VodafoneZiggo announced with its Q4 results that it's looking at monetising its towers portfolio. CFO Ricky Drost told Telecompaper that the process is still at a very early stage.
The CFO could not give a timeframe for completing any deal. He noted that there is no financial rush to sell the infrastructure, as VodafoneZiggo continues to show healthy positive cash flow. While the pay-out to shareholders Vodafone and Liberty Global is expected to fall this year to EUR 400-600 million from EUR 701 million for 2018, this is due to a portion of vendor financing last year worth 250 million. On a comparable basis, the pay-out is expected stable.
Dorst said the Dutch operator had its best quarter in Q4 since Vodafone and Ziggo merged. The integration is on track with 50 percent of the EUR 210 million in cost synergies realised as of end-2018. Revenues are stabilising and profits are growing, driven by the group's fixed-mobile convergence strategy.
Vodafone showed strong postpaid growth in Q4 with 50,600 net additions, similar to the 50,700 added in Q3. Drost said this was supported by the positioning of its offer, with a notable avoidance of the low end of the market.
The growth also included 14,000 small business customers. The FMC advantages had a negative impact on the results though, as well as the shift to Sim-only in the market with lower handset sales, and continued price pressure in business mobile.
While FMC offer is driving customer growth, already 70 percent of Vodafone's postpaid customers use fixed broadband from Ziggo. Drost said he was not concerned about impending saturation. The 70 percent only covers the Vodafone brand, and the FMC offer could still be extended to its Hollandsnieuwe brand to drive further growth. Furthermore, the share of broadband customers with postpaid mobile is only 32 percent, and the group is at an average number of Sims per household of just 1.5.
The company also confirmed that it's filed a legal appeal against the new Dutch wholesale cable regulation. While it's complying with the requirement to prepare a wholesale offer for other providers to use its network, VodafoneZiggo plans a court fight against the regulations, which it considers "unnecessary and disproportionate".
