TELUS Earnings Call Nuggets: Wireline Spending and Increasing Subsidies

TELUS Corp (NYSE:TU) recently reported its fourth quarter earnings and discussed the following topics in its earnings conference call.

Wireline Spending

Greg MacDonald – Macquarie Capital: Questions on CapEx, wonder the overall question is $1.95 billion, is that kind of the level that we should be assuming on a go-forward basis. And secondly if you can give some context on with LTE spending coming down in ’13, can we assume that Wireline spending specifically FTTN spending is going up and maybe if that’s the case to give a little context on is it footprint expansion, is it bulking up on bandwidth within the existing footprint some context will be good?

Joseph Natale – EVP and Chief Commercial Officer: Greg, I will take this question. Firstly, I would note that we’ve gone from circa 22% consolidated CapEx intensity back in ’09 to 18% intensity in the period from 2010 to 2012 and we are now dropping down to 17% CapEx intensity. It remains flat on a year-over-year basis we are obviously not going to give multiyear guidance and saying this a leading indicator in terms of what you can expect for 2014 and ’15 and beyond. I can give you some color to say that the distribution of the CapEx between Wireline and Wireless is not – in 2013 is not dissimilar to what we’ve experienced over the course of 2012. In terms of the Wireless broadband investment itself we still have more to do on the LTE front. Coverage considerations are important, but also the identification of our wireless network is also another consideration as we work to deal with the prevalence of smartphones and the insatiable data consumption patterns of both consumers and business customers. It is also important to highlight that from a wireless perspective, our CapEx is not just going through macro wireless investments, but also micro wireless investments in terms of the small cell deployment that we are undertaking as an underlay to our macro LTE network. And of course also if we can get the 700 auction consummated in 2013 we want to push our LTE capability into the real environment of Canada. We think that this is a strategic goal of the Canadian government in terms of bridging the broadband digital device and we are very keen as an organization to support that goal by affording all Canadians the benefits to be announced to access LTE speeds and what that can do in terms of consumer lifestyles and the competitiveness of businesses. Second things, of course, is our investment in broadband wireline TV and here we’re seeing, of course, significant growth an excellent retention characteristics in terms of our churn, an excellent growth from a client revenue per subscriber basis as well. So, well worth investing in, and so we’ll continue to support our broadband TV products of TV and HSIA but also I think it’s important to point out that our broadband wireline investment is also going to be supporting the backhaul of the wireless small cells that we will be deploying within urban conurbations. So, we’re getting economies of scope in terms of pushing fiber deeper into our access network where we’re not just supporting TV and Internet connectivity, but the backhauling of micro-wireless traffic as well as. Then finally, I think you’re well aware, but we’re in the progress of a very significant CapEx program to build two super Internet data centers in Canada; one in Quebec and one in British Columbia. In 2012, we brought the Rimouski data center online and the second data center which is in Kamloops, British Columbia intended to go online in the summer of 2013. So, we’ve got dollars dedicated towards that as well. So, that’s kind of the profile that we’re looking at. We think it makes good sense to continue to support our broadband services given the success that we have enjoyed. I think that type of growth that you see us postulating in terms of the expectations with the financial parameters that John Gossling laid out for 2013, it does reflect the fact that we are seeing growth across all line of business, markedly solemn, we’re going to support that in terms of the way that we make our CapEx investment. The only other comment, Greg that I think is important to make is we are in a luxurious position to be able to both invest to support our broadband growth across wireline and wireless and still pursue our program of returning cash to shareholders through our dividend growth model and more to come in terms of clarity, I’ll provide on share repurchases at the AGM. And it’s a strong balance sheet of this organization that allows us to simultaneously invest for the future in terms of operational growth and also support our ability to return cash to shareholders so that they participate in the success of our growth programs.