Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Liberty Global's First Quarter 2020 Investor Call. This call and the associated webcast are the property of Liberty Global, and any redistribution, retransmission, or rebroadcast of the call or webcast in any form without the express written consent of Liberty Global is strictly prohibited. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. Today's formal presentation material can be found under the Investor Relations section of Liberty Global website at libertyglobal.com. After today's formal presentation, instructions will be given for a question-and-answer session. Page two of the slide details the company's safe harbor statement regarding forward-looking statements.
Today's presentation may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including the company's expectations with respect to its outlook and future growth prospects, and other information and statements that are not historical facts. These forward-looking statements involve certain risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these statements. These risks include those detailed in Liberty Global filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent filed Forms 10-Q and 10-K, as amended. Liberty Global disclaims any obligation to update any of these forward-looking statements to reflect any change in its expectations or in the conditions on which any such statement is based. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Mike Fries.
Okay, thank you, Operator. And hello, everyone. Appreciate you joining us on the call today. Clearly, we have a lot to talk about, so I'm not going to waste much time with formalities. I'm going to jump right into what will be the most important topic, which is how we're managing through the COVID-19 pandemic. First of all, our hearts and prayers go out to everyone who has suffered through this crisis. These are clearly unprecedented times, and I am particularly proud of our 27,000 employees across eight countries who have dedicated themselves to keeping our customers connected, entertained, and informed. As you can imagine, our primary focus has been on their safety and well-being, and all the policies and the requirements vary by country.
Nearly 90% of our team has been working from home, and we are deep in preparation for their return to the office and the field on a gradual basis, and we appreciate that this is an extraordinary time for our customers as well, so in addition to providing them with the same reliable and robust connectivity services we're known for, we've been improving their experience in a multitude of ways. We're boosting speed and increasing daily caps. We're offering additional entertainment services, especially for kids, and we're aware that our customers are experiencing economic challenges as well, so we're very careful to keep folks connected and help them manage through the crisis, even offering lifeline services where it's necessary, and we're paying special attention to our B2B customers, increasing capacity and providing emergency mobile coverage to hospitals and ensuring quick turnaround on product changes.
As an essential service, we have crews and trucks in the field every day maintaining our networks, installing new customers, and building plant. Our Lightning Construction crews, for example, are working as we speak, of course, with additional precautionary measures, but we're on pace to light up at least 350,000 new homes this year. By the way, we've included a slide on Project Lightning in the appendix, so see we have those details for the quarter. Now, at the outset of the crisis, many wondered, are there any networks that could withstand the increase in usage that would inevitably occur under these circumstances? And the answer for us is a clear yes. Our fixed bandwidth networks have seamlessly absorbed 20%+ increases in the downstream and 50%+ increases in the upstream bandwidth with no problem at all.
Recent investments in infrastructure and speed and connectivity products have really proved invaluable for all of us. From a trading point of view, our sales have been largely stable but down from pre-crisis levels. At the same time, as many of our peers have reported, we've seen a considerable drop-off in churn. We're also experiencing softness in some of our premium sports products. That's not surprising. In markets like the UK and Ireland, these are zero-margin packages for us. We don't make much money and have an impact in cash flow. On the mobile front, store closures are impacting handset sales, and usage has dropped off a bit as folks offload to Wi-Fi. In many markets, we're on our way to reopening and recovering. For example, two-thirds of the shops in Holland are now open and back in business.
And for us, it's just a matter of time, we believe. Now, Charlie's going to address what all this means for our financial guidance for the year. On one hand, we're fortunate that we have very little exposure to things like advertising or other sectors that are experiencing disruption right now. As a group, our services have proven to be even more vital for consumers during this crisis. On the other hand, we're realistic about the impact this may have on bad debt and potential price increases and mobile roaming revenue and overall customer activity. Like our peers, we're assessing the medium-term impact of the pandemic on our business, and we expect to have a more thorough update for you in the second quarter earnings call. There are lots of uncertainties on the road ahead, from the lifting of lockdowns to testing and vaccines.
But we feel well-positioned to power through this. And in the meantime, we are not suspending or changing guidance. We're actually pretty encouraged by our operating and financial prospects for the balance of the year. I'd like to reset the agenda here a bit just for a minute and hit a couple of additional highlights on slide five. By the way, we're talking from slides. If you can get a hold of those, that'd be very helpful for you. Now, despite the impact of the COVID-19 crisis, we delivered a solid first quarter operationally and financially. In fact, the quarter was largely in line or ahead of our internal expectations. I'll talk about this more when we dig into Virgin Media results, but we remain focused on a handful of key performance drivers in our European markets. In particular, customer growth, customer ARPU, and fixed mobile convergence.
We did well on all three of these with largely stable customers versus the prior quarter, solid ARPU growth versus the prior quarter and year-over-year, and good mobile additions. Now, the point is that these operating strategies are working, right? We have over 32 million Gb-ready homes across our European footprint, with 1G services launched to nearly 12 million of those homes. We're widening the distance between us and our competitors when it comes to broadband speeds. We added 22,000 broadband subs in the quarter as a result, and our fixed mobile convergence bundle sold nearly 115,000 postpaid mobile additions. Now, finally, a quick update on capital allocation. At the end of February, we authorized a $1 billion share buyback through the end of April, so in about two months, we've repurchased $500 million of stock at an average price in the mid-$16 range.
We're generally buying through 10b5-1 plans according to preset grids. So, our pace accelerated as the stock declined. Shouldn't be a surprise to most of you. Now, let me move to the most important announcement today. That is, of course, our agreement with Telefónica to combine our UK operations and Virgin Media and O2. We are really, really excited about this transaction and the partnership with Telefónica. Over the last several years, we've been successfully executing a very clear plan to create national fixed mobile convergence champions in all of our markets. Now, in some cases, we've sold our broadband operations to mobile operators like Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone. We share that exact same belief in convergence, by the way. Then we've closed those transactions at premium multiples, highlighting the big disconnect between public and private valuations.
In markets like Belgium, we acquired an MNO and are thriving with fixed mobile convergence in that country. In Holland, we joined forces with Vodafone in a 50/50 joint venture to create what is now the fastest-growing and most important mobile broadband and entertainment provider in the market. This deal follows that path. Combining O2, the largest and most reliable and admired mobile operator, together with Virgin Media, the country's fastest broadband network and most complete and innovative video platform, is a powerhouse combination. First, it gives us the scale to invest confidently in gigabit broadband and 5G right when it matters most. That's now. Second, with the best network infrastructure, market-leading positions, and world-class brands, we'll have the strength to compete aggressively for customers. Third, of course, the combination delivers significant synergies that will accelerate operating cash flow and free cash flow.
