Good morning, ladies and gentlemen and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Liberty Global's Third Quarter 2024 Investor Call. This call and the associated webcast are the property of Liberty Global and any redistribution, retransmission, or rebroadcast of this call or webcast in any form without the expressed written consent of Liberty Global is strictly prohibited. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Today's formal presentation materials can be found under the Investor Relations' section of Liberty Global's website at libertyglobal.com. After today's formal presentation, instructions will be given for a question-and-answer session. Page 2 of the slides 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's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recently 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 any conditions on which any such statement is based. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Mike Fries.

Hello everyone and thanks for joining us today. As usual, we've got a lot of ground to cover and some pretty positive developments in our strategic plans to discuss with you. I'm going to kick it off with a handful of slides and then turn it over to Charlie to review our financial results. Of course, after that, we'll get to your questions, and I've got the full management team online with me today who will chime in as needed. So, let me start on the first slide with some Q3 highlights. I think as you'll see, while we had a good operational quarter, this update here focuses entirely on our strategic plans since there's really nothing more important right now than the work we're doing to drive value recognition in our share price. I'm sure you'd all agree. In February, we announced a handful of initiatives to do just that, and we've made substantial progress on each of them. By far, the most impactful today is the pending spinoff of our Swiss subsidiary, Sunrise, which is now scheduled for November 12th after 99% approval of the transaction at our EGM last week. I'm sure you're all following this, but the average analyst today has an CHF8.2 billion enterprise value on Sunrise. After adjustments for reduced debt levels, that results in the CHF3.6 billion equity value, which is $4.2 billion or roughly $12 per Liberty share. That valuation is underpinned by several factors, not the least of which is the intention to pay a CHF240 million tax advantaged dividend in mid-2025 and a progressive dividend policy thereafter. It's also important to point out that despite theoretically representing nearly 60% of our stock price today, according to analysts, Sunrise only represents 20% of our proportionate EBITDA and what we now call…

Thanks Mike. The next slide sets out a summary of the quarterly revenue and EBITDA performance in our four key markets. We saw broadly stable revenue and EBITDA across all the OpCos, with the exception of Virgin Media O2, which experienced a decline in both revenue and EBITDA. Sunrise reported a revenue decline of 1.3%, driven largely by the annualization of last year's July price rise and partially offset by continued momentum in mobile subscriptions and B2B revenue. Telenet delivered stable revenue in Q3, driven by the one-off impact and the recognition of previously deferred revenues that's around $18 million. And this was partially offset by a decrease in mobile revenue due to soft handset sales and a decrease in B2B wholesale revenues related to the loss of the VOO MVNO contract. Virgin Media O2 reported a revenue decline of 4.5%, excluding the impact of the nexfibre construction, and this was driven by continued headwinds in low-margin hardware and B2B fixed revenues. It was also impacted by the comparison with Q3 2023, when there was a one-off $48 million item. Despite these challenges, mobile service revenue and fixed service revenue remained stable again in Q3 and indeed year-to-date. And Virgin Media O2 maintained positive fixed revenue growth in Q3, supported by ARPU growth of 2.2% year-on-year. VodafoneZiggo delivered stable revenue driven by continued growth in mobile and B2B fixed revenues, and offset by a decline in the B2C fixed customer base and a step down from the larger fixed price rises from 2023. Moving on to our Q3 adjusted EBITDA performance. Sunrise reported stable adjusted EBITDA growth, driven by lower cost to capture and a decrease in labor costs, which offset the decrease in revenue. Telenet delivered adjusted EBITDA growth of 5.2% in Q3, and this was driven by continued…

The question-and-answer session will be conducted electronically. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Robert Grindle with Deutsche Bank. Robert, your line is now open. Robert, your line is now open.

Hi and thank you for taking us away from the U.K. budget. Look, I think there's a little bit of bad news for you on mix. But my question is on U.K. fiber, depending on how many Upp homes were incorporated. Organic build is perhaps closer to 200,000 homes in Q3 versus close to 300,000. Is this a change in momentum? Or just that it takes some effort to incorporate the Upp build? And at the same time, VMO2 fiber upgrade speed also seems to be modest versus your targets. Is there a tipping point on both builds, pending a U.K. NetCo wholesale deal? Or is it just the ebb and flow of the business? Thanks.

