All right, thanks, Operator. Hello, everyone.

Appreciate you joining the call today. As usual, Charlie and I will handle the prepared remarks and the presentation, and then I have my core leadership team on the call with me and on standby for Q&A as needed.

We've got a lot of ground to cover, I'm just going to jump right in on the first slide, which provides some key takeaways from the quarter. To begin with, we delivered strong operational performance, and we'll go through it all in a moment.

One big headline here, this was our fourth straight quarter of steady broadband improvement across each of our big three markets, with fixed and mobile ARPUs remaining largely stable. Now Charlie will walk through how this translates into our financial results, but the punchline is we will be confirming all of our 2026 guidance today.

Lots of reasons for this commercial momentum, including our multi-brand strategies, our network investments, AI implementations around personalization and churn and call centers. We'll talk about all that a bit today, but really what we'll do in our second-quarter call is do a deeper dive on our AI initiatives, stay tuned for that.

Equally important for this audience is the fact that we are making real progress on the value unlock initiatives announced this past February. The acquisition of Vodafone's 50% stake in our Dutch JV is on track to close this summer, and we see no obstacles to getting that deal done on time.

That of course is just one of the main building blocks underlying our strategy to spin off our Benelux assets in the second half of next year. Now I'll walk you through each of those building blocks in just a moment, as well as the value we could and should create for you all by spinning off the Ziggo Group.

Quickly on Netomnia, that transaction in the UK is now officially in the regulatory process, and while the noise from one or two competitors has escalated recently, we're pretty confident this deal will be approved. It's a very positive development for the UK fiber market, which is in desperate need of rationalization, as you all know.

It's a great outcome for VMO2 for all the reasons reviewed on the last call. Then finally, you won't be surprised to hear that we are highly focused on capital allocation at the corporate level.

Over the last two years, we've brought our net corporate cost down by 75%, we talked about that on the last call, and we've articulated what we believe is a clear investment strategy around telecom and growth, and we've strengthened our balance sheet. After funding the $1.2 billion needed to close the Vodafone transaction in and out and executing on around $700 million of asset sales from our growth portfolio, we should end the year with around $1.5 billion of corporate cash.

As noted here on the slide, through April, we've generated around $300 million in proceeds, we're sort of on our way. Then finally, just one quick remark on the broader telecom environment in Europe.

As you would know, the sector has performed well in the last 12 months or so, and that's driven in part by improved operational performance, reduced CapEx, and a general rotation out of software and into industrials. You're all familiar with those trends.

What I'd add to the list, what appears to be an improving regulatory climate in Europe when it comes to telecom broadly, and more specifically when it comes to consolidation. Now we await the formal release of the EU merger guidelines, for example, but these changes are expected to redefine the rules, and that's going to be a big positive, together with an increasing commitment to sovereignty to our sector, and the broader telecom industry.

I'm sure you're aware of that, but important to note. Now moving on to the next slide, let me start by saying that there will come a point in time when I don't need to put this chart in the deck, but for now, I think it's helpful to summarize our operating structure, specifically our three core pillars of value creation: Liberty Telecom, Liberty Growth, and in the center, Liberty Global itself, and to highlight the strategies we're executing to create and deliver that value.

Liberty Growth on the far right houses our portfolio of media, infra, and tech investments, totaling $3.4 billion today. Here, we're focused on rotating capital, investing in high-growth sectors with scale and tailwinds.

We'll try to spotlight a few of those in each quarter, and today we'll lay out the thesis for the experience economy. In the center sits Liberty Global itself with $1.9 billion of cash and a team with decades of experience operating and investing in these businesses.

As we reported last quarter, we've restructured our operating model and reduced net corporate cost by 75% since 2024 to around $50 million this year. Now these two asset pools alone, by the way, our cash and the market value of our growth investments, exceed the current price of our stock by around 30%.

Which means, of course, that everything in our core Liberty Telecom business on the left, namely $22 billion of revenue, $8 billion of EBITDA, and four incredible converged telecom champions, are receiving no value at all in our stock. In fact, negative value if you give us credit for our substantial reduction in corporate cost.

As we've said over and over and over, our primary goal here in telecom is to drive commercial momentum and, importantly, to unlock value for shareholders. That was the impetus behind our Sunrise spin-off, which you all know about, and which we believe has worked extremely well for investors.

That's why, in the last call, we described the formation of the Ziggo Group, a combination of our Benelux assets in Holland and Belgium, and our intention to spin off our interest tax-free to shareholders in the second half of 2027. Where are we on that specific initiative?

I referenced earlier the building blocks that form the foundation of our expected value unlock with the Ziggo Group, and you can see the most significant ones outlined on the left-hand side of the next slide. Let me just say that each of these steps, each of these blocks if you will, are centered around strategic catalysts, free cash flow growth, and deleveraging.

They each represent a foundational element of the value creation plan here. This is the primary blueprint we've been executing, of course with dozens of overlays and work streams, but it should give you greater confidence and awareness of our plans here.

Let's start with Belgium. The first step was, of course, separating Telenet from its fixed network, which is now a two-thirds, one-third JV called Wyre.

This restructuring accomplishes or has accomplished four key things. First, it isolates a significant fiber CapEx and debt capital needed to upgrade the HFC network in Flanders into an off-balance-sheet vehicle.

Second, it facilitated a comprehensive network cooperation agreement between Wyre and Telenet on one hand, and Proximus and its fiber asset, Fiberklaar, on the other hand, which I'm pleased to say was just signed yesterday and will result in a single network, ours or theirs, in about 75% of Flanders. That's a great, great outcome.