Now, we know the playbook well, and we've executed on it many times. It's also a strong statement by both Liberty and Telefónica that we believe in the UK and are right behind the government's desire to bring next-generation connectivity to consumers and businesses as fast as possible. So, let's dig in a bit on the transaction itself on slide six. There's plenty of detail here, so I'll try to hit the key points. Main deal points on the left-hand side of the slide. This will be a 50/50 JV in all respects. Obviously, we have experience with this structure in Holland, and we know it can work well. It feels like a very good fit with Telefónica. We have similar values, comparable operating goals, and strong leadership on the ground. The economics of the deal are derived from relative valuations at the formation of the JV.
You've all seen this equation before. In this case, we valued Virgin at a total enterprise value of GBP 18.7 billion, resulting in an equity value of GBP 7.4 billion. That's assuming, of course, GBP 11.3 billion of debt is transferred into the JV. O2 was valued at GBP 12.7 billion and will be transferred in debt-free but with some working capital and debt-like items. So, to equalize the ownership, Telefónica needs to receive a payment from us of about GBP 2.5 billion, and that's based on 12/ 31 numbers. That's just math, and the math could change as debt and debt-like items evolve between now and closing, but we expect it to be largely the same. Perhaps maybe even the payment could be a bit lower.
Since the O2 business is largely unlevered, we do intend to recapitalize the JV with about GBP 18 billion of total debt, which means each partner will receive recap proceeds on or before closing of approximately GBP 3 billion. That covers more than our portion of the equalization payment, and after recapping Virgin Media Ireland, which will stay outside of the JV, we should end up with net cash proceeds of about GBP 1.4 billion or $1.75 billion. Worth pointing out that this is also a de-levering event for our business, which will go from 5.5 to 5 times leverage in the UK. Transaction is obviously subject to regulatory approval, which we anticipate will be reviewed at the CMA and should be closed, hopefully, by the middle of next year, if not sooner. I'm moving to the right-hand side of the chart. The rationale for this combination, from our perspective, is very compelling.
I've covered some of those points already. We're creating a clear convergence champion in our largest market and one of Europe's most attractive. But the transaction also creates real value for shareholders. We've argued for quite some time that our stock doesn't reflect any equity value for Virgin Media. Clearly, this deal changes that debate. With an implied multiple of 9.3 times 2019 OCF or 25 times 2019 operating free cash flow, there is substantial equity value in our UK business, even before net cash proceeds or synergies. Now, as you've read, the synergies are currently valued at an NPV of GBP 6.2 billion. That's reflecting run rate benefits of around GBP 540 million per year. Worth pointing out that that compares really favorably to other fixed mobile convergence deals we've been associated with. In fact, it's on the lower end as a percentage of the convergence costs.
Of course, we have a very strong track record of executing and over-delivering on synergies, so hopefully that number should be good. On the bottom line, we present some financial metrics. You can see that the two businesses together generated GBP 11 billion of revenue for 2019 and GBP 3.7 billion of OCF or EBITDA. That's before intercompany service charges in the JV structure. Like our Dutch operation, we expect the JV to generate significant distributable free cash flow. And then we should benefit from recaps and further dividends down the road. This is, of course, one of many, but a significant driver of the deal for us. Now, slide seven just provides some additional background on the combined group. I've already referenced the JV's best-in-class fixed and mobile broadband infrastructure.
And the key point here is that this deal will undoubtedly enhance our confidence and the strategic positioning when it comes to expanding our network leadership in the market. O2 has already rolled out 5G to the 30 communities. Virgin has already rolled out gigabit speeds, 2 million homes with the rest of our flipped and ready to roll. We know that when the power of 5G meets 1G broadband, there is no looking back. And both we and Telefónica see eye to eye on the infrastructure and network opportunity here. On our hosted levels, O2 is an ideal partner for Virgin Media. They're extremely well-placed in the mobile market with the lowest back book exposure, lowest market churn, and very high NPS. We've done some of our own research, which confirmed what we knew: that both brands have strong customer appeal.
What we didn't realize was that the appeal grows even stronger when the brands are considered together. And that's a great starting point for fixed mobile convergence. As are these other data points: eight out of 10 Virgin customers use someone else's mobile service today, which provides a huge pool for cross-selling O2 mobile service. Even more compelling research showed that 50% of O2 customers that don't have Virgin broadband are more interested in adopting a converged product from O2 or Virgin than they would be from another broadband provider. So, the fundamentals are here. We're in very prosperous partnership, and we're excited to get started. Now, after a big transaction like this, always good to step back and reflect on the composition of our business and assets and the value creation strategy we're focused on.
You'll see that on slide eight, which shows our major operating businesses laid out along with other assets. And I'll provide just a few quick observations here. Number one, we have significant scale across Europe. These operations together will serve 80 million fixed and mobile subs in what we believe are the best European markets. Together, they represent over $24 billion of revenue that's taking the JV revenue plus our consolidated revenue and over $80 billion of operating cash flow calculated on the same basis with significant leverage free cash flow generation. The second big takeaway is that our three largest assets are or will be less than 100% owned. As much as anything, that's a function of the European market today, which is rapidly consolidating. To drive scale and generate the synergies, sometimes you need partners, and we're certainly willing to join forces to create that value.
Sometimes it's public shareholders you're partnering with. Sometimes it's a strategic operator. For as long as there's scope for liquidity and transparency and value, we're satisfied. The third point is that the value creation strategy is largely the same across the footprint. We're building national FMC champions, partially because many incumbents are vulnerable, underinvested, or late to the game, but also because governments and regulators want scale-driven challengers. They know that consumers and businesses win when there is infrastructure-based competition, and that's been our mantra for decades, and it's just true today as it ever was. Going forward, the focus is on free cash flow. It has always been one of the most, if not the most, important metrics for our business. But with revenue and OCF growth flattening in a more mature telecom landscape, it becomes even more important, and it's particularly coveted among European investors.
