Mike, thank you for joining us.
Thanks for having me. Can you hear me okay?
You-
Yeah, great.
Think so, yeah. You were here last year. It was very inspiring, so excited to have you again.
Inspiring.
I thought it was.
It's working.
Yeah.
That's the threshold for being reinvited.
Yeah, exactly. It has to be inspiring. I mean, you're also a man who needs no introduction, but I do wanna make one point up front to sort of, let's say, scope the discussion a little bit. In your role as Chairman and CEO of Liberty Global, yes, you run one of Europe's largest telco operators, but you're also a, let's call it majority owner, but also activist investor in info technology firms like AtlasEdge, in media companies, in tech companies like Formula E, ElevenLabs, Univision. You have an incredibly broad view of the market as a whole, tech, media, telco, and I'd love to get a bit more into the sort of beyond telco space with you today as well.
Great. Sounds good. I don't think this is on, but I'll speak loudly.
You're on now.
It's on now.
It's on now.
Great. Okay.
Let's start with telco.
Sure.
We were here last year. We started off by talking about pressure on margins, pressure on shareholder returns, and I think sentiment has indeed improved on the industry as a whole. I said it this morning in sort of the opening words, I think the complexity one has to navigate as a telco leader has also increased.
Yeah.
With that come massive opportunities, challenges and opportunities. AI, how do you scale it? Maximizing ROI on your infrastructure investments, deepening your customer relationships. Where do you see the biggest opportunities to drive meaningful growth for the next, say, two, to three years for integrated telcos? Where's Liberty sort of playing in that space?
Yeah. Well, we're playing where everybody's playing, let's start with that. It is still a challenging industry. Let's be clear. You're following it all day, every day, you're working with us on various projects. You know, we're still too fragmented. Regulators are still too, you know, over-regulated. That's clear. So there's a handful of things that I think still create headwinds in our sector. Having said that, you know, I think the narrative is starting to change, and you can see that in stock prices, right? Stocks are up 20% year to date, 70% in the last two years. The sector is starting to catch a tailwind, which it needs and deserves, in my opinion. Why does it deserve that? Couple of reasons.
Unlike our friends, hyperscalers, CapEx is starting to decline, and we're seeing the end of that tunnel. They're just going into the tunnel. It's a little bit of karma, I think, actually. We're coming out of that tunnel, and that's a positive thing for free cash flow for the basic economics of our business. That's number one. I think regulators, you look at the CMA here and the structural changes that they've made, are starting to back off a little bit. The Digital Networks Act in Europe, these are starting to show some potential for less regulation, which is super critical. I think AI is gonna be transformational. If anybody's telling you different, they're not being straight with you.
You know, in addition to this rotation from sort of software to hardware companies, these old school businesses like ours are all of a sudden in favor because we can't.
Mm-hmm
be disrupted by AI. We can only benefit from AI, and the benefit will be substantial. I'm sure we'll talk about that.
Mm-hmm.
There are some things that I think are positive. Our stock even up maybe 30% last couple years, 40% if you add in Sunrise. We're leaning into all the things you described. We're leaning into brands. I'm sure you've heard a lot about brands here in this conference. Multiple brands. You have to have multiple brands. We're leaning into our networks. You have to keep investing in our networks. We're leaning into differentiation because I think it's impossible to compete if you can't sell yourself as unique and differentiated. We're leaning into, as I said, AI, which is I think, you know, one of those accelerators that we'll dig into, I'm sure, as time goes by and as we talk today. It is probably underestimated.
I don't know what kind of work you're doing, James, about AI, but we can talk about where I see it, but it's probably underestimated as a benefit.
Let's pick that up now, actually. AI, so it's reshaping how consumers interact with telcos, what's possible. How do you think about it? Maybe taking sort of a one-year versus a three- or five-year lens. You said it's transformational.
Yeah.
What does that mean for you?
Our industry is sort of the poster child for AI. Why is that? We have massive inefficiencies. We have massive software dependencies. I think we're only 20% on the cloud in our workflow, in workflows.
Mm-hmm.
