Sirius XM Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:SIRI) UBS Global Media & Communications Conference December 10, 2024 2:15 PM ET

Company Participants

Jennifer Witz - Chief Executive Officer

Conference Call Participants

Batya Levi - UBS

Batya Levi

I think we're going to get started now. Thank you everyone for joining us. I'm Batya Levi with the Media and Communications team at UBS. And our next presenter is CEO, Jennifer Witz, for Sirius. Thank you so much for coming.

Jennifer Witz

Thank you for having me.

Batya Levi

Thank you. So this morning you broke some news. So I thought maybe you could start off with that, give us an overview, and maybe go over what prompted this.

Jennifer Witz

Sure. So over the past two years, we've made significant investments in our technology infrastructure. And that's going to support us for many years in the future. And now with many of those updates in place, it's the right time to take a more analytical, ROI-driven focus on our investments going forward. And we're really focused on value creation and believe that the efforts that we're making to drive results in our core automotive subscription business and our ads business, complemented with the efficiency exercise we're putting in place – so we did announce this morning that we're targeting $200 million of incremental cost reduction. That's the run rate number exiting 2025. The combination of the focus, the narrowing of our focus on our in-car subscription business alongside our ads business and these efficiency efforts will put us on the right path going forward. It's the right direction for the company.

So 90% of our subscribers engage with our SiriusXM service through the radio embedded in the car. And these subscribers, as you know, are high ARPU, high variable margin, we have strong customer satisfaction and very low churn in these segments. And that is because we've created something that incredibly simple to use in the car and that's been a very high value to the segment and that coupled with the differentiated content offering we have has really driven the value in the segment in the past and will continue to do so going forward.

So, the investments we've made over the last year or so after the launch of the app in marketing for streaming customers have not produced the results that we were hoping for. We designed the new app, the lower price point, we put in personalized marketing efforts. And we developed more digital oriented content to attract these growth audiences with streaming only. And we're just not hitting the LTVs that we expected to be able to hit to really justify spending more marketing in that area. So we're focusing our efforts in our core segments in automotive, where we really believe we can drive high LTV subscriber acquisition.

And that's going to be really important that we use the streaming platform for two parts of the business going forward to reinforce that. One is to extend the reach in and out of the car and I have some more examples, obviously, just some recent updates there. But also to leverage all the data we're getting back from that platform, whether it's in car or in the app, to provide a more personalized experience, enhance the value of our overall subscription by driving engagement. Right?

It also – the data we're getting back better inform the content investments we're making so that we can make sure to focus these investments on the core content offering that's really resonated with these segments in the past and will continue to do so.

And on the ad side of the business, we are very focused on finding ways for the ad business to support the SiriusXM subscription business. And one of those ways is in the future providing more addressable and targeted ads in the in-car experience. This is a long-term process as we build volume through 360L, but there's certainly an opportunity there. And so, across these businesses, we're really leaning into our strengths. And I am very confident that this is the right focus for the company that our robust free cash flow generation on top of our really strong EBITDA margins positions us well in the near term to deleverage and to focus on our dividend.

Yeah, we have flexibility to be opportunistic about share repurchases, but I think that's really going to be a focus as we get to our target leverage, which we've said is low to mid 3.

Batya Levi

Right, okay. I do want to dig in on all those parts, but maybe if we can just start with the product itself. I remember talking about the platform last year. What were some of the learnings that made you switch? And what features did not really hold through and how can you change those from here?

Jennifer Witz

Yeah, I think so largely with the streaming app, we had been hoping to attract younger audiences through listening on the app or in other streaming devices, possibly even CarPlay or Android Auto in the car. And we targeted a number of investments, including a lower price point for that package in order to do so. And so, we've been bringing in streaming trialers into the service and leveraging personalized marketing to try to improve retention. We've talked a lot about early in-trial engagement, really motivates longer-term retention.

And while we've seen some sort of slow progress in those metrics, we really haven't been able to drive the lift that we need to justify the higher LTVs. So one of the things that we've already done is cut back our streaming marketing spend. So we'll have 25% fewer streaming trialers this year than we even had last year. And I expect to continue to reduce that next year.

And look, we can always pivot the investment. We'll continue to manage this business with a smaller streaming funnel. But to the extent that the metrics really materialize, we can invest more very easily. But we really focused on leveraging the learnings that we got through all of those personal marketing journeys and bringing that back to the in-car side of the business.