Just look at where Telenet trades today, for example, so not surprisingly, we will examine the potential for public market listings wherever that may make sense. At the group level, we continue to have significant liquidity in excess of $10 billion even before this transaction closes, and of course, none of us predicted this crisis, but what we certainly feel now is fortunate to have the capital to both pursue these types of deals and fundamental FMC strategies in core markets and to be opportunistic, which we will be. That includes our time-honored strategy of driving a levered equity capital structure and, of course, share buybacks as and when appropriate. Now, using this chart as a reference point, there are many ways to look at the valuation of our group.
We're not trying to be prescriptive here, but more than a few investors have asked us to put forward a simple sum of the parts analysis that shows the value gap we talk about. This is always a debate with the lawyers and the IR folks, but we've tried to provide a reasonably complete and hopefully simple version of that on slide nine. I'll try to break this down, and of course, we're happy to take questions. The first two building blocks of value are our cash balance at Q1 and the value of our publicly traded shares in Telenet. Together, those two numbers add up to about $16 per share. Again, that's just an objective number. We don't assign a specific value to our interests in Holland and Switzerland on this page, but we do provide the necessary metrics for others to do that pretty easily.
You could choose your methodology. There are plenty of comparables to measure against, but we think you can get the $5-7 per share pretty easily for our interest in these two markets. That's supported by a 14 multiple on Consolidated CF at the low end and a 10% free cash flow yield in the high end. And if you were to use Telenet's multiple of OCF, you'd get somewhere in the middle. So again, many will find their own numbers here. And you know, at our point though, is at our current trading levels, around $21, plus my analysts have pointed out that you could arrive at that price on these three numbers alone: cash plus Telenet stock plus our interest in Holland and Switzerland. In other words, the UK was, and perhaps still is, being assigned zero equity value in our share price.
On the left-hand side of this chart, we address that point by showing just one way to look at the implied value of the transaction that we've just announced. There are three simple elements here. Number one is the expected net proceeds of $1.75 billion, which equates to roughly $3 per share. Then you have our 50% of the estimated synergies, which adds up to about $6 per share. And finally, there is the implied transaction value for the underlying Virgin Media business when we combine. Now, we at O2 agreed as I just mentioned, GBP 18.7 billion, which after debt represents an implied value for the equity today of around $14 per share of Liberty Global. If you add all that up, you get to about $23 per share, and that's just on the UK business. Now, we understand that everyone will have a different view, a different valuation approach.
In particular, some might argue that the implied value of Virgin in the deal and in the combination is, you know, a challenging one or not acceptable. We don't agree with that, of course, but if you want to haircut the deal multiple by 20% and put us in the mid-sevens, you still get the $16 per share for the entire transaction. It's hard to argue that we don't have a considerable value gap here, and I think you're all capable of doing the math on your own. I've really just wanted to give you those components and hopefully clarify what we've been talking about for some time. Now, I've got one more slide here in Virgin Media to help round out the operating update. I'll pass it to Charlie.
As they'll say, there are more operating update slides like this in the back for other assets, but you'll see that we tried to focus here on the data that we believe is most important for tracking progress in our core markets, namely winning and retaining customers across our fixed mobile and B2B business, secondly growing our pool via upsell and cross-sell, and third, driving fixed mobile convergence. We're also focused, of course, on expanding our network reach and speed leadership and driving cost efficiencies. In fact, on the cost efficiency side, we've been forced to accelerate some of the transformation in our care and sales capabilities to be more digital, to operate more efficiently, and that's going to pay dividends on the other side. Now, there are a few good visuals in the middle two columns here.
Let's see first through that Virgin Media's customer base has been largely stable at just under six million. In fact, the number has only moved about 20,000 customers in five quarters, and yes, as we show, the customer gains we pick up in Lightning are often offset by the customer losses in the BAU footprint, but the numbers are not significant in either direction. You can also see a strong customer ARPU trend for the last five quarters, with 1.2% growth year-o ver- year in the Q1 , and this is driven largely by price increases and, again, cross-sell and upsell, but also underpinned by product innovation and improved base management. We are continually seeking to enhance the value for money proposition for customers in this market with things like our next-gen V6 box and broadband speeds.
In the past quarter, we boosted over one million customers to 100 Mb broadband speeds, bringing our average speed across our base average speed to 140 Mb. Just by reference, or for reference purposes, the rest of the UK market is averaging consumer speeds of 30 Mb a second. So we are, our average Virgin Media customer is getting broadband speeds four to five times faster than the rest of the market. Now, as we point out, often 95% of that UK network is already one gigabit ready, and we've launched those speeds across major towns and the 30% of the footprint. I put us on track for network-wide coverage of 1G in 2021, delivering 50% of the government's national gigabit ambition four years early. I think there's enough said there.
Now, Lutz and the team have also been already focusing on cross-selling to mobile into the fixed base following the launch of converged Oomph about a year ago. The Q1 postpaid net adds were good at 72,000. Fixed mobile convergence is already working at Virgin Media. We're at 22% fixed mobile convergence ratio with plenty of runway. Remember, Telenet and VodafoneZiggo are in the mid-40s. As we all know, fixed mobile convergence drives higher NPS and lower churn as the fundamental rationale for the deal we announced today. It all now is a good start to the year for Virgin Media, even in light of the pandemic. OFCF margins are strong at 23% before Lightning and 17% after. Our SOHO customer base grew 7%.
When the team is managing through the headwinds we identified at the beginning of the year, you know, the increase in network taxes and the contract notification programming costs, they've been managing through those very, very well. And in fact, NPS is up and as noted, churn is down. I think the group is really well positioned to come out of this COVID period very, very strong. So enough for me. I'll pass it over to Charlie, and then we look forward to getting your questions. Charlie?
Thanks, Mike. And now I'm on a page for the divisional overview. Mike has given you the key operational highlights for Virgin Media, and in the appendix, we've included similar pages showing the key operational drivers for our other major fixed mobile convergent businesses.
In the interest of time, we're not going to review these pages in our remarks today, but please do contact the IR team if you want to discuss them further. On this page, we set out the key financial metrics which we are using to assess the performance of these national FMC champions. Our focus continues to be to drive OFCF or OCF minus accrued CapEx and free cash flow as these markets mature in terms of broadband penetration. Now, for reference, we've also included a page in the appendix setting out our view of 2019 free cash flow for each of our divisions after the allocation of interest and the central technology and innovation CapEx. For the quarter on this slide, I will focus on the underlying OFCF trends year- on- year.
