Liberty Global reports Q3 2022 results

Liberty Global plc announced its Q3 2022 financial results.

CEO Mike Fries stated, “Despite the macroeconomic challenges in Europe we clearly have a resilient business model, as demonstrated by our solid results in Q3. Connectivity remains an essential service with strong demand across our footprint for reliable and seamless access to high-quality fixed and mobile networks. We also remain focused on supporting our customers who are experiencing higher living costs by offering connectivity services that are both affordable and robust. Simultaneously, we are offsetting the impact of high energy and labor costs by driving digital initiatives, taking reasonable price increases and executing on synergies in the U.K. and Switzerland.

In Q3, we delivered aggregate2 broadband and postpaid mobile growth of 186,000 new subscribers, supported mostly by broadband subscriber gains in the U.K. and positive postpaid trends across all our core FMC markets. Financially, we reported stable to growing revenues in Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands, with the latter two markets supported by recent price adjustments. Synergy execution, price rises and strong cost controls supported strong Adjusted EBITDA growth in the U.K., Belgium and all the Netherlands. Meanwhile, the continued realization of synergies in the U.K. is expected to drive cash flow growth throughout the remainder of the year.

We continue advancing our network development strategies. Each of our markets has attractive investment opportunities utilizing combinations of FTTH and DOCSIS and we are already offering gigabit speeds to customers across nearly 100% of our footprint. In the U.K. we continue to advance our Lightning build-out while upgrading the existing HFC network to FTTH. We are also setting up the new fiber JV with Infravia to build the additional 5 to 7 million homes that we announced last quarter, which will give us significantly greater reach to exploit fixed-mobile convergence.

We are reiterating all of the original, full-year guidance metrics at our operating companies and $1.7 billion(i) of Full Company3 Distributable Cash Flow4 at Liberty Global. Liberty Global’s balance sheet remains strong with ~$4 billion(ii) of cash and ~$5 billion of total liquidity,5 providing appealing optionality against an increasingly challenged macro environment. Our attractive share buyback of $1.7 billion this year was supported by our strong cash flow generation and the compelling value in our stock. We have retired 50% of our total shares outstanding since 2017 and we remain committed to our 10% repurchase floor of shares outstanding in 2023.”

CT Bureau