So we've been rolling out sales force tools on the in-car side of the business. We have 360L, we'll talk more about that. And over 40% of our new car trial starts now. There is real opportunity with 360L because the metrics are better there, given the robust personalized experience we have in-car, and it's really about capitalizing on where our strengths are and deprioritizing areas where we haven't been able to deliver.

Batya Levi

Okay. In terms of the 360L adoption, I think, last year, it was 35%. Now, 40%. Is that within your expectation or is it growing slower?

Jennifer Witz

We're always subject to OEM releases and changeovers in radio platforms, but it's on track. And next year, we should be just over 50% of new car trial starts. And we have a major OEM planning to launch at the end of next year, which will support a pretty significant increase going into 2026 in terms of new car trial starts.

So the results are there. And we've talked about this before. Better conversion, better retention. It's a much more robust experience in-car with more personalization in the product with recommendations and a much broader set of content. But it's up to us in the marketing to make sure that customers are learning more about the content that best resonates with them. And that's the process we're going through now. So this is part of the reason that we've narrowed our focus really to this part of the business, because we do see opportunities in 360L to continue to improve on both acquisition and retention in our core segments.

Batya Levi

I think we'll go through some of the guidance that you provided, but you also had a data point where you expect this year's self-pay subscribers to be more versus a year ago. Does that hold for 4Q as well? So will it be more than 131?

Jennifer Witz

So I don't want to provide specific guidance on Q4, but we had a great third quarter, really strong churn. Going into the fourth quarter, we certainly feel good about the full year guidance or the full year expectation, I guess, if you will, which is what you said. So we'll be better year-over-year in terms of net ads. And the second half in the fourth quarter will also be positive. But there's vehicle turnover that's very much tied to new trial starts. And October, November, really strong in terms of starts. So, I'd probably be a little hesitant about providing more clarity on that. That's one of the areas certainly with vehicle-related where we have an opportunity to improve the performance for our core segments.

There's just still friction in that process of when you trade in your vehicle, transferring your subscription from one car to another, and we can make that process easier with better identity solutions.

Batya Levi

Okay. Can we talk a little bit about what you're seeing with the new price point that you launched, the $9.95? And maybe how when the free trial ends, how much of the customers you can capture with a new price point.

Jennifer Witz

Yeah. So, we launched that price point last year with streaming. And as I mentioned, we haven't seen enough traction there. We still are gaining streaming trials. And I think there'll be a refined set of cohorts where it makes sense to continue that marketing.

But on the in-car side of the business, we've also launched in a $9.99 price point. And I think we'll probably talk a little bit about the revenue trajectory. And part of what we've been in the past is more – as we manage acquisition and retention, we've leveraged promotional offers on the self-pay side of our business. And one of the ways we think we can reduce our reliance on this, it's to leverage that $10 entry price point. So, it's really about providing more options for subscribers with content differentiation. So, again, we'll have plenty of premium tiers that are over $20. But bringing customers in after the in-car trial, there'll be a promotion, but it could shift to kind of a trial extension, which is typical in media products. And after that, having them choose a price point that's somewhere between $10 or more. In the testing we've done on those packages, we see much better retention on those full price packages over the long term. So we think this is core to really developing a sustainable foundation for future revenue maximization.

Batya Levi

Let's talk a little bit about your revenue guidance for next year. So it steps down from this year. Is it mostly subscription driven because of maybe lower ARPU flowing through the system? We'll talk about advertising as well, but maybe you can give us pieces of that step down.

Jennifer Witz

Yeah. On the subscription side of the business, it's, of course, volume and rate. And we have lost subscribers this year. Fewer than last year is our expectation. But that plays into, obviously, the revenue guidance that we provided for next year.

And then on the ARPU side, we have seen some pressure this year. This year's ARPU has a lot to do with just the run rate or the lapping of the rate increase we did last year in 2023. And we're evaluating a rate increase for next year. So, that should provide some positive momentum. But, of course, that has to offset the trend line on promotional plans and the lower volume in our subscriber base. And again, this is all to position us longer term to maximize revenue as we think about retaining customers after that post-trial promotion on these full-price packages starting at $10. So feel really good about future stabilization in ARPU and the balance of what really matters, right, is not just ARPU but rate and volume and making sure that we have an opportunity to grow revenue in the future.

