Cyfrowy Polsat SA

WSE:CPS

Earnings Call Analysis

Polsat Plus Group Q1 2024 Performance Review

Polsat Plus Group saw a strong Q1 2024 with a 6.4% revenue increase, driven primarily by their Green Energy segment, which contributed PLN 282 million. The Green Energy segment generated PLN 130 million in revenue from energy sales and an EBITDA of PLN 47 million, thanks in part to early commissioning of wind farms. Net profit rose to PLN 184 million, largely from the sale of IPv4 addresses. The company anticipates significant growth in renewable capacity, aiming for 740 MW by 2026. Additionally, TV advertising revenue grew by 8%, aided by strong viewership, while ARPU in B2C services grew by 4.5%.

A Strong Start in 2024

Polsat Plus Group started 2024 with promising results as it reported a revenue increase of 6.4% compared to the previous year, reaching PLN 4.88 billion. This growth was largely propelled by the contributions from its recently consolidated Green Energy segment, which added an impressive PLN 282 million in revenue. Furthermore, the group achieved a net profit of PLN 184 million, aided by the sale of IPv4 addresses and other assets.

Revitalization of Green Energy

The Green Energy segment is increasingly proving its significance in Polsat’s portfolio. In the first quarter, it generated approximately PLN 130 million in revenue from its own energy production and contributed PLN 47 million in EBITDA. This is a noteworthy shift as the segment continues to ramp up its capacity, with plans to increase installed renewable energy capacity by 2.5 times by the end of 2026.

Resilient Customer Base & Revenue Per User Growth

The company has effectively implemented a multiplay strategy, leading to a substantial customer base of nearly 2.5 million multiplay customers. Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) has improved significantly, with B2C ARPU rising by 4.5% year-on-year to PLN 74.6. This indicates that Polsat is enhancing its customer value while retaining a commendably low churn rate of 7.6%, showcasing strong customer loyalty amid rising costs and inflation.

Advertising Revenue Climbs

In the media segment, Polsat experienced strong growth in advertising revenues, which rose by 8% in the first quarter. This growth aligns with an increase in viewership, with overall ratings from all TV Polsat Group channels reaching 21.5% in the commercial target group. The strategic focus on diversified and localized content has bolstered Polsat's market presence.

Managing Financial Health

Free cash flow for the past year was reported at PLN 442 million, marking a 30% increase from the end of 2023. However, the net debt-to-EBITDA ratio stood at 3.4x, attributed to lower spending in renewable projects and asset sales. Notably, management expects this leverage to rise in the upcoming periods due to increased capital expenditure in the Green Energy segment, which is expected to push the ratio towards 3.7x when including product financing.

Outlook on Strategic Investments

Looking ahead, Polsat plans to invest approximately PLN 1 billion in green energy projects in 2024. Their ambitious goal is to reach over 740 megawatts of installed capacity by 2026, which is expected to yield between PLN 500 million to PLN 600 million in incremental EBITDA from sales of green energy. This strategic focus on sustainable energy aligns with global trends favoring renewable resources.

Conclusion

In summary, Polsat Plus Group has demonstrated a robust financial performance backed by strategic growth in both its Green Energy and media segments. With forecasts indicating continued revenue growth and increased EBITDA through expansion and optimization of services, investors can view the company's performance as encouraging amidst challenging market conditions.

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q1

[Operator]

Good afternoon, everyone, and a warm welcome to the earnings call of Polsat Plus Group for the first quarter of 2024. Could I please have the next slide? Today's presentation will be delivered to you by Mr. Miroslaw Blaszczyk CEO of Cyfrowy Polsat; Mr. Maciej Stec, Vice President, responsible for Strategy; Ms. Katarzyna Ostap-Tomann, CFO and Management Board member responsible for ESG. And finally, Mr. Piotr Zak, President of Telewizja Polsat. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. Mr. Blaszczyk, the floor is yours.

