Good afternoon, this is the Chorus Call conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the INWIT first quarter 2024 results presentation. As a reminder, all participants are on listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Fabio Ruffini, Head of Investor Relations and Corporate Development. Please go ahead, sir. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Thanks for joining us. With me today is Diego Galli, INWIT General Manager, and Emilia Trudu, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, please allow me to draw your attention to the safe harbor statement on page two. As usual, following a brief presentation of the results, we will open the floor to Q&A. Over to you, Diego. Thank you, Fabio, and good evening, everyone. First quarter results display an overall improvement in industrial and financial indicators, confirming the company's execution track record. INWIT business model is based on investment in digital infrastructure, creating value through sharing best quality assets. In Q1, we pressed forward on this front with higher investments in new sites, new indoor coverage DAS, and land ownership, making the company stronger. New services, particularly DAS, are confirmed as the fastest-growing line in the business, up 60% year-on-year. The market is expanding as clients are asking for turnkey solutions for managed infrastructure services with different connectivity technologies involved, making locations more smart and sustainable. Our goal is to continue leading the development of this market. The Italian telecom industry continues to be under pressure, with limited returns and budget constraints for operators. However, demand for digital infrastructure is confirmed as structurally solid, and neutral players are recognized as an efficiency driver. In 2024, we are witnessing several transformative corporate traMSActions, which have the potential to improve market fundamentals and unlock more discretional investments. In this context, the 2026 guidance is confirmed, implying high single-digit revenue growth, highly visible, an industry-leading 76% EBITDA margin, and a progressively growing balance sheet flexibility. Providing a balanced profile of growth and yield, in 2024, INWIT enhanced shareholder operation policy is in full execution, with an increased dividend to be paid in a couple of weeks and the share buyback plan ongoing. Moving to the main trends of the quarter on page 4, revenues were up 9% year-on-year on the back of CPI, applying 2023 inflation, asset expansion with more new sites and more DAS, tenancy ratio growth, now up to 26, and strong new services. EBITDA after lease was up 11%, with more than one percentage point margin expansion. This was underpinned by lease cost efficiency, which resulted in more than 400 real estate traMSActions in the first three months of the year. The current cash flow was about EUR 150 million, up 10% year-on-year, leading to leverage reduction with net debt to EBITDA of 4.5x, despite strong investment activity and continued share buyback activity. We continue to be pleased about INWIT's industrial capabilities. We added more than 200 sites in Q1, confirming our leadership in the market and providing fuel for future tenancy growth. New POPs were nearly 1,000 in Q1, up year-on-year and consistent with our full year targets when taking seasonality into account. In brief, Q1 marks a solid beginning of the year, displaying growth and resilience in the current industry context. Now, I will turn it over to Emilia for a more detailed review of the results. Thank you. Thank you, Diego, and good evening, everyone. On page 5, let's look at new site activity. As mentioned, we are pleased to see a consistent delivery pace at high levels. More than 200 sites in the first quarter means more than 50% growth year-on-year and greater confidence in reaching the full-year targets. Demand is solid and backed by three different contractual arrangements. Operators are completing coverage of the market and improving densification, both in urban and rural areas. On a last 12-month basis, we added nearly 1,000 new sites, a very accretive use of capital because of 2 anchor POPs committed to every new MSA site and a double-digit IRR. Anchor POPs development benefited from these results, as shown on page 6. More than 600 new POPs with TIM and Vodafone in Q1, for a total of more than 41,000 and 6% growth year-over-year. This trend is in line with contractual commitments, supporting an efficient rollout of 5G. In terms of mix, there is a growing proportion of new POPs on new sites, while the common grid optimization program reaches maturity. These figures confirm that even in the current challenging context, mobile infrastructure investments are a priority, and the rollout of standalone 5G continues. Then, over to page seven. Hospitality with other clients are up 13% year-over-year to nearly 14,000. INWIT infrastructure is open to multiple client categories and technologies, from mobile to FWA and IoT. We added 315 POPs in the quarter, in line with the first quarter of 2023. In terms of