Batya Levi

I think third quarter ARPU was declining about 3% low single digits. So would you expect that to accelerate? Or maybe stay at that level and then with a price increase maybe…

Jennifer Witz

And it will take some time for this new pricing and packaging structure to roll its way through, especially when you think about trial ends and then a promotion after that, right, even if it's a three-month trial extension. So that's going to take some time to work its way through. So we may see some near-term pressure, but really believe in the opportunity of this pricing and packaging structure going forward.

Batya Levi

How about the Platinum mix? Is that segment growing?

Jennifer Witz

It's about a third of our base. It's been pretty consistent over the last couple of years. We've introduced some other package like our Platinum VIP, which is a much higher price point. I think it's $35. So it's a real mix of streaming and in-car promotion and full price in these different packages. So it's about a third overall.

Batya Levi

And maybe let's shift a little bit to Pandora. How does Pandora fit in the new strategy and the opportunity to bundle it with Sirius, and if that would be accretive from your perspective, from a monetization perspective.

Jennifer Witz

The biggest contribution from Pandora today, of course, is that it's nearly 60% of our ad revenue. And we expect it to be really important to our ad business going forward. We've been able to increase monetization. And it's a core part of our overall advertising portfolio.

But, yes, we've talked a little bit about this opportunity to bring value from the control that Pandora provides in its Pandora premium subscription and the discovery and variety that SiriusXM provides and has long provided kind of in the service that we've had, both in the car and out.

The real power is if we can find a way to bring these two products together in an integrated way that makes it really easy for our core audiences to take advantage of discover a song or rediscover a song in Sirius, and you want to save it to your Pandora library.

So with this new platform in place, it's an easier integration for us going forward. Of course, we have to sequence that relative to other investments. And we've got to make sure that we've got the right licensing in place. But I think you should think about this as added value for audiences and incremental revenue because it's going to be a higher price package, ultimately, to have both.

Batya Levi

Right. Do you also see some kind of utilization?

Jennifer Witz

It would really be – well, we offer Pandora Premium today, and there's certainly many of our customers, especially our core customers, that are using another streaming on-demand service. I think what you've seen, and certainly some of the labels have disclosed this as well, is that there's less penetration in older audiences, and I think that's really where we can bring something to the table because we have a really strong presence there. And so again, I don't expect it to cannibalize. I think it's added value for that subscriber base, and it's actually provided a better opportunity for us to attract more audiences and then generate more revenue ultimately.

Batya Levi

And then on advertising, I guess what we saw since the beginning of the year, maybe a lot of inventory flooding the market, pressure on CPMs, and you talked about that also in the third quarter. Is that continuing or what do you think from an advertising perspective?

Jennifer Witz

And we did reiterate our 2024 guidance at this morning and, obviously, that includes the advertising component and we feel good about that number for this year. Yeah, there were certainly a flood of CTV inventory, as you're aware. I think a fair amount of pricing pressure on both CTV and audio as a result of that. In any kind of market dynamic, obviously, you're going to get – if you take some time to settle, I think, on the pricing front once you get a lot more volume in the market. And we're starting to see some of that stability and pricing. And for us, it's really about the complementary buy that audio represents and we can talk more about that.

I feel good about where we are now on advertising revenues this year. We're starting to see some opening up of demand in pharma and CPG, and it's kind of the holiday for retailers. So some of that demand's coming through our programmatic solutions. So, feel good about this year.

We are still growing ad revenue year-over-year in 2024. And while it may not be as fast as we thought we would grow, it's still on a positive trajectory. And some of the new inventory we've added on the podcasting side has really been promising as well.

Batya Levi

Was political much of a help?

Jennifer Witz

It's not a big area for us, but, yeah, it provided some tailwind this year.

Batya Levi

And I think you had, last quarter, lowered advertising revenue guidance by $75 million. Some of it was already reflected in the third quarter numbers. How was the weight between the two quarters?

Jennifer Witz

I would say to just focus on the year-end guidance, and we expect to deliver on that.

Batya Levi

Fair enough. Yesterday, we had a advertising panel and they were thinking of audio advertising staying, still growing, but very low single digits and not really improving that much. What are you including in your guidance for 2025?