We're poster child for all of the things that are percolating. We're doing quite a bit. I mean, you would've heard from all of the telcos up here the same things. We're really excited about call centers. Yes, we are. We're super excited about, you know, optimizing network design, reducing consumption of power, anticipating outages. 90% of our employees are using AI every day. That's all great stuff, but I'll tell you, it's super marginal stuff. I've said this before. It's gonna add up to $hundreds of millions, and we want that. We'll take that. You know, the capability gap that exists today, the OpenAI CFO in Davos the other day was saying it's 10x, meaning we're only utilizing a tenth of what this technology can do for us.
You know, I sat with another big tech CEO, and I said to him, you may have heard this as well, but I got $14 billion of OpEx. I'd like it to be $7 billion. I wanna take $14 billion- $7 billion. That's transformation.
Yeah.
Right?
I would like that.
... would get on our Strong Buy.
Yeah.
It can be done. It will be done. You know, there will be, you know, a few areas of our business that we will take massive chunks out of the cost. It'll be beneficial for sales, for revenue, for retention, for churn, all those things as well. But I think the real benefits will be in how we operate our business. You know, to me, that's the exciting bit. We're working on that every day. That's a big part of what we're doing.
Fantastic. Thanks. I mean, given we're talking about, I suppose, kind of AI and everything that can happen here and the benefits for you, there are also potentially also benefits for some of your kind of challenges.
Yeah
... and maybe kind of new entrants that are potentially coming into the sector, and we've seen some of the kind of fintech players come in now and kind of MVNO role, maybe kind of Revolut here within the U.K. I mean, when you think about the competitive advantages you have as a business, how do you see yourself kind of defending yourself against maybe some of these AI new entrants that?
Yeah
that could be coming into the industry?
Well, look, we know the MVNO space well. We're the largest MVNO provider in this market with Tesco, Giffgaff, and Sky. You know, Revolut's an awesome digital neobank, but they're an old school MVNO, and they're feeling the pressure and this challenge without. There's nothing digital or AI about their mobile launch. In fact, there are no AI-native mobile companies I'm aware of, so I'm not saying it won't happen someday.
Yep.
Revolut launching in our market is about as far from an AI-driven launch as you're gonna find. It's just old school MVNO, and they're having integration challenges. It's a highly defensive move, trying to you know, maintain a sub base. I mean, I get why they're doing it, but it's not offensive. It's not AI native. It's just a brand, a great brand, by the way. So they're you know, taking advantage of that brand and that's great, and we'll compete and do what we need to do and find other folks to join our networks as MVNOs if that's exciting to them. What advantages do we have? Number one, we own the network, so our ability to pace innovation, to anticipate innovation, to drive innovation that benefits us is first and foremost.
MVNO doesn't have that. That's point one. Secondly, we have a huge customer base, and our customers, we can work with them. We know what they need. We can evolve with them technologically, commercially, and that's a huge advantage. I think we're using AI in an offensive way, not a defensive way. We're using it to drive revenue, to reduce, to increase margin. These are things that, I think we have unique capability to do. There's plenty of advantages. There will be new entrants. That's the nature of our sector, but I don't see them having any advantage over us, at least when it comes to AI.
You just talked there about innovation, and I suppose one area where you've just recently been very innovative is the Virgin partnership deal with Starlink.
Yeah.
How do you see kind of LEO networks fitting into your overall world of connectivity?
I think, first of all, let's just take Starlink. It's a tale of two technologies. There is the broadband business, which is a business.
Yep.
10 million subs, 160 countries, 10,000 satellites. He's gonna go. It's a decent product, you know. It's expensive in this country, and it has applications, maritime, aerospace, rural, mobile backhaul, you know. In certain constructs you can even get more speed out of it. It's a real product, and it's gonna be around for a long time. However, I think he's playing a different game. He's playing the game of a small number multiplied by a big number, i.e., 7 billion people, 8 billion, you know, is a big number. He doesn't need a lot of penetration for that business to work, and that's great. Yeah, I think it's. Is it a replacement for what we're doing in the center of London? No. Will there be an application for that? Absolutely. I think that's.
You know, that is what it is. The direct-to-device business, very different. Highly dependent. You know, to get the O2 satellite product that we launched, which you referenced, we had to loan him spectrum. He does not have spectrum in every country.
Mm-hmm.
