Millicom International Cellular - Q4 2025

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Hello, everyone, and welcome to our Q4 2025 results call. This event is being recorded. Our speakers today will be our CEO, Marcelo Benitez, and Bart Vanhaeren, CFO of the company. The slides for today's presentation are available on our website, along with the earnings release and our financial statements. Now, please turn to slide 2 for the safe harbor disclosure. We will be making forward-looking statements which involve risks and uncertainties, which could have a material impact on our results. On slide 3, we define the non-IFRS metrics that we will reference throughout this presentation, and you can find reconciliation tables in the back of our earnings release and on our website. With those disclaimers out of the way, let me turn the call over to our CEO, Marcelo Benitez. Marcelo?

Marcelo Benitez (CEO)

Thank you, Luca, good day to everyone. We closed 2025 with strong operational and financial performance and a clear top-line acceleration. During the year, we successfully integrated Ecuador and Uruguay, expanding to 11 countries. This footprint diversifies our revenue base and supported robust, sustainable, free cash flow generation going forward. Two weeks ago, alongside NJJ, we expanded further to Chile, our twelfth market, which we will address further in the sections that follow. In addition to the expansion to Chile, we have moved quickly to stabilize and integrate the newly acquired business in Uruguay and Ecuador. On the first day of the acquisition, we appointed a new general manager, a new CFO, and a new CTO. Within the first week, we redesigned the executive team and their direct reports. Within the first month, we applied our playbook with discipline, including 30% reduction in headcount.

I'm pleased to share that today we already consider these operations business as usual, reflecting the speed and effectiveness of our integration approach. Turning to our operations, our Pree-to-Post strategy continues to deliver. We added more than 200,000 Postpaid customers in the quarter, and 1.8 million customers if we include Ecuador and Uruguay. This is not just growth, it's a structural upgrade of our Postpaid base. We also made meaningful progress in Home, adding 40,000 net new Homes, reinforcing our ambition to be a full mobile and fixed operator across the region. Financially, execution translated into results. Adjusted EBITDA reached $778 million for the year. EBITDA Margin stood at a strong 47%.

We delivered $278 million of Equity Free Cash Flow in Q4, taking full year EFCF to $916 million, or $864 million, excluding tower sales proceeds. This performance exceeded our guidance, even after absorbing one-time impact, such as DOJ and other legal settlements. As we close 2025, I want to recognize our Tigo team. Thank you for an exceptional year. This was not easy. We integrated new markets, accelerated growth, strengthened cash flow, all while maintaining financial discipline. This combination only happens with focused teamwork and ownership across the organization. Because of your work, we enter 2026 stronger, more diversified, and with a real momentum. Thank you. Now, let's move to our mobile business. The engine is strengthening, and mobile delivered another strong quarter.

Service revenue totaled $954 million, including $112 million from Ecuador and Uruguay. Excluding perimeter effects, mobile service revenue grew 5.7% or $43 million year-over-year, a clear acceleration. This performance reflects disciplined execution across three core strategies. Network investment. We continue to deliver the best connectivity experience through a disciplined de-averaging strategy and highly granular return-focused CapEx allocation. Our investments are targeted where they create measurable impact to customers and drive long-term value. Second, Pre-to-Post migration. Postpaid customers reached 9.1 million, up 12.6% year-over-year, when excluding the perimeter expansion. Only 22% of our 49 million customers are Postpaid. The runway remains long. Third, Prepaid base management. Revenue grew 3%. We are preserving scale through strong commercial execution and increasing ARPU with a simple, easy-to-understand, more for more value proposition.

Let's move to our Home business. During the quarter, we added 40,000 Home customers, and our Home customer base increased 5.1% year-over-year. We are focused on expanding high-speed broadband to low-penetrated areas, while accelerated Fixed-Mobile Convergence, which delivers materially lower churn versus non-FMC customers. As a result, Home service revenues declined a marginal 0.3% year-over-year, marking a second consecutive quarter of essentially flat performance. Given our ongoing commercial efforts and simplified pricing strategy, we are confident in our return to Home revenue growth in 2026. I will review our B2B business. Digital Sservice Revenues increased 40.7% year-over-year to $79 million in the quarter, excluding the perimeter expansion. This growth reflects a combination of one-time government projects in Colombia and Panama, alongside strong underlying momentum in our digital portfolio.