Third, it creates a cleaner, more consumer- and B2B-focused Telenet ServeCo with a significant free cash flow turnaround story, supported by declining mobile CapEx and mostly AI-driven OpEx reductions. Then fourth, it facilitates a reduction in Telenet's leverage from both the rebalancing of debt between Wyre and Telenet, and the sale of a portion of our stake in Wyre at a premium, by the way, which will be used to repay debt at Telenet.

Really critical steps to getting where we want to be. Moving to the Netherlands, for me, the first strategic catalyst here was bringing in a new management team, one that could set the tone for a return to growth and for winning results in the Dutch market.

Steven and his team have delivered exactly that. The second strategic catalyst was, of course, reaching an agreement with Vodafone to buy their 50% stake in our Dutch JV.

This deal, as I just said, is scheduled to close in less than three months. Now, not only is that deal accretive from a financial point of view, but it strategically unlocks about €1 billion in synergies we've referenced, and provides the structural elements necessary to complete a tax-free spin-off next year.

Each of these steps accelerates our commitment to reducing leverage at VodafoneZiggo, which we'll accomplish through asset sales, a return to EBITDA and free cash flow growth, and synergies. Now on top right of this slide, you can see a side-by-side of Sunrise and the combined Ziggo Group.

If you look at 2025, the Ziggo Group is bigger, it's about 2 to 2.5 times larger in revenue and EBITDA, and a bit more profitable. Importantly, you'll see that in 2028, we're estimating free cash flow of around €500 million and leverage of 4.5 times, which presents a comparable financial profile to Sunrise when we spun it off in Q4 '24.

The chart on the bottom right provides an illustrative bridge to the €500 million of free cash flow, which is estimated to be €120 million this year. The biggest components of that, as you can see, are the nonrecurring nature of some costs this year in Holland, combined synergies, Telenet's mobile CapEx reduction, and organic EBITDA growth.

We think the Ziggo Group represents a compelling equity story, and it's anchored around four selling points. Number one, this is a strong regional business with two of Europe's most rational telecom markets that are best-in-class brands.

Number two, we have clear network strategies here, with declining CapEx as 5G investments subside, and fiber costs are moved off-balance-sheet in Belgium, and a cost-efficient DOCSIS 4 rollout in Holland. Declining CapEx and great visibility through network strategies.

Number three, rising free cash flow and declining leverage, and that's supported by organic growth, synergies, and €1.2 to €1.4 billion of local asset sales I've already described: towers, property, etc. Then number four, a commitment to pay dividends from free cash flow, as we've done with Sunrise.

We have lots of work to do, but this plan and this path forward is clear for us, and we look forward to updating you each quarter on our progress. Now what does it all add up to?

I'm sure many of you are wondering what sort of value creation do we think is achievable here. The chart on the next slide is actually simpler than it looks, but it moves left to right, and it demonstrates how we have and how we intend to create value through this unlock strategy.

Let's start on the far left. The day we announced our intention to spin off Sunrise in February 2024, our stock closed at $18.

Of course, nine months later, we completed the spin-off, and using Sunrise's current stock price, we feel we delivered a tax-free dividend that's valued today at $13 per Liberty share. Together with our $12 stock, you get to $25, or about a 40% value appreciation in the last 14 months or so.

Far so good. About two months ago, we announced the second step in our value unlock strategy, with our intention to consolidate Benelux and spin off the Ziggo Group in the second half of next year.

What might that be worth? These numbers are illustrative, lawyers made me say that, of course.

If you move to the right to the third column, I think you'll see the answer. We believe a publicly listed Ziggo Group, if it were to trade at, let's say, the same implicit valuation of Sunrise today, and essentially an 11.5% free cash flow yield, could be worth up to $14 per Liberty share, based upon the 2028 free cash flow estimate of €500 million that was just discussed.

Without debating the point, we believe this could be conservative. As you would know, many of our peers, KPN, Swisscom, Orange, etc., they trade at free cash flow yields of 5% to 7%, albeit with different leverage profiles.

Let's stick with the 11.5% free cash flow yield. The primary question then is where will Liberty itself trade post-spin?

Remember, we believe that the entire Liberty Telecom Group has negative value on our stock today of around $4 per share, despite our announced intentions regarding Ziggo. With our cash and growth assets worth $16 and our stock at $12, that's the only conclusion we can reach.

Now to arrive at $14 post the Ziggo Group spin, we simply added our pro forma cash balance after the Vodafone deal and asset sales, together with the value of our remaining growth assets, including our residual stake in Wyre, and we get to $14. By the way, these numbers assume that the market continues to assign no equity value, that's zero equity value, to our remaining telecom businesses in the UK and Ireland.

Of course, we think there's substantial equity value in these businesses, but we don't need to agree on that to get to these numbers. To recap, if you follow the light blue boxes from February '24, the day we announced our plans to spin off Sunrise, to today, we created $7 on what was an $18 stock, so that's 40%.

We believe, for those who had held on to the Liberty stock and their Sunrise stock, that number gets to $41 with the Ziggo Group spin. If you do the same thing with the dark blue boxes for those who bought their shares after the Sunrise spin-off, we think we can take $12 today to as much as $28 by the second half of next year when we spin the Ziggo Group.

Now while there are no sure things in life, and plenty to do between now and then, trust me, the building blocks we think are in place, and we feel good about the plans and these estimates here. Now one of the reasons for that good feeling is the progress Stephen and his team have made over the last five quarters.

This next slide summarizes some of those initiatives and some of the progress, beginning early last year when we repositioned broadband pricing, changed the operating model, rejuvenated our campaigns, even expanded our footprint through the deal with Delta Fiber. As a result of that, we saw steady improvements right away in broadband, where we'd been losing over 30,000 subscribers every quarter.