To do the direct-to-device business, you need to borrow spectrum from an MNO like us, and it's an edge case. You know, we go to 94% coverage. We charge you GBP 3. It's a safety, security thing, and it has a real market moment, but it's not a disruptor. I think the physics of the satellites when it comes to devices will never reach a point where it's gonna. I think he said the same thing publicly. Now, I can't believe what he says half the time, but he has said it. It's even in the U.S., where they have 45 MHz of spectrum. I think they're gonna. I think 2%-4% penetration is all they can actually realize. The direct-to-device business, heavily dependent on spectrum. He has it in the U.S.
He has it only if you loan it to him in this market. He might acquire other. It needs a lot more than he's gonna get to be a replacement product.
I hear you about, on, you know, could satellite on the broadband side challenge what you have here in urban London? No. How much of, like, when you look at your cable networks around Europe, do you see exposure maybe, in any of the suburban areas where it could become more of a threat, or do you think just because of where your networks are physically located, you are better protected against that kind of broadband threat?
We're generally not in rural markets. There aren't a lot of fixed operators who are prioritizing rural markets. I'd say from that point of view, we're seeing not very much of it. I read today GBP 75 for 400 megabits. I mean, that's a lot of dough, and you got the kit, and it doesn't work in all cases, and it's weather dependent, and et cetera, et cetera. I think it's gonna struggle to replace fiber and HFC, but there is a market for it, for people who, you know, either live on the edge, and I think in that case it's a great business model. He's gonna make a lot of money.
What about other wireless technologies? I mean, at 4:00 today we've got Christian, the CTO from A1 Telekom Austria-
Yeah
... speaking, that's a market where FWA has been a kind of quite a success.
Mm.
What are you seeing, you know, kind of in the, let's say in the Netherlands with Odido starting to push FWA a bit, Vodafone here in the U.K. talking about it? Do you see that starting to kind of encroach on your business at all?
Not yet. I mean, listen, I think the fixed wireless access has a lot of buzz in the U.S., but in the U.S., remember, there's no wholesale access, so if I wanna launch, you know, product, I'm not gonna get on Verizon's network or AT&T's network or Comcast's network. I'm not allowed on it. They also have more spectrum in the U.S. That's a big benefit for them to be able to launch a viable product and not eat into their mobile product. ARPU's are very high.
Mm.
You have all the conditions, I think, to make fixed wireless a product in America. You don't have those conditions here, sadly. ARPUs are very low. It's very largely a denser market, at least in the core markets that we operate in. Spectrum, we're not spectrum rich, we're spectrum poor, and to use that spectrum for fixed wireless access is going to impact your 5G, 4G business. I think in the markets we're in, 1%-2% penetration is what we see today. I don't think it's a winner long term. We've got bigger fish to fry when it comes to competition. Yeah.
Got it. Clear. Let's pivot a little bit and talk about just kind of capital strategy, 'cause obviously since we were here a year ago-
Yeah
You've made some big changes. You know, the Sunrise deal is now kind of well and truly successfully behind us, but you've announced the Ziggo kind of spinoff as the next big step. Trying to think now kind of step beyond that, I mean, how does that inform more your thinking on what the next chapter could be in the Liberty structure? Do you, I mean, do you see more spins to come? Be interesting about how you think about your portfolio development over time.
We were kind of backed into this, is how I would look at it. Now there's a Liberty tradition of spinning businesses off. If they're not being valued fairly in a conglomerate structure, give them to your shareholders and let them value them. It's what we did with Sunrise. Nobody in the research community had $9 a share on the Sunrise stock in our stock. Nobody. When we put $4 billion of cash in and spun it out, you now have a $13 dividend, tax-free. That's value creation. If you're a shareholder, that's value creation. I could argue like many of my peers, "Well, but if I own it, I can synergize it, and so all these benefits." Not true. There are no benefits. In the end, giving it, you know, a life of its own.
Yep
... is a way to, you know, deliver value to shareholders. That is a model that's worked for 25 years in John's world, and it's working well for us. We've spun out Latin America. Sunrise, will there be more? Yes. And will Ziggo Group be an asset that we look to build and unleash and unlock? Absolutely. Will it work? I'm certain of it. Why? It has a lot of the same characteristics as some of these irrational markets. Largely reasonable competition. We're gonna have 100 people building fiber in Holland. We're only gonna have one person building fiber in Belgium, either us or Proximus, so rational as can be. We've got, you know, I think real strong brands in these markets, and we have a prospect or a chance to generate real cash flow, real free cash flow to pay dividends.