Revenue in the UK and Ireland is slightly down, 0.6%, but while OCF declined 3.5%, OCF before Lightning Construction CapEx increased $18 to 372 million for the quarter. We increased our investments in Lightning compared to 2019 Q1 and spent $99 million from 93,000 homes released during the quarter. Revenue growth in Belgium was slightly down at 0.4%, with OCF up 0.6% and year- on- year OFCF down $10 to 187 million. As John and Erik explained in the Telenet Earnings call, there was an acceleration of prepaid sports rights costs and some front-loading of CapEx in Q1, which contributed to this year-on-year OFCF decline.
But for the full year, confirmed that, including the effects of any lockdowns in the second half of the year, they expect to deliver full-year rebased OCF growth of 1%-2 on an IFRS basis and adjusted free cash flow at the lower end of their previous EUR 415 to 430 million guidance range. This assumes that they will gradually exit the lockdowns starting in May with a gradual economic recovery thereafter. In Switzerland, UPC was caught up in the continuing cross-competition in that market, which resulted in an accelerated decline in consumer and SOHO customer offering. This contributed to a 2.7% decline in revenue. They also had an acceleration in prepaid sports rights costs in the quarter, as well as accelerated spending CapEx, contributing to a lower OFCF by $55 million.
However, based on current expectations around the impact of COVID, we expect cash generation to improve and the company remains on track to produce around $170 million of free cash flow for the full year, which includes central, OpEx, and CapEx allocations. In Holland, VodafoneZiggo's had a very strong quarter with revenue growth of 3.3%, OCF growth of 4.9%, and OFCF of $258 million as they outperformed our expectations on virtually every operating metric, showing the strength of these converged national FMC champions. They're now expecting stable to modest rebased OCF growth for the full year, but they maintain their original free cash flow guidance of EUR 400 - 500 million for potential cash for shareholder distributions. Now, again, this assumes no further deterioration as a result of COVID. On the page entitled Group Overview, we set out the key financial metrics for the group as a whole.
Revenue declined 0.3% for the quarter, an improvement over the decline to the previous four quarters despite the impact of COVID-19. OCF growth also improved compared to the last three quarters of 2019, a - 3.6% in line with our pre-COVID expectations. OFCF continued to improve, and excluding Lightning Construction CapEx, was $593 million for the quarter, up from $569 million a year ago. The continuing reduction in CapEx intensity contributed to this, as CapEx was a percentage of sales prior to Lightning Construction CapEx at 19.4%, lower than the previous four quarters. Liquidity remains extremely strong. Cash, including our $2 billion investment in separately managed accounts, was $7.4 billion. Now, as many of you know, our SMAs are invested in low-risk liquid investments.
Both our SMAs and money market accounts are now largely invested in government securities as opposed to AAA funds, which will lead to a reduction in interest income going forward, but ensure maximum security for the cash. With the available revolving credit facilities in our operating companies, the group as a whole has $10.3 billion of liquidity. Our leverage at the end of the quarter was 5.2x gross and 3.7x net at the EBITDA. The cost of debt continues to decline as we continued our refinancing program during Q1 and now stands at 4.1% with an average life in excess of seven years. On the page titled Adjusted Free Cash Flow, we lay out the key components of free cash flow. Q1 OFCF for Lightning Construction CapEx was $595 million, and our net interest for the quarter was $579 million.
We make virtually all our interest payments in Q1 and Q3, so this phasing is in line with our expectations. Cash tax was positive for the quarter at $5 million, and we expect the full year 2020 figure to be lower than the full year 2019 figure of $358 million, partly due to reduced US tax payments. The distributions from the JV in Holland were $11 million for the quarter, but we continue to expect full year distributions of EUR 200 - 250 million in line with VodafoneZiggo's recent guidance. Now, as is typically the case in Q1, working capital was at $-250 million, largely due to the phasing of our vendor financing program, and as for 2019, we continue to target broadly flat working capital flows for the year.
Adjusted free cash flow before Lightning Construction CapEx was $-218 million for the quarter and $-317 million after construction CapEx, which again was in line with our expectations. Turning to the outlook for the full year, we're still assessing the medium-term impact from COVID-19 and will give investors a further update at Q2. Despite the impact of COVID, we continue to be encouraged by our operating prospects, and unless there's another step change in the macroeconomic environment, we don't see a need to change or suspend our original full year guidance as detailed on the slide. And note that our current assumption is that lockdowns are lifted from Q2 followed by a gradual economic recovery, and also that our original $1 billion free cash flow guidance was based on exchange rates of 1.13 euros a dollar and $1.33 per pound.
Although we don't guide on rebased revenue growth, we do expect negative impacts to revenue from reduced handset sales and premium video, particularly sports. But both of these are relatively low margin and have a limited impact on cash flow. We will continue to monitor the impact of the crisis on these forecasts and update you further in Q2. And so with that, I'll turn it back to the operator. And in order to address everyone's questions, we would kindly ask that you keep to one question each.
The question and answer session will be conducted electronically. If you'd like to ask a question, please do so by pressing the star or asterisk, followed by the digit one on your phone. In order to accommodate everyone, we request that you ask only one question with one clarifying follow-up if needed.
If you are using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. We'll pause for just a moment to give everyone an opportunity to join the queue, and we'll go to our first caller.
Yeah, hi. Robert Grindle. Robert from Deutsche Bank. Hi, Robert. Hey, Robert. Yeah, so one question. So I'd like to ask about the JV structure and why you chose that rather than, say, a majority stake. Was this the only game in town, or was it, as you mentioned, about confirming a positive equity value for VodafoneZiggo? Was the JV structure also interesting, given your thinking about an extended fiber build program? Obviously, Telenet got a lot of fiber experience. Is that something you are aligned on? Thank you.
Okay, that's three questions. Let me see if I can jump into those.
There's always multiple ways to approach a transaction like this or a strategic move like this, but this felt to us like the best outcome and the best partner for all kinds of reasons. And I've talked about those in the remarks I just made. So you've heard that. And we're comfortable, as I mentioned, with these structures. We have experience with them. It's worked exceedingly well in Holland with VodafoneZiggo. It's been a great partner. And so this was the transaction that was presented to us or that we also went out and sought and the one we think will be most accretive and most advantageous. So sure, there's always different ways to do it. It had nothing to do with what you're describing. And the value is the value. Once you decide how you're going to approach a partnership, then you agree on value.