mix, IoT clients show the trend, in particular the utility segment, where towers are used to host gateways to monitor real-time consumption data. Going forward, 2024 guidance implies a slight acceleration from these levels, consistent with the usual seasonality of our clients. Next, on page 8, we review new services. Revenues in the first quarter were up by about 60% year-on-year, to more than EUR 14 million. The quarter-on-quarter trend reflects the strong year-end performance and the non-repetition of some revenues, which had a lower recurring fee component. This is a feature of the location owner business model, which is growing, and we believe will provide structural support to the market. Revenue growth was driven mostly by indoor coverage solution with DAS technology, both new locations and new tenants on the existing asset base. The current pipeline includes more and more large connectivity projects, where INWIT provides managed infrastructure services. Macro sites, DAS, small cells, fiber, and IoT work in synergy to enable advanced applications, making venues and cities smarter and more sustainable, meeting the strong demand from location owners and end users. We added about 20 new locations in Q1, for a total of more than 470. The figure will more than double by 2026, in line with revenues from new services expected at more than EUR 100 million. Next, we review the P&L. Revenue growth stood at 9%, in line with the 2024 guidance midpoint. This was due to material CPI support, with the 5.4% average recorded in 2023 applied to INWIT MSA, which are uncapped, and to a lesser extent, to the other contracts. New tenants, with tenancy ratio up to 2.26, and continued strong growth in new services, as discussed. Operational expenditures developed in line with revenues, as we invest to support growth in new services, and maintenance follows the overall asset growth. As a result, EBITDA margin was stable at 91.5%. The main efficiency lever continues to be this cost. More than 400 real estate traMSActions in the quarter supported the EBITDA after leases growth of +11%, and margin expansion from 70.9% to 72.2%. Efficiency partially compensated the effect of higher asset base, macro and micro, and the inflation impact, limiting this cost growth on a quarterly and yearly basis. Moreover, D&A are slightly up in line with the CapEx trend. Interest charges are about stable as compared with the previous quarter, and taxes are up in line with the phasing of the tax plans in place. Despite this, the tax rate continues to be very efficient at 16.7%. Moving to the cash flow on page 11. Recurring free cash flow was EUR 150 million in the first quarter, for a 65% cash conversion ratio. The cash flow in the adjusted after lease, we recorded low recurring CapEx, a structural feature of INWIT, no cash taxes, which are due in Q2 and Q4. About neutral working capital, which we expect will be positive in the full year. Cash interest was higher year-on-year, in line with expectations and guidance, also due to different phasing in the payment of interest for variable debt and to the increased cost of debt on the floating amount. Below the recurring line, we recorded higher CapEx, nearly EUR 80 million, in line with our industrial activity, and a partial reversal of the cash advance booked in Q4, related to the next generation EU CapEx subsidy. This is in line with expectation and a function of the mechanics of the 5G consortium, where 90% of CapEx is subsidized, but only a portion directly involved in. Leverage was down to 4.5x, based on annualized quarterly EBITDA, despite the growing CapEx and the continued buyback activity worth EUR 23 million in Q1. As flagged in the past, INWIT funding needs for 2024 will require a limited amount of additional financing to cover part of the investment plan and shareholder remuneration. Our debt structure continues to be efficient, with more than 75% of debt being fixed and no near-term maturity. With this, I hand it back to you, Diego. Thank you. Thank you, Emilia. A few concluding remarks from my side. INWIT business model, based on a shared infrastructure investment, support growth and resilience in different macro scenarios, as shown by our track record and Q1 results. We strive to be an efficient partner to mobile operators, particularly in the current context, where cost control is key. The industry is acting to address its challenges, and there is a potential to unleash a new cycle in investments in connectivity, indoor and outdoor. We are ideally positioned to capture it based on the best infrastructure assets and unique industrial capabilities. We stay committed to affirming our leadership in the market, expanding margins at double-digit rates, offering compelling shareholder returns, and progressively building balance sheet flexibility, a source of optionality and shareholder value. With this, I thank you, and we are now ready for the Q&A session. Thank you. This is the Chorus Call conference operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. We kindly ask you to please limit to one question at a time. The first question is from Jacob Bluestone with BNP Paribas. Jacob Bluestone, your line is open. Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question. I had a question on site deployments, please. You show on slide 5, that new sites were 205 in the quarter. So up year-on-year, but down Q-on-Q. Can you help us understand, is the slowdown from last quarter seasonal, or should we, or is there something else at play here? Thank you. Thanks, Jacob. Yeah, I would say the rollout of new sites is progressing well. The end-to-end machine is well oiled, and the number of the quarter to be read in the context of seasonality is higher than last year by, I think, 50%, and that shows the underlying trend. Q1 follows also a particularly strong Q4. So again, the demand is there, and our ability to deliver to build new sites is well on track. Thank you. Welcome. The next question is from Roshan Ranjit with Deutsche Bank. Good afternoon. Thank you for the question. One, please. You're highlighting the higher EMF limit on slide 11. So that's now been approved, from my understanding. Can you run us through what, in practical terms, are the next stages? And, you know, whilst you have always said you haven't been constrained by this limit, what is the potential upside from the raised limit for INWIT? Thank you. Thanks, Roshan. Yeah, the new law has been approved, is in place since actually few days, with the increase of the limit from 6 V/m to 15 V/m. So it's a significant increase, though still significantly below the EU limit, which is 60 V/m. As we said in the past, that this is not going to be a game changer for INWIT. It's going to be a facilitator in managing new requests for co-locations, though we don't expect a significant upside at this stage. So again, not a game changer, will facilitate and support the deployment of our plan. From an operational point of view, the law has been implemented, it's been approved, and now there will be also some operational decrees to be approved and implemented. So again, not a game changer, but support facilitator to support the continuous improvement of our tenancy ratio, which is expected to achieve 2.5 by 2026. ... Thank you. If I, if I may just follow, do you see it more beneficial for FWA customers or OLO customers who are focused on the, I guess, traditional MNO side? Yeah, clearly the general relaxation of the limits, clearly the impact is more meaningful for the MNOs. For as far as the fixed service access is concerned, the EMF impact is relatively, relatively limited. So the facilitation and the support will be mostly for collocation from MNOs. Perfect. Thank you. Welcome. The next question is from Andrew Lee with Goldman Sachs. Good evening, everyone. Just had a question on the, you alluded to it, and obviously it's behind your underlying growth in the quarter, but just on the operator landscape in Italy, has there been any change you've seen at all in terms of overall demand, any signs of, you know, reason to hope for an improvement sooner than expected? And is the split of where that demand has, you know, receded or kind of been held back a little bit between anchor tenant and OLOs been any different to how you would have anticipated? So any kind of change there will be helpful. Thanks. Yeah. Thanks, Andrew. Actually, so far, no significant changes to highlight. The plans agreed with the anchor tenants are progressing on track with the committed operational plans and revenue profile. So no significant change. Clearly, we don't expect any significant change during 2024. We think it's going to be a year of, what can I say, a transition towards a new operating models and new entities, both considering the separation for Telecom Italia, the network separation, and adding the NetCo focus on service and connectivity going further, as well as adding the Fastweb deal from the fast, new Fastweb. Clearly, we would expect focus as well on improving network quality, investment connectivity. So no expectation for a change in the short term, but prosecution of the current commitments, but a positive view on the development, development of the industry for the medium, medium long term. And there is, I think, an opportunity in the medium term to catch up with the low investments, relatively low investments done to support 5G and to recover and accelerate the investment cycle. Thank you. Welcome. The next question is from Georgios Ierodiaconou with Citi. Yes, good afternoon, and thank you for taking my question. It's actually on a comment you made in your opening remarks, Diego, about corporate actions that could be available. To the degree that you can comment, both timing and the kind of actions you are considering, it will be great to get a bit of color as to what to expect. Thank you. Yes, thanks, Georgios. My comment was actually related to the industry and to the sector, and also related to what I said in relation to the previous question. Actually, after many years where the industry and the telco industry in Italy has been declining and under pressure in terms of of returns and for investments, in 2024, we see significant changes