By the way, Sunrise was a public company. We took it private, we brought it out to the market. People love it. Ziggo was a public company, you may remember.
Mm-hmm.
We took it private.
Yep
built this great group. We're gonna bring it back. It has a history. People understand the company as a public company, and I think investors have made it clear, if you can give us a clean story with dividends today and tomorrow, and in a market that's largely rational, that's worth something. Now, you know what it's worth in my stock today? -4 . I don't need it to be worth $14. Just give me one or two or three.
Yep.
-4 is where I think I'm getting in my stock, and you've said I deserve it, by the way. I read your stuff on the way over here. I'm-
I knew I was getting a dressing down.
Yeah.
I just wasn't quite sure.
Well, I just said to me.
It took this long to get there.
Serious stuff, what do you really think?
Yeah.
The truth is, to get from -4, give me five, give me six, give me 10. My point is, there's something there in these businesses. We will delever them. They will generate free cash. I think that is an opportunity for investors if you own our shares. The buyback we did has paid off. We spent $14 billion-$15 billion buying back stock. If you own 1% of Liberty, you own 2.5% of Sunrise today, and that will accrue to investors who have been hanging around our stock as well in Ziggo, when Ziggo Group goes public. I'm encouraged by it.
You mentioned that there could be other spins to come. I mean, how do we think about that practically? Is that, I mean, obviously the big asset you own is Virgin Media O2, so is that something you have in mind? Is that possible while you're only a 50% shareholder in the asset, or does-
Well-
that need to change for a spin to happen?
We, if we wanted to, we could spin our 50%.
You can? Okay, yeah.
Great move, we could do it. We would need Telefónica's cooperation to spin the company to our respective shareholders. We'll see. I think this is the longest pole in the tent. We have work to do in this market structurally, commercially, and I think ultimately we will sort this one out too.
Can I just loop back to the Ziggo Group point? 'Cause you announced some significant, call them synergies potential for the group. We know that on both sides, Netherlands and Belgium, there have been also a concerted effort on AI and operations and commercial. Can you talk a little bit more around your view on the synergies with the group?
What we said publicly is we think we can get to $500 million of free cash in this group. We're at, I think we made it public, $120 this year is our guidance, so how do we get another $380 million of free cash? Synergies will be substantial, bigger than we realized initially. There will be CapEx declines, especially in Belgium, where their mobile upgrade is essentially done this year, so that will have a huge impact. Then there's EBITDA growth, some one-offs that will unwind, and just, you know, performing better in Holland because we took the EBITDA down to reestablish a competitive profile. That comes back.
It's not that hard to get from 120 to 500 by 2028, and we think maybe even sooner. The synergies are what you'd expect. There's financial synergies. I'll just leave it at that. There are operational synergies, you know, tech, supplier, procurement. We think the synergy story when we fully develop that will be substantial. We expect to close the deal in July in terms of buying Vodafone, and we'll be, you know, day one, we'll be working on that.
Have you given as part of that, I mean, a big part of the kind of Sunrise deal was also then the kind of dividend story as part of the spin. Have you given any thoughts yet as to what you can say around a dividend on the Ziggo Group spin?
You should expect that if we're gonna spin that asset, it will include a dividend. In Sunrise case, we're 70% of free cash. That might be a good metric. You know, that to me that's definitely part of the story.
That's within the 4.5x .
Yeah
kind of leverage as well.
We get to 4.5x by we're selling assets, right?
Yep.
We're selling a stake in our Belgian fiber company. We'll have towers in Holland we haven't monetized, property we haven't monetized. There'll be free cash flow to de-lever. There's a handful of things that'll drive de-leverage for us.
Hopefully, you also read in the taxi over, if you're reading my research, that I was hugely applauding the nexfibre transaction.
Yes
... as a kind of, I think a very
There's a couple of digs in there. Yeah, you were.