Beyond digital, we continue to see solid performance across the broader B2B segment. Mobile service revenues growth in B2B was 7%, while the SME segment is accelerating, reaching 5% growth after starting the year with low single-digit growth. This demonstrate improving execution, stronger commercial traction, and increasing relevance of our digital solutions across enterprise customers. Let's turn to Guatemala, our best-in-class operation. Postpaid grew 20% year-over-year. Mobile service revenue increased 5.9%. Operating cash flow grew over 17% in the quarter. Full year operating cash flow reached a record of $791 million. Even from a leadership position, the team continues to excel in performance. Outstanding execution. Congratulations to the Guatemala team. Colombia is another clear success story.

We delivered strong results across all business lines, with Postpaid mobile and Home customer bases both expanding 10% year-over-year. Our value proposition of best-in-class mobile coverage and broadband speeds continue to drive share gains and monetization. In line with this momentum, service revenue growth increased 6.9% year-over-year, Adjusted EBITDA reached a record quarterly margin of 44%. This is a remarkable outcome, given the fragmented nature of the Colombian telecom market. My thanks go to the Colombia team for delivering such strong results. As recently announced, we have acquired EPM 50% stake in Tigo Une, now own 100% of our Colombia operation. With full ownership, we are well positioned to consolidate our market presence and further optimize our operations.

This also places us in an excellent position to begin the integration of Coltel, a strategic initiative on which I will share more in a moment. Turning to Panama, we see encouraging signs of top-line acceleration. Our Postpaid customer base expanded 14.6% year-over-year, and mobile service revenue grew 4.5% year-over-year, reaching $84 million in the quarter. On the right side of the slide, you will note that Adjusted EBITDA reached $94 million or 49.8%, primarily due to several one-time items that impacted Q4 profitability. Panama remains in our Club Fifty in full year performance, and we are confident that they will remain so in 2026. Before handling the call over to Bart, let me update you on our key strategic projects.

As noted earlier, our Colombia operation is performing at its best, setting a strong foundation for market consolidation. As announced in February 5th, we acquired two-thirds stake of Coltel from Telefónica, gaining operational control. Our management teams are already on the ground, taking initial steps to strengthen the business. Regarding the 33% stake from La Nación, as you know, there is a formal privatization process with a timeline that sets the potential closing of the transaction for La Nación's stake in April 2026. On February 10th, we announced a transaction with NJJ to acquire Telefónica operations in Chile, a strategically important balance sheet-protected move for Millicom. Together with NJJ, we are acquiring 100% of Telefónica's stake in its Chilean business through a joint venture vehicle, with NJJ acquiring 51% and Millicom the remaining 49%. The upfront payment is $50 million.

Telefónica may receive up to $150 million in earn-out considerations, fully funded by the acquired company's own cash. None of the transaction's obligations, including existing debt, are recourse to Millicom. At closing, Telefónica also contributed approximately $92 million to ensure balance sheet stability. This structure allows us to strengthen the business from day one and provides a clear path to full ownership. In years 5 and 6, we have the option to acquire NJJ's stake at a valuation based on Millicom trading multiples, less a 10% discount. If we do not exercise, NJJ can acquire our stake on the same terms. This creates a meaningful long-term upside with limited upfront risk. Chile is a sophisticated market with clear operational upside. Applying our proven playbook, we see a path to stabilization and performance improvement.... This transaction expands our South America presence while preserving flexibility and leverage discipline.

With that, let me turn the call over to Bart.

Bart Vanhaeren (CFO)

Thank you, Marcelo. Let's now take a deeper look at our financial performance for the quarter and the full year. Service revenues for the quarter reached $1.55 billion, up 15.9% year-on-year. Excluding $131 million contributions from our newly acquired operations in Ecuador and Uruguay, service revenues increased 5.2% year-on-year organically. We are very pleased with this performance. It's a direct result of our strategy, delivering the best network experience, maintaining a commercial focus on the Prepaid to Postpaid migration, and Fixed-Mmobile Convergence. These efforts continue to reduce churn and support healthy ARPU expansion. At the same time, a little word of caution. We have $16 million in B2B government projects in Panama and Colombia, boosting revenues this quarter, but are not necessarily recurring in nature.

Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter increased 25.9% year-on-year, reaching $778 million, representing an EBITDA Margin of 47.1%. Here again, Ecuador and Uruguay contributed meaningfully, adding approximately $45 million to Adjusted EBITDA. Excluding this effect, Adjusted EBITDA still grew 18% year-on-year to $732 million. Three key factors drove this robust year-on-year improvements: 1, outstanding operational performance, particularly in Colombia, Guatemala, and Paraguay. 2, relentless focus on margin enhancement, both in our local operations and across HQ expenditures. 3, positive FX impacts, which for the first time in 2025, supported EBITDA growth. Finally, Equity Free Cash Flow grew $139 million or 17.9% over the last 12 months, reaching $916 million.