Jennifer Witz

Yeah, it's incorporated in our overall revenue guidance and there are a couple places where we have opportunity that others may not and we've certainly delivered improvements to our podcast portfolio. Our podcast business overall, we've been growing profitably. And the added inventory certainly helped us with that. It brings Call Her Daddy and SmartLess. It brings a lot of great anchor tenants to the overall platform and that helps not only with that podcast portfolio, but also more broadly with our music streaming efforts as well, just so we bring in advertisers across and really the entire network.

And really, where we've been positive momentum is on the monetization. And so, we've been able to double our monetization per download, which I think puts us in a leading position in terms of the industry overall.

So, there are headwinds and tailwinds, but on the margin, I feel good about next year's guidance.

Batya Levi

I think we talked a little bit about it last year also, structurally advertising on a video platform versus an audio platform. Is that improving on the audio side as you add more podcast inventory or is the inventory not growing fast enough to capture that engagement?

Jennifer Witz

So, there was a bit of a reset when iOS 17 came out in terms of the podcast inventory and automatic downloads no longer being in place there. So, that created a reduction in supply. And what we've done and many others have done is increased ad load in podcasting. And there's a sensitive balance there. Obviously, we don't want to increase the ad load too much to the detriment of listener experience.

We've got a lot of history in managing this on the streaming side. We've been in the audio advertising business with Pandora for almost 20 years. And there's a lot of data science that goes into the levels of ad load in Pandora and how to sort of manage that. So we don't really want to drive ad load anymore in the podcast, but with this added inventory we have with Call Her Daddy and SmartLess, we have a much more robust offering and that helps the overall portfolio.

And I think there's going to be additional opportunities as the market is kind of rationalized. There's some of the inflated prices of a few years ago I think has become more rational and that gives us a better opportunity to explore things too going forward.

Batya Levi

And how do you think about the expansion of the ad supported tier on the SiriusXM side?

Jennifer Witz

So, there's opportunity that I believe we have in the car that no one else really has because of our integration. And as 360L rolls out, that gives us a chance to really launch addressability in the car. So we need volume to really materialize there. But even in our subscription product without ad tiers, we'll be able to provide better targeting within the car for advertisers.

And then over time, we are looking ad supported products at SiriusXM. It gives us more levers to pull in terms of the packaging structure. We've been talking a bit about Free Preview, which is launched with a few OEMs. It's very small volumes, but it gives us a chance to test a reduced content offering that's completely free and ad-supported. And then we're looking at a low-cost subscription with ads as well, which maybe gives us an entry price less than that $10 without relying on promotional discounts to keep subscribers in our service at a lower price point. So, really, all of this is about capturing more demand. Really most of that demand we believe will be in our core segments because these are targeted mostly in the car, but we can provide some of these opportunities in the streaming product as well.

Batya Levi

Do you think 2025 will be the year to ramp these products?

Jennifer Witz

I think some will start testing in 2025, but, certainly, on the in-car side for addressable advertising in the car, that's going to take some time to build out over the next several years as the volumes come into play.

Batya Levi

One question that I'm intrigued about in terms of Alex Cooper exclusivity, but in terms of I think – you have exclusive rights on the advertising side, but the podcast would still be available on the other platforms. So how do you think that inclusion will drive more engagement or more younger demographics to come to your platform?

Jennifer Witz

Yeah. So, we've been doing this for now a few years with our podcast deals. And each one is a little different, but the unique opportunity we have is that we have a strong ads business and we have a strong subscription business. And we can work with these podcast creators to create exclusive content for the SiriusXM service, let them reach a new audience, but also allow us to enhance the value of the subscription. So, it's sometimes, let's say, windowing exclusivity and sometimes it's actual exclusive content. With Call Her Daddy and Alex Cooper and her broader Unwell network, we will be launching two channels, linear channels on SiriusXM which is what has worked really well with our subscriber base. And those will come in in the early part of next year. So, that's in addition to, as you mentioned, broad distribution of her podcast across other platforms. And that's typically what we've done with other podcasts as well because it provides the best opportunity for us to monetize through advertising. So I'd expect that to be our strategy going forward. Much of the talent wants that as well.

I do think there'll be opportunities, maybe not with these specific podcasts, but with others to eventually maybe bring them, look at bringing them behind the paywall, especially to the extent that they support our core audiences. There will be, I think, conversations that we can have about that. But again, all of these investments that we're considering really have to be focused on our core audiences.

On the podcasting side and the ads business, I think we can look to pursue a slightly broader set of audiences because we're selling to advertisers across audiences and they want to make sure they have younger audiences to attract as well.