You know, generally we're going the right direction. Anyway, that looked like, I think, a great deal. I think, you know, it was a kind of accretive deal for you, value for you at the Liberty Global level. I mean, is that a kind of template you see that there is scope for further altnet consolidation here going forward?
I hope so. I hope so. I think, you know, there's been commentary around the price. How do we reconcile the price? We're paying GBP 600 per fiber home. I think that's a third of what CityFibre has invested per fiber home. Feels like a good price to me.
Yep.
It's a great deal for VMO2. I think you had questioned that. Is this a value transfer somehow to Nexfibre? I don't believe so. VMO2 is getting GBP 1 billion of cash to de-lever. They're getting 500,000 customers to integrate into their platform. They're getting CapEx avoidance on 4 million homes. They're getting a stake in Nexfibre, new Nexfibre, and they're getting the ability and the control over the monetization of a 20 million fiber home footprint. That's their job. That's a pretty good outcome for VMO2, and it's a great outcome for the market. We're, you know, unlocking new capital into the market. There's no question this is smart and necessary in this, you know, fragmented altnet space.
Anybody who complains, I think it's sour grapes, you know, really, 'cause CityFibre was trying to do the same deal, so I'm not sure how it's a different outcome really for Nexfibre versus CityFibre. It should be a Phase One approval. That's clear in my mind. You know, the government has talked about, you know, transforming regulation in this country, working at pace, not stifling innovation and growth. This is a test case for that. There's no theory of harm here that stands up. I can tell you, all the counterfactuals are bad. Maybe we stop building fiber. Nexfibre stops building fiber. Only counterfactual that's certain is BT gets stronger, as far as I'm concerned. Who's gonna build a scale-based competitor to BT Openreach? Who's gonna do that? Who has the capital, the wherewithal, the customers?
I don't think there's anybody else. The government should see this as a net positive for sure.
No, I agree. That means, I mean, you've said that kind of Nexfibre as a result is going to 8 million homes.
Right.
I mean, from what you were just saying there, is that more of a kind of stepping stone and longer term you would hope and have ambitions it could then scale up further from that?
What I meant was Nexfibre is at 8 million, and including the 4 million homes that get transferred over from VMO2 in terms of the traffic from 4 mil-
Yep
VMO2 is left with 12 million homes. Together, there will be a branded wholesale provider on those 20 million homes.
Yep.
Two separate companies owning the 20, but a single brand promoting and marketing that footprint.
Clear. Okay.
That's how I see it.
Okay.
Small pivot. Liberty Growth. We said at the beginning we would go there in a little bit. You've taken majority control of Formula E. It's a very cool proposition, I think with the new cars especially, super exciting. With AtlasEdge, you're sort of in the middle of the sovereign infrastructure debate in Europe. Where will this portfolio go? What is your plan to drive value there? I think last year we also poured a bit of cold water on the point of synergies with the core, which makes sense. I think that probably hasn't changed. Where's the value in your eyes over the next few years?
Yeah. Well, we have three verticals. It's about a $3.4 billion portfolio today. Infrastructure, tech, and media content. They're all intriguing. I think we have a great track record in all three of them. Tech is a, you know, kind of funds itself. We're in startups, venture capital. This is real tech, and there is some synergy with what we're doing. ElevenLabs.
Yeah
... you mentioned that. What we have to decide in tech is this something we do for the next 10 years or do we partner? Do we capitalize it? You know, it's $400 million-$500 million of great stuff. They kind of eat what they kill. Many when they sell, they can invest, but they're not using our capital. How, what's the best way to monetize, value that business? In the infrastructure side, as you mentioned, with AtlasEdge and EdgeConneX, the stuff we're doing in energy, it's right down the middle of what we do. There's lots of opportunity, for now anyhow, it feels like lots of opportunity to build data centers and metro fiber and, you know, energy, suppliers. That's a business we have to decide how much capital we can afford to really drive that business. It's, it's...
Fortunately, we're sitting on high returns. I think in the EdgeConneX case, maybe we've got $100 million in it. It's worth five or six. We've taken money out. In the case of AtlasEdge, a little more in it, but it's also been a 20%-30% IRR. Infrastructure is something we're good at, we understand really well, and we have to decide how do we capitalize that and grow that and stay present in that. In the middle is the trickier bit. You know, a lot of the content assets we own are things we've owned for a long time. We exited All 3Media for GBP 1 billion. We're starting to sell our ITV stake. You're reading that. Love these companies, but there is no.
