ATN International, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATNI) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Ric Prentiss: Okay. Very good. Thanks a lot. Have a good one.

Michael Prior: Thank you, Ric.

Operator: Thank you. One moment for our next question. This question comes from the line of Hamed Khorsand with BWS Financial. Your line is now open.

Justin Benincasa: Good morning, Hamed.

Michael Prior: Hamed, you there? Operator why we don’t we try someone else?

Operator: Yes. We’ll go to another question or just one moment. Okay. This question comes from the line of Greg Burns with Sidoti. Your line is now open Greg.

Greg Burns: Good morning. I just had a couple of questions about the segment margins. First, on the international side, that increase in spending you saw this quarter. It sounded like some was unusual with some was maybe structurally higher spending to drive growth. Could you just kind of break those apart and maybe what kind of – are you expecting margins to expand from here? Or is this a good level to think about for the business going forward?

Justin Benincasa: We are expecting margins to expand, but maybe Brad, I’ll let you give a little more color on international.

Brad Martin: Yes. So from a margin expansion perspective, we’ll continue to grow margin through continually adding subscribers and revenue on our existing fixed cost-based assets that we’ve been investing in. And we have, combined with the continued decommissioning of legacy networks, PSL [ph] and Legacy Mobile.

Michael Prior: And I think just – I’m not sure we answered you on the most recent quarter was what – some of it was related to the sales side, but some of the things like regulatory fees and we’re focused on bringing those costs down.

Greg Burns: Okay. And I think CapEx was closer to $70 million, $80 million annually before I guess you embarked on the current fiber initiatives. Is that a good level to think of like where more steady-state maintenance or run rate CapEx is once we get pass 2024, maybe it’s higher now because you have Alaska – just how should we think about where CapEx is going to be heading over the next couple of years?

Michael Prior: Yes. I think if you look – I think we think of it as a percentage of revenue, right? And we’ve been running well above 15%, which is sort of what we would call the top end of the normal range in recent years as we’ve been embarked on these programs. So we would expect it to start not only to move into that range but move down the range, not trying to give you a number on 25% at this point, but I think that’s the direction of travel. Typically, in our experience in a lot of the markets we’ve been in for many years after a period of excess, we usually pretty down 10% can be below that in individual markets for a while after that kind of expenditure. And of course, like everybody else, part of the belief in fiber investment is that it has a lower maintenance cost, and it’s got a long run rate of long technologically useful life in the business.

So the fundamentals of what we’re investing in, I think, should lend us down to the lower end of that range without again, trying to give you a 25% number.

Justin Benincasa: Yes. And just to clarify, too, Greg, I think your $70 million, $80 million was probably somewhat pre Alaska so just.

Greg Burns: Yes. Great. Okay. Done that perfect. All right, thank you.

Operator: Thank you. One moment for our next question. This question is from Hamed Khorsand with BWS Financial. Your line is now open.

Michael Prior: Hamed you there? Hamed, I know something must be wrong there, operator.

Operator: Yes, you may need to unmute Hamed or we can try someone else. Thank you.

Justin Benincasa: Yes. We’ll have to come back to him, I guess, if get that fixed.

Operator: Yes. So we have another question from Ric Prentiss with Raymond James. Your line is now open Ric.