.2% of revenues in the prior year quarter. Net income in the fourth quarter was $64.8 million, which included an $8.9 million non-cash loss on fair value adjustment associated with the call and put options to acquire the remaining equity interest in MBI Broadband Investments. As a reminder, the MBI options are subject to mark-to-market accounting on a quarterly basis. Until these options are exercised or expire, any changes in the assumptions used to determine the fair values could increase or decrease the resulting valuation, which in turn could cause significant non-operating fluctuations in our GAAP financial results from one quarter to the next.
Net income per share on a fully diluted basis was $10.54 per share, inclusive of the non-cash loss just mentioned. Adjusted EBITDA was $225.3 million for the fourth quarter, an increase of 25.9% from the prior year quarter, or 7% when excluding the impact of Hargray operations. Our adjusted EBITDA margin was 52.1%, or 54% when excluding the impact of Hargray operations. Capital expenditures totaled $109.9 million for the fourth quarter of 2021, which equates to 48.8% of adjusted EBITDA. During the quarter, we invested $23.6 million of CapEx for network expansion and $7 million for integration activities, bringing our total for the year to $76.2 million and $16.3 million, respectively.
Adjusted EBITDA less capital expenditures was $115.4 million for the fourth quarter, an increase 11.3% from the prior year quarter. In the fourth quarter of 2021, we distributed $16.6 million in dividends to shareholders, bringing the total distribution for the year to $63.5 million. From a liquidity standpoint, we had approximately $389 million of cash and cash equivalents on hand as of December 31st, and we continued to generate significant free cash flow. At quarter end, our debt balance was approximately $3.9 billion, consisting of approximately $2.3 billion in term loans, $920 million in convertible notes, $650 million in unsecured notes, $6 million of finance lease liabilities.
We also had approximately $460 million available for additional borrowings under our revolver as of December 31st. Overall, our debt to LQA adjusted EBITDA after netting cash on hand against debt was 3.9 times as of December 31st. During the quarter, we also made three equity investments, received a dividend, and closed an acquisition. On October 1st, we made a $25 million investment for a less than 10% equity interest in Point Broadband Holdings, LLC, a privately held internet services provider serving residential and business customers in rural and suburban areas of 10 eastern states of the United States. On October 18th, we completed a minority equity investment for less than 10% ownership interest of Tristar Acquisition I Corp., a special purpose acquisition company for $20.8 million.
On November 5th, we invested an additional $50 million in Nextlink, increasing our total investment from $27.2 million to $77.2 million. On December 28th, we received a $68.7 million dividend related to our investment in MBI. Given their significant growth and deleveraging during our first year of ownership, they were able to complete a dividend recapitalization, taking their leverage back to 6.2 times . On December 30th, as Julie discussed earlier, we acquired certain assets and assumed certain liabilities from CableAmerica, a data video and voice services provider in Central Missouri, for $113.1 million in cash on a debt-free basis.
Additionally, as Julie mentioned, on January 1st, after the quarter ended, we closed on the formation of Clearwave Fiber joint venture, which is intended to accelerate deployment of fiber internet to residents and businesses in the relevant markets. As a reminder, Clearwave Fiber will be deconsolidated from our operating financials beginning with the first quarter of 2022, and our investments will be reflected in Cable One's financials under the equity method of accounting. The fourth quarter of 2021 revenue and CapEx associated with the operations contributed to Clearwave Fiber were approximately $7.8 million and $17.2 million, respectively. A couple other items I want to discuss before we take questions. First, I wanted to make note of the timing of our rate changes.
Our annual video rate adjustment will be implemented in March this year, while most of our contracted programming and retransmission expense increases took effect on January 1st. We expect these timing differences will impact the comparability of first quarter results on a sequential basis. However, we do not believe it will have an effect on our full year adjusted EBITDA growth. As part of our strategic focus on high speed data and counting cash flows rather than customers, in the fourth quarter of 2021, we made the tactical decision to begin unwinding our bulk cable video offerings. This decision not only prepares our network for the next generation of high speed data enhancement, but also eliminates the time and energy spent focusing on an unprofitable product offering.
We expect this initiative to accelerate our video and customer losses through the first quarter of 2022, but ultimately have a positive impact on margins and adjusted EBITDA growth. On a sequential basis, our organic video subscriber net loss was approximately 21,000 for the fourth quarter, or 18,000 if you include the impact from the CableAmerica acquisition. With that, Elliot, we are now ready for questions.
Thank you. For our Q&A, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now. If you change your mind, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your phone is unmuted locally. Our first question today comes from Phil Cusick. Your line is open.
Hi. Thank you, guys. A couple of things just to follow up on. First, Julie, can you talk again about fiber overlap?
