Millicom has reported a solid set of results with improving service revenue trends, a nice reversal in Home Broadband nets adds (driven by Colombia) and strong EFCF this quarter. The company has lifted its FY24 guidance for EFCF to ~$650m from “more than $600m previously” – though consensus is close to this level for FY24.
Liberty LA will report Q3s in early November with focus largely on Puerto Rico and monthly EBITDA. Relative to the recovery aspiration by YE of $45m per month, we think they’ll be some way off (so does consensus) and performance of the bonds and, to a less degree the equity (LCPR equity is implied at zero we think), will be driven by commentary on momentum in the newly launched products.
Drawing on the work of our colleague Chris Hoare (HERE for Africa), we broaden out our EM analysis of market concentration in wireless. LatAm screens well, in the largest market of Brazil (5 to 3 consolidation) but crucially also for the smaller caps of Millicom and – best in class – Liberty Latin America which remain the two top picks in the sector.
A series of transactions, involving four separate parties, have been proposed by Millicom (and with a MOU with Telefonica) which could take the patchy Colombian telco market to an effective duopoly, with Millicom as a strong no2. The deal could yet stumble (multiple parties, involves a formal privatization, regulation), will take a little while to consummate, leaves question marks over WOM (which filed for protection locally in April), but we think can comfortably create over $1 billion of syner...
Liberty LA announced this week that AMX will take control of their 50/50 JV in Chile. This isn’t surprising but still cements a good “exit” for Liberty LA (putting zero value on the residual 9% stake this implies a 15.5x exit on FY 23 VTR EBITDA) and requiring a long-term perspective from AMX in order to turnaround the business - though we note recent top line and KPIs look to be (finally) stabilising.
Following strong Q1s last week we have pushed our target to $30, from $24. Underlying upgrades are 5-6% at EBITDA and we have trimmed capex further. Partly mitigating factors are 1/ We have cut our expectation for a dividend from Honduras, and 2/ Built in a 50% likelihood of a devaluation in Bolivia, though this doesn’t appear very imminent (we include in our valuation, not in estimates)
Liberty LA Q1 24 was always going to be a difficult print and we saw this in the Puerto Rico numbers, with revenue hit by much lower equipment sales (lower commercial efforts) and EBITDA by even higher than expected integration costs. With that said, the integration has now been completed, and a “restored” PR monthly EBITDA guide of $45m has been reiterated for during H2 ($23m in Q1) which with integration eliminated, the TSA almost entirely falling away, cost savings (10% headcount reduction) a...
Having published a couple of days ago and highlighted T-Mobile’s early-March FWA launch in Puerto Rico we want to clarify what may be an important nuance – Liberty PR cut prices not immediately following the early March FWA launch, as we first understood, but rather had cut toward the end of last year (October) on digital channels only. As such the FWA launch prices are approximate to Liberty’s digital offers (a small discount), Liberty hasn’t needed to respond thus far, and while we still see s...
We hosted a call with Liberty LA’s CFO, Chris Noyes, last week which focused on the very strong operational performance at CWC/Costa Rica, and the imminent turnaround in Puerto Rico (full migration off AT&T from April). We feel good about momentum here, though have cut underlying revenue a touch in Puerto Rico to reflect recently lowered fixed prices in response to T-Mobile’s FWA early March launch. We will watch this closely but with PR fixed BB ~6% of group revenue we don’t think it materially...
Liberty LA numbers last night were in-line, a mix of very weak Puerto Rico and very strong profitability in the Caribbean and Panama. We think most focus, however, will be on the new FCF guide (2024-26) - breaking from a 1-year outlook - which we attempt to break down in this note. It feels achievable and is only a touch below our existing estimates once we adjust for the refinancing assumption (for the 2027-29 debt stack) embedded in the guide.
Liberty LA reported Q3s after close. Headline numbers were solid (2% ahead at EBITDA in fact) though this masked 1/ A very strong performance at CWC (Caribbean, Networks, Panama), 2/ What look to be structurally lower HQ costs (including lower personnel costs), but 3/ A weaker margin on even tougher integration woes in Puerto Rico than the market feared (and exacerbated by iPhone 15 subsidies).
Liberty LA reported Q2s after close. Numbers were a touch light at revenue, with Puerto Rico wireless still a concern, but strong at EBITDA (5% ahead of us), driven by Panama synergies supporting CWC margins. FCF improved into Q2, allowing for minority dividends, which should help alleviate concern for FY numbers, as should the reiteration of all FY 23 guidance.
Millicom Q2s trends reported yesterday were weak, though within the parameters pre-guided to at the end of June. Perhaps most striking is the leverage of 3.34x as of Q2 which, including existing and potential Colombian spectrum liabilities (1.9 GHz and AWS), rises to nearer 3.75x. The solve for this could come from a deal in Colombia, though we will need 6-12 months to see whether this is approved ...
Following a similar initiative in Europe, we are picking up closer coverage of the high yield names in LatAm. In part there is a capital structure overlap with existing equities under coverage (Liberty LA and Millicom) but we have also separately engaged on new names: WOM in Chile (wireless, FTTH) and Totalplay in Mexico (FTTH). Our detailed understanding of these additional names should reinforce understanding of the relevant regional equities also (AMX, Megacable, Televisa).
A flurry of activity. Millicom last night announced that discussions with Apollo regarding an offer for all of Millicom shares are off. This comes 24 hours after the announcement of a MOU between Telefonica and Millicom to merge their mobile networks in Colombia (in reality a pretty "full" merger potentially) AND the latest news on a 5G auction date in December.
VTR in Chile – LILA’s contribution to the ClaroVTR JV with AMX but which excludes Claro - last night disclosed Q1s. On the plus side, fixed service revenue looks to have almost stabilized given an increase in sequential ARPU, though EBITDA margins continued to fall – to 15% in the quarter – on rising cost.
We’ve just sat through almost 3 hours of back-to-back earnings calls with DT and Liberty Global. While they don’t necessarily really overlap (except that we like both and the share price and our target price for both are almost identical), we draw our key takeaways from both calls into a single update.
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