Those changes continued into '26 when we rejuvenated the Ziggo brand with a new campaign, the Everything Network, that was supported by UEFA rights, by the way, which we just extended. We also launched broadband into our no-frills flanker brand, bringing a simple and value-driven connectivity product to that critical segment.

You can see at the bottom right, the broadband net adds have been moving in the right direction for four straight quarters. In fact, our first quarter result was the best in three years, driven by all the initiatives I just referenced: pricing adjustments, new campaigns, product expansion, network improvements.

By the way, we have the largest reach of 2-gig broadband services in the country, and we just launched field trials with DOCSIS 4 in anticipation of launching 4- and 8-gig products later this year. Operationally, VodafoneZiggo is in great shape and improving, exactly what you want to see as we plan for a public listing next year.

Now the next two slides summarize Q1 operating performance across our four markets. I'm going to do this quickly since the CEOs are on the call and they can provide color if needed.

I think the main headline here is that we continue to see good broadband trends pretty much across the board, and stable fixed and mobile ARPUs. Starting with VodafoneZiggo, like I just talked about, our broadband performance improved for the fourth consecutive quarter, and postpaid mobile net adds also improved sequentially.

We continue to invest in our fixed and mobile networks in Holland, with both the Vodafone and Ziggo networks receiving outstanding awards in the Umlaut test. With ARPUs of nearly €57 in fixed and €18 in mobile staying steady, that's been a good outcome.

Turning to Belgium, Telenet delivered its highest quarterly broadband results in 10 years, driven by successful cross-sell campaigns and strong performance with our Base, our flanker brand there. Postpaid mobile results remained subdued in Belgium, as the market is pretty competitive.

Here, too, our Base brand is outperforming, while both mobile ARPU at €16 and fixed ARPU at €63 remained largely stable ahead of upcoming price adjustments in Q2. Now turning to the UK on the next slide, despite a market that remains highly competitive, Virgin Media O2 delivered a third straight quarter of broadband improvement, with just 6,000 losses compared to 43,000 losses a year ago.

This was supported by strong commercial and retention initiatives and, of course, lower churn. Importantly, despite pressure on the overall market pricing, here our fixed ARPU remained relatively stable at £46.50, supported by more and more personalized and AI-driven pricing.

With the Netomnia deal working its way through the regulatory process, we continue our fiber-to-the-home expansion with 8.7 million fiber homes available today. In UK mobile, we launched O2 Satellite, you might have seen that, making us the first operator in the UK to switch on direct-to-device satellite connectivity.

In addition, our mobile network transformation is progressing with new RAN upgrade agreements and the transfer of the second tranche of spectrum from VodafoneThree, that's hugely important to us. O2 now has the largest 5G standalone footprint in the UK.

Net postpaid losses of 60,000 were materially better than last quarter, as churn from the Q4 price adjustment, we've talked about that, subsided, and ARPU of around £17 was broadly stable. In Ireland lastly, we continue to execute strategically with growth in wholesale and off-net traffic more than compensating for retail pressure on-net.

Fixed retail ARPU of €61 remained stable, despite no price rise in '25. Importantly, our fiber rollout, this is critical, remains on track to be substantially complete in 2026, with nearly 20% of the retail base now taking a fiber product, and that will also drive free cash flow in 2027 and beyond.

Now just one slide on our Liberty Growth portfolio, currently valued at $3.4 billion and centered around four key verticals you know and love: infrastructure and energy, technology and AI, services, and of course, media and sports. Now the strategy here has been consistent for some time.

We are exiting positions that are no longer strategic and using that capital to both invest in new opportunities as they arise and, as needed, provide capital for transactions that will unlock value in our telecom assets. That second point is really important.

Historically, we've divested investment positions totaling something like $1.6 billion since 2019, and we've targeted another $700 million in sale proceeds this year, of which, as I said, $300 million is already accounted for. Now a few comments on sports and live events.

Of course, we're already invested heavily here through Formula E, but we also believe there are significant structural tailwinds that warrant us evaluating additional opportunities, and we're doing that. These points are probably well known to all of you, I'm sure, but there's clearly a generational shift from physical goods to experiences, that's live events, sports, travel, and entertainment, and many of these markets are fragmented and most are protected from AI disruption.

It's an interesting space. It's also clear momentum in the sector, right?

Just look at sports. Global revenue in sports growing well in excess of GDP over the last 10 years, and by almost everybody's estimation, poised to increase and accelerate from here.

What's our right to play, you might be asking? We know how to consolidate fragmented industries, both in telecom, but also we've been doing that for decades, and recently with All3Media before exiting at a premium.

We've got strong relationships across these sectors and, really, the deal flow is the easy part. When you factor in our expertise in things like treasury, operations, and technology, it's a pretty strong combination.

We have a good track record in sports, specifically with Formula E, the fastest-growing motorsport globally, and one of only eight global sports leagues, which is a great segue to my last slide. I always get excited when I talk about Formula E, sometimes too excited, but I think this moment is perhaps our biggest yet.

Over the last 10 years, as you've been following this, we have constantly innovated, investing significant energy and time in the car, the technology, and the racing. The wait is over.

Last week at the Paul Ricard circuit in France, Formula E unleashed the next-generation race car, Gen4 we call it, and the motorsports world is still reverberating. You have to see it in person.

Yes, it is a beast, but it's a beautiful, beautiful race car. The step-up in power and performance is incredible: 600 kW of power represents a 71% increase in base output over the current Gen3 Evo car.