[Miroslaw Blaszczyk, executive]

Good morning, and a warm welcome to everyone. The agenda for today's meeting is as follow. I will begin discussing the key events over the past quarter. Next, Piotr and Maciej will present the operational results of our business segments, and Kacha will share our financial results.

I will conclude the presentation with a brief summary, followed by a Q&A session. Can I have the next slide, please? Let's begin with the key events of the first quarter of 2024. Next slide, please. In the first quarter of this year, we achieved very good results in the B2C and B2B service segments. ARPU increased across all our customer groups. ARPU per contract customer grew by 4.5%, helped B2B business customer by 3.9% and prepaid service IPO increased by 1.2%. We consistently maintain a low churn rate. Additionally, we are systematically expanding the coverage of our 5G network. However, the 23 million people are within a recovery to 5G plus and 6 million can access the 5G ultra network, offering splits of up to 1 gigabit per second. In the first quarter, we concluded an agreement to sell a portion of our IPv4 address pool for USD 56.1 million.

In the Media segment, TV and online, we recorded strong growth in advertising revenues, up by plus 8%. Also, our spring programming achieved very good viewership results. I'm pleased to inform you that our business segment, Green Energy generated PLN 47 million in EBITDA during the first quarter, thanks to the dynamic execution of our strategic products. Next slide, please. Now let's look at the detailed operational results of segment. Piotr. The floor is yours.

[Piotr Zak, executive]

Thank you very much, Mirek. Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon, and welcome. Let's begin with the viewership figures and our position in the advertising market in the first quarter of 2024. Could we have the next slide, please. In Q1, our main channel achieved an audience share of 7.1%, while our thematic channels had 14.4%. This gave us the total viewership of all TV Polsat Group channels of 21.5% in the commercial target group. This translated into very good results in the advertising and sponsorship markets. As you can see from the graph on the bottom right, the group's advertising revenues grew to PLN 307 million, recording an increase of 8% compared to that of the first quarter of last year. Our ad revenues grew just slightly a bit slower than the broad market, which grew at 9%. As a result, the share of the TV Polsat Group in the advertising market in the first quarter settled at 28.1%.

Can I have the next slide, please? Moving on to the online segment. We are consistently and successfully realizing our strategy. So in Q1 of 2024, we had a very strong position in the online market, as you can see, our sites were visited on average by 21 million users every month, which gave Polsat-Interia Group, a very strong second position in the market. And actually, on a daily basis, we alternate with regards to who's first and who's second in the online market. So it's an eternal competition for our editors, which actually makes them try very, very hard every day. We also maintain a very high and stable number of page views with our users generating nearly 2 billion of them every single month. On to the next slide, please. Ladies and gentlemen, as a response to many questions we had on the previous conference, we created this slide showing a little bit about our strategy in our markets. Today, we will repeat this every time we can. Content remains absolutely crucial. Content is king, and it is the key source of competitive advantage. As a result, over the years, the TV Polsat Group became Poland's largest unique content producer. We offer the largest and most diverse portfolio of channels in the Polish market.

Currently, you have access to as many as 43 of them at any given time available on a wide variety of topics. We have channels dedicated to sports. We have channels dedicated to new services, games, music, TV series everything you can think of, you'll find it with us. A large portion of this content is produced independently by us using our own infrastructure and our own TV studios, thanks to the very hard work of our people. So a big thanks to them as well. And we focus on producing in the Polish language and all of our content is generally very well received by our viewers. And if ever it isn't, that's okay, we address, we try something new.

That is the nature of the entertainment entry. Additionally, in order to deliver our content to the widest possible audience, we make it available via terrestrial television, satellite television, cable TV, IPTV, OTT through our set-top boxes. And of course, you can always watch online on our streaming platform, Polsat Box Go. And if you're ever on the move, you can always watch on mobile as well. So summarizing any content you can think of, any device you can think of and any time that you wish?