Lutz, welcome back. You want to answer that. Lutz Schüler: Yes, sure. So, we have built close to 300,000 nexfibre premises in the last quarter, which is not really a slowdown, Robert. And I think on Fibre Upp, we have not disclosed the number. But overall, we are absolutely on plan to meet our internal budget. So, I think we haven't disclosed Fibre Upp numbers, but the overall Fibre Upp number is higher than last year. And we are on our way to implement that. So, there's no slowdown at all in any build. Neither on Fibre Upp, nor or nexfibre. And yes, it seems that NI will hit a bit our P&L, but let's see.

Yes. One addition there, Rob, there's I don't believe there's any Upp customers if you're referring to the acquisition of the altnet in the year-to-date figures. That's more of a Q4 and onwards. So I don't believe they've been impacted at all by the integration of Upp. That was your question.

Okay, many thanks. Welcome back, Lutz. Lutz Schüler: Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Maurice Patrick with Barclays. Maurice, your line is now open.

Yes, good morning guys. Also, great, Lutz, to have you back. A couple for me, the quite dull modeling questions. But the first one is just to understand where 2024 central cash ends up. So, if you start with your sort of $3.5 billion number that you gave for 3Q 2024. Just the moving parts. I think you have things like, for example, $120 million of Venture sales, you've got $220 million cash out performance for Formula E, presuming that's a Sunrise, $1.4 billion, so more buybacks. So, just the moving parts to help us work out where you'll end up around Q4 will be helpful. And the second question, just on the Sunrise EV. It's obviously a very topical time with the spend that you're doing. I mean, you cite the number of CHF8.2 billion being a consensus of analysts. But I'm just curious to understand that the CHF8.2 billion makes adjustments for things like, for example, the $30 million TSA that I think Sunrise will pay Liberty post the spin. If you adjust for things like LTIPs, I think Sunrise will pay $25 million, $30 million a year, LTIP, for example. Just help us understand what's in the CHF8.2 billion? Thank you.

Listen, I think on the CHF8.2 billion, Maurice, you're going to have to go to the analysts themselves. That's not a number that we're calculating or telling you is something we've arrived at. We're just taking the actual numbers that the analysts themselves have looked at. The $30 million, I think, is well understood and frankly, it was always embedded. And I don't know how they're treating LTIPs above or below the line. But Michael, if you may have some general comments on those -- on that question, if you want to address it, you can quickly.

Yes. Thanks Mike. I think you summed it up. It's just a general average of where we can see Sunrise valuations in the analysts' sum of the parts growth into the CMD and then for a number of analysts who published standalone reports after the CMD. And as you say, Maurice, I think most of those points were brought out of the CMD and largely factored in. I think also to be fair, it's underpinned by this essentially tax-efficient dividend yield, which is well cut, to be fair, on a free cash flow of CHF360 million to CHF370 million, this is a CHF240 million commitment next year. That's a pretty good coverage ratio. So, I think that's the key anchor for the valuation.

Do you want to address cash question?

Yes. So, I think, look, our cash liquidity will be in excess of $2 billion, probably a little bit higher, actually. But that probably doesn't include the liquid stakes where we have very liquid securities, ITV, Vodafone, Lionsgate. So, you can make a case that our cash liquidity is nearly $2.5 billion. And one could argue that on a proforma market cap of $3 billion, that again highlights Mike's point about there's a lot of value to unlock here.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Joshua Mills with BNP Paribas. Joshua your line is now open.

Hi there. thanks for taking the questions. I'd like to ask Stephen actually a couple of things on VODZiggo having recently joined the business. I was interested going through the first comments you've made in your press release related to that business. And in that, you talked about your confidence in restoring the best network experience at VodafoneZiggo. I think it's obvious, from the comments and also the results, that you've been losing share and cutting price over the past few years with KPN and the altnets have ramped up their fiber builds. So, my question is, what do you think you need to do with this business in order to stabilize, if not grow the subscriber base going forward? Is it a case of upgrading DOCSIS 4.0? Do you need to invest in more fiber? And how do you get back to growth? And perhaps if I could just take a second kind of part to that question. You talked on the call about value over volume in the Dutch market. But that value may become harder to come by as the back book price increases are now coming in lower than previous years. So, any comments you could give on how you plan to upsell customers? Perhaps any commentary on front book pricing trends as well would be welcomed. Thanks very much.

