ITG CFO：光纤基建是AI繁荣的“铲子”，IPO后股价随板块波动

Tell us exactly what you guys are doing. I always like it. Um, I said, uh, kind of what you are about in terms of digital infrastructure structure, but what markets do you exactly play into? Yeah. Well, thanks for having me. Uh, we are primarily involved in building out fiber optic infrastructure for communications, uh, service providers and big clients like, uh, Comcast, charter TDs, uh, Zappos, Italy, a whole variety of over builders out there, uh, and great up, up and coming, uh, service providers in the industry.

So we're out there every day, you know, digging and trenching for, uh, for fiber optic on long haul routes. We're doing middle mile routes to connect data centers to help build and construct data centers. And we're even, uh, visiting homes and helping install, uh, service, uh, for for consumers out there around the country. Um, Chris, thanks for joining us. Um, Carol just mentioned your recent IPO. Um, you you listed, um, just over a month ago.

Just wondering, talk to us a little bit about the the decision to list at this point in time. Like why was now, um, recently a good time to to list your company on the public market? Well, yeah, the company's been growing very, very rapidly over the last ten years with, uh, really, you know, significant growth in the last 3 or 4 years. So the trajectory of growth is there, uh, the the appreciation, I think, in the market for the need for infrastructure investment is there.

And so I think, you know, we provide, uh, another avenue for investment in a space that, you know, arguably, uh, had had very few assets for, for folks to go, uh, uh, and look for, uh, so, you know, we have good competition out there, but I think there is a hunger for more, uh, more players in our space, uh, in this kind of specialty angle within the engineering and construction space. So tell us a little bit about that specialty angle.

And to what extent is the eye infrastructure buildout driving growth? It's a significant growth driver. But you know, I think there's there's probably two aspects to this. One is that, you know, the U.S. infrastructure writ large and the communications infrastructure is no exception. Is, uh, old, uh, it's aging and it's underinvested. Uh, so there's a multiyear build out, uh, out there to both replace and upgrade communications infrastructure.

And this is, you know, that switch from coaxial cable that everybody had in their homes to, you know, much broader, you know, bandwidth, uh, fiber optic, uh, and so there's that that aspect itself is a significant growth driver when you add on to that VI boom. And what that does as opportunity, uh, it creates a whole nother lag of opportunity. And so obviously data centers require a high bandwidth, uh, fiber optic. And obviously that has to get done and it has to get done by, you know, machines and people, uh, digging and and installing and creating networks out there.

So and we are effectively the picks and shovels, uh, of the, uh, of the AI boom, uh, and we and we and our peers out there have a long runway of opportunity associated with, uh, with, you know, creating the connectivity that data centers require once the actual site itself is built. Hey, Chris, one of the things that we noticed in our, uh, we just talked with Sarah Hunt, who is chief market strategist at Alpine Saxon Woods, and she has been noting how the pushback against that data center build.

Um, she says it could be a blessing in disguise because there's so much concern about CapEx and and things getting ahead of itself. But I am curious how concerned you are about a potential downturn in that eye and data center build in the industry overall, as we kind of try to find our way forward, and there is increasingly that nervousness about maybe too massive a build out and maybe the demand won't be there. Yeah, I think I think what you're seeing is that when you look at the total expected CapEx, that's that's been out there of people looking at the, uh, at the data center build, uh, outlook, uh, you could question the timeline of that based on financing availability and funding availability.

And to some degree, you could question the need for it. Uh, when you look at all the capacity, uh, writ large, that that's been discussed. Fortunately for people like us who are actually doing the initial builds today, we don't need that. That total aggregate, uh, spend that people are talking about to be realized in order to create a long runway of growth and opportunity. And frankly, it probably is healthy, uh, to see a little bit of a trend back, uh, against some of the more optimistic expectations out there.

But regardless, they're still going to need to be a tremendous amount of capacity, build incrementally from where we are today. So even if it ends up being, you know, 50, $0.60 in the dollar versus the total forecasts that are out there, uh, that that is okay. Uh, because that would represent a tremendous amount of opportunity and investment, uh, before you sort of run out of runway years and years of, of build, that's going to be required.

But that says to me, at 50, $0.60 on the dollar could be 50 half of what we are expecting or 40% less of what we're expecting. Right. And that's not it. I was just no, I know I'm just writing an illustration. Obviously it's not a forecast, but you're right. I mean, if it is less than the total of what people are expecting, there could be assets out there that that a trade off, uh, on, on that incremental, uh, change in expectation.

I'm just saying you have to be very careful about the asset class you're talking about, because infrastructure generally does not rely on, uh, the realization of a total, uh, growth forecast. Uh, that could be the most optimistic, frankly. What do you then make of the recent changes in your stock price? Um, it's been known since the IPO. Like, is that just an adjustment? Um, since you, um, started trading on, on public exchanges?

Or do you also see that that's a concern from investors in your business? Yeah. So our, our stock performance, uh, you know, since we came out has been, uh, essentially in line with, uh, with peers. So there has been some increased volatility in the space over the last six, eight weeks. And you know that that's that's a fact. Uh, that's okay. You know, we're, uh, we're willing to be patient because our growth, uh, is going to be significant, we're pretty confident that investors will, you know, once we see a series of prints and a series of, uh, uh, a significant, uh, you know, growth prints, realize that, that they'll come around.

Um, so, yeah, the stock's been a little bit weak since the IPO. Again, tracing alongside peers. And there's been a little more volatility in the space associated with, uh, with the kind of discussions that you were just referring to, uh, around, you know, kind of the pace and opportunity in the album. Okay. But looking forward, what can you do now as a public company that maybe you weren't able to do when you were still private?

Well, you know, we weren't short on capital, but obviously when you're public, it does open the aperture, uh, for, uh, for capital and, and access to capital. Uh, it also gives us a higher overall level of visibility. So I think it helps us in some regard, uh, stand us apart from some of our competitors, many of whom are smaller regional, uh, providers out there. So it gives us both a bigger, louder platform. Um, and it gives us long term, you know, sources, uh, and access to capital.

And just wondering, in terms of the use of the proceeds from the IPO, I think one element was also debt paid on, if that's correct. Yeah. There was a dividend recap, uh, last year, uh, for us that raised our, um, our debt profile. And we were able to use the IPO proceeds entirely, uh, primary proceeds to, uh, to pay down debt and recapitