Telecom Argentina S.A. (NYSE:TEO) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript May 11, 2024

Telecom Argentina S.A. isn't one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here).

Luis Rial Ubago: Good morning. On behalf of Telecom Argentina, I would like to thank everybody for participating on this conference call. The participants of today's conference call are Roberto Nobile, Chief Executive Officer; Gabriel Blasi, Chief Financial Officer, and myself, Luis Rial Ubago, Head of Investor Relations. The purpose of this call is to share with you the results of the first quarter ended on March 31, 2023. If you have not received a press release or presentation, you can call our investor relations office to request the documents or download them from the Investor Relations section of our website located at inversores.telecom.com.ar. I would like to go over some safe harbor information and other details of the quarter.

We would like to clarify that during the conference call and Q&A session, we could mention certain forward-looking statements about Telecom's future performance, plans, strategies and objectives. Such statements are subject to uncertainties that could cause Telecom's actual results and operations to differ materially. Such uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the effects of ongoing and economic regulations, possible changes in the demand for Telecom's products and services, the effects of potential changes in general market and economic conditions and in legislation. Our press release, a copy of which was included in a Form 6-K and sent to the SEC, describes certain factors that may affect any forward-looking statements that could be mentioned during this call.

The company has reflected the effects of the inflation adjustment adopted by Resolution 777/18 of the Comision Nacional de Valores, or CNV, which establishes that the re-expression will be applied to the annual financial statements for intermediate and special periods ended as of and including December 31, 2018. Accordingly, the reported figures corresponding to the first quarter 2024 included the effects of the adoption of inflationary accounting in accordance with IAS 29. In this presentation, we will also include figures in historical values which are easier to understand. Our press release is complemented by our next presentation. Please read the disclaimer contained in Slide 1 and Slide 2 of this presentation. Today, we will go over our business and financial highlights and end the call with a Q&A session.

Now, let me pass the call to Gabriel, CFO, who will start with the presentation.

Gabriel Blasi: Thank you, Luis. Good morning, and welcome to everyone. Slide 3 summarizes our highlights as of March 31 of 2024. Our main operational and financial achievements were our EBITDA margin during the first quarter of '24 was 30.3%. Thanks to our effective cost management and pricing strategy, our margin remained steady in a year-over-year basis despite the challenging macroeconomic environment. In the first quarter of 2024, our CapEx was approximately $122 million equivalent to 15% of our revenues. The current focus of our CapEx is on expansion of our FTTH technology, as well as expanding our mobile network and developing 5G. Our cash flow generation remains strong. During the first quarter of 2024, we were able to generate approximately $116 million in free cash flow before dividends and interest payments.

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