Typically, what fiber provider is that and what's the mix across your footprint? Thank you.
Fiber overlap. In terms of total competition, Phil, we have less than 28% overlap with anyone who is providing a service of 100 MB or higher. Actually, breaking that down further, if you look at overlap where there are two or more providers who offer 100 MB or higher, that percentage is around 5% for fiber to the home. Incredibly low. That typically, for us, refers to AT&T with a teeny bit of CenturyLink, and I think that answers your question. Let me know if not.
Okay. Very little sort of fiber or like insurgent fiber overbuild. Any idea within the 28% what the fiber versus, I don't know, fiber to the node might look like?
Sure. I think our fiber homes passed is around 17%. That's, as Julie mentioned, the majority of that is the telco that's went to fiber, with small, you know, small areas where we have more, I would call them, more local insurgents. That's honestly the piece that makes up the 5% if you think about the 5% where we have two competitors. In Fargo, we've had Midco since 2014. In Odessa, we've had Grande since 2000. That honestly makes up the biggest chunk of homes passed that we have where there's two other providers. But there are smaller operators that most people probably haven't heard of that are competing in one-off markets.
Given the nature of our, you know, 24 states that we're spread across, you know, it's hard for a local insurgent to address a lot of our footprint.
Yep, that makes sense. Then, Julie, you talked about the 100 MB going to 200. How big again is that cohort of customers?
22% of our residential HFC customers.
Okay. When are they gonna be converted to 200 with their 5-Gb LAN speeds?
At the end of the first quarter.
We won't start seeing the impact in the financials. Of course.
Finally, anything, the commercial revenue was sort of flat sequentially. I don't know if there was any sort of ins and outs there with all the different deals going on or anything else you should call out. Thank you.
Yeah, I mean, honestly, I think you know, in looking at the year-over-year, we're still up you know, 8% and in an environment where you know, that business is coming back for us. I think we saw increases each month, each quarter throughout the year. I'd have to compare notes with you, Phil, on exactly what you're looking at, but we saw at least a relative to prior year increase each year, so. Sorry, each quarter. Sorry.
Great. Okay, thanks guys.
Our next question comes from Craig Moffett from MoffettNathanson. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you. I don't wanna steal too much of your thunder from your big analyst day next week, but given that cable valuations in general have come off a bit, are you seeing any differences in the M&A market? Any more willingness from smaller potential acquisition targets to at least be more receptive? Or is the private market still so strong that it makes it difficult for companies to move off of high expectations?
Yeah, I would say it's kind of been this weird dynamic in that while cable valuations have pulled down, the private market transactions have only gone up and have gone up pretty substantially. You know, we fortunately have a nice pipeline of deals that are tied to the different investments that we made and you know continue to see opportunities where someone's looking for a minority investor. We still see opportunities where someone is looking for something different than just going and maximizing or selling out. In those deals where it's just truly selling out, you know, we're not all that competitive in transactions where they're looking for something unique. That's where we've had the ability to transact. We still see that opportunity existing.
Yeah, there's a much wider gap in valuation now than there was, you know, two years ago when we started kind of acquiring more aggressively.
Steve and Julie, if I could ask a follow-up, 'cause you mentioned, Julie, in your remarks that, margins would have been, without Hargray, 53.5%, I think you said, which would suggest that you're still seeing a solid trajectory of margin improvement in the legacy, I guess what I would call here the legacy business. Does that suggest that, as you lap the Hargray acquisition, that we should start to see a resumption in overall margin increases again for 2022?
Yeah, I absolutely think so, Craig. You've got the mix shift continuing to happen, and then you have several acquisitions that are in the process of being integrated. Each time we do that, we make them look like us. That is pulling the margin up. I would be remiss not to also mention our continuous improvement mindset, where every day in and day out, we're looking for ways to make our processes better for our associates and our customers, and those usually result in savings as well. Thus, better margins.
Yeah. Just a reminder for everyone else, when we announced the Hargray transaction, we announced that we wouldn't be realizing any synergies during 2021, and that would start in 2022, as the team was staying on to help us through the transition, as it was kind of a quick close. With both now getting to the start of 2022, combined with the Clearwave Fiber transaction, where you know we've got a number of people going over to be part of that entity as well, we'll start seeing you know the margins related to Hargray pick up, which will help the total margin growth as well.
Got it. Thank you.
Our next question comes from Frank Louthan from Raymond James. Your line is open.
Great. Thank you. So besides the percentage of your territory you currently have fiber, you know, you mentioned, you know, Lumen, AT&T, you know, they're both targeting some more builds. Looking out over the next couple of years, how do you see that impacting the fiber overlap if we look out a couple of years? What percentage of your territory do you think that they're going to target?