The acceleration is insane: 0 to 100 km in 1.8 seconds, that's meaningfully faster than a F1 car, and top speeds in excess of 335 km/h, nearly 210 mph. We estimate, because it's an estimate at this point, that lap times will decrease 10 seconds on average from the current generation car.

That's a lifetime in racing. It's also the first single-seater race car with active all-wheel drive all the time, which will provide incredible acceleration and torque out of the turns.

Of course, it meets all of our expectations from a sustainability point of view. It's made from at least 20% recyclable materials, it's 98.5% recyclable itself, and allows us to continue claiming that our race-related carbon footprint for the entire championship would fit into one F1 team, by the way.

Speaking of F1, yes, we might have taken a few shots at them since the Gen4 launch, but might be deserved also. You're obviously aware of the issues they're dealing with currently and that they're going through with the hybrid engine.

It just reinforces our view that going halfway on anything does not make history. We love the position that we're in: technologically, competitively, and from an entertainment and motorsport point of view.

Hey, just don't take my word for it. In the next slide, you can see, go ahead and scan social media of the motorsports press, there is widespread consensus, now I'm quoting, this Gen4 car is a quote-unquote "monster," it's quote "ushering in the most extreme era of electric cars," and it's expected to change perceptions of Formula E forever.

Even Max gives it a thumbs-up, as you can see on the bottom right. Anyway, we're super excited about Gen4 car and Formula E, and with that, Charlie, I'll turn it over to you.

Thanks, Mike. My first slide sets out the Q1 financial results for our Benelux companies.

Now, as you can see on this slide, we're now presenting Wyre's financial performance for the first time separate to Telenet to give investors clarity on their respective financials before we complete the full separation of the two companies and their capital structures later this year. VodafoneZiggo reported a revenue decline of 1.8% in Q1, driven by a lower customer base and ongoing repricing impact.

Now this was partially offset by the price indexation and higher revenue from Ziggo Sport, and adjusted EBITDA declined 6.4%, driven by higher marketing costs and some incremental investments in network resilience and service reliability, in line with our guidance in March. At Telenet, revenue was broadly stable in Q1, reflecting our strategic decision not to renew Belgium football rights, which was partly offset by a strong broadband performance, which was driven by effective cross-selling into the video customer base.

Adjusted EBITDA grew 8.9%, driven by lower content costs following the exit from the football broadcasting rights. At Wyre, revenue declined by 1%, impacted by the implementation of a new pricing model, which was partially offset by strength in wholesale growth.

Adjusted EBITDA declined by 4.6%, and this was driven by an investment in build capability as we start to accelerate Wyre's fiber build-out capability. Turning to the UK and Ireland, Virgin Media O2 delivered a total service revenue decline of 3% on a guidance basis.

Now this was impacted by competitive pressure in the consumer fixed market and lower B2B revenue as the newly rebranded O2 Business rationalizes its product portfolio to support its long-term growth in the mobile segment. This was partially offset by wholesale revenue growth, which was supported by growth in MVNO revenue, and adjusted EBITDA declined by 3.4% as a result of the lower total service revenues and a non-cash provision for legal matters recorded in the quarter.

This was partially offset by cost-reduction initiatives. At Virgin Media Ireland, revenues declined by 1.4% in Q1, impacted by intense competition in the consumer fixed and mobile markets, as well as a decline in advertising revenues at VM Television.

This was partially offset by a strong wholesale performance. Meanwhile, adjusted EBITDA declined by 7.1%, driven by these top-line pressures, and was also impacted by a one-off benefit in Q1 last year.

Turning to the next slide, we remain committed to our disciplined capital allocation model as we rotate capital into higher-growth investments and strategic transactions. Starting in the top left, Telenet reported €10 million of free cash flow during the quarter and is expected to deliver at least €20 million of free cash flow for the full year.

Additionally, Liberty Corporate delivered adjusted EBITDA of -$2 million, putting us firmly on track to achieve our full-year 2026 guidance of -$50 million. Turning to the bottom left, CapEx has meaningfully stepped down at Telenet in Q1 on a guidance basis, driven by the 5G upgrade nearing completion at the end of 2025 and lower spend on digital platforms.

Capital intensity remains elevated at the other OpCos, reflecting investments in our fixed networks and also 5G upgrades. Moving to the Liberty Growth walk in the top right, the fair market value of our growth portfolio remained broadly stable versus 2025 year-end at $3.4 billion.

This was driven by modest investments in AtlasEdge, Egg, Power, Nexfibre, and EdgeConneX, offset by the partial disposals of our ITV and some of our EdgeConneX stake, as well as a positive fair market value adjustment at EdgeConneX, along with the recent decision to move Liberty Bloom out of our corporate and services segment and into the growth portfolio. Turning to our cash walk on the bottom right, we ended the quarter with a consolidated cash balance of $1.9 billion.

Q1 distributable free cash flow was impacted by high CapEx levels related to the fiber-to-the-home rollouts at Wyre and Virgin Media Ireland, in addition to working capital movements at Telenet. Now it's worth noting, we continue to anticipate that Wyre will draw on its standalone facility following BCA approval, and will fully repay the short-term funding provided by Liberty Global consolidated cash via Telenet.

As a reminder, we are aiming to end 2026 with around $1.5 billion of corporate cash, despite the expected outflows associated with the incremental Vodafone stake and also, to a lesser extent, the Netomnia acquisition. Finally, turning to our full-year guidance targets for 2026, we are reconfirming all guidance metrics at VMO2, VodafoneZiggo, and Telenet, as well as our guidance for corporate costs.

That concludes our prepared remarks for Q1, and I'd like to hand over to the operator for Q&A.

That's great, thanks very much. Two questions, please.

Firstly, I wanted to ask on Virgin Media O2 about the wholesale service revenue growth. In the release, you say that that included £15 million of fixed pre-enablement and installation income.

Am I right in saying that that increase was due to a change in accounting treatment, meaning that it's now recognized as revenue whereas previously it wasn't? I recognize that it's low margin, but that has provided almost a 1% boost to service revenue overall in Q1.

My question is, did you know about that change in treatment when you issued the guidance in February, or does it provide potential upside to the revenue guide of 3% to 5% decline, particularly as you've come in at the very high end of that range in Q1? Then secondly, I just wondered if you could expand slightly on the O2 Satellite news, and your level of excitement around that.

How much customer interest are you anticipating, and more broadly, just what is your view on the role of satellite in telecom as a complement or competitor going forwards? Thank you.

I like questions on O2, over to Lutz first, but let me just say that as we look at the satellite space generally, we think, of course, satellite broadband, Starlink, broadband has a role to play on the planet, and there will be plenty of people who will utilize that broadband service and need that broadband service. We believe the direct-to-device mobile opportunity is far more limited by technology, by market access, but we do like the idea of having a satellite service attached to our mobile network.

We think it adds just another level of service and commitment to customers. Then, of course, the UK is the first market to where we have done that.

Lutz, I'll turn it over to you for satellite, and then someone, Charlie, I guess, will answer the wholesale question. Lutz?

Yeah.

Hi, Carl. We are very satisfied with the launch of O2 Satellite.

Not disclosing numbers, but the fact that we have at the moment not the iPhone available, we will have it available in a week from now, and we have already quite high demand is leading us to the assumption that this is really a reliable service, an interesting and attractive service for customers. Also in combination with our improved mobile network, our 5G standalone coverage, we are really creating the right perception for customers, which means we have the most reliable mobile network from everybody in terms of coverage and data speed.

Therefore, we are very happy with that.

Just on the wholesale revenue, I think it was basically in budget, and that is a very difficult business to forecast by its very nature, but I think it was a pretty strong quarter. Do you have anything to add on that?

I can give some color, right? I think, Carl, you're right.

We didn't account it the same way before. The reason for that was not to beef up our service revenue, as you see, right, we are coming currently more at the upper end of the guidance.

The reason for that is that will be a growing and a continuous service revenue stream, because we will more and more connect customers either from other networks or from other ISPs. Therefore, when you look at that way, I think that a change makes sense, but as you said yourself, right, we are coming in at the upper end of our guidance, and you could drag that number a little bit.

It is 0.7% of it if you want to accrue for it, but it won't change anything in the guidance. We wouldn't change it.

It's only one quarter, but so far, we are happy with what we have.

Thanks, Lutz. That's great, thanks very much,

Operator.

Hi, thanks for taking the questions. I have two.

The first one is just on UK competitive dynamics for Lutz. Could you maybe talk through how the recent price rises in April have landed?

Because the percentage increase is quite large, and I think it's double-digit for most subscribers. I'm just wondering if there's been any change in terms of churn.

Separately, your postpaid mobile losses are continuing, how optimistic are you that this can stabilize through the year? Second question is just a broader question on use of cash going forward.

You've talked a lot in the prepared remarks about ventures, the focus on sports and media. I think press reports suggested you were considering buying a European NBA franchise.

Are you pivoting the group more towards media and sports, or is the plan still to break up the group and return cash to shareholders? Any color on that would be great.

Thanks.

Sure, I'll start with that, Polo. They're not mutually exclusive, that's point one.

Point two is our primary commitment, and I think it should be clear, but I'll repeat it here, is to create value for shareholders. We believe, as I've said a few different times, the biggest opportunity to do that is to highlight and find ways to illuminate value in our telecom business.

That is our priority, that is number one. As I mentioned a moment ago in my remarks, when we look at the use of capital, that's factors in squarely to the strategy.

As I said, we will use capital and rotate capital into growth opportunities should they be presented to us, but also into the telecom business if it helps to unlock value for shareholders. Then I think I went on to say that second one is an important point.

That's the first part of the answer. I'd say secondly, we are opportunistically looking at and being presented with sorts of opportunities.

Sorry, somebody's got some of these ringing in there. Anyway, with opportunities in that sports space and in the media space generally.

There's a reason why the portfolio is $3.4 billion large, because we have been very active as an investor. Maybe it's been quiet, and we don't spend as much time on our earnings calls doing it, but it's arguably the biggest component of our stock price today.

It are the investments that we've assembled strategically and purposely over the last, let's say 5 to 7 years. We're divesting ourselves of a huge chunk of those investments, and rightly so, because we need cash to do the things we've been talking about today.

Then we will opportunistically look at new investments if they make sense. Don't get me wrong, we are committed to the unlock strategy, and that is priority number one.

Lutz, you want to talk about competitive nature of UK?

Yes, good afternoon, Polo. In mobile, you see in our numbers that we have been tracking in service revenue around 3%, but this is before the price rise.

Right, a reason for the net losses in Q1 was the higher price rise we decided for. Now we are seeing this landing very well.

We have the first months now of the second quarter behind us, Polo, and our explanation for that is that those who didn't want to pay it left, and therefore, that has materialized. Now we don't see any spike in churn, and obviously, we also have to wait for the May, but findings here are so far, good.

On the fixed side, the competitive situation is also unchanged, I would say. AltNets are very aggressive, as we all know, and also other competitors have to follow.