It's not the other way around. I don't think it was driven by value. It wasn't driven by anything other than that. It wasn't obviously the only game in town. There are multiple mobile operators in this market without fixed infrastructure. So clearly, there were other options. But again, as I said, we felt this was the best option. And credit to Telefónica for also being quite interested and focused on this. It would be the best fit. It doesn't change anything with respect to the level of excitement we have around Project Lightning or network extension in the market. It takes nothing off the table. In fact, I would argue, and I think Telefónica would agree, this increases our confidence level in looking at a national scope or extending a Virgin's best-in-class network.
How you achieve that, how we finance that, and how aggressive we are, that is all to be determined. But I think the main takeaway is it doesn't change our level of excitement. It takes nothing off the table. I would say it only enhances our ability to be strategic and financially aggressive, and it makes sense in terms of looking at our network and the opportunities that we've discussed historically.
Great. Thanks, Rob.
Hold on. Next to Jeff Wlodarczak with Pivotal Research.
Good morning. How reasonable a comp is your operating strategy? Synergy upside. I mean, I think obviously leverage levels at VodafoneZiggo, that JV, to what you sort of expect from this deal. And then if I could sneak one in about the back book repricing in the UK and how that's going relative to expectations. Thanks.
And Lutz, you can prepare for the back book repricing issue.
The punchline is in line. But there are lots of things that are similar in this transaction to the Vodafone Ziggo transaction. Obviously, the structure itself. There are often many big differences too, of course, in terms of the size of the market and the competitive landscape that we find ourselves in. On the other hand, it is a similar playbook for us. It's one we're quite familiar with. So our approach to synergies, our approach to integration, our approach to strategies to drive revenue and convergence are quite similar. And it wouldn't surprise us if down the road these two companies together are achieving similar outcomes. It's possible here we might even exceed the convergence levels that we see today in Holland, which are mid-40s. It could be even higher in this market.
A lot of it has to do with how the market evolves generally and how competitors react over time. I don't believe there'll be any reaction that's worthy of discussion in the short term or even immediate term, perhaps. But how the market evolves over the longer term is what's critical. I'd simply say when we put the business plan together, at least from our perspective, we were very conservative about the standalone mobile business and the challenges that it might face. And we think we were very appropriately conservative about our own business, just to be thoughtful and not too ambitious. And I think when you put those two businesses together and you drive the synergies through that business plan, it is very accretive and quite attractive. And that obviously drove the transaction.
So I think with very conservative assumptions on either business, with the synergies, which I think, as you point out, are probably conservative. Certainly it's one of the lowest, if not the lowest percentage we've seen in eight countries or seven countries we've been involved in FMC transactions now. But there's good reason for that. This transaction came together relatively quickly. We wanted to be thoughtful and not overpromised. We've never missed a synergy budget. You know that, Jeff, or a synergy target. In fact, I think almost in every case, we've exceeded our synergy budget and target. So this should be the same. On end-of-contract notifications, we haven't opened the market since 10 February . The churn level is exactly what we have planned for, how many customers are calling in and how many customers decide to leave us.
And then the second lever is how much discount do you offer to keep the customer connected. And the discount we have offered so far is only one-third of what we have planned for. So therefore, it is altogether slightly better than we have expected. But the caveat to that is that we are only six weeks into it in that quarter, and also that was pre-COVID. And so that might change. So therefore, we stay cautious. But I have to say, although the market was pretty competitive in March and in February, we are doing slightly better than expected.
Thank you.
The next to David Wright with Bank of America.
Thank you, Jeff, for taking the call. And Mike, if I could maybe express some gratitude, I guess, more generally for the salary sacrifices, etc., in light of COVID.
My question is just on the UK joint venture and spectrum costs. There is a UK spectrum auction forecast, which probably should be this year, could be next year. Should we expect, in the event of any delays, that that is cost that Telefónica will bear, or is there a risk that that could drop into the JV? Thank you.
Thanks very much, David. I believe the press release referenced this, but you might not have had a chance to get to it or see it. But the basic deal is that Telefónica will bring to the JV the spectrum that we both believe is necessary to achieve the plan at their cost. So that was an arrangement that we reached early on. And so they'll deliver to the JV at their cost, the spectrum, when that auction occurs.
Obviously, we have not been able to discuss spectrum with them in any detail. It's a very complicated, and we have to be quite careful. So we don't know what they're doing. We don't have any real understanding of what they may do. But whatever they end up with, it'll be at their cost.
And Mike, just maybe extending on your comment on Lightning, you've been very vocal with the perceived undervaluation of Lightning and stretch it out, etc. It's kind of dropping in at 10x EBITDA into this deal. How did you kind of think about valuing Lightning independently of the kind of steady-state VMED cable infrastructure?
Yeah, good question. Look, I think we each had some assets on each side of the deal that we could have argued for different values.
They have, of course, their tower interests in the UK, which they thought at one point maybe would be better outside the JV. We had the Lightning transaction. But we both agreed that this is going to be a long-term partnership, that we should be doing things inside the partnership. It makes perfect strategic sense and operational sense and financial sense. So let's just say that the valuation was considered, but we didn't get into that kind of granularity when it came to this. This is always a negotiation in terms of identifying exactly what Lightning revenues includes or doesn't include. And we did see that they probably approached it similarly on their tower footprint.
Very useful. Thank you. Thank you.
We'll go next to Michael Bishop with Goldman Sachs.
Just two very quick questions. Firstly, you're now afraid to move to think on a large cash balance given this deal.
I guess it's considering any of your cash. So I'd just love to hear your latest thoughts on how do you think about managing that cash balance effectively with this transaction not consuming cash. And then super quickly, could I just follow up on the last question? Clearly, you've been clear that Lightning is going into the JV. But I'm just going to ask as a follow-up on the other fiber company that you've set up. Just I noticed that the 10 billion of CapEx over the next five years commitment doesn't really implicitly assume, at least on my numbers, that you're necessarily announcing anything with regards to the 7 million extra homes you've identified and also the fiber joint venture and those discussions. So any update there would be great. Thanks.
Sure. Well, on the second point, yes.
Anything we pursue or anything they pursue that would normally be considered a JV activity is likely going to be a JV activity. So Liberty Fiber, as you described it, is certainly something we would pursue through the joint venture. And I think, as Lutz Schüler said on his call, these are the issues we'll address together in terms of pace and speed and financing structure and opportunity. In the meantime, we'll continue with Lightning. In fact, we think we might exceed our budget on Lightning. We can, of course, choose to spend more or less between our closing. It just works out in working capital. But I think for the most part, you should assume that the JV will jointly address these strategic opportunities, and capital will come from both parties as a result of that.
On the cash balance, I think we'll remain disciplined as we have remained disciplined. As I said, nobody anticipated this environment. We always said, "You never know what the future is going to bring." And this was not something any of us hoped for. And on the other hand, we're thankful to be liquid, and we're thankful to have cash, and we'll remain disciplined on how we deploy the cash. As I've said and have said, the first order of business is our core markets and where we know and already operate. That will remain the case. Secondly, we'll look within the region we operate in to look for opportunities for consolidation or other similar convergence strategies, I would say. We have, as we've talked many times, it's ventures portfolio. It's not big, maybe $1 billion in investments in existing assets that we own in tech and content.
And so we'll be careful and thoughtful about opportunities to build new revenue streams and new investment portfolios and new business opportunities. But I think we'll do that carefully and with great transparency and probably wouldn't require the kind of capital that we have. So this is a good problem to have. It's a good question to be focused on for us, but it's not something we can give you any more clarity on than that as we sit here today, Michael. But stay tuned.
Thanks a lot.
Now, of course, I didn't mention in that what we have used historically our excess capital for, and that is buybacks. I did mention in my remarks that that is always on the list for our levered equity growth strategy.
And as we start to drive free cash flow and free cash flow per share, clearly, that's an accelerator of free cash flow per share. But again, we're not being on this call, we're not going to be. I couldn't give you any details about that, obviously. We'll let you know. By the way, I know we've probably got a lot of questions. So just for everybody's benefit, and our remarks went a bit longer, we're going to keep the line open. I'm sure you've got plenty of calls to get onto. But I think we'll probably try to keep the line open for 10 or 15 minutes to be sure we get to a few more questions since we were a bit longer in our remarks today. So go ahead, Operator.
Yes. We'll go next to Benjamin Swinburne with Morgan Stanley.
Thanks. Thanks. Good morning, everybody. Good morning, Mike.
Assuming you are somewhere where it's morning, which may not be the case, but I wanted to ask about tax implications of all this. I think you guys announced you're moving effectively all the UK tax allowances, etc., into the JV. You guys, I think originally reincorporated over in the UK, at least partly for the tax benefits. I'm just wondering what the tax structure and tax leakage, if anything, of the JV will look like. I'm assuming there'll be not much anytime soon, and then implications, if any, for the consolidated operations, Switzerland, Benelux, etc., in terms of cash taxes as a result of this deal.
Okay. There's no implications to other assets. UK tax losses have always been largely ring-fenced within the UK and only usable by a UK entity, so no implications at all for the other operations.
I'll simply say on the tax structure, it won't be surprising to you. I think it's quite efficient that we don't, without getting into great detail, there shouldn't be any tax implications on formation of the joint venture. The losses that exist will be transferred and, to the best of our ability, used by the JV. There are, as ever, some nuances there. But for the most part, it's a very tax-efficient transaction, really, for both parties, and certainly for us. And we don't see any leakage of the kind you described.
Okay. And then just a quick follow-up on Virgin Media, maybe for Lutz just is on, what's the pricing environment look like at this point? Obviously, you've got a lot of stress in the economy.
Just wondering, from a competition point of view, if things have continued to be as tough as they've been, or if you've seen any of the operators you compete with get a little more rational, so to speak, given just the focus on the macro and pressures on things like liquidity, etc.?
Lutz, go ahead.
So yeah, so I think in February and March, and maybe because of the statutory end-of-contract notification, I would say that the market was a little bit more competitive. So when you compare the deepness of discounts a year ago, discounts were 5% to 10 deeper. And then now, after COVID, obviously, our sales are down. I mean, for us, not so much. So we are still operating on 80% sales level, and churn went down dramatically. But in this environment, obviously, you are less aggressive in terms of promotion.
So I would say it was a bit more aggressive. And we kept our strategy, right? So you see that we kept our customer flat. We are looking to create really a customer relationship with high-value customers. We were not looking for the lower end in the broadband. We were not looking for the lower end in the video. And so therefore, the service revenue out of that was about 8%, and the ARPU was 1.3%. And this is exactly our strategy.
Thank you.
We'll go next to Vijay Jayant with Evercore.
Hi, Mike. Just wanted to understand, obviously, the structure now that most of your values are in JVs in the UK and Holland for a VodafoneZiggo transaction and about a billion of EBITDA on remaining consolidated assets. In terms of transparency and value recognition, obviously, you make a case for that in today's presentation.
How are we going to sort of track the performance of those JVs? And are you running the risk of getting sort of a discount because most value are in equity stakes? And have you thought about tracking stock or any shares that can show the value of those assets that you don't sort of see on a consolidated basis?
Yeah. Good question. We did try to address it a bit in the remarks, but it's worth repeating that this does change. It takes our largest consolidated business and puts it into a JV. And so that does obviously have accounting and consolidation implications. However, because it's our largest business, we will report quite extensively on the business. And so I don't see any reduction in transparency around the core operating companies. So firstly, I would say you should be able to see through the structures.
And we will endeavor to report on the businesses in much the same way with arguably as much or more detail. So I think we'll be focused on transparency for investors on the actual operating businesses, how they're performing. And we're quite engaged, of course, in all of these and how they do. So that's point one. Point two, Virgin wasn't a public company when it was 100% owned. Virgin Media O2, whatever their name ultimately is, won't be a public company when we start the JV. But down the road, there could be opportunities, as I said, to create public listings or structures that identify and isolate value and, I think, show value more creatively and more effectively. Nothing's off the table. I mean, we retained, as you would expect, we did retain the ability to perhaps create trackers or things of that nature.
In the Liberty tradition, all options are available to us to ensure we're getting transparent value. But we'll be thoughtful about that over time. It is the right point, which is why we spent a few more minutes than we normally would on structure and value creation and holding company discounts. That's your expertise. I don't think so. I would argue for it, obviously. But we certainly can't, at this point in time, we would take a holding company discount if somebody valued the stock correctly. So I think it's all relative, and we'll have to see how we go.
Thank you.
You got it.
We'll go next to Polo Tang with UBS.
Yeah. Yeah. Just have one question. And that is, does a deal with O2 preclude doing a cable wholesale deal for a fiber JV with Sky? Or is this just our priority at the moment?
As I said at the beginning of the Q&A, nothing's off the table. I think the direct answer is no. We don't believe that this transaction, either as it's pending or when closed, creates any obstacles to smart opportunities. I'm not going to comment on that one specifically. I'll simply say that it doesn't take anything off the table legally, structurally. We don't believe from a regulatory point of view. All the conversations that we were having and all the ideas that we were discussing, I think, remain and can be executed on if they make sense. That goes for the Lightning build-out. It goes for strategic partnerships with other operators if they make sense. It goes for all the kind of things that we know can be accretive and strategically valuable for the group. We still believe can be evaluated and considered.
Can I just clarify that in terms of timing for the deal? Can I just clarify the timing for the deal? Why now, just given the COVID-19 situation? Did something change on your part in terms of what spurred the move now to an exit deal, or was there a change on its part, maybe some color?
Yeah. As you would imagine, this didn't come, I mean, the crisis that we're all facing now with the pandemic, obviously, is somewhat recent. These are conversations that go back some time. So as discussions and negotiations have momentum, you keep the momentum. I would say differently. We didn't see anything in the current environment that suggested we shouldn't continue with this opportunity, as opposed to the environment stimulating the opportunity. It's the other way around. The opportunity was always there.
We didn't see anything that created an obstacle or that should slow it down. So it's really nothing to do with the current environment. It's just the timing is coincidental.
Nice. Yeah.
We'll go next to [inaudible] .
Good afternoon, Mike, Charlie. It was just a very quick one on Swiss KPIs, please. They seem pretty weak this quarter. Is that just a COVID impact, maybe with some sports, some PTV items doing? Or is that something we should expect sort of for the rest of the year with some pretty structural pricing pressure, please?
I don't know if Baptiest is on the call.
Yes. I mean,
if you want to address that quickly, Baptiest Coopmans is the current CEO of UPC Switzerland. You want to address that?
Yeah. I'm in Switzerland since February 1. So the market stays competitive.
We try to find the right balance between volume and value there.
And that's the answer. And I think Charlie was very clear. We think we will have 170 million cash flow out of this business this year. And the underlying trends are all improving. We have all-time high customer satisfaction now. The company is going very well through COVID. So in that sense, the next quarter, you will see that. And on top of that, we had a major simplification program launched that will kick in the coming quarter.
Thanks very much.
We'll go next to Christian Fangmann with HSBC.
Yeah. Hi, guys. Hi, guys. Yeah, quick one. I was not reading anything in the press release on this. Is there actually a break fee agreed? And then how about the brands? What are you planning to use in terms of brand?
Are we seeing something similar like at VodafoneZiggo?
No disclosure on the brands. This is too early to have any discussions about that or even any agreements about that. So the brands will be determined down the road when companies actually do come together and there's a management team, and we can have a thoughtful conversation about it. So business as usual for now and no update on brands. I'll simply say we think both brands are really strong and complementary. And that's a good thing going into it. No break fee disclosed and no break fee agreed.
Okay. That's very clear. Thanks.
Yeah.
We'll go next to Steve Malcolm with Redburn.
Thanks, guys. Good afternoon. Good morning. I'll go to, if you have any other comments on that, fine.
Just going back to the pricing situation, can you just sort of check me on any of the updates in there? You know, your outlook is about pricing and margin. You don't expect to pay out cash this year. Do you think the combined EBITDA will be 10% to 20 lower, and whatever is in the mid 5s? Do you have to go back and look at the overall debt in the JV when it closes? I'm taking just a quick one on the contractual position with your major content providers in the UK, BT, and Sky? I take the point that your sports rights fees are zero margin, but that would mean they could be negative margin if you're not collecting revenues. You have to pay for them. So do you ever get rebate on those sports rights while you're not selling to your customers?
Maybe any help on that would be great. Thank you.
Okay. Yeah. These can address the sports use fee transfers. Yes. I think the agreement and the relief, I think, was clear. The expectation is that we'll have leverage in the four to five times range, which will be closer to the high end of that range when we close. And we expect that, in the case the market today is not necessarily the ideal moment to get all of the financing lined up. Normally, we would announce and complete all the financing before even signing a transaction. But we felt like to optimize capital and to optimize structure, there's no reason to do it all right now. But the gap of what remains is quite small. I think Charlie's only a couple of billion pounds that isn't yet raised or ready to be transferred over.
That's enough, or more or less. So the financing solution is not a particularly important one, in my book. You didn't try and address this point. Actually, yes. Yeah. We have to be following it. We need to try and beat the hell out of our back book customers. Out-of-contract packages we want to. And therefore, you don't need to just hold onto those customers if you have the lowest cost package that you've got. And therefore, I believe we're able to teach you guys a trick. Do not pay the wholesale cost for that period of time. Exactly. I mean, obviously, you have to come to an agreement, and we understand that. But I think we understand we've got to focus on that. And also then you read our contract. It's pretty much like that.
Okay. Sorry, Baptiste, just come back to the first question.
If EBITDA were significantly lower, is that $18 billion of deb t then? Or would you review it at that point?
I think the partners can always agree to review it. Obviously, we reserve that option. I don't believe, and Charlie, jump in there, we don't see any impediment to achieving that level of debt between now and closing, which is when it would likely occur. It's probably on the shorter end of that. Charlie, you want to address that?
Steve, we've gone through what's called a stress test with the rating agencies, with [inaudible ]. We're pretty confident with that. I think we have built into the forecast various numbers. I actually think we've attracted two very kind of resilient businesses. It's a tricky thing. Although it's not what we have done, it's still turning out pretty well. I'm very, very confident.
And get the remaining couple of billion done. Remember, the debt you have today, ironically, is an asset. We come across with a dozen years. So it's already an asset. And there's a small bit of investment.
I'm not questioning if you can get the debt. I'm just questioning whether it's the right level of debt and be a lot lower.
Steve, one thing I would say is that businesses are very, very cost conscious. And I think as Mike indicated, they might be a little conservative. That gives a lot more creditworthiness. It's the combined companies. The two standalone companies. So we'll see. But I think, listen, we're not a company in the COVID. And we'll have to find that. But it's probably just a tad. I think we're good.
Okay. Thanks a lot, guys.
We'll go next to James Ratzer with New Street Research. Yes.