Excluding infrastructure sales, we reached $864 million Equity Free Cash Flow this year, which is a number we measure ourselves against. As Marcelo highlighted earlier, we are proud to have exceeded both our own guidance and market expectations, despite currency headwinds for much of the year, particularly in Bolivia, alongside a $118 million DOJ settlement and other cleanups, as disclosed in our Q3 results. With favorable currency evolution, including in Bolivia, this positions us very well for the entry point of 2026. Let me now turn to service revenue performance by country. I will briefly reference Guatemala, Colombia, and Panama, as Marcelo already addressed the main dynamics. Guatemala delivered solid growth with stable market share in our strongest market. Colombia, exceptional commercial execution and favorable FX tailwinds produced an outstanding year, with Home business now contributing to growth.

We are excited and ready to execute on the upcoming in-market consolidation opportunity. Panama returned to solid growth, up 4.9% year-over-year, supported by an expanding postpaid base, as well as some one-off governmental project mentioned earlier. Paraguay, revenue growth was flat year-over-year in constant currency, but reached $154 million for the quarter in real USD. Underlying, though, we have real growth driven by postpaid subscriber growth and ARPU increases, which were offset by one-offs that benefited Q4 2024, without which we would have seen a 2% Organic Growth. Bolivia service revenue returned to triple digit territory for the first time in 2025, up 5.5% year-over-year to $105 million. The Boliviano has strengthened significantly since the elections and shows signs of stabilization in Q4 of this year.

We are now converting Bolivianos to USD around 9 Boliviano per USD. In the other countries, which includes Ecuador and Uruguay for this quarter, in addition to Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and El Salvador, grew 6% organically or 69%, including in Organic Growth. Let's now turn to the next slide, reviewing EBITDA. As highlighted in my opening remarks, we are very pleased with the strong profitability delivered this quarter, with group Adjusted EBITDA reaching a robust margin of 47.1%, including below average margins coming from Ecuador and Uruguay, that include restructuring costs. As shown on slide 16, all of our major operations contributed to this performance, each delivering meaningful year-over-year margin expansion. Let's now review the performance of each country in more detail.

Our strongest operation, Guatemala, reached $241 million in Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter, up 11.3% year-on-year in local currency, driven by improved revenue performance, particularly in Postpaid and continued disciplined cost control. Colombia delivered another exceptional quarter, with Adjusted EBITDA reaching a record $174 million, up 24.6% year-on-year. Strong Postpaid ARPU and disciplined cost management leave this operation in an excellent shape as we assume control of Coltel. Two points of attention here. One, we expect the margin to come down in Q1 due to material increase in minimum wages by the government. Two, although having control over Coltel, we expect to run the company a couple of months independently until we buy out the government. This is expected for April, assuming the timelines of the privatization process doesn't change.

In Panama, Adjusted EBITDA grew 4.5% year-on-year, reaching $94 million, benefiting from the revenue momentum mentioned earlier. Paraguay reported another strong quarter, with an Adjusted EBITDA up 11.8% in local currency to $83 million and a margin of 52.1%. We are encouraged by this margin expansion as we keep costs in check while our customer base continues to grow. In Bolivia, FX rates stabilized during the Q4, combined with disciplined ARPU growth and strong cost control, leading to a margin of 53%. This places Bolivia as our newest and 6th member of our Club Fifty, which is our countries with an EBITDA Margin above 50%. Congratulations to the team for this outstanding result, and as Marcelo says, a very exclusive club where you can get in, but never get out.

Turning to other countries, excluding the new operations in Uruguay and Ecuador, Adjusted EBITDA in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Costa Rica increased 13.1% to $106 million. The new operations contribute $45 million to our EBITDA, even as we began initial headcount-related efficiency programs. In Q3, we told you that we focused on solving a lot of the corporate matters, with settlements with DOJ, Telefónica, getting our 2026 budget, so that in Q4, we could concentrate on the business, the entry point of 2026, and the integration of Uruguay and Ecuador. As Marcelo mentioned in his opening remarks, we hit the ground running and captured efficiencies from day one. Are there more low-hanging fruit compared to other countries?