Thanks for the question. Can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

Thank you for the question. Look, I think -- great. Look, I think it's a big question, and I'll remind you, I've been in the business less than a couple of months. But I'll give it a go and give you my first observations about where we're going to spend our time focusing. So, I think first and foremost, those familiar with the marketplace will know that this is very much a promotionally-driven market at the moment and has been since they started the rollout of fiber. I think we've done pretty well actually considering the level of aggressiveness that we've seen in the marketplace on not only on fumbled pricing but on promotions. My focus has very much been and will remain in the short term, looking at how we manage churn at this point. I think we have a fabulous proposition to take our consumers, to answer part of your second question. Beyond the speed which we bring today, and we reiterate our confidence in not only the network we have today, but the roadmap that we have with DOCSIS to bring faster speeds to our customers to compete. But also with the broader part of the portfolio. We've added UEFA, as you know, which we think gives us differentiation in the marketplace. We have a brilliant TV platform, which with the Mini box we increasingly shipped to our customers, which is a fantastic and competitive experience. But also, we have, I think, so we still have headroom on FMC. We still have an incredible business in Vodafone, a great set of packages in prices. And when brought together, we think makes for a really fantastic and valuable service for our VodafoneZiggo customers. We also have Holland Vivo, which is a flanker brand that allows us to compete more directly with sort of the price, takers, the price leaders. I think we can do more with that. In terms of pricing, I don't see things changing in the short term. We see everywhere where fiber rolls out, we go through a phase of just high competitiveness as they try and fill in networks. But my priority is to focus specifically on, as I said before, managing the churn part of it by bringing our customers more value with the great proposition. And using our flanker brands to drive volume -- a bit more volume where we can. But you'll hear more on that in the sort of coming quarters as our plan for VodafoneZiggo evolves.

Thanks Stephen. Good job.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Steve Malcolm with Redburn. Steve, your line is now open.

Yes. Thanks for taking the questions. I'll go for 2 if I can. Just on sort of RemainCo shareholder distributions and thoughts on. Can you maybe just sort of give us an update on where your thinking is on that and when you might sort of come back to us and give us a clearer view on how you want to return upstream cash when the spin is done? And then on just coming back to the U.K., you mentioned the sort of the growing number of press stories or an augment distress and companies kind of almost giving up, got TalkTalk bonds trading in the kind of low 60s. Just maybe a sense from what and where we are on sort of market consolidation, whether you're seeing more companies knocking your door, whether we should expect 2025 to be a year of kind of fairly intense activity on that front? Because it feels like we're kind of waiting for the storm to hit, but it certainly hasn't quite happened yet, but that would be great? Thank you.

Yes. Thanks Steve. Listen, on the first question, chuckle because I have told everybody they're not allowed to use the word RemainCo in our company because when you do the math, actually, RemainCo is 90% as big as the current Co. So when we talk about Liberty Global going forward, minus the Sunrise business, which is a fantastic business, but relatively small in the scheme of things. It's exactly as I indicated in my prepared remarks, which is that with respect to the telecom businesses in the value creation strategy is going to look a lot like the Sunrise strategy. What do I mean by that? Well, we're going to be, first and foremost, driving commercial momentum and getting the businesses to perform the way they need to perform around revenue, EBITDA and free cash flow ultimately. Secondly, as we're doing in the U.K. and in Belgium and even in Ireland, infrastructure matters, and how we go about building, partnering, financing networks is both going to be, I think, a very positive thing for the operations, but also a positive thing for the story we're going to tell about these businesses and the end games when they arrive. And then lastly, I mentioned deleveraging into strategic transactions, whatever those might look like. I think in each case, we see opportunity to create, whether it's listed companies, spin offs or other transactions where the unrecognized value today in our stock price would be clear as a bell, just as it has become with Sunrise. I could go back and describe every analyst report from three years ago. Nobody was putting $12 on Sunrise. So, I think we have to be patient, number one, because I don't want to get people too excited that something is going to be happening next week or next month or next quarter. But on the other hand, I can promise you that there is a sense of urgency and commitment on my part and on the part of management to continue to pursue these types of opportunities where we can create transparency around valuation and for the benefit of the stock price. Yes, go ahead.

Mike, can I just sort of clarify, I'm thinking more about the sort of pace of buybacks. Obviously, the Liberty Global post-Sunrise, excuse my description of RemainCo, it's going to be a smaller company. There's going to be a bit less liquidity out there. Should we still expect 100% of organic cash flow to be used to return to buy back shares? Just the thinking around that. Clearly, you've got a 1 million opportunity out there, but just buying back stock is going to be a little bit harder because liquidity is going to be lower. Just thoughts on that would be great.