Thank you very much, everybody and Mike and team, congrats on the deal. I think the question I had today is probably more for Lutz, actually, just on the UK performance, which looked pretty encouraging this quarter. I was just interested in kind of two specific areas. I mean, one, with all the extra homeworking going on, are you seeing signs that customers are actually upgrading their broadband packages as a result? And how supportive is that for your ARPU trend? And secondly, I mean, to what extent have you been benefiting recently from being able to do extra customer installs? As I understand, Openreach has been more limited in being able to do that. How much of a boost is that providing to the current numbers? Thank you.
Yeah. Yeah, so on homeworking, I mean, in general, 95% of our customers have 100 Mb speed or more, right?
As Mike said earlier on, our average speed is 140 Mb. So therefore, our consumer customers do operate already on a very high speed. And so therefore, we don't see additional demand on top of that currently in the consumer space. On the B2B space, we see that. So we have further demand, higher speed packages, working from home packages for some of our customers. So that is encouraging. In terms of net adds, you're right. I would say currently we are a net beneficial. So what do I mean by that? Our sales are still at 80%. And it's only online, but in marketable. It's obviously a more connectivity focus. So less demand on video, more on broadband, just broadband. And also, our churn is at a historic low. And I think this is because of two things.
One, simply, you don't want to change the system while you're so reliant on it. And second, obviously, in the market, you cannot be assured if it's a manual install. It's a complication that you get actually installed while we keep on doing the manual install as well. So therefore, you're right. Currently, we are growing a bit our customer base because of that. But as you said, also Q1, we kept the customer base there. So we cannot count our strategy just on the weakness of the competitor. So you can expect from us further initiatives to keep or grow our customer base.
Great. Thank you.
We'll go next to Matthew Harrigan with Benchmark.
Thank you. I realize how over the top this question is. And I think you did the right thing from the derisking and liquidity enhancement vantage point in this environment.
But as an extension of the Robert Grindle question, I mean, you and John Malone really have the opportunity to kind of be the ultimate, I guess, Anglo-cable cowboys. If you had turned around and bought all of O2, you clearly have the financial wherewithal to do that, GBP 12.7 billion enterprise value. And now, I guess, GBP 6.7 billion in synergies over a five-year time. And if you really wanted to get M&A value in as it's developed over time, you really would have had some opportunities for some very creative stock buybacks for obvious reasons. Is that something you ever would have looked at? I mean, you would have had less complexity, I guess, in terms of financial engineering, but probably an ordinary amount of risk in this COVID-19 environment. And again, I realize it's really over-the-top question, but I thought I'd run it by you nonetheless.
On that, I mean, you would know we're looking at all options and all alternatives. And generally, we land on the one we think is the most creative and creates the most value. And this, we believe, is the one. So every market's different. Every set of opportunities is different. And generally speaking, we never take anything off the table. We always look at what's in front of us. But in this case, we believe this is the right outcome. That's what I'll say.
Yeah. I think that's right. Congratulations.
Okay. Thanks. We're 10 after here. So I guess, [break], operator, I'll take one or two more and then let people get back to their day.
Okay. We'll go next to [crosstalk] with Jefferies.
Thanks very much. Thank you, highlighted on footprint expansion on your end. Telefónica shared excitement about expanding that.
Could you comment on the capacity to pull that off during a period of probably quite intricate large-scale merger integration and at the same time embarking on accelerated footprint expansion potentially? I realize it's an open-ended plan, but how do you look at the capacity to pull all these things together at the same time? Thank you.
Yeah. It's a good question, and it'll be something that we factor in. We wouldn't ever make strategic decisions that impact our ability to execute synergies or integrate the businesses. On the other hand, we're already out there today, every day, building, extending plant in the streets. So if we were able to do it or see our way clear to doing it as a standalone company, there's nothing about being a larger, more integrated company that should change that materially. But it's the right question.
It's a set of making sure you're prioritizing where you spend your time and where you have your resources focused. But as we lay that out on the page, we'll make that determination. But I don't see anything off the top in which you can comment that would somehow preclude us from having the wherewithal or the resources or the will to go ahead and continue looking at a broader network expansion, if it made sense. And you can always have there's lots of ways of structuring it and financing it as well. So I think it's the right thing to think about. But on the other hand, there's nothing in my mind that says it's not doable. We'll have to get there when we get there.
That's helpful.
I think to all of us signing though, is there not a chance?
Oh, sorry. Lutz.
Well, I can give some of a flavor to that. I think what we have done now is we have put really all network expansion, so from consumer, from B2B, from wholesale into the Lightning unit. And they are accelerating the network expansion, right? I mean, we have just announced the beginning of the week that we will mobile backhaul 3,000 5G sites from Three. So therefore, we have secured vendors for an acceleration and rollout, right? We have also closed a couple of LFFN deals. So therefore, the machine is growing, and the machine will run also quite independently. So therefore, it's not so much impacted by the complexity of an integration.
Got it. Thank you very much. Thank you.
And we'll take our last question from Sam McHugh from Exane.
Yeah. Morning, Sam.
Morning, guys. Yeah. Just thinking the fine in the UK. I'm following BT's announcement today.
Do you see any kind of strategic need to move a bit faster on your own network expansion beyond Project Lightning? And I guess linked to that, I think by the end of this year, we need to implement Gaining-Led switching in the UK. I'm not sure if that has any kind of positive implications on the implementation. Just any thoughts, that would be great. Thank you very much.
Well, I'll look at it. BT will make the decisions that needs to make in the context of its own financial picture. And I think they will build. We anticipate they will continue to roll out fiber and they could. I don't know that their announcements are commentary today. If there's anything really more or less confirming what they anticipated, then they should be leading into this element of their business. And I think they'll probably do that.
So I don't believe it changes it necessarily. And to be honest, with the second question, I'm not sure I fully understood the download of the details. I mean, what the media accelerating is, it's more of a convergence, right? The more customers we have to competition. All right. Okay. And with that, we will let you get back to your day. Always appreciate you participating in these calls and your support. You're excited about this deal that goes without saying. Creating an FMC championship, a champion with incredible synergy. It's a great ball of confidence for us and for Telefónica in the UK. So we're excited to get it going. And I would just like to say stay well. Stay healthy. Stay safe. And we'll speak soon.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the Liberty Global's Q1 2020 Investor Call.
As a reminder, replay of the call will be available in the investor relations section of Liberty Global's website. There you can also find a copy of today's presentation material.