Well, certainly there's been a lot of press about everyone, not just the major telcos scrambling to build fiber everywhere in the U.S. I think it's important to reinforce that, you know, 2021 was our strongest year in organic growth since our spin, and two-thirds of that growth came from connects, while a third of it came from lower churn. We don't see a softening in our marketplace, and we monitor competition down to the node or neighborhood level. Given that our competitive profile has not changed much, I mean, we've had that, you know, whether we're talking about the percent of any sort of competition or which is less than 28%, or how much has got fiber, which is about 17%.
It probably indicates that higher ROI hurdle rates in our markets, or maybe it's, you know, supply chain materials and labor that are holding people back. I'm not sure what it is, Frank, but we're not seeing it yet. I'm not sure I can prognosticate, you know, when it's going to happen. We watch for it carefully, like I said, down to the node level. So far, we're doing pretty well.
Yeah. I think, you know, Lumen's a good example where, you know, they're selling the piece off to Apollo. Our overlap with the Apollo piece, which is probably going to be more quickly fibered, is really small. It's a small percentage of our overall overlap and of those homes. It's really some of the smallest markets we have in Indiana and Illinois. There's the question of what does Lumen end up doing? Like Julie said, we monitor it all. We know the number's going to go up over time, and we expect it to. That being said, at 38%, 39% penetration, in a market where there's two operators, we still have the opportunity to maintain our fair share and still grow from here.
We think broadband usage is growing in our footprint, and we think that, you know, as they continue to move upmarket, we'll continue to get our share. At the end of the day, it's all about service. So there's technology, and then there's service, there's taking care of customers, there's reputation, and I think we've done a great job in all of these markets, and that's why we do well when we do face competition.
Yeah, absolutely. You know, value-based service where customers get choice and having a strong, neighborly service where we live right next door to our customers, has to be part of that foundation of our defense. We do have, you know, much more to our competitive playbook if we need to bring it to bear.
All right. Great. One follow-up. How much ongoing capital do you expect to put in Clearwave, on an annual basis?
We don't. You know, there was $320 million funded at that will be funded, that's committed by the equity partners, and we don't have any debt on that entity yet, and we certainly have debt capacity, especially as the business grows. We don't expect to. That being said, you know, they will hopefully also be acquisitive, and if they find other businesses that they can buy to deploy the capital more quickly, and we have the opportunity to invest, we certainly will have the right to without the obligation. But in any way you're modeling it, certainly shouldn't be thought that there's you know, any kind of annual contribution that has to go into that entity.
All right. Great. Thank you.
Our next question comes from Greg Williams from Cowen. Please go ahead.
Great. Thanks for taking my questions. On the new video strategy, it sounds like you're becoming more video agnostic than you even were before. Are you thinking about partnering with the over-the-top platforms for your subscriber base that still looks for video or gross adds that would look for video? Second question's around the Biden funding and the IIJA. Have you given any thought to participating in that program, expanding your footprint? Part and parcel to that, the ACP program sounds like it's a lot more permanent than the EBB program, which could be more attractive for you guys to look at in terms of targeting gross adds in the lower income cohorts. I'm just wondering your interest in that. Thanks.
I didn't hear all of it.
The first part
The second part.
Yeah, yeah. On the video side and the video partnering side, when it comes to a strategy, this is truly related to both videos. This is whether it's, you know, condos, hotels, those types of businesses where we don't have a competitive product, and it's not a, you know, financially viable business for us. Exiting out of that isn't really changing our video strategy around residential. You know, we have the IP platform that we're kind of migrating people to to recover the broadband. That being said, we certainly don't encourage people or try to market to people to move into those packages. If that's what the customer chooses, then that's the offering we have.
We certainly have some of our investments that are doing different things. Some of them are doing rev shares with other over-the-top providers, those kinds of things. Part of, you know, that process, we get to see how others do and what they like. Currently we don't have any plans on going down that path.
Yeah.
The government-
Yeah, yeah. So those I heard. I don't know what I was doing during the first part of your question. Sorry, Greg. Biden funding, absolutely we have been working on how to best structure and attack that once the process for how to go about it is revealed. Keep in mind it'll be done at the state level, and it's different more than likely state by state. We imagine that it will be both defensive and offensive in nature. As Steven mentioned, we have partners who are already really great at getting money from the government, be it ACAM or RDOF. We plan to leverage their learning in the structure that we put into place to capitalize on that funding where appropriate. The ACP program. We are transitioning our customers to that.
