On this page of StockholderLetter.com we present the latest annual shareholder letter from Uniti Group Inc. — ticker symbol UNIT. Reading current and past UNIT letters to shareholders can bring important insights into the investment thesis.
A N N UA L R E P O RT 2 0 2 3
MY FELLOW STOCKHOLDERS: 2023 was another productive year for Uniti. Our core recurring strategic fiber business continues to demonstrate its resiliency with top line growth of 5% in 2023, including Uniti Leasing lease-up, and Uniti Fiber Enterprise and Wholesale growth of 20%, 15% and 9%, respectively, with continued declining capital intensity. Despite a challenging macroeconomic backdrop, we successfully refinanced $3.1 billion of debt in 2023, resulting in our current business plan now being fully funded, having no significant permanent debt maturities until 2027, and over 95% of our debt being fixed rate. Just as importantly, by addressing our balance sheet, we afforded ourselves the ability to focus on strategic matters. We recently sold non-core assets that included our remaining tower portfolio, our remaining investment interest in Bluebird Network, and our sale leaseback with CableSouth for total proceeds of $87 million, an almost 10 times blended EBITDA multiple. Also, we have decided to largely exit the non-core one-time equipment sale business. As a reminder, this business represents re-selling of networking and other IT equipment. On a go forward basis, we expect onetime equipment sales will be a negligible part of our results as we will only pursue those sales that are part of an important fiber network sale and are desired by our important customers. We also recently announced an ABS bridge financing that will provide funding of up to $350 million. This is an exciting development for Uniti which reinforces that fiber truly is a mission critical communication asset, and we believe that ABS will be an important value accretive financing option going forward. As an asset rich company with one of the largest fiber portfolios in the country, Uniti is uniquely positioned to benefit from M&A trends that continue to highlight the value of quality fiber assets, both wholesale and fiber-to-the-home. Over the past 5 years, Uniti has sold or monetized nearly $1 billion of assets at premium multiples, and we expect to continue that disciplined on-going review of our current asset portfolio. In addition, given our balance sheet and liquidity runway, we expect to be active this year evaluating transformative transactions, including the on-going review of our current asset portfolio. Despite that, however, our primary focus, as always, will be execution of disciplined growth of our core business operations. In closing, I would like to thank our investors and customers for their continued support of Uniti. I would also like to thank our dedicated employees for their continued hard work and diligence to make Uniti the best company it can be. With our current business plan fully funded, no significant permanent near term debt maturities, and a long runway for profitable growth, our ability to create value for all of our stakeholders continues to be robust. Sincerely, Kenny A. Gunderman President and Chief Executive Officer
 • shareholder letter icon 4/11/2024 Letter Continued (Full PDF)
 • stockholder letter icon 4/13/2023 UNIT Stockholder Letter
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 • Benford's Law Stocks icon UNIT Benford's Law Stock Score = 92


UNIT Shareholder/Stockholder Letter Transcript:

A N N UA L R E P O RT 2 0 2 3

MY FELLOW
STOCKHOLDERS:
2023 was another productive year for Uniti. Our core recurring strategic fiber business continues to
demonstrate its resiliency with top line growth of 5% in 2023, including Uniti Leasing lease-up, and Uniti Fiber
Enterprise and Wholesale growth of 20%, 15% and 9%, respectively, with continued declining capital intensity.
Despite a challenging macroeconomic backdrop, we successfully refinanced $3.1 billion of debt in 2023,
resulting in our current business plan now being fully funded, having no significant permanent debt
maturities until 2027, and over 95% of our debt being fixed rate.
Just as importantly, by addressing our balance sheet, we afforded ourselves the ability to focus on strategic
matters. We recently sold non-core assets that included our remaining tower portfolio, our remaining
investment interest in Bluebird Network, and our sale leaseback with CableSouth for total proceeds of $87
million, an almost 10 times blended EBITDA multiple.
Also, we have decided to largely exit the non-core one-time equipment sale business. As a reminder, this
business represents re-selling of networking and other IT equipment. On a go forward basis, we expect onetime equipment sales will be a negligible part of our results as we will only pursue those sales that are part of
an important fiber network sale and are desired by our important customers.
We also recently announced an ABS bridge financing that will provide funding of up to $350 million. This is
an exciting development for Uniti which reinforces that fiber truly is a mission critical communication asset,
and we believe that ABS will be an important value accretive financing option going forward.
As an asset rich company with one of the largest fiber portfolios in the country, Uniti is uniquely positioned
to benefit from M&A trends that continue to highlight the value of quality fiber assets, both wholesale and
fiber-to-the-home. Over the past 5 years, Uniti has sold or monetized nearly $1 billion of assets at premium
multiples, and we expect to continue that disciplined on-going review of our current asset portfolio.
In addition, given our balance sheet and liquidity runway, we expect to be active this year evaluating
transformative transactions, including the on-going review of our current asset portfolio. Despite that,
however, our primary focus, as always, will be execution of disciplined growth of our core business operations.
In closing, I would like to thank our investors and customers for their continued support of Uniti. I would
also like to thank our dedicated employees for their continued hard work and diligence to make Uniti the
best company it can be. With our current business plan fully funded, no significant permanent near term
debt maturities, and a long runway for profitable growth, our ability to create value for all of our stakeholders
continues to be robust.
Sincerely,
Kenny A. Gunderman
President and Chief Executive Officer



shareholder letter icon 4/11/2024 Letter Continued (Full PDF)
 

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