You know, we're not so sure where we fit, owning 10% of a company or, you know, being in the production business. There, we're much more interested in what we would call the experience economy. Formula E is a perfect example. Sports platform, one of eight global sports leagues on the planet, and we own it, and I think it's got great tailwinds, great potential, great opportunity. We'd like to do more of those if we can, and we'll see if we can. There's no guarantee that we'll find something or that we're, you know, that it's the right thing for us. This portfolio, according to some analysts, is, you know, $10 a share on a $12 stock.
For me to say, "Ah, I don't really wanna talk about it," or for an analyst or an investor to say, "Nah, that stuff over there, I really wish you weren't doing it," it's $10 of my $12. I need to manage it, grow it, exit it, monetize it. It's definitely worthy of conversation. What we do going forward to build it out will be, you know. We'll see, but it'll only be smart stuff, I think. I don't think there's anything to, you know.
What about Liberty Services? I mean, with Liberty Tech, you're in the
Yeah
let's say services, products business
Liberty Tech
Liberty Blume especially would be very interesting to.
Yeah. Liberty Tech is very much an inside thing.
Mm-hmm.
We have about $500 million of revenue we collect from our opcos, even Sunrise. By the way, when we spun Sunrise, they still. You know, we have a very strong contractual relationship on technology. We do their treasury work. There's a strong strategic relationship. Andre's still part of my core management team. He comes to my offsites. We're spinning them, but they're still very much in the fold, in the family. I think it's. Now I've lost track of your question, but.
The value story behind Liberty Services.
Yeah. Okay
including Blume, because I think
When we combine tech services, the Blume side of it is-
Yeah
... about $100 million of financial services, and there we've decided maybe they can do that for other people.
Yeah
Third parties and so that we'll see how that unfolds.
leverage some of the domain knowledge you-
Yeah
you have in the industry, which I think is.
Yeah
Super interesting. Yeah. Okay. Maybe closing thoughts. I'm sort of looking at the clock. We have about two or three minutes left. You're a telco operator in Europe. Majority of your investments are in Europe. What gives you the greatest confidence in the European telco and tech sector, and what needs to change for you to make the most of it?
I don't think you can do that in two and a half minutes.
I know. I'm sorry.
I mean, the European telco and tech sector, you know, needs a kick in the pants if you're comparing it to the U.S., China, and everybody who operates in it knows that. I was just at the, you know, Mobile World Congress, and basically we go there to complain to regulators about how difficult things are, and I think it can be better, and I think it will be better. I think, you know, this digital sovereignty point, it initially bothered me a lot. A year ago, I was talking about it, and most people went, "What is that?" It bothers me a bit today, you know, less so today, 'cause I see it as an opportunity for us and our infrastructure to be part of those solutions, so that's exciting. I think this is where we started.
There are tailwinds in our industry, but there are things we need to do better, right? What do we need to do better? We need to move fast. You're seeing it and you know it. The pace at which technology's evolving, AI is evolving, disruption is evolving, is like nothing we've ever seen before. The old school telco mindset, "Yeah, I got a few quarters to figure this out," or, "I can launch this in nine months," or, "Give me 18 months," that's gone. We have to start thinking differently, and to do that, we need different talent. Let's be clear. We need different talent. I'm not really hiring a lot of people from other telcos. I'm hiring them from big tech. I'm hiring them from other sectors.
We definitely need that, and I think we have to find a way to remove these dependencies. We're highly dependent. Regulators for sure, we've gotta remove that, but also on massive software companies. There's a reason why software's trading off. We're spending a lot of time figuring how to get off the stack, you know, to chop the stack, burn the stack, because we spend massive amounts of money with these companies, and it is old school money. In this world, as fast as AI is moving and the speed at which it's developing, we can take advantage. There will be better, faster, cheaper ways to do the very same things that will result in significant reduction of cost. If we can remove those dependencies carefully, appropriately, quickly, I think you're gonna see a seismic shift in our economics.
Great. Thank you.