In the fourth quarter, actually, of 2021, we did a jump in customers. It was one of the largest additions in terms of the quarter. We still don't have, I think, 10,000 customers on EBB, now ACP. But we did pick up more in the fourth quarter than we did previous to that. Yes, it is assumed to be ongoing. It is lesser amount, as you know. We do track those customers very carefully to measure any potential impact from bad debt. At this point in time, interestingly enough, the customers that are coming on to that program look very much like our non-ACP customers in terms of demographics.
Got it. Thank you.
Next question, Elliot. Elliot, do we have any more questions? I think, Brandon, I think your line's open.
I'm open?
My phone-
Okay.
Yep.
I think I have two questions for Julie. Julie, I guess, could you give us an update more broadly on your goal that you have for synergies, maybe update us on where you are with Fidelity, what you have left to get, and similar type of questions for Hargray, maybe CableAmerica. Second question is around the 100 to 200 MB migration as well. It sounds as if the 100 MB product is discontinued, the 200 becomes your new standard. How are you thinking about the rest of your speed tiers right now? Because right now you have a 100, 200, and 300 MB offering, and I'm curious how you're thinking about packaging pricing for the other speed tiers. Thanks.
Right. I'll start in reverse order, and then maybe that gives Steven time to answer the second question. Yes, you're absolutely correct, Brandon. 200 MB will become, and quite honestly it already is our standard offering, that is the package that most customers elect service to for us to provide to them. We will still have, and it's still the regular price, it's $65, 200 MB. It's 700 Gb of data. We will still have our next level of service, which is at $80 for 300. We are adding a 500 at $90, which is, you know, you can probably tell it's a nice price point for someone to easily jump to from that $80.
In the process, as kind of how we did when we launched our flex pricing in 2019, we've actually lowered the price of our Gb service. We've lowered the price of our unlimited. By doing that, again, we're giving customers value, we're giving them choice, but you know, we've done the modeling and know that it will still result in ARPU growth.
On synergies, on the Fidelity side, you know, we still have some to realize, but I would say that they're not getting realized in the near future because we're working on billing conversion timing and those kinds of things that will bring the incremental. That being said, you know, the growth they've had and the kind of synergy realization and the margin that they're operating at right now is fantastic. It'll just be incremental upside when we do get there. You know, there's still certainly, you know, $a few million left in synergies related to that. Hargray, as I mentioned, you know, we just originally disclosed it would be $45 million.
We really haven't realized any of that yet and you know expect to start seeing those synergies in earnest right now and those will still certainly last over the next you know 2+ years as we you know go through all the different forms of integration both from a you know systems standpoint and a people standpoint a call center standpoint those kinds of things. CableAmerica you know it's a small deal you know LQA revenue for the fourth quarter of that was just under $20 million. You know I think the way we think about that is you know it's a business that is low penetration to start with.
There's the upside penetration opportunity, and then there's, you know, fairly quickly getting it to kind of Cable One margins, and candidly should be higher than Cable One margins just because it truly is just within one of our. It's really within the Fidelity operating region. We should be able to take advantage of a lot of resources that are in place to help that along. Obviously, that combined with the fact that it was an asset deal and we got to, you know, step up for that, you know, we'll get a nice tax benefit associated with which kind of, you know, lowers that multiple pretty nicely.
Got it. If I could ask just one more.
You certainly can.
On CapEx, did you guys give the capital that you spent that would be going with the Clearwave JV? If you didn't, could you give a sort of square layer model so we can think about bridging to CapEx for 2022?
Sure. The numbers that we did give was the number that they spent in the fourth quarter, which was. I got it right here.
$7.8.
$7.8 million. That was what those businesses were, what they spent in the fourth quarter. What I would say is when you look at our overall CapEx and the amount we're spending on expansion in general, we expect that number to move down to $30 million-$40 million over time. There'll still be some volatility in that just based on all the government funding programs that are coming out, and some of those are match programs. As we get opportunities, and that's certainly an opportunistic business, we're kind of building $30 million-$40 million within our footprint that we wanna do with the ability to upsize that if opportunities present themselves.
Relative to the current year, you know, it's certainly a $30-plus million to $40 million decrease, you know, at least on a run rate basis going forward, from the impact of the CapEx.
To clarify, the revenues from Clearwave-
Oh, I'm sorry.
We're $7.8.
Right.
CapEx was about $17 million.
Sorry. Yes, I gave the wrong number. It's $17.2 million for the fourth quarter. Clearly, it's not just we're sending that capital over and they're spending it. They certainly intend to accelerate their capital deployment. Did that answer your question, Brandon?
We've come to the end of our Q&A. I'll now hand back to Julie Laulis for any final remarks.
Thank you, Elliot. We appreciate everyone joining us for today's call, and we look forward to speaking with you at our upcoming Investor Day on Thursday, March 3 rd. Thanks, everybody.
This concludes today's call. We thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.