Here, remember, I said at the last call, we have to optimize our prevention machine, as we used to do it with the retention machine, which we have done now. Therefore, we are quite proud about the fact that we have managed to stabilize our fixed customer base in Q1, and we expect something like that in the future.

Yes, it comes at the cost of some ARPU, which is -6%, but in the scheme of things, that is a balanced approach. Let me finish with remind you, when we've given the guidance, right, 70% to 80% of the service revenue decline is attributed to our expectation on the fixed consumer service revenue market, and that means that we are planning for a recovery in mobile service revenue, Polo, and we're going to see this as we speak from the price rise in Q2.

Clear. Thank

you.

Thank you. Afternoon, gents.

I see the progress on the long-form agreement with Proximus, but approval for the collaboration is still outstanding. What happens if you're delayed for another 6 to 9 months?

Do you progress the build as planned, or is the project pushed back? I think Charlie said the Wyre revenues were impacted by a new pricing model.

Could the Wyre-Telenet ServeCo financials change from here? Should there be a change in the wholesale rates associated with any approval, or will this financial base you've given us now be effectively unchanged?

Thanks.

Thanks, Robert. We've got John Porter on the line who's worked tirelessly on this Proximus transaction.

Outstanding result for Telenet and for us. Do you want to speak to the regulatory process from here, John?

Sure. We've been in lockstep with the Competition Authority and the BIPT over the last two years.

They are right up to date on every aspect of the transaction between ourselves and Proximus. We have very positive inclination from them and believe that they will expedite the final review of the transaction.

There is then a necessary 30-day review at the European Commission. That is not an approval process, it's just a chance for them to reflect on the transaction and see if it has broader implications.

We are cautiously optimistic that we will complete this transaction over the next, say, 6 to 8 weeks. It's a virtual impossibility that it would go longer than that because I think we'd all down tools.

I think that the main critical path has been achieved between ourselves and Proximus, and everybody's ready to get going.

Let me just step in, so as you were separating the two companies,

sorry. Go ahead, Charlie.

As

I say, we're separating the two companies, there is a little bit of tweaking. For example, there is a bit of movement on the wholesale rate to Telenet, and there's also some management fees that are being reevaluated.

I think we'll get a more stable view on the numbers in Q2, but overall say it's pretty good news for the ServeCo. I'd also say on the financing side, a little shout-out to my treasury team, the 4.35 billion of underwritten financing that's clearly in place and we can draw on has now been fully syndicated, which is a great success, very successfully syndicated.

With the completion of the BCA approval, we'll be drawing that down and indeed paying some of the money that we decided it was more efficient to bridge from our balance sheet rather than draw revolvers to do so. I think it's all-round good news for the eventual Ziggo Group spin, because I think the Telenet part of the equation is very much on track for the free cash flow target we set them in 2028.

Great, thank you.

Hi, guys, thank you for the questions. Two from my side.

One was just going back to slide 6 where you lay out the strategic plan for the new Ziggo Group. My question's around the leverage, there's a lot of moving parts here.

Could you just remind us what the pro forma leverage position of this business would be today if you put it together, how much you're expecting to bring in from the Wyre stake sale, and then the other asset sales to make up the 1.2 to 1.4 billion? I just want to understand the assumptions underpinning that, and what you're at today, and then how you get down to the 4.5 times, that would be the first question.

Then the second question is just around the Dutch business. We've seen continued improvement in the broadband performance.

Can you give a bit more color as to what's driving that on the customer side, on perception? Is it people happier with price, is it that they've noticed a change in the network quality, any detail you have would be great.

As a final add-on, your competitors have highlighted potential benefits from the data breach at Odido, in the Q1 and probably rolling into Q2, Q3 net add trends there. How much of an impact have you seen from that on your own business in Q1 and Q2?

Thanks.

Thanks, Joshua. Look, Stephen will prepare answers to the Dutch questions.

On the asset sales, the €1.2 to €1.4 billion, those consist primarily of towers and technical facilities, etc. We're not really providing a breakdown of those numbers today because we're in active sale process.

We're not going to provide expectations or estimates of what we think the value is, but we think that's the range of total combined asset sales which would be used to pay down debt. Charlie, you want to address the pro forma leverage?

It really depends on what point in time you look for that number and what's happened to the Wyre stake. Do you want to address that, Charlie?

It's actually a very complicated question because, clearly, the Belgian assets that are going to go into the Ziggo Group do not include, because there will be a full separation of the Wyre assets, with the 4.35 billion of underwritten and now syndicated debt, we will therefore be paying down debt at Telenet, or Telenet ServeCo, but Telenet will be what we call it going forward. It remains, but because of the investment profile, Ziggo VodafoneZiggo is going to be high, elevated.

There's a lot of moving parts in answering that question. I would just reconfirm what Mike said, is we're very confident in a path to get down to the around 4.5 times by 2028.

It does depend on some asset sales, but we feel pretty good about those being delivered. With those asset sales, and indeed, continuing organic EBITDA growth, particularly in Holland, I think we should be there or thereabouts on target.

Probably have to take it offline to go through some of the details, because there's a lot of moving parts

about

Wyre, Telenet, etc. I'd say in the low to mid-5s,

the combined group is going to be in the low to mid-5s. Telenet itself will be in the mid-4s, VodafoneZiggo will be higher, and then we'll start layering in the various deleveraging steps, additional steps as well.

There's a clear path, but perhaps next call, Joshua, we'll give you a little bit more detail. That is the general trend.

That's that's That's great, and just to be clear, there's isn't Go ahead. any injection of cash from the Come on.

Sorry, there's no assumption of cash injection from corporate. Thanks.