Sure, I was just looking at preliminary, unaudited, Adjusted EBITDA numbers for January, and was very pleased to see both countries already achieving mid-40s Adjusted EBITDA Margin levels. Let's now turn to slide 17 for a review of our Q4 Equity Free Cash Flow. We began the quarter with strong operational momentum, resulting in a $163 million year-over-year uplift in Adjusted EBITDA. This was the single largest contributor to our Equity Free Cash Flow expansion for the period. Working capital and other payments decreased by $94 million year-on-year, largely driven by a $180 million DOJ settlements we disclosed during our Q3 results in November. This extraordinary impact was partially offset by favorable timing in payables. Taxes paid increased $33 million, consistent with higher profitability across the group and the settlement of certain tax litigations during the quarter.

As expected, lease payments increased $48 million year-on-year, reflecting the full quarter impact of our tower sale and leaseback transaction, as well as the incremental leases from our newly acquired operations in Ecuador and Uruguay. We recorded a $30 million increase in repatriations from our joint venture in Honduras following the infrastructure transaction. Putting all these items together, Equity Free Cash Flow increased by $42 million year-on-year, reaching $278 million. Please turn to the next slide for a look at our Equity Free Cash Flow and leverage for the full year 2025. I won't go over each of these points individually. I will simply highlight that most of the improvement came from a mix of higher EBITDA for $284 million, lower spectrum charges for $63 million, and about $74 million in finance charges.

These effects were partly offset by an increase in taxes paid of $96 million that included settlements, cash CapEx increase of $82 million, and working capital and other charges for $75 million. In summary, for the year, Equity Free Cash Flow increased $139 million to $916 million, or $864 million, excluding LPTI, our strongest performance to date. Let me now walk you through the net debt bridge and resulting leverage at year-end. We began the quarter with $4.6 billion in net debt, corresponding to 2.09 leverage, as is close in Q3. We generated $278 million Equity Free Cash Flow in the quarter, we received the cash proceeds of $236 million from tower sales executed at the end of Q3.

During the quarter, we distributed $0.75 per share in ordinary dividends and $1.25 per share in extraordinary dividends tied to the tower sale proceeds. In total, we distributed $334 million to our shareholders, increasing leverage by 0.14. Adding the operations of Ecuador and Uruguay increased our leverage by approximately 0.35. Bringing these factors together, quarter-end leverage was 2.31, comfortably below our target of below 2.5, even after absorbing the additional perimeter. This is a remarkable achievement. Lastly, on a pro forma basis, including last twelve months Adjusted EBITDA from Uruguay and Ecuador, leverage would have been 2.17. This reinforces our confidence that we will reduce leverage further as we enhance profitability in the acquired operations. Let's now have a look at our financial targets.

We are extremely proud of our 2025 results, which reflect both operational excellence and disciplined financial management. Our regional footprint continues to provide important diversification benefits, enabling us to offset volatility in individual markets, such as the FX devaluation in Bolivia this year, through the performance of the broader portfolio. Said, we operate in Latin America, a region known for macro volatility, and we must factor in stabilization needs of Ecuador, Uruguay, and the Coltel acquisition in Colombia. For 2026, we project an Equity Free Cash Flow of at least $900 million. Regarding leverage, we expect our leverage to increase a bit on the back of the different acquisitions in Colombia.

We had about $570 million for the 50% stake in Tigo Colombia, acquired from EPM. This is about $170 million more than anticipated due to FX, with about $220 million from the acquisitions of Telefónica shares in Coltel. We expect another $220 million from the acquisition of La Nación shares in Coltel. With all that, we see our leverage increase a little more than anticipated in the first half of 2026. In the second half of the year, we expect to bring leverage down again to around 2.5 by year-end, to then land within our guided range of 2.0-2.5 in 2027. With that, let me turn the call back to Luca.

Operator (participant)

We will now begin our question and answer session. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please let us know by emailing us at [email protected]. We will add you to the queue. Our first question of the day comes from Leonardo Olmos, from UBS.

Leonardo Olmos (Director of Equity Research)

Can you hear me the first question?

Operator (participant)

I think Leonardo has some technological issues. Since Leonardo has been unable to ask his question, please continue with Livia De Luca from J.P. Morgan.

Leonardo Olmos (Director of Equity Research)

Hello? Hello.

Operator (participant)

Oh, there's Leonardo and his team. Leonardo?

Leonardo Olmos (Director of Equity Research)

Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking our questions. 2 on our end. The first one, regarding the acquisition of the operations in Chile, just wanted to know your view on the current competitive environment and how you assess the operational and the balance sheet conditions of the asset that you bought from Telefónica. That's the first one. The second one, just a quick maybe more color on what is embedded in this Equity Free Cash Flow guidance for this year, especially regarding the impacts from ongoing integrations. Thank you.

Marcelo Benitez (CEO)

I will take the first one, Leonardo, and I will let Bart answer the second one. First of all, it's a luxury for us to be in Chile. Chile has a very strong macroeconomics, dollar stability, currency stability, and also it's an investment-grade country. We do believe in the long-term prospect of Chile. If we go to the competitive environment, yes, it is a very fragmented market. We are, nevertheless, number one in Home subscribers, and our position in mobile is number two. We do believe that we can forecast long-term or mid-term market consolidation, that is not the main reason why we got in Chile.

Our playbook fits very well to the Chilean operations, and we are getting very good at executing it. In just two weeks, we appointed a new CEO, a new CTO, and a new CFO. We, in the first week, appointed the GM minus one and GM minus two, and as we speak today, we are executing the downsize of the Chilean operation. Despite the fact that we are losing money every day in Chile today, we do think we can bring the operation this year to Equity Free Cash Flow neutral. From there, start looking and receiving the benefits of a new run rate, with a new operating model. That will be Chile. Bart?

Bart Vanhaeren (CFO)

Yeah, for Equity Free Cash Flow. Hi, Leonardo, how you doing? We have, on an organic basis, $864 million in Equity Free Cash Flow, right? Many people will add $180 million for the DOJ that is embedded in those costs. $980 million, right? The two combined. Going into 2026, we have Uruguay and Ecuador contributing a little bit to the Equity Free Cash Flow starting in the year. You know, you can estimate low to mid double-digits Equity Free Cash Flow from the two countries combined. With that, you get to $1 billion starting the year, but then you have to put a number of risks next to it. The big one is Coltel.

You know, we did acquire Coltel now just, a couple weeks ago, which is on a negative, run rate Equity Free Cash Flow, right? We know how to turn around that business. We have done it in Colombia with our own Tigo business.

You also have the restructuring costs and the acquisition debt. All that together should be close to 0, but there are risks on the execution if you go into the negatives. Besides Coltel, you get currency risks and macro risks in Latam, it's inherent to our, to our region. Look where we started the year, where we are now. It's, you know, the good thing is we have now a platform that is diversified and can weather some storms. You know, it's a risk that we need to take into account political risks, tax risk, legal risks, but also upsides. We're starting the year with a very favorable currency. You know, will it sustain during the year? We don't know, but, you know, it's a good start, and then we could have extra growth.

All that together is how we get to this $900 million balance view on Equity Free Cash Flow for 2026. Maybe in the same trend, we're not giving guidance beyond 2026. If you look in the medium term, we do hope that Uruguay, Ecuador and Colombia will align to the average Equity Free Cash Flow to revenue and profitability, which is this year around 15%. In run rate, that's why, where they all should converge to. That's our vision. On the $2.2 billion acquired revenue, 15% Equity Free Cash Flow would be a good ambition to have.

Leonardo Olmos (Director of Equity Research)

Thanks for the answers. Just a quick follow-up, if I may. You mentioned the equity for cash flow impact expected for Colombia, from Coltel, I'm sorry. What about the operations in Uruguay and Ecuador? If you could comment on that as well.

Bart Vanhaeren (CFO)

I mentioned at the beginning, for 2026, low to mid double digits Equity Free Cash Flow.

Leonardo Olmos (Director of Equity Research)

Perfect. Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from Livia De Luca, from J.P. Morgan. Livia?

Livia De Luca (Executive Director of Equity Research)

Hi, everyone. Hi, Marcelo, Bart, Luca. Thank you for taking my question. I have 2 topics that I would like to explore. The first one is, of course, margins. You have been consistently raising margins, and I feel like Q4 was, like, remarkable on that front. Congrats on that. The first thing that comes into our minds is how sustainable is that? Particularly, I would like to touch upon some operations. The first one is Colombian operation. This has been particularly strong, so it was way above our expectations, and what we would like to know is, like, what have been done in this operation, particularly this quarter, and what we can expect in 2026, given the deal process.

I would also like to know a little bit about your expectations for Ecuador and Uruguay, if the Q4 level is a good proxy for 2026. The second topic that I would like to ask you about is M&A, of course. 2025 was an intense year. Something that we often receive as a question from investors is if Tigo would be willing to go to new countries, and the ones that they always ask us about is particularly Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela, and even Argentina now. Can you comment a little bit about your appetite for acquisitions? How are you thinking about capital allocation for this year, given the recent moves? Thank you.

Marcelo Benitez (CEO)

Thank you, Liria, for your questions, and thank for your kind comments about our results. I will start with the margins question. Basically, the margins increase or expansion that we see that is consistent during the quarters has to do with 2 things. Number 1 is because our efficiencies programs are not one time. These are part of our operating business. We review every purchase order from $1. We challenge each and every new contract. Our battle is against the inertia, and that's how we operate on a day-to-day basis. We can add that now, we can add to that now, the top-line growth.

As you can, as you maybe you recall, we started the year with 0% top-line growth, and we ended the year around 5%, a bit more than 5% growth. That is bringing us more scale, and also, that scale is translated in a better operating leverage. In fact, when going to Colombia, when we talk about margins in Colombia, it's more or less the same story, but in a larger volume. We are growing our mobile base and our Home base by 10% year-over-year. This expansion of our top line, our customer base and top line growth, is bringing us new scale, combined with efficiency program that I already mentioned, is what is translating into better margins. Where do we see Colombia?

Is this sustainable and increasing in the future? The answer is yes. Of course, during the merge, you have some. We need to transition through the integration, and that brings some extra costs, but there is no reason why in Colombia we cannot, that Colombia cannot be part of our Club Fifty. Finally, Ecuador and Uruguay, we already are operating Ecuador and Uruguay as business as usual. We already did a lot of the efficiencies that we call the efficiency phase I, the one that we need to do the first 60, 90 days. We already did that last year. We took these operations with around 30% margin. We are above 40% already in these two countries, so we do believe this is absolutely sustainable.

There is still a lot to do in the phase II of these efficiency programs. We should start looking at top-line growth at the end of this year. In 2027, we will have the full benefit of our playbook. The phase I that has to do with efficiency, we are looking at it right now. Bart?

Bart Vanhaeren (CFO)

Thank you. I think, you know, on the back view of Marcelo said, you see that quarter-over-quarter, the growth has been accelerating, hence as well, the operational leverage that comes from that through the margins down to the equity figure. If you look at the M&A, you know, bigger picture, right? What's our M&A strategy? What are we looking at? First of all, we are focused on turning around the businesses that we acquired, right? It went really quick. In Q4, we already did Uruguay, Ecuador, as Marcelo said, they're now on run rate and business as usual. We've now got Chile to deal with. That's our main priority. If we look at the M&A strategy, first has always been in-market consolidation, right?

Over the last few years, we did Panama, Nicaragua, and now Colombia. Many of our markets are not 2-player markets, with not a lot of immediate, you know, consolidation targets in the remaining. There are still 3 or 4 players in Costa Rica, but has been difficult to do something as our last transaction got canceled. You got Salvador, Paraguay, and Uruguay, which are still 3 or 4 player markets. Adjacent markets, right? We did Uruguay, Ecuador, and now Chile. What are the main sizable markets that remain would be Venezuela and Peru, basically, right, on the continent. I'm deliberately excluding Mexico and Brazil. It's not markets for us. It's too big, too complicated. It's not something that we have immediately on the radar to enter.

And as well, Argentina, where the dice are already thrown, right? The M&A already happened last year. There's nothing to go and do there. The focus on adjacencies would be mainly Peru and Venezuela, should they one day come to the market. And then obviously minorities. We did already Guatemala, we did already Panama, we did now Colombia. What is remaining is Honduras. In Honduras, I kind of like to have a partner. It hedges us a little bit against the currency. Honduras is the Lempiras is one of our most volatile currency in the year, next to the Boliviano. And then in Chile, we just did a JV, we're thinking there more longer term.

As you know, we have this option in year five and six, so that's more a longer-term discussion to have.

Livia De Luca (Executive Director of Equity Research)

That's very clear. Thank you. Just back on the point of margins, I think soon we will stop discussing the Fifties Clubs, and it will be the Sixties Clubs, right? Like, from the level that you are delivering, this is totally achievable, I guess. Let's see.

Marcelo Benitez (CEO)

Yeah, yeah.

Livia De Luca (Executive Director of Equity Research)

Thank you very much, team.

Marcelo Benitez (CEO)

Thank you.

Livia De Luca (Executive Director of Equity Research)

Have a good day.

Bart Vanhaeren (CFO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, Livia. The next question comes from Andreas Johnson. I see he just dropped. Maybe let's give him another second, if he reconnects. There he is back. Next question from Andreas Johnsen from DNB. We cannot hear you, Andreas. Maybe. No. Let's see. No, unfortunately, we don't have any audio on your side, Andreas. Maybe let's give it another try later on. If we can then continue with Phani Kanumuri from HSBC, please. Phani, can you unmute yourself?