Sure. Well, buying stock might be a little harder because the market cap may be smaller though we hope it's not. On the other hand, if the market cap is smaller than we're putting less capital to work to achieve the same results. So I think the buyback for us remains an important piece of the equation. And we've historically been in that 10% range. Let's see what 2025 guidance present. But at the same time, as the company becomes smaller because we are dividending to shareholders real value, then obviously continuing to be a buyer of our stock becomes a less cash requirement, a smaller cash requirement to do that. So, I'm not going to be specific with you here about when and how and how much, except to say that I think I would argue the buyback perhaps becomes even easier when you think about cash allocation or capital allocation because the market cap could be smaller, should be smaller given the distributions that we intend to make. On the U.K., altnets, Lutz, do you want to jump in there? You heard my remarks on the call, but you can add to that anything you want. Lutz Schüler: Yes. Thank you. Well, for me, it's a bit the picture of musical chairs, right? So the music still plays, and most of the altnets are running around the table. But it becomes more and more clear that the majority of them are not sitting on a sustainable business model, right? The build costs have been too high. Penetration doesn't get where it needs to be, like some in certain niches have found their place, but the majority haven't found it. And I think what's happening is that, obviously, some of them get another funding loans. Some of them merge together and inflates both of the equity and therefore keep dreaming. And most of them are also knocking on our door, and there's conversations, but the question is the valuation, right? And so therefore, I think still it's hard to paint the picture, how will it all work out. But one thing is clear, it's not sustainable for altnets to keep doing what they are doing, right? So something will happen. And we are prepared to participate in that. We are in a very small way impacted by these massive, aggressive promotions from altnets, but also our churn didn't go through the roof, which if I turn it around, if -- right, I mean, we lost maybe 2,000, 3,000 more customers to churn this quarter, compared to a year ago, altnets can't live from that. So, therefore, I agree with Mike, the market will get more rational. But it's hard to predict these today, how it ultimately will work out. But I think we will be prepared to participate in that.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ulrich Rathe with Bernstein Societe Generale Group. Ulrich, your line is now open.

Yes, thanks very much. I wanted to ask about broadband net adds in the quarter in Switzerland and The Netherlands. So first on Switzerland. In the release, you talked about reduced churn, but you qualified that by saying you have reduced churn in the main brand. Could you comment a little bit about the flanker brand is doing in broadband in Switzerland at the moment? And the second question is on The Netherlands. There has been a slight step back in the quarter. I think in the release, you're talking about a slower quarter. The question I really have is, why is UEFA really no benefit at this point? I mean, you have started marketing it, as I understand it. Why don't we see a bigger effect than the sort of slight improvement? I think it was like 2,000 quarter-on-quarter improvement on the losses in broadband. Could you comment a little bit about what you expect from this UEFA marketing? Thank you very much.

André, you want to pick up the Swiss question first? André Krause: Sure. Yes. So on the flanker brand, we have not seen any meaningful change quarter-on-quarter. But the reality is also that this is a quite young fixed customer base, in particular. And as such, we are seeing more customers running into the first time where they can actually churn off. Hence, we see some impact on that. But it's not a meaningful impact on the total number. So in total, really what drives the positive evolution is a good inflow and also in absolute terms, the overall churn reduction that we see across the brands.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of James Ratzer with New Street Research. James, your line is now open.

Yes. Thank you [indiscernible].

Before we get to your question, a question on UEFA was asked. I want to be sure we get to that question. Stephen, do you want to address that? Sorry, the operator jumped in there. Go ahead, Stephen.

Yes, Mike. No problem. I'll get that. So first and foremost, we're very pleased in the UEFA and the way it started for us. I think you got a question is a timing issue. The first games only started at the end of August. It covers only really less than a month of our performance on UEFA. It will take some time to build. We've signed up a number of customers who are not part of VodafoneZiggo through the Sky, the Ziggo GO app, free app, which gives us a fabulous place to market to our customers. And so we did see, as you rightly mentioned, we did see some pickup in the quarter, but we haven't really seen the full force of UEFA through our marketing or through our numbers just yet. You have to wait for that.

Okay. Operator?

Yes. Thank you. Mike, can you hear me?

Yes. Got you.

Yes. Great. Yes, James here. Yes. I'd be really interested if possible, focusing on Slide 15 in your presentation pack in the appendix where you've got some helpful breakdown showing the revenue trends for consumer fixed and for consumer mobile service revenue across your four main businesses. So kind of eight metrics there. And what I can't help but notice this quarter is that all eight of those, the trends have got worse from Q2 to Q3. And six out of the eight are in negative territory. That's between fixed and mobile across the four businesses. So, I'm certainly thinking kind of looking ahead into 2025-2026, what do you think you need to do to actually turn that trend around to be more positive? Does this rely on price rises? Does this rely on adding on ancillary products? How do we turn that revenue trend around to be more positive? And specifically, given you give the disclosure, I also can't help but notice that consumer mobile for Virgin Media slipped from minus 0.4% last quarter to now, minus 4.8%. That's quite a big change in the quarter. Just interested in digging into that one in a bit more detail as well, please.