The other comment I'd make is actually, clearly, no cash from corporate, but I think it is important to know that we are putting our money where our mouth is. There's no distributions to Liberty Global in terms of equity distributions, when we're reinvesting the free cash flow of Holland back in the business this year, and indeed in Belgium.

Is a commitment to our bondholders and also to the fact that we are very confident in this growth profile. Do you want to answer the question?

In terms of the operational performance of the broadband business. Can you hear me?

Yeah.

Yeah.

In terms of the operational performance of the broadband business over the last 12 months, if you follow the story, we've done a number of very clear interventions. The first is we've got our pricing right for the broadband products that we're selling.

We were mispriced in the marketplace, we fixed that a year ago. When we talk about the back-book repricing, we're pleased with the progress we've made on that.

You haven't seen that in the ARPU, we've managed that, I think, pretty well. Second thing we've done is we've gotten on top of churn.

We've been much more proactive in how we manage our customer base, which I think has had an effect on bringing churn down. We're now down 3 points year-on-year.

We've invested more in marketing by repositioning the business. The business was underspending on marketing and was out of sync with how, in my view, connectivity should be sold.

We've invested, as you saw, in upgrading the speed of the network, you've seen us launch with the only two with the only national 2-gigabit service, we've taken speed as a headwind off the table for us. Then more generally, I think we've done a pretty good job of just tightening how we take the business to market.

You've seen that flow through sequentially each quarter as each of these initiatives have landed. We have a series of initiatives coming through the rest of 2026, which we anticipate to continue to help us with the momentum behind the story.

The Odido question, Stephen? Great.

I'm sorry, I missed the Odido question. Can you repeat that?

The question was were you

seeing

any benefit from their cyberattack?

It happened late in the quarter. It happened around week 10, we saw some impact from that, but we didn't see a lot of it in the quarter.

Because of the size of their mobile base, we felt a bit more of it in the mobile base. Nothing that I think is material in the Q1 results, because it only represented a handful of weeks.

Great, and I was more talking about the Q2 results. Obviously, it happened later in the first quarter, but are you seeing any impact so far in Q2?

No, we're happy with our progress on Q2 so far, but it's quite early. I'll come back to you when we do the Q2 results in a couple months.

Thanks.

Yes, good afternoon, thank you for taking the questions. I had two really both around Belgium.

In Telenet, you obviously had a very good quarter in terms of broadband net adds, and I'd love if you can just to give a bit more color behind what's driving that. Is that now growth out of footprint in Wallonia?

Is that coming on your kind of Base brand within Flanders, or is it something else? Be interested to kind of get a just a bit more color on the drivers there of broadband subs growth.

Then secondly, just going back to the point that was raised earlier about Wyre revenue growth, which was down year-on-year in Q1, is that a kind of one-off for this quarter, Charlie, you were mentioning around pricing, and it goes back to growth in the following quarters? I'd just love to understand a bit more about the kind of dynamics there between kind of P and Q, because I've been thinking that with kind of pricing there, we should see Wyre as a top-line growth company.

Thank you.

John, you want to take the Belgium question?

I can take it. On the on the broadband, the BU has has been strong, particularly in the Base brand, and their their growth is is about 50/50 between the Telenet footprint and growth in the south.

We are steadily growing, and that growth in the south is increasing incrementally. There is a a what will be a a year-long enhancement of that growth as we as we migrate out of DVBC and into full IP for our video distribution.

We are the last operator in the market to to have DVBC where you don't require internet to get television, but we are shutting that down over the next over the next year. We're we're expecting to see continued strong growth.

As you can see, the last the quarter ending '25 and the quarter the first quarter of the year, very strong, and those are the those are the main drivers. On the Wyre revenue, there we implemented a a a wholesale deal, a new wholesale deal on the HFC, which is making essentially structuring the the higher speed tiers to be more accessible.

The wholesale price is going down a little bit, and that's what's you're seeing flowing through. That is will be part of the overarching deal done with with Proximus, and we'll be able to give you more detail on that down the road.

The the drop will not continue to drop, but it is it is the new HFC wholesale pricing. Thanks, John.

Thank you, John. From those new prices, do prices then rise with inflation from this slightly lower level looking into 2027, '28?

There is an inflationary component to both the fiber wholesale and the HFC wholesale.

Great. Thank you.

Oh, thank you. This is very much a conceptual question rather than kind of balk and tackling valuation and all ways.

You made a quick reference to more benign regulatory environment in your markets. What's even more interesting on a macro basis is the emphasis on Europe's industrial base and defense, and clearly, telecom is a vital pivot in defense.

Is there any possibilities for your telecom business or I guess particularly your venture portfolio in that end? I'm sure Charlie or Lutz aren't going to be manufacturing drones, but it still feels like something could be an interesting tailwind, particularly since you're involved in so many areas, verticals.

Thank you.

Hey, Matthew. Listen, the whole sovereignty debate, it's no longer a debate, it's a verifiable conviction, is net positive for us in the telecom space.

Now we won't all benefit equally, but every telecom player will benefit from the European Union and countries within the European Union's focus with their own cybersecurity, their own data protection, their own data centers, their own AI infrastructure. Inevitably, whether it's AtlasEdge or our investment in EdgeConneX on the infrastructure side in our Liberty Growth portfolio, whether it's our OpCos themselves and their ability to provide services and B2B services and connectivity to governments and others, I think it's a net positive for telcos in Europe.

This is why I mentioned it along with the loosening regulatory framework, which I think will also be a net positive. We may or may not be part of any of that consolidation, but we know that consolidation itself brings benefits to customers as well as operators and investors.

