Uniti Group Inc. (NASDAQ:UNIT) Q1 2023 Earnings Conference Call May 4, 2023 8:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Kenny Gunderman - CEO

Paul Bullington - CFO

Conference Call Participants

Gregory Williams - TD Cowen

Simon Flannery - Morgan Stanley

Operator

Welcome to Uniti Group's First Quarter 2023 Conference Call. My name is Jiji, and I will be your operator for today. A webcast of this call will be available on the company's website, www.uniti.com, beginning today, and will remain available for 14 days. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Participants on the call will have the opportunity to ask questions following the company’s prepared comments.

The company would like to remind you that today's remarks include forward-looking statements and actual results could differ materially from those projected in these statements. The factors that could cause actual results to differ are discussed in the company's filings with the SEC. The company's remarks this morning will reference slides posted on its website, and you are encouraged to refer to those materials during this call.

Discussions during this call will also include certain financial measures that were not prepared in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. Reconciliation of those non-I financial measures to the most directly comparable I financial measures can be found in the company's current report on Form 8-K dated today.

I would now like to turn the call over to Uniti Group's Chief Executive Officer, Kenny Gunderman. Please go ahead, Mr. Gunderman.

Kenny Gunderman

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. And thank you for joining. Starting on Slide 3, we remain highly focused on our strategy of buying and building mission-critical fiber infrastructure. And this strategy has resulted in Uniti becoming the second largest independent fiber operator in the country with 137,000 route mile network.

We remain focused on disciplined growth and look to strike the right balance on our bookings and installs between anchor and lease up and wholesale and non-wholesale. This balance along with sub-100 day meantime to deliver in our industry leading monthly churn at 0.2% demonstrates the outstanding economics of shared fiber infrastructure. This discipline has led to yet another quarter of solid performance and reiterating our consolidated full year revenue and adjusted EBITDA outlook.

Wholesale and enterprise recurring revenue were up 10% and 15%, respectively in the first quarter, and our fiber lease up at Uniti leasing was up 15% from the prior year. On an overall basis, we continue to target and deliver mid-single-digit top-line growth, increasing adjusted EBITDA and declining capital intensity.