Uniti Group Inc. (NASDAQ:UNIT) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript - Page 3 of 5 - InvestingChannel

Uniti Group Inc. (NASDAQ:UNIT) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

. On the book-to-bill, that’s an area that we don’t talk about a lot, but it’s a real, I think, core competency of ours. We continuously have a meantime to deliver below 90 days, 100 days, below 90 days. That’s our target, and we continuously deliver on that. Obviously, on some projects, that’s a much longer cycle. If you’re building greenfield or if you’re building Virgin network, if you will, could be 120, 180 days in some cases, but when it comes to lease-up, which is an increasing part of our business, as we’ve talked about over the past number of quarters, you’re able to light things much more quickly. And ultimately, that’s what keeps us continuously below that 90 days. With that said, and Paul mentioned in his prepared remarks, we have started to see over the past couple of quarters or so, some slowing in decision-making among customers.

The funnel remains very, very strong. I think if you looked at our enterprise funnel it’s really as big as it’s ever been, and our wholesale funnel is also very strong. So the demand is there and things are working their way through the system, but getting those customer signatures has just been slower. But we don’t consider that to be anything against systemic. I think it’s just a period of time that we’re in right now. So at the end of the day, things are going to normalize and our mid-single-digit growth outlook hasn’t changed. In fact, as Paul mentioned, I think revenue for the year is probably trending a little bit above midpoint of our guidance range. So we feel very good about it.

Paul Bullington: All right, I appreciate that [indiscernible] commentary, especially on the lead [indiscernible] the fact that we have the hysteria phase when the learning and education phase on our way to the fixing it phase. I think that that’s important to kind of figure out where we are.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Michael Rollins with Citigroup

Michael Rollins: Just curious for your latest thoughts on what you think the most optimal corporate structure for Uniti as you look at the assets and performance and the different opportunities and different pieces of your business, and then just one other on the lead question. In terms of the exposure that’s identified, do you think that, that could change over time, higher or lower as more work is done and do you have an update on the amount of cable miles relative to the percentage that was disclosed?

Kenneth Gunderman: Michael. Yes, on the corporate structure, we had a robust discussion about this on our last quarterly call. We continuously look at our corporate structure, our capital allocation policy is something we do every quarter with the board, and we continue to believe that the REIT status is appropriate for Uniti. I think our business model kicks off very predictable, steady growth and cash flow and as a result, returning that dividend to the shareholders is something that we think is important and the Board continues to support and our business model supports it. We’ve talked about very transparently that we’re in a unique period of time right now where we’re cash flow negative because we’re investing very heavily in the business, especially in the fiber to the home part of our business.

But we’re also at a point where we’re about to inflect to becoming very cash flow positive. And so very logical questions from stakeholders arise, including is it appropriate to be paying a dividend during the [indiscernible] heavy investment period on one end of the spectrum, all the way to the other end of the spectrum of should you be considering raising the dividend or even setting a dividend policy that suggests raising the dividend. And so we think having a good transparent discussion about all those topics is important. And therefore, we put our comments out last quarter. And we’ve had some very good interaction with stakeholders over the past number of months regarding those comments, but continue to think that, that’s the appropriate corporate structure given our mix of assets today.

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