I think it's a real positive step. In terms of defense itself, unlike perhaps some of our peers who are more closely aligned with the government, we are not involved in any specific defense-type investments, opportunities, or infrastructure.

If we were approached, we would certainly consider it if it was consistent with our overall strategy. I don't see us veering off, if you will, into that, but

Right, sure.

Does that answer your question, Matthew?

Not ROI at all, but absolutely. Thanks, Mike.

No. You got it.

Thanks very much. Two questions.

First one is Mike, you talked about the improving regulatory climate with regards to consolidation. Other management teams in the sector have flagged mixed signals they perceived to come out of Europe.

Could you talk through what specifically you have in mind there, what insights or news you have to share, on what you base this more positive assessment? The second question is on the €1 billion synergies you talked about in Ziggo.

Can you talk about the sort of rough makeup of that in terms of operation and other sources of synergies? Thank you.

Sure. On the synergies point, I don't know if we've been specific, I'm going to pause.

Typically, you wouldn't be surprised to learn that it's consisting of three or four key line items. There's a financial synergy that's more of I would say a free cash flow-type synergy from taxes, essentially.

There's operating costs that we think are achievable and create more efficiencies around. There's procurement and CapEx-type synergies.

When we get closer to legal Day 1, we'll clearly provide more details to you. Right now, we're still in the midst of closing the deal.

There's lots of things we can be doing and will be doing in those two operations and within and among them to create those synergies. If I had to put my team on the spot right now, they'd say that's probably a low number.

On the regulatory side, we did just get the EU merger guidelines released, and they are quite positive. At least in comparison to the kind of posture and position that the European Union would take previously when it came to in-market consolidation, right?

They're looking at a much more, I guess, modern and pragmatic approach, and they're seeing that benefits could certainly accrue from mergers versus just always seeing the negative in those mergers. There's always been a structural bias against scale, and now they're seeing, well, actually scale could increase investments, could increase innovation, and it's actually spelled out in the document that was released recently.

That to us is, when it's in writing, if it's just a speech, well, I don't give it much credit. When they put it in writing, as they have with these new EU merger guidelines, that is a positive step.

Now it needs to be put to the test, and there will be plenty of deals that will put it to the test soon, I imagine. Never before have they written down in black and white the sort of statements that we're reading today in terms of which are consistent with the arguments we've been making, that consolidation in-market is the first step to repair in the European telecom space.

Very helpful. Thank you very much.

Yep.

Thank you. Last question.

A couple, please, guys. Just I guess it's for Ziggo, but DOCSIS 4.0.

I think you may have said, Mike, that there are some trials ongoing. If we could just get some estimates of maybe the sort of trajectory of commercial launch for 4.0 in Holland, when do you expect the first sort of significant retail launch, etc.?

Is it something that you think you could even price a little as you move into the real sort of mega tiers of speed? Then the second question, maybe a little more conceptual, we're observing a lot of discussion around the kind of InfraCo/ServeCo split, and you guys have obviously sort of embraced that, and that there's obviously a clear sort of capital allocation justification and the ability to separate the two businesses that are quite structurally different.

I just wondered, does having a separate InfraCo make a more agile ServeCo in terms of just day-to-day operations? Is the business just more able to respond and sort of change shape in the sort of digital age?

It's a little more conceptual, Mike, if you've got anything to add on that, I'd appreciate it. Thank you.

Sure, sure. Stephen, jump in here if I get it wrong, but I believe our 4- and 8-gig trials are the latter part of the year, maybe even late Q3, Q4.

What we did was get the field trials underway to demonstrate that it works, it works well. The technology we're using is really state-of-the-art even in relation to the US operators.

As we get closer to going public in the latter part of this year, then we'll have more information. It's happening, and we think it's going to be a big positive for the market and for our business, for sure.

On the ServeCo side, Belgium is the test. What does it do when you end up taking the fixed network, you're still on the mobile network, but taking the fixed network and putting it into a separate entity?

I think, and John John will agree, I'm sure, it forces you to be more efficient, more agile, and your margins change. All of a sudden, there's a wholesale fee in your P&L that you have to account for.

In principle, Telenet will continue to be a very competitive brand and a very competitive B2C company and B2B company. It's with respect to its network, its fixed network, it will be renting instead of owning that network, but the relationship it's developed with Wyre is highly integrated, highly with mutual benefits both directions.

On balance, I think, and this is the only place we've done it, it really is Belgium. I think on balance, and John, you can chime in, I think it does create a bit more energy in that ServeCo, a bit more focus on margins and on competition, with a little less to worry about, and a slightly better CapEx profile.

That CapEx profile frees up free cash. Telenet will generate significant free cash here shortly, as it has, and then we'll have to figure out how to reinvest that free cash, whether it's in deleveraging or in actually new products and services.

Anything more to add to that, John?

A bit. The CapEx we are spending, we are now concentrating on customer experience.

We've pivoted our strategy obviously away from network and product differentiation because we have to, into customer experience. The timing is right, because of course, with a lot of AI initiatives around the company and a new CRM, greenfield CRM platform, the focus is well and truly on straight-through digital journeys for our customers, which delivers better experience and a better bottom line.

I think certainly your hypothesis is valid.

Good. Terribly helpful.

Good stuff. All right, listen, we appreciate everybody joining us on the call.

Thanks, David. It's been a good start to the year.

I hope you agree, and really encouraged by the progress that we're making. Trust me, we are laser-focused on value creation and value unlock, starting, of course, in the Benelux, where we're not only performing well, but the strategic road map and, as I point out, the building blocks are all in place.

We'll keep you abreast and updated on those things, and we'll speak to you soon. Thanks, everybody.

Have a great weekend.