that, in our view, again, go in the right direction to make the industry and the operators more sustainable. And so both, if we think about the telecom separation, both from a Fastweb and also the fixed wireless access operators have been redefining their strategy and restructuring. Some tangible things have happened and will go to execution, again, in our view, supporting a positive view on the market in the industry in Italy. If I could ask you in a slightly different way, from your perspective in your own industry, are there opportunities that you could act upon yourself, or is it more how you see the MNO market developing? I think from our side, clearly, we have quite, quite clear priorities in keep on expanding our assets through the investment as we are doing. So sites, indoor and outdoor sites, so not only new towers at, I would say, strong pace, new indoor coverage. So, continue expanding our assets through deploying, but also happy to acquire existing assets from operators as we did in the past. As well as when thinking about a more dynamic industry, open to assess opportunities as they will emerge. We spoke in the past about, for instance, the active involvement in active equipment. We keep on being open about that. It's slightly different case compared to passive infrastructure, but open to consider and assess. So I think that we are in a healthy situation where we have strong industrial capabilities, credibility with our customers and partners, and financial headroom we can put at work to keep on supporting our growth, either organically or with the bolt-ons, and inorganic options. Thank you. Welcome. The next question is from Stefano Gamberini with Equita. Good afternoon, everybody. Just a quick question regarding investments. Now, you have a leverage of 4.5 times the EBITDA. So, how you can, we can say, re-leverage your company for coming also quarters? So my question is regarding, are there some new M&A files that should arrive shortly? Or could you accelerate the land buyout that was already good in this first quarter? Or finally, you have a buyback now already approved of EUR 165 million that will end in October. Could we expect some, we can say, extending, that you can extending this buyback for the following quarters, or not? Many thanks. Got you, Stefano. Yes, I think it's good to see how our leverage keeps on clearly declining. It was 4.5x in Q1, also absorbing the impact of the buyback. Otherwise, it would have been 4.3x. So continuous ability to deleverage. So the in terms of capital allocation in the framework of a more prudent, or, or let me say, cautious leverage profile, we said between 5x-5.5x, we have a significant headroom. And we are considering, we are clearly always monitoring opportunities, and some of the ones you mentioned are relevant. The acceleration of land buyout is an option, provided that we can continue to acquire with good financial returns, so provided that the market remains balanced. But it's clearly an option because creates value. We can accelerate investments on energy as well. We can accelerate investments on big projects related to smart city. More towers are always welcome, and also more addition businesses such as edge data center and IoT. So we are assessing the options which are consistent with our priority, meaning creation of industrial synergies and returns, very competitive returns. As we did last year, if the opportunities for additional investments to support growth will not materialize, then we will consider additional shareholder remuneration. We constantly review the capital allocation, so it's clearly a topic we will keep on considering. A quick follow-up, if I may. I didn't catch what do you think about investment in energy? If you can, elaborate a little bit. Thanks. Yeah. We have started investing on solar panels, and we have started. Now, I think we have 400 sites, which take the benefit in terms of energy consumption from the solar panels. And it's an interesting business because it's fully consistent with our business model. It makes our infrastructure more resilient for the short and long term, and also may offer, if somehow towerized, good returns aligned with our, again, with our business model. So there is the opportunity we are considering to invest a little bit more on this field. Thanks. Welcome. The next question is from Patrick Maurice with Barclays. Yeah. Thanks, guys, for taking the questions. If I could just ask a bit on the OLO growth on slide 7, where you give the splits of other clients that grew by 1.6 thousand in the last 12 months. You say in the slides, there was a bit of a mix shift in terms of other clients, like utility clients. But could you just give us a broad sense of the split between MNOs, FWA, and others in terms of that, let's say, that 1.6K in the last 12 months? Thank you. Thanks, Maurice. Yeah, the OLOs, it's good to see how the hospitality keeps the new tenants keeps a good pace. Overall, the MNOs tenants are, let me say, across the plan timeframe at about 15% of the total, as the rest is fixed wireless access and IoT. In the more recent