Batya Levi

Right. Specifically for Alex Cooper, those two channels will be exclusive to Sirius.

Jennifer Witz

Yes.

Batya Levi

Do you have the ability to sub-license some of her content to other DSPs?

Jennifer Witz

The podcast itself will be broadly distributed. So we will be able to monetize on all these third party platforms for the podcast, some places in audio and some in video. But the channels themselves will be exclusive to us, and we wouldn't sub-license those. We really do want to bring that exclusive content and enhance the value of our subscriptions to our subscribers. And there's an opportunity for Alex and her network to be talking about that on the broad distribution and the podcast and having people come back to SiriusXM for that special content.

Batya Levi

Right. Can you help us think about profitability of an exclusive deal like that, initially higher cost and, as monetization picks up, making money on those investments. And how long would that take or what's included in your…

Jennifer Witz

I think one of the things to note is that – there's certainly been some headlines about some of these podcast deals. They're multi-year deals. And so, the cost is spread over multiple years and we've been very – it depends. Some are three – some might be three-and-a-half, but there is – it's not the headline per year, obviously, and we've been able to structure deals that make a lot of sense for our business. Again, we have to two levers to kind of work with them. But the majority of the cost is associated with – typically, the deals are structured with an MG [ph] and there's revenue share and most of that ties to the ad business. And a portion would be allocated to the SiriusXM subscription side of the business where we have this exclusive content. We're also leveraging some of that for our Podcast Plus subscription distributed through Apple, where we typically have removed the ads for subscribers in that product as well.

So these deals have been very effective for us financially. And again, I think there's been some correction in the market. So that probably gives us more opportunity to look at others going forward.

Batya Levi

Okay. So let's talk a little bit about your overall cost structure and the margin trajectory going forward. You announced another $200 million cost-cutting opportunity. Can you talk to us a little bit of where that will come from? And maybe kind of how did that differ from the original $200 million that we saw?

Jennifer Witz

So the original was actually closer to $350 million between what we did in 2023 and 2024. We talked about $200 million in 2024. So, the $350 million is exiting this year. A lot of that was reinvested in the technology infrastructure that we've been updating. And as we go into next year, there'll be cost savings that we achieve during the year. But again, we're targeting this $200 million for year end next year on an exit run rate basis. And there's a number of areas that we'll continue to look at.

We talked a bit about marketing and how we're going to be more efficient and the audiences we're going after, particularly in streaming. That'll apply in the in-car side as well. So the opportunities for us to leverage AI also to personalize that marketing and maybe shift to other channels that are more efficient. And there's customer service improvements that we're getting and working with Sierra AI, which has really improved the cost to serve.

And then there's going to be, I think, a focus as we look at our investments across the portfolio and determine how best to serve our core audiences across product and tech and content and other areas where, again, we put a much more disciplined process in place to evaluate the return on those investments. And I think we'll see opportunities really across the cost structure, not only in the operating expense side, but also in CapEx as well.

Batya Levi

Right. Maybe on the OpEx and implementation of AI, where are we in terms of that phase? And interestingly, some of the subscription-based companies talk about using AI as a driver for lower cost, but also eliminating that opportunity to upsell when the customer calls in. So how do you deal with that dynamic?

Batya Levi

Yeah, well, I think we will use Sierra AI, for instance, in both. We're using it in chat today. And we'll also use it for live calls. So it will act as a live agent. And I actually think AI, it actually combines with sort of next best action. So many of our customers want to call. They want to interact with someone and it could be an AI agent, but I think given all the data and the ability of an AI agent to better determine what to upsell in the moment is a real opportunity for our business. And that can happen on digital channels as well, but really excited about what we're starting to see on the customer service side.

Batya Levi

You would expect that to ramp up in 2025, all those capabilities?

Jennifer Witz

Yes.

Batya Levi

Okay. And maybe a couple other partnerships that you've announced with Walmart and ESPN+, how do we think about those impacts on the cost side and maybe monetization?

Jennifer Witz

Not really about costs. It's about just making sure that a broader set of audiences are aware of our offering at SiriusXM and also just bringing non-automotive distribution to our service. It's added value for our subscribers because they get six months of these services for free. So it's really a nice win-win for both sides. And I think we'll have more technology next year that'll allow us to launch more of these into market as well.

Batya Levi

That's the bit about share of cost, I guess.

Jennifer Witz

It's really just – yes, there's a promotional period. Sometimes we'll pay something smaller or they will. But it really is barter, essentially, where we're promoting each other's services.

Batya Levi

And you mentioned that the recent – or maybe 2024 cost savings were mostly invested back in the business in terms of [indiscernible] and getting the new platform up and running. From here on, that will continue but to a less extent, is that right? Is the $200 million run rate more of a net number exiting the year?

Jennifer Witz

The $200 million will be a mix of OpEx and CapEx. And we've talked a little bit about the product and technology investments, in particular, span both. We talked a bit about our guidance on satellite and non-satellite CapEx going forward and we expect – and we have pretty clear line of sight on the satellite CapEx. Just had its successful launch of SiriusXM 9 and it's been testing in orbit which is fantastic. And that's really core, obviously, to satellite delivery in the car. We've built out the streaming platform which we're leveraging to, for instance, support the launch of Tesla, which we just started with our holiday update last week. Really excited because – between Model 3, Y and Cybertrucks. We'll be in another 2 million cars on the road in the next several weeks. So that's been one that we've been really excited to get out there. And we're also going to leverage that streaming platform for Rivian as well, which is coming hopefully later this month.

So, a lot of the investments now are going to start to pay off in terms of again expanding the reach in and out of the car of our service. So, we'll have the opportunity I think also with new leadership coming in on the product and tech side, to take a closer look at some of the places where we have been investing, where we might invest in the future to really focus those investments on higher ROI efforts.

And so, you'll see that start to materialize. He's got to get settled and get running, but really excited to have Wayne Thorsen joining the company starting next week. I think you'll see that materialize in lower non-satellite CapEx rolling forward as well.

Batya Levi

Right. So I think originally the guidance was one more year of elevated non-satellite CapEx. Are you giving him less of a budget to play with?

Jennifer Witz

Well, I'm not going to get into that yet, but I do think there is opportunities for us to rationalize some of the spending there. We have some end of life investments we need to make on sort of our on-the-ground infrastructure supporting the in-car business and broadcast and repeaters. So some of that will roll through. And we've given I think pretty clear guidance on the satellite CapEx side of that. We'll continue to decline over time, which really supports growing free cash flow.

Batya Levi

Right. Okay. And maybe a couple minutes left. Let's end with that. A bit of change. I actually thought this year's free cash flow, you had a lot of deal-related expenses, and that lowered. Otherwise, it was flat. And you maintained that. And I think next year, there's a bit of a step down. And that's more operational driven.

Jennifer Witz

Yeah, our guidance for next year is $1.15 billion, which is pretty close to this year and last year's number. And that's reflective of EBITDA down slightly next year versus this year, satellite CapEx declining and non-satellite CapEx, as we talked about, sort of stable to maybe slightly lower. Some dynamics with cash taxes. We've had a really strong program there on tax equity investments and better working capital. So, a number of puts and takes, but pretty stable I think as it relates to free cash flow. And then, [indiscernible] provided a 2027 target on free cash flow of $1.5 billion, which I think really speaks to the tailwinds we have on the CapEx side and other parts of our business. So we feel really good about ongoing improvements in free cash flow conversion.

Batya Levi

What happens in the middle?

Jennifer Witz

So a lot of it is CapEx and cost savings.

Batya Levi

2026 starts to ramp as well.

Jennifer Witz

Yeah. There'll be a trajectory in between, obviously. It doesn't happen overnight. But, yeah, we're really focused on driving the robust free cash flow we have in our business on top of our strong margins and setting ourselves up for a strong capital return strategy.

Batya Levi

And maybe finally on the dividend, the buyback and the leverage, leverage steps down to about 3.6?

Jennifer Witz

Yes, 3.6 is what we disclosed for the end of year next year. That assumes no opportunistic share repurchases, just the reduction in debt of $700 million that we disclosed. That's all based on the guidance of $2.6 billion in EBITDA and $1.15 billion in free cash flow. So that's how you get there. And that's the near-term focus, maintain the dividend, de-leverage the business, and we can opportunistically pursue share purchases, if it makes sense, but our priority really is on de-leveraging and maintaining the dividend. And then once we get to our target leverage, of course, of the low to mid 3 times range, then I think share purchases will become a bigger part of the mix going forward.

Batya Levi

That's a great place to end it. Thank you so much.

Jennifer Witz

Thank you.

Question-and-Answer Session

Q -