That's all for this slide. So just a few quick words of summary before I pass on to Maciej. We closed the first quarter of this year with very good results in both TV and the online segment. I'm satisfied with our viewership figures. The spring schedule went well. And as a result, we recorded a very high increase in the advertising revenues, plus 8%, and we maintain a strong position in the advertising market. Thank you very much, Maciej. Go ahead, your turn.

[Maciej Stec, executive]

Thanks, Piotr. Good afternoon, everybody. As always, I will present the operating results of the B2C and B2B services segment first, and then I will show you the results of our Green Energy segment. Let's move on to the next slide, please. As you know, we have been consistently and successfully implemented our multiplay strategy over the past years. As a result, Today, we have a base of nearly 2.5 million multiplay customers who use almost 7.5 million services from our portfolio. Multiplay customers represent 43% of our total customer base. This is a very high, but most importantly, stable customer base.

I have emphasized this for several quarters already, we have maintained this base despite unfavorable market conditions. We are still operating under pressure from high inflation. Over the past 2 years, prices have increased by about 30% and the interest rates also remain very high. In these difficult conditions, we have maintained consistently long term. In the first quarter of 2024, we posted churn of only 7.6%. Please notice that the churn rate has stabilized on a quarterly basis. We are very happy with these results because it shows that we have a base of loyal customers who are satisfied with the quality of our services.

Next slide, please. Turning to our RGU base. As you can see, we maintained a high and stable of contracted services. At the end of the first quarter, we provided over 13 million contract services to our customers. we provided 6.3 million mobile telephony services and 2 million Internet access RGUs. These numbers consistently remain on a high and stable level. If you look at Pay TV, we are still under some pressure in this area because of the price repositioning of our online video services a couple of years back. This decline is partially offset by the growing number of pay TV services provided in the IPTV and the OTT technology. But please notice that pressure on pay TV is subsiding quarter-on-quarter, and I expect this negative impact to disappear in the next few quarters.

Can I have the next slide, please? The core of our multiplay strategy is building customer value. And as you can see on this slide, we are consistently increasing average revenue per customer in the B2C segment. In the first quarter of this year. ARPU increased by 4.5% year-on-year to PLN 74.6 per customer. The solid growth was driven mainly by the implementation of our multiplay strategy and also by the popularization of 5G, which drives demand for larger data packs. The ratio of RGU saturation per customer increased to PLN 2.27 in Q1. Again, -- this is the result of our efforts to upsell products and build the value of our existing customer base under the multiplay strategy.

Next slide, please. Let's now take a look at our prepaid segment. Also in this segment, we maintain a high stable base of provided services -- in Q1, we provided over 2.6 million prepaid services. We recorded growth of ARPU per prepaid services by 1.2% year-on-year, up to PLN 17.3, this is a satisfactory result given the high level of competition that we observed in the prepaid segment nowadays. Next slide, please. On this slide, we have the results of our B2B services segment. We provide services to over 68,000 customers, and this base remains relatively stable over time. Average revenue per B2B customer increased by 3.9% year-on-year to nearly PLN 1,500 per month. This is a very good result considering that this market is also a very competitive one. Let me quickly summarize the results of the B2C and B2B services segment. Before I move to the Energy segment. This was a very good quarter for us. We have 2.5 million multiplay customers high stable basis in all our business segments, Multiplay, prepaid and B2B. Q1 operating results show that thanks to our value-oriented multiplay strategy, we are successfully building ARPU across the board, and we are able to maintain a low level of churn.

Next slide, please. Let's take a look at our performance in the Green Energy segment. As you know, we have 2 goals in our new business segment. Goal #1 is to become a leading producer of green energy and Goal #2, is to become a leading producer of Green hydrogen and complete the full value chain based on green hydrogen. These are no longer plans. The execution of our strategy is well advanced. You can see the results on the photoS in this slide. Our wind farm is IN Czluchów, our solar plant in Brudzew the left, while on the right, we have our NesoBus and Electrolyzer. Next slide, please. On this slide, we have the road map of our strategic initiatives related to the production of clean energy from renewable sources. As you can see, most of the projects in our pipeline are already completed or contracted.

That's why this is the last time that I'm using this slide and starting from next quarter, I will talk about the Energy segment using operating KPIs only. To summarize, our investment process in renewable energy, we initiated our Strategy 2023 plus in December 2021, 2.5 years ago. Once we finish all the projects shown on this slide, we will have 740 megawatts of capacity installed in 2026, almost half of which is going to be wind power, which is the most efficient and cheap source of renewable energy today. Let's move on to the next slide, please.

Our second goal in the Energy segment is to become a leading producer of green hydrogen. In this area, we started from scratch 2.5 years ago. Since then, we have created the storage and transportation system for hydrogen consisting of 10 trailers. We have designed and constructed hydrogen power bus the NesoBus which we produce in our own manufacturing plant in [ Swidnica ] We are building the Neso brand and our hydrogen-powered bus has already won 3 tender offers for public transportation in Rybnik, Gdansk and Chelm. What's more, we are building a network of hydrogen refueling stations, 2 stations in Warsaw and Rybnik are fully operational and for stations that are almost completed in Gdansk, Gdynia, Wroclaw and Lublin.

Last but not least, I expect that we will finally start the production of our own green hydrogen from the 2.5 megawatts per PEM electrolyzer in June. And we will start the installation of our very own 0.5 megawatt Alkaline Electrolyzer shortly after that. This will close the value chain of an economy based on green hydrogen that we've been building over the past years. Can I have the next slide, please? Here we have production of green energy. I'm very excited. We already produce energy from all energy sources that we anticipated in our Strategy 2023+. And first quarter of 2024, we produced a total of 199 gigawatt hours of green energy, decomposing this figure by source 135 gigawatt hours of energy was generated by our biomass units, 12 gigawatt hours by our solar power plant and 52 gigawatt hours by our wind farms.

Let me underline that the last figure, 52 gigawatt hours was generated by 100 megawatts installed capacity in wind farms, and we are planning to install 300 megawatts by 2026. In Q1, we started technical commissioning at the Czluchów wind farm ahead of schedule. This contributed to the volume of energy produced from wind because Czluchów is producing energy since February this year. We have also completed the installation of turbines at the Przyrów wind farm ahead of schedule. This means that we will add another 50 megawatts of capacity to our resources already in the third quarter.

Let's move to the next slide, please. In the first quarter of 2024, we sold 199 gigawatt hours of produced energy for an average price PLN 651 per megawatt hour. As a result, our Green Energy segment generated revenue from the sale of our own energy in the amount of almost PLN 130 million in the first quarter. I can tell -- I'm extremely happy to say that the Green Energy business is beginning to contribute visibly to the results of Polsat Plus Group. In the first quarter only, EBITDA of the Green Energy segment amounted to PLN 47 million.

Next slide, please. This is my last slide, and I wanted to quickly summarize our performance in the Green energy. We are implementing our strategic projects in this area. Very dynamically, and we are increasing installed capacity in renewables as planned. The execution of our investment plan will result in an increase in installed capacity in renewables by 2.5x compared to 2023. More importantly, we will double our capacity installed in onshore wind, which is the most efficient renewable source of energy production, as I've already mentioned. At the end of 2026, we expect to have over 740 megawatts installed, and this will enable us to produce up to 2 terawatt hours of green energy per annum. This was the big goal of our Strategy 2023+ because sales of this production will generate approximately PLN 500 million to PLN 600 million of incremental EBITDA for our group. Just to summarize, I'm very happy that despite unfavorable market conditions, we have executed what we announced in December 2021, when we presented the strategy 2023+. And we have been building the strong lack of our business in Green Energy segment with EUR 500 million to EUR 600 million EBITDA for long years ahead. And that's all from me today. Thank you for your attention. Let me pass the floor to Kacha for the discussion of our financial performance. Kacha. Go ahead, please.

[Katarzyna Ostap-Tomann, executive]

Thank you, Maciej. The operational results previously discussed by Maciej and Piotr have clearly translated into our financial results. On top of that, we have a number of external factors, and I will summarize the impact on our results for you on the next slide. Can we move to the next slide, please. Here, you can see a summary of our group financial results for Q1, 2024. We saw a strong growth of revenue this quarter, up by 6.4%. This was primarily driven by the consolidation of energy revenue. The contribution of the Green Energy segment to consolidated revenue amounted to PLN 282 million. Comparable EBITDA in Q1 increased by 1.5% to PLN 772 million. This figure excludes the sale of the first tranche of IPv4 addresses for PLN 164 million and the gain on the sale of Muzo of PLN 10 million. I will present detail the composition of both EBITDA and revenue on the next slide. Our net profit increased to PLN 184 million, mainly as a result of the sale of the IP addresses that I just mentioned. Free cash flow for the last 12 months settled at PLN 442 million, up by about 30% compared to the level reported at the end of 2023.

I will discuss the key elements of our free cash flow later in the presentation. Finally, net debt-to-EBITDA ratio, excluding product financing, at the end of the first quarter was 3.4x. Here, I would like to point out that this is a temporary decrease as a result of lower spending on renewable energy projects in the reported quarter and the positive impact of asset disposal in line with my earlier declarations, I expect net leverage to steadily increase in the coming quarters, in particular, on the back of plant higher CapEx in the Green Energy segment and the renewal of the reservation of the 2.6 gigahertz band.

Can I have the next slide, please? On this slide, we have a breakdown of revenue and EBITDA growth drivers by segment. As I mentioned earlier, the main driver of revenue growth in Q1 was the consolidation of the Energy segment, which was not recognized in the comparative period. As much as emphasized, within the segment approximately PLN 130 million in revenue came from the high-margin sales of our own energy while approximately PLN 170 million was revenue from resale of energy. Regarding the decline in revenue in the B2C and B2B services segment, this was due to the impact of reduced MTR rates and lower equipment sales. However, I would like to draw your attention to the 2.1% year-on-year growth in retail revenues.

Primarily driven by the solid increase in RPO across all the customer groups, which Maciej discussed in detail earlier. Moving on to the EBITDA breakdown, we saw a comparable group EBITDA growth of 1.5% due to the positive contribution from the Green Energy segment amounting to PLN 47 million. This was a result of several factors, including mainly the early technical commissioning of the Czluchów wind farm and the lack of negative regulatory impact. I expect this contribution to grow in the coming quarters. In my opinion, the slowdown in EBITDA erosion in the B2C and B2B services segment is worth noting. The reasons behind this are a high margin on equipment sales and the previously mentioned retail revenue growth.

Additionally, in the first quarter, we recognized a profit of PLN 10 million from the sale of Muzo and PLN 164 million from the sale of the first tranche of IPv4 for addresses. In the second quarter, the sale of the second tranche will amount to approximately PLN 20 million. Next slide, please. On this slide, we returned to free cash flow for the last 12 months. We have decomposed free cash flow so that it is easier for you to track our cash out flows. The level of interest rates remains high in Poland. As a result, we still observe significant pressure in free cash flow from elevated interest payments. Factors that partially offset this negative effect and were supportive for free cash flow include lower CapEx in the TMT business and the positive impact of the change in engaged working capital over the last 12 months. We adjust free cash flow for telco frequencies payments, refinancing costs, M&A and sales of shares in subsidiaries and affiliates.

Most of these events occurred in 2023, and you have already seen this impact on our annual results. In Q1 2024, we paid the remaining amount due for the 5G auction in the amount of approximately PLN 267 million. As I already mentioned, closer to the end of this year, we are planning the renewal of the 2.6 gigahertz TDD reservation. We also excluded the asset disposal in the amount of PLN 164 million. And the sale of Muzo. Excluding development CapEx for green energy, which amounted to nearly PLN 800 million over the last 12 months. our LTM adjusted free cash flow was PLN 442 million at the end of the first quarter. Next slide, please. Let's take a look at the breakdown of our CapEx by segment. Our TMT business is CapEx light. In this area, we have CapEx under control and the CapEx to revenue ratio remains low at about 8% in Q1. Green Energy segment in Q1 amounted to PLN 87 million, the relatively low level of capital expenditures on our renewable energy project this quarter is connected with CapEx phasing of these projects.

We are now at the point where we are making the last payments for farms already commissioned or near completion I expect CapEx in the energy segment will accelerate in the coming quarters as we will be making payments for the development of our largest wind farm Czluchów. Our plan for CapEx in the green energy segment for the full year 2024 remains unchanged at around PLN 1 billion.

Next slide, please. On my last slide, as always, I would like to summarize the group's debt. Let me just start by reminding you that of our debt is sustainability linked. Turning to the table on the left, our key ratio net debt to EBITDA, excluding product financing was 3.4x, if we include product financing related to the implementation of renewable energy projects, the net debt-to-EBITDA level was 3. 7x. As I said at the beginning of my part of the presentation, the decrease in net leverage compared to the level reported at the end of 2023 is temporary and will increase in the subsequent quarters. Our weighted average interest cost remains stable quarter-on-quarter at 8.5%.

The maturity profile and structure of our debt, which you'll see on the right-hand side of this slide is the final structure for the newest future. About 1/3 of our debt are bonds and the rest are bank loans. Approximately 16% of our debt is denominated in euro, we are facing a maturity wall on our bank loans in 2028 and our bonds mature in 2030. Let me just remind you that in the reported quarter, we repaid the Series B and C bonds. And in Q3, we will start repaying the capital under the senior facilities agreement. That is all from me. Before I pass the floor over to Mirek, let me just say that I'm satisfied with Q1 results. The B2C and B2B segment is showing signs of a turnaround, and I expect increasing contribution from the Energy segment in the coming quarters.

Thank you for your attention. Next slide, please, and over to Mirek for the summary.

[Miroslaw Blaszczyk, executive]

Kacha, Piotr and Maciej. Thank you very much. The first quarter of this year was a very good quarter for our group in terms of operational and financial performance. Next slide, please. Summarizing the B2C and B2B service segment, we consistently execute our multiplay strategy, which is centered around building value and customer loyalty. This is reflected in the growing ARPU across our customer groups and in a 2.1% increase in retail revenue in the first quarter. At the same time, we are working on our 5G and 5G ultra network. To do this, we are using our unique frequency, 2.6 gigahertz TDD spectrum aggregation in the 1.8 gigahertz, 2.1 gigahertz and 2.6 gigahertz TDD bands And the newly acquired 3.6 gigahertz frequency. In the media segment, we maintained a strong position in terms from viewership.

Our TV advertising revenue grew by 8% on a strong market in the first quarter. I take great pride in the fact thanks to the dynamic execution of our strategy 2023, we produce Green Energy from all sources. Biomass, solar and wind. In the first quarter, we already generated 200 gigawatts hours of clean green energy. Our new segment also delivered excellent financial results. Revenue from sales of green energy produced by our renewable resources reached PLN 130 million, and the segment's EBITDA amounted to PLN 47 million.

Thank you all for your attention, and let's move on to the Q&A session.

[Operator]

Thank you very much. Let's Mr. Blaszczyk move to the Q&A session. And I don't have any questions in the top section. Anyone any questions. Okay. In that case, let me pass the floor to Mr. Blaszczyk. For a good bye.

[Miroslaw Blaszczyk, executive]

Thank you for your participation in today's presentation on the results of our group in the first quarter of this year. Thank you again for the meeting, and see you during the next presentation of the results of the Polsat Group for the second quarter of 2024. Thank you, and goodbye.

[Operator]

Thank you, bye - bye.

[Katarzyna Ostap-Tomann, executive]

Thank you.