Sure. So, Lutz, you can get ready to deal with the VMO2 number specifically. And we do print this every quarter. We want you to see it. And historically, it's, I think, a good way to piece the -- break the business apart, understand the various bits. Every market has a different explanation, right? I mean, we're still very green in VodafoneZiggo. You heard Stephen's comments, that's positive. This is both a value and a volume equation for each market. So price rises this year are much lower than prior years. And in the prior quarter from -- in Q2, Q3 last year, we were taking pretty big price rises. So, I think inevitably, if you want to make general comments, a part of that is smaller price increases, or in the case of Switzerland, certainly no price increases this year. And that is always going to be a year-over-year comparator and impacting that number. And then every market, it's a slightly different storyline. And I think whether it's some cases getting back to high volumes as we're starting to do and hope to do in the U.K. In other cases, the prices you want to just raise, I'm thinking of mobile specifically. I would say, though, that in fixed, we are seeing really strong ARPU, as you saw on the slide that I presented ARPU growth almost everywhere being pretty positive. And that, in the long run, as we get volume to pick up again, it's going to be a really positive thing. I'd much rather be holding ARPU and/or growing ARPU with the expectation of driving volume in broadband. And I think so we're well positioned going into 2025 to try to do that. Lutz, do you want to speak about VMO2 specifically? Lutz Schüler: Yes. To build…

Thanks, Lutz. André, do you want to talk about [indiscernible]? André? André Krause: Yes. So, I would say pretty much driven by the fact that our price rise last year was on the 1st of July. So, we have a full annualization. That's why you see a quarter-on-quarter deterioration of the numbers, by and large. Then I would say on the fixed side, as you know, we are migrating many customers in the last quarter alone, 120,000 former UPC customers over to the Sunrise portfolio that comes with some right pricing pressure, and we have talked about that in our Capital Markets Day as well. That should come towards an end by the end of this year. And thirdly, I think an important element to note is also that the third quarter always has a higher seasonal exposure to roaming, and we are seeing more and more of the roaming consumption being included in larger tariffs, which we have been selling through more for more campaigns in the past year. So, as such, those three components are explaining the evolution of the numbers from Q2 to Q3.

Thank you.

Great. Operator, get to the next question, yes.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Dhruva Shah with UBS. Dhruva, your line is now open.

Hi, thanks for taking the question. And just digging into the postpaid net add momentum in the U.K. a bit more. So you obviously showed a marked improvement in the quarter this year. But is that due to any significant change in competitive dynamics in the market? And if not, what VMO2 done differently to minimize those losses? And then going forward, should we expect those losses to inflect into growth in Q4 and stay there in 2025? Thank you.

Lutz, do you want to address that? Lutz Schüler: Yes, sure. So, we don't see any material changes in the market. So the market is very competitive. And the low end of the market, MVNO such as iD Mobile, right. They are very aggressive, and this is the only part of the market where you really see growth. Why are we doing so much better? I think three levers; one, we have optimized the way we are selling hardware, and we have, right, a very good deal with Apple, with Samsung, and we are passing this through to our customers in a good way. Second, we have optimized the way how we do upgrades and they're following the churn. And thirdly, I mean, we have migrated all Virgin Mobile customers to become O2 customers. And not all of them didn't like that. And the ones who didn't like it have now left in the meantime. So you don't see these impact anymore. I mean, we are not giving a guidance for Q4. But we believe, right, I mean, Black Friday is coming. And we put a lot of effort in to have strong competitive offers. We have a great Christmas campaign, wait for it. And so we are here to grow, right? This is our ambition, but we don't give a guidance here. So it's absolutely our ambition to not see this trend to break only in Q3, but also now in the most important quarter of the year.

Thank you.

All right. I've got time for one more question, operator.

There are no questions registered at this time. That will conclude the question and answer session.

Thanks everybody, for joining. And just a reminder in 30 minutes, André and team will be back on with the Sunrise only earnings presentation. Hoping you could dial into that. And as a reminder, on November 1st, we'll have a briefing for anyone focused on the mechanics of the spin itself. And we appreciate you joining, and we'll speak to you soon. Take care.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes Liberty Global's third quarter 2024 investor call. As a reminder, a 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 materials.