Equinix, Inc. (NASDAQ:EQIX) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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But overall, I think we feel very good about the underwriting, a lot of it still going into our core campuses that have sort of a really, really well-established track record of fill rate. But we’re also seeing some of our newer edge markets continue to perform well ahead of expectations. So yes, big development pipeline, managing it well and I think feeling good about our ability to sort of perform to that underwriting.

Keith Taylor: And Eric, let me just add maybe to what Charles has said. And again, in our prepared remarks, one of the things that was really important that we wanted to share with our — the group here is the fact that we’re funding the business. So, we not only have the cash on the balance sheet, we’re bringing capital — more capital on the balance sheet to fund 49 major projects that we’ve at least announced thus far across many metros. And we’re going to be in 75 metros in not too far from now. So, you got a sense, one, the capital plan is increasing. We think we’ve got the supply chain well secured. We have a really good procurement team and strategic sourcing team that makes sure that we have the resources available. And then you’ve got a global design and construction team, they’re doing just an excellent job delivering the capacity as quickly as we can deliver it.

And it’s tough out there in some markets. But I think it was really important to understand not only the volume there, we’ve got strategic planning, sourcing in place. We have the capital that we need. And we’re setting ourselves up to fund all those things through 2023 and put us in a really good position as we start 2024. And so leverage is not going to shift in any meaningful way so it gives us that enhanced flexibility. And at the same time, we’ve all effectively prefunded a lot of the costs into the model, and we are now enjoying the benefits of this large expansion or this growth initiative that Charles has alluded to, both on the physical side and on the digital side. And so, it’s the combination of all those things that really give us — make us feel very good about our capital plan, our balance sheet and the liquidity position we’re in right now.

Operator: Thank you. And we do have time for just one more question. Our last question will come from Nick Del Deo with SVB MoffettNathanson.

Nick Del Deo: First, Charles, you noted that interconnection adds were a bit soft due to seasonality, grooming and some virtual interconnections being consolidated. I guess, can you just expand a bit more on what’s specifically driving those trends, the relative importance of each one and why you feel comfortable that it’s going to normalize over the course of the year? And then second, in the current environment, you’ve got customers more cautious about spending in general but maybe more averse to capital outlays. Do you see that as sort of a net neutral for services like Metal or net positive or net negative? And do you feel like you’re educating your customers appropriately today to take advantage of them?

Charles Meyers: Yes, great question. Starting on the interaction, look, we feel really good about the interconnection business overall growing at 13%. We’re clearly being able to make adjustments to interconnection pricing alongside broader list prices, so the pricing element is strong there. As I said, we did see a little weaker — Q4 is seasonally a bit weaker, but definitely, this Q4 is weaker than prior Q4s. And I think there is some consolidation. I think it’s partially due to just, as I said, the behavior of customers for — interconnection is probably as close to we have to a usage-based service. It was — some of our digital services are more usage based. But in the colo environment, that’s as close as we have to usage-based services.

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