BCE posts higher earnings in the fourth quarter but watching fall this year

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“It’s been a very competitive environment with the lowest pricing we’ve ever seen,” BCE CEO Mirko Bibic said in an interview.Eduardo Lima/The Globe and Mail

BCE Inc. Posted higher net earnings in the fourth quarter of 2024, but added fewer wireless subscribers than expected, and it predicted a decrease in earnings per year. Share this year.

The company said it expects the 2025 revenue in the range of 1 percent increase to a 3 percent decline. It predicts a decrease in adjusted earnings per Share of 8 to 13 percent.

“The wide range is designed to meet macroeconomic pressure and competition, which we have seen in pricing over the past 18 to 24 months,” CEO Mirko Bibic said in an interview on Thursday morning.

The company continued to quote competitive wireless and broadband pressure, lower subscriber load, higher media costs, increased interest expenses and a larger number of ordinary outstanding shares due to the implementation of a reduced dividend investment plan.

This was offset by lower planned capital costs caused by a slowdown in BCE’s fiber structure, and certain efficiencies, as it said, would drive free -cash growth of 11 to 19 percent.

In the fourth quarter, which ended December 31, Telco added 56,550 Netto new postpacked wireless customers down 56 percent from 128,715 customers added in 2023. Analysts expected the company to add 64,000.

“It has been a very competitive environment with the lowest pricing we have ever seen,” Mr. Bibic. Braking immigration to Canada and fewer housing starters has also been headwinds for the industry, he added.

The company’s guidance on Thursday includes maintaining its dividend of $ 3.99 per year.

When the company paused the dividend last November, it said it intended to maintain the dividend until BCE’s payout and net debt development traces against its target policy intervals subject to annual review of its board of directors.

In a small deviation from this message, Mr. BIBIC analysts on Thursday morning that the company would continue to reassess the yield based on macroeconomic, competitive and regulatory factors.

Some analysts took this as a sign that a yield cut could be possible in the coming quarters. The high -performance share, which is largely owned by retail investors, has in recent quarters paid more in dividends than the company has earned in free cash flow. BCE yield yield has recently stood at approx. 11 percent, an unusually high level suggesting that many investors see the payment as unsustainable.

“We would not rule out a cut later in 2025, considering the unpleasant payout situation and accelerating the expenses in the United States,” Desjardin’s analyst Jerome Dubreuil wrote in a note to investors.

The company currently has a high debt load of more than $ 40.5 billion. To help put it down, Mr. Bibic that BCE had identified an extra $ 1.3 billion of non-core assets that could be sold to help strengthen the balance, except for the company’s continued sale of Northwestel Inc. For $ 1.3 billion and its share in Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Ltd. for $ 4.7 billion.

BCE has also retained financial advisers to help assess the potential sale of its telecom infrastructure, which has “a significant amount of untapped value,” Mr. Bibic. Analysts have estimated that these assets could be worth billions.

Mr. Bibic told analysts that the company would undergo the possibilities of growing its US fiber footprint past BC’s pending acquisition of Ziply Fiber, but only if BCE could bring in third -party capital to reduce its financing requirements.

“We have received a series of incoming calls that ask us if we would be interested in doing so,” he said.

However, he was aiming for the federal telecommunications telekele regulator for his decision so far to give Telus Corp. Possibility to resell the internet over the networks of Bell Canada that BCE owns. Mr. Bibic said the Canadian Radio TV and Telecommunications Commission’s policy policy incites investments and would lead to job losses and less construction of critical infrastructure.

Last year, Bell said it would reduce its networking costs by $ 1 billion as a result of the regulator’s decision. Mr. Bibic said on Thursday that Bell is planning to make further cuts this year if the regulator did not change his policy when it visits the decision this summer.

“We are not building fiber in the advantage of Telus, and that is what the CRTC policy is in place right now is forcing us to do,” he told analysts.

BCE added 34,187 Internet customers in its fourth quarter, down 39 percent compared to the same quarter of 2023. Analysts had expected the company to add 40,000. Internet revenue rose 3.4 percent. Pricing, said Mr. Bibic, would remain the largest handle in growing this long -term revenue.

The company raised $ 6.42 billion in revenue fell 0.8 percent from $ 6.47 billion the year before.

BCE had $ 505 million profits, an increase of 16 percent from $ 435 million in the same quarter in 2023, equivalent to 51 cents per year. Share, up from 42 cents per Stock.

Churn – The Monthly Customer rate – Among BPE’s post -paid wireless customers rose to 1.66 percent over the quarter compared to 1.63 percent in the same quarter earlier.

The company announced 1.2 percent higher media revenue with a greater proportion of this income from digital rather than its traditional linear TV and radio states.

BCE shares closed at $ 33.70 Thursday at Toronto Stock Exchange, down 6.1 percent.