Telesat Corporation (NASDAQ:TSAT) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Andrew Browne: Canadian.

Daniel Goldberg: Yes, Canadian.

Mike Pace: Yep. Thank you. And then I think I got the math here. You did not repurchase any debt in the fourth quarter. Can you confirm that and anything subsequent to the end of the quarter?

Daniel Goldberg: That’s correct, yes.

Mike Pace: Okay. And then I believe you still have a $150 million basket. I don’t recall if it’s RP or committed investments that you can move from GEO or a restricted group – to the unrestricted group that happened. If not, when should we expect that to happen if we should?

Andrew Browne: It has not happened. We would expect to do that very soon.

Mike Pace: Okay. Great. Thanks, guys.

Daniel Goldberg: Thanks, Mike.

Operator: Thank you. The next question is from Marcello Chermisqui from Ares. Please go ahead.

Marcello Chermisqui: Hey, guys. Thanks so much for taking the question. I wanted to ask a couple of questions on the guidance. My understanding is maritime and aerospace represent about 20% of enterprise sales. So about CAD70 million of the 2023 enterprise sales. So it seems like between, like, the cruise business and the aerospace customer, it could be down 50% in 2024, so in line with what you were saying, the Starlink competition was. Is that the right way to think about that?

Daniel Goldberg: Hold on. John’s just going to confirm. So let’s see. So the sheet that I’m looking at has aero and maritime, a little bit less than 20% of our total revenue. I forget what you would kind of characterize as a percentage of our enterprise revenue. So I haven’t done the backward math on that, but roughly half of that. So, yes, there you go. So, I’m sorry. So the question again.

Marcello Chermisqui: Yes, so it seems like aerospace, maritime is down 50% in your guidance. Is that the right way to think about it?

Daniel Goldberg: We’re staring at something. Hold on. It will be roughly. Yes, you’ve done good math there. It sounds like.

Marcello Chermisqui: Appreciate it. So it seems like, given your earlier comment about 50%, like the potential loss of Starlink, do you think that there’s not much more risk there, or do you think that that segment might have incrementally more than the 50%?

Daniel Goldberg: That segment would probably have incrementally more, maybe less aero and more Maritime is how we would think about it. I think Starlink’s having, yes, of all the verticals right now, probably having the biggest impact in maritime for what we felt so far.

Marcello Chermisqui: Okay. No, that’s helpful. And then on the broadcast revenue side, it seems like you’re guiding to 50% of the total revenue decline. So about $75 million. If I look at the decline from the fourth quarter versus the third quarter of 2023, it seems like a $10 million decline, likely mostly due to Nimiq 4 with the Bell contract renewal. So that would imply about $30 million of decline baked into 2024 numbers. So the remaining, say $45 million of broadcast revenue decline outside of Nimiq 4, is that all Nimiq 5, because I think that one is only two months remaining. Even if you assume zero, it seems like there might be other stuff that’s going on.

Daniel Goldberg: So I think your map around the impact of Nimiq 4 is kind of directionally right. There might have been some other stuff in there as well. Then, as I mentioned, the other big, I would say, the anticipated contributor would be DISH, and by DISH and EchoStar. And there, yes, I mean that it comes up in early October, and we just it’s just too early to say, you know, whether that gets renewed at all or, you know, it’s just some partial renewal. So it’s that. And then beyond that, yes, just kind of making provision for any other erosion that we could potentially have and also those are the component parts of that.

Marcello Chermisqui: Okay. No, that’s helpful. And then I noticed in the disclosures, you mentioned something about Nimiq 4 that happened earlier this year. So what are your contingency plans with Bell in case something more permanent happens to Nimiq 4? And is it correct that the insurance only lasts until November 2024?

Daniel Goldberg: So we’ll take the insurance first.

Andrew Browne: Nimiq 4, is at the end of its life or near end of its orbital maneuver life. So it has very little book value, so it has very little insurance. What insurance is there expires in November of 2024?

Daniel Goldberg: And then, as far as, you know, kind of contingency for Bell so right now they use Nimiq 4 and they use Nimiq 5. I think the first thing I’d say is, and try Nimiq 6. Thank you, Dave. You know, we highlighted the issue that we had with Nimiq 4. You know, it’s the right thing to do, to highlight it for everyone. My own expectation is that Nimiq 4 makes it to its anticipated end of life. You know, you never know. If it didn’t, Bell’s got Nimiq 6 and they’re using that. And beyond that, we’ll see where we land with EchoStar on the Nimiq 5 renewal. Maybe there’s some ability to use Nimiq 5 to look after Bell, if they needed it. So certainly, I’d say those are kind of the things that we think about. And Bell’s a sophisticated customer, I mean, they understand, you know, how the networks work.

Marcello Chermisqui: Really appreciate it. And sorry, just on Nimiq 5 like are you on the scale of assumptions, are you assuming no revenue for that in the 2024 guide?

Daniel Goldberg: I just say we, like, you know, we gave a range of guidance. It can accommodate a range of different outcomes if you know, so, yes, it accommodates all kinds of different outcomes with EchoStar, my own guess is we get a partial renewal with them, but it’s just too early to say. They’ve got work to do on their side in terms of, you know, how they go about distributing all the channels that they need to distribute. And so they’ve got work to do with them. We’ve known those guys for a long, long time. We have a good relationship with them. But it’s still some months away, and we developed a guidance range that accommodates just a whole range of different outcomes for them.