CommScope Holding Company, Inc. (NASDAQ:COMM) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Charles Treadway: Yes, so on the OWN side, that was just a temporary adjustment by a customer. I think clearly as we’ve talked about in OWN, we expected coming into the year a decline as a reduction of capital spending. And we’ve definitely seen the carriers take a more aggressive stance there as their, managing their own balance sheets and cash flows. As it relates to order rates and I’ll make, I’m not going to go into each specific segment and business, but I think in general, we saw an improvement from Q1 into Q2. I think what we saw in Q2 was a little bit of a stronger rebound in order rates in the first half of the quarter than in the second half of the quarter. I think as we’ve moved into Q3 and we’ve looked at July, we’ve seen another uptick in order rates.

But, I wouldn’t classify those upticks that we’ve seen as material in nature. These are sort of small improvements. It’s not anything that, as I said, from an uncertainty and visibility standpoint, these aren’t major moves that would get us back to where we, what we were seeing in 2022. But we actually have seen improvement just not to the magnitude that we needed to achieve our guidepost that we had talked about in Q1. In our Q1 call, as you’ll remember, we talked about in order to hit those guideposts we needed to see a strong recovery in order rates. And we just at this point in time, although we’ve seen a recovery not to the magnitude that we need.

Matthew Niknam: And Kyle, if I could just follow up on cash flow, I think, with the guide for 250 to 350 I think you’ve done a little over a $100 million already. Is there a seasonal, I think there’s a little bit of extra interest expense that typically hits in 3Q with a bigger step up in cash flow in 4Q. Is that appropriate in terms of framing the trajectory the next two quarters, or are there…?

Kyle Lorentzen: Yes, that is correct. Our Q3, we got a little bit of a higher interest bump. So I think as we think about cash, we’ll get a little bit of benefit from working capital, as you know, as the business is going to be down. Unfortunately that’s going to be offset with some higher restructuring costs. We talked about the $150 million. There’s a price to pay to get that out, which will impact 2023. And then obviously the EBITDA is going to be down. So yes, that trajectory, we’ll see, a little bit more weakness just to the interest payment in Q3 and then probably a little bit more build in Q4.

Matthew Niknam: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. One moment please. Our next question comes from the line of Shannon Cross of Credit Suisse. Your line is open. Shannon Cross, your line is open.

Shannon Cross: Hello? Are you able to hear me?

Charles Treadway: Yes. Hey, Shannon.

Shannon Cross: Hi. Yes. Okay. Just a couple of questions. One have you heard anything from the carriers regarding the lead cabling issue and the potential that, that overhang might play into some of their CapEx thoughts? I know it’s early, I’m just curious if they’ve mentioned anything.

Charles Treadway: No, no. we haven’t heard anything and primarily because we don’t make lead sheathing cable and what they’re talking about is completely different. Our product is completely different. But we haven’t heard from them in terms of any build back or buy, something they want to buy from us or we haven’t heard anything like that yet.

Shannon Cross: Yes, no, I understand it’s with copper. I just was wondering because it’s theoretically a large overhang. And then I guess my other question is just with regard to BEADs, can you talk us through how that funding rolls through from the Fed to the state, to the carriers? Just give us some idea of timing and how it works so we can feel more confident that it will really start flowing through in second half of 2024. Thank you.

Charles Treadway: Yes, sure. As you may be aware, I’ve been very involved in the Bead funding process. You know, I’ve had several meetings with the Secretary of Commerce, Secretary Raimondo and we feel confident in the funding. The way it’s going to work is the money is expected to start flowing through the states at the beginning of 2024. Once it gets to the states, we anticipate there’ll be another six to 12 months before they decide on vendors and where it’s going to go. So the BEAD impact for us is probably 12 to 18 months away. But I’d say again, we’re well positioned with capacity that we’ve already put in place and capacity plans that we are putting in place as these things start to come in.