quarters, fixed wireless access, as we discussed, has been relatively soft, so the IoT component has been more more higher. Yeah, that's in terms of overall composition of the all POPs. Sorry, as a quick follow-up, is the 15%, so is that of net adds rather than total or both? MNOs. Yeah, it's net new POPs, so net adds, considering the plan timeframe between now and 2026. Great. Thank you. Welcome. The next question is from Luigi Minerva with HSBC. Yes, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. It's really a couple of clarifications on previous questions. So the first one is on the share buyback, and I understand your message, Diego, there. And I'm wondering if essentially the limited free cash flow generation can limit your ability to do further shareholder distribution beyond what has been already announced. I suppose that if you have to issue a bond or you know, open new credit lines with banks to support shareholder distribution, then it makes that option less attractive. And the second question is on well, perhaps also related to this, is you know, your discussions with your leading shareholders, you know, Ardian and Vantage. You know, what kind of priorities are they communicating to you when it comes to capital allocation, and perhaps whether, you know, the listing of the company, medium to long term, is still the best solution from their perspective? Thank you. Thanks, Luigi. Yeah. Let me start from the end. I think that what is the shareholders' direction is reflected in our plan, which has been fully supported by the board, including clearly the capital allocation, and in particular, the capital allocation, which has been approved in March. Which has been an evolution of the previous one, and which, as we do remember, has meant an increase in terms of dividends, a more cautious leverage profile, more investments for growth, and also the share buyback. So I would say a full portfolio of tools have been put at work, and this framework is still the reference framework for the plan. And with regards to the buyback, you are absolutely right. Clearly, I mean, when making these kind of decisions, we consider different elements. The leverage, which keeps on reducing, of course, we are mindful of the share price trading, which has been and still is low level, but at the same time, you're right, we are still, we are not yet cash positive, so we need to consider the cost, also the cost of debt, which is clearly still on the high level. So as we did last year, the decision is the result of the way, the weight of the different, of the different elements, including clearly the perspective of investing to fuel additional growth. So, as I said, we constantly review the capital allocation, we weigh the different factors, and as we did last year, we will continue to assess and implement, I would say, fairly balanced capital allocation approach. Thank you, Diego. Thank you. The next question is from David Guarino with Green Street. Thank you. Hey, we've seen INWIT, among other tower codes across the globe, display pretty poor stock price performance over the past year. But it's interesting that the transaction we see in the private market suggests there's still a pretty strong bid for tower assets. So I was wondering if you could just explain, why do you think that disconnect exists between public and private market investors? And is there anything INWIT can do to close that gap? Yeah. Thanks, David. It's... Yeah, it's the difference is, let me say, still there. I think there are considerations about clearly the macro environment, the impact of interest rates, the leverage, and so the overall cost of financing and returns expected from the transactions, which position a different, in a different, at a different level the public and the private. Let me take the view that I would say the private has been quite... Sorry, the public has been quite depressed in the last a few months. Clearly, the correlation with the American rates, the U.S. rates, is particularly high. So I think that there is clearly room for a recovery of the share price in the next month, as soon as the rates, interest rate situation will gradually improve. Structurally, I think the INWIT has been demonstrating the strength of its operating model, which is fundamentally based on adding two anchor tenants, which allow us to realize synergies, and then being open to all the operators in the market, not only to mobile operators, but to all kind of operators, and also expanding in adjacent business quite quickly. That's helpful. And then, just as a separate follow-up, there it seems to me there's a pretty big growing cluster of larger-sized data centers that are popping up around Milan, a mix of both hyperscale and colocation facilities. Would INWIT ever consider expanding into some of those larger scale data centers, or do you think internally that maybe edge data centers are really the only complementary asset type for your portfolio? That's interesting, interesting topic. Clearly, we expect for the future that the edge to the towers will be relevant, but it's not, will take time. So for sure, that's a business which will be relevant for us, the far edge to the towers. At the other opposite, there are the big data center, and in the middle there are, let me say, the regional, local data centers. So I would think, and I would say that between the far edge and the regional ones, there is a business which deserves interest and analysis from our perspective, because there are a lot of similarities to our business. It's a business where clearly there is an investment which is, which is shared, so supports the role of neutral host, would allow us to make synergies with our current and customers, and expand further customers. It's so it's, it's an interesting infrastructure model. We, we are considering it's very close to, again, to our assets and to our business model. So again, opportunities where there is to put the, the chance to create industrial synergies and, good, good returns are in our scope of consideration and assessment. Very good. Thank you. Welcome. The next question is from Usman Ghazi with Berenberg. Hello. Thank you. I just wanted to follow up on the on your comments on the data center opportunity. Clearly very relevant, but can you expand into this without making an acquisition? Or, I mean, are there any, you know, assets of interest in this sector, or is this kind of, you know, just new territory which INWIT can play a part in growing the market? Yeah, I would say clearly organically, it's, it allows us to exploit the space we have, we have available. We have 24,000 sites, 24,000 locations. Clearly, many of them are in central areas, in business district areas. So we have already... clearly, the location, the sites are connected with fiber, and there is energy protection, so, and there is physical space in many of them, which allow to host additional kind of equipments. So there is, again, our core infrastructure supports synergies towards an organic investment when edge and data center, let me say, computing capacity will be needed at the far edge of the network. So there is a layer which we can leverage on. There are also other opportunities which may come, and again, we do assess multiple options, and if they will be interesting to share with you, we will do when and if it will become, again, interesting and relevant. Can I follow up? I guess, I mean, I can understand the far edge opportunity is obviously very close to your core, which is, you know, these 24,000 locations and hosting compute capacity here. That, that I understand, but what you described earlier was this, you know, an opportunity somewhere in the middle between the far edge and the centralized data centers of the hyperscaler. So something like what American Tower did with CoreSite. Is that, is that the kind of opportunity that you're exploring now, or am I misunderstanding? Yeah. Again, I think that when we talk about far edge, I think it's an opportunity which we don't see in the short term, but it's relevant for Inwit, also thinking about the- Okay ... the RAN, the Cloud RAN, and the way RAN will evolve in the medium- to long-term. So that's clearly something we are considering and assessing and studying, because it's connected, strictly connected to our core business. The hyperscale data center is different, completely different, and is, yeah. So, yeah, we still consider it a little bit far from our core interest. Thank you. Welcome. ... The next question is from Ben Rickett with New Street Research. Hi, thank you. I just have two quick questions. Firstly, you've mentioned the impact of higher interest rates in the quarter. I was just wondering what you're assuming for interest rates in your 2026 guidance. Does that assume that interest rates remain roughly at the current levels or, or are you assuming a decline there? And then the second question, a few months ago, we saw the sale of OpNet to Wind Tre. I was just wondering if you'd had any initial discussions with Wind Tre about what they are planning to do with the asset, and whether you think there's a risk there that you see tenancy losses as a result of that. Thank you. Emilia, on the first one. Yeah, I'll take the first question about the interest rate. Actually, when we think about the refinancing of existing debt or the limited amount of new financing that we will take for 2024, we are assuming a rate in line with the current rate environment. So our business plan already assumes the current rate in the range of, let's say, 4.5%-5%. So this is admitted in our guidance. With regards to OpNet, yeah, the deal was somehow, somehow expected. We have not yet started to discuss with Wind Tre about the development of OpNet. We think that it's good to see that OpNet has found a way to progress and to, I guess, keep on investing then on the development of fixed wireless access network, for which clearly our towers are available to host additional equipment, when and if they will, together with Wind Tre, deploy some development plan. Okay, understood. Thank you. Welcome. Thank you. Gentlemen, there are no more questions registered at this time. Thank you, everyone. Have a good evening. Thank you.