Phani Kanumuri (Equity Research Analyst)

Hello. Hi. Thanks for taking the questions. My questions are on your shareholder remuneration. How are you looking at it in the light of the acquisitions charges that you have? The second one is on Guatemala. We have seen a strong increase in subscribers as well as accelerating revenue growth. What is driving that? Are you able to increase the prices in Guatemala in specific? Probably the third question is on the appetite for Postpaid in your region. I mean,

... countries that you operate in are still very highly Prepaid. What is driving the increase and upgrade to Postpaid in these regions? Those are the three questions. Thank you.

Bart Vanhaeren (CFO)

You want to take this one?

Marcelo Benitez (CEO)

Sorry, I have this question. Revenue growth, appetite for Postpaid.

Bart Vanhaeren (CFO)

I can take that, and you take the dividend.

Phani Kanumuri (Equity Research Analyst)

Dividend, yes.

Bart Vanhaeren (CFO)

Revenue growth in Guatemala was the first question, Phani. Guatemala is our most, I would say, it's the example we have of excellent execution, brilliant execution. Guatemala started the process of pushing customers from Prepaid to Postpaid. They are growing that at a 20% month-over-month. They have only 12% of Postpaid customers over the total customers, so the runway, the opportunity to expand is big. The other dimension is we invested in the network. We have a very, very strong mobile network in Guatemala, and also we expanded coverage. We have more than 200 sites with a vision of having at least 500 aggregated new sites in Guatemala.

Finally, there is a very, very sharp base management in Prepaid. Prepaid, for the first time, we are being able to increase ARPU by increasing allowances and the size of the ticket. In that combination, yeah, the foundation is a solid network with a very granular dimensioning and way to allocate CapEx, migration from Prepaid to Postpaid at a rate of 20% quarter-over-quarter, and finally, Prepaid base management. This is brilliant execution from the Guatemala team. Congrats again, Guatemala. You are our north in terms of how to operate and become an open network in 60, in the very near future. What is behind the migration from Prepaid to Postpaid?

This is very simple to understand, Phani, when you see that the Prepaid customer is only connected 15 days per month. Who wants to be connected only 15 days per month? What are the drivers that makes this migration to accelerate in the group, I would say, in all operations, and has to do, number 1, with the network investment and with this granular view of where to put the money, is where the demand is. Number 2, has to do with a very simple migration process. That has two key elements. One is a very simple value proposition. We have no more than 3-4 plans to migrate Prepaid customers to Postpaid customers. The second part is it has to be easy.

You can migrate from your phone, from Prepaid to Postpaid with 2 clicks. That's it. We already profiled you. We already know that you are, I mean, you're using your demand for data is higher than the allowance that the Prepaid gives you. They just need to put their names, surnames, some data, and then you are activated. These are the things that are making this migration a machinery to increase customer satisfaction, more days connected, and more ARPU. Marc, on dividends?

Marcelo Benitez (CEO)

Yes. We are not giving guidance on dividends, so that's maybe an unfortunate question. You know, let me, let me help you give some color on how we're thinking about this. I think I mentioned before that I'd like to distribute two-thirds of the Equity Free Cash Flow to shareholders. In 2025, this has been in the form of dividends and extraordinary dividends. Yes, we go from $750 million to $900 million guidance, Equity Free Cash Flow. There's 20% uplift. At the same time, I'm also triangulating with our net debt, right? On the back of these acquisitions, we're gonna pierce through temporarily through this 2.5 times leverage.

Ideally, I want to see the leverage come down again before really touching too much on the dividend. Sustainless grow is a question. Sustainless grow, maybe. Give us a few more weeks, so we get better views on the risk regarding to Coltel. How do we land? How do we executing against the current guidance? Within our Q1 results, we'll give more color. It will also be around the time we have to call for the AGM. It will be more clearer in a few more weeks. A little bit of patience on that, please.

Phani Kanumuri (Equity Research Analyst)

Perfect. Yeah. Thank you.

Bart Vanhaeren (CFO)

Thank you, Phani. Thank you very much, Phani. Let's see if we can give Andreas another shot on his questions. If the audio doesn't work, I believe I have a good idea.

Andreas Johnsen (VP and Senior Analyst)

Yeah, we test. Can you hear me?

Bart Vanhaeren (CFO)

Yes. Loud and clear.

