Liberty Latin America Reports Q2 and H1 2020 Results
05 Aug 2020 inLiberty Latin America Reports Q2 and H1 2020 Results
Performance impacted by COVID-19, improving from April low
RGU growth driven by 47,000 broadband adds; record RGU adds for Puerto Rico
Strong cash flows from operating activities and Adjusted FCF
Announced acquisition of Telefónica's fast-growing Costa Rica operation
Denver, Colorado - August 5, 2020: Liberty Latin America Ltd. (“Liberty Latin America” or “LLA”) (NASDAQ: LILA and LILAK, OTC Link: LILAB) today announced its financial and operating results for the three months (“Q2”) and six months (“YTD” or “H1 2020”) ended June 30, 2020.
CEO Balan Nair commented, “As anticipated, following a strong start to the year, the second quarter brought with it a number of COVID-19 related challenges for many of our operations, resulting in declining year-over-year topline performance. The good news is that we planned extensively and were able to offset some of the impacts through early cost management actions. As we look to the rest of the year, our mobile and B2B businesses are expected to see further challenges, however we believe we are past the low point. We continue to be focused on generating positive free cash flow in 2020, and took a step towards that with our strong Q2 performance.”
“In terms of our reporting segments, Puerto Rico led with another tremendous quarter, reporting record RGU additions and we are looking forward to adding AT&T's assets in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands to further enhance our customer proposition and prospects. VTR and Cabletica also added subscribers in the period, albeit seeing more of an impact from lockdown restrictions in Chile. C&W experienced the greatest headwinds with declining RGUs driven by Panama where we experienced the most restrictive lockdowns across all of our markets. From a product perspective, consumers continue to demand high-speed connectivity and our fixed-line services have been particularly resilient.”
“Last week, we announced the exciting news that we agreed to acquire Telefónica's Costa Rica business. We have had great success in Costa Rica with our cable operation Cabletica and are increasing our investment in the country through a complementary, fast-growing, and postpaid-weighted mobile business. The two businesses combined would create a leading full-service communications player with approximately $400 million of revenue1. This transaction comes at an attractive valuation, consistent with our disciplined approach towards M&A.”
“As part of the financing for our acquisition of Telefónica Costa Rica as well as looking to other potential opportunities across our strong pipeline, we announced a $350 million rights offering today, with all the members of our Board and my leadership team having expressed their intention to subscribe. We feel this is an appropriate step to ensure we have flexibility to participate in accretive M&A opportunities, while maintaining a prudent capital structure.”
“Overall there continues to be uncertainty due to COVID-19, however our operating and financial performance has been improving since a trough in April, and we anticipate further progress over the remainder of 2020. Looking further ahead, cash generation remains our focus. This should be bolstered by organic performance, as we drive growth and efficiency in the business, benefiting from targeted network and product investments, in addition to disciplined acquisition activity.”
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