Andreas Johnsen (VP and Senior Analyst)

Perfect. 2 quite easy questions from my side. First of all, how much restructuring are you planning to do in 2026 in terms of costs? Secondly, if you can explain a little bit the quite good growth, sequential growth in mobile ARPU during the quarter. I guess there is some FX element, but also there must be something else underlying, so it would be interesting to hear that and your thoughts on that going forward as well. Thanks.

Bart Vanhaeren (CFO)

Thank you, Andreas, for your question. I will take the second one, and Bart will take the first one. On the second one, what's behind the ARPU increase? 50% of the ARPU increase comes from the positive or the currency appreciation of our countries. 50% of that comes from two things: One is Prepaid to Postpaid migrations, so that is a uplift of ARPU, more or less of 50%, and ARPU price increases in Prepaid through a very simple value proposition of more for more. I give you more days connected or more analysis for a higher ticket. Those are the two things that organically are making the ARPU growth. Yep.

Regarding the restructuring costs, so far in Uruguay and Ecuador combined, we did about $20 million in 2025, that mostly relates to ERC restructuring. In 2026, I'm looking more towards Coltel, rather than Uruguay and Ecuador. There, it's probably are looking towards, with all the restructuring that needs to be done there, more towards a triple digit number, to really get the business back to a run rate that we are used to.

Andreas Johnsen (VP and Senior Analyst)

Perfect. Thank you. Just follow up on the ARPU. That growth that you related to, was that sequential or year-on-year?

Bart Vanhaeren (CFO)

No, no, the growth is year-on-year. Also you can see a sequential growth, quarter-over-quarter, but it's not 5%, right? Probably 7%, I think it's ARPU growth.

Andreas Johnsen (VP and Senior Analyst)

Yep. Perfect. Thank you.

Bart Vanhaeren (CFO)

Thank you very much, Andreas. Our final question of the day will come from Eduardo Nieto Leal from J.P. Morgan.

Eduardo Nieto Leal (Financial Professional)

Hi, Luca and Bart. Thanks for taking my question. Just a quick one from my side. Thinking about the pending payments for M&A, it seems like mostly will be 1Q. I'm just curious where you see leverage peaking this year, and at what level, kind of, related to the question that Phani asked, at what level would you be comfortable stopping dividend payments, if leverage gets a little bit higher than you would expect?

Bart Vanhaeren (CFO)

Yeah. Payment on M&A, Q4, we did Ecuador and Uruguay, done, right? In Q1, we have the $570 million from the purchase of the EPM health shares in our deal operation. We also have $220 million, out of which about $60 million is deferred, for the acquisition of the Telefónica shares in Coltel. That's all done in Q1. As you saw, the minimum price in the privatization process, done by La Nación for the, for their stake in Coltel, is also about $220 million, and that we're expecting in Q4. Okay? Remember that we also have extraordinary dividends coming into Q4, of another $1.25 per share.

It was part of the 2.50 that was announced last year, payable in October, and we grew 50%. With that, yes, our leverage is gonna increase in the first half of the year. We're gonna pierce through the 2.5 times leverage, but then in line with the guidance, we hope by end of the year to be back around 2.5, and then in 2027, again, constantly within the 2.0-2.5 range, in line with our policy. Cutting dividend is not on the radar at all. We've been, you know, quite accurate with our forecasting. At this moment, it's not even on the table.

We're looking at sustaining it and potentially growing over time as our leverage comes back below the 2.5.

Eduardo Nieto Leal (Financial Professional)

Got it. Just maybe a quick follow-up, but you asked, is there a level at which leverage would make you uncomfortable as CFO here?

Bart Vanhaeren (CFO)

Well, any leverage makes me uncomfortable, if you ask me. No, not uncomfortable, you want to have a strong balance sheet to be able to do things. We have now been able to do things thanks to our strong balance sheet. You know, we added four operations in one year, and also Uruguay, Ecuador, Colombia, and as you saw, we did some structuring around Chile, exactly to protect the balance sheet. Do I believe we're gonna do really good in Chile? Yes, absolutely. I also don't want to bet the house on that. I said, "Okay, let's put a non-recourse structure. You know, 49%, we don't consolidate.

Let us do our work, and hopefully, we're talking about upsides, in the future and not about risks on the balance sheet." I think we're at a leverage where we feel comfortable, including the Coltel acquisition, and from there, I want to see deleveraging before doing other stuff on balance sheet.

Eduardo Nieto Leal (Financial Professional)

Thank you, Bart. Appreciate it.

Bart Vanhaeren (CFO)

Welcome. Thank you very much, Eduardo. That was our final question for today and concludes the question and answer session. Thank you so much for your time and for connecting. We see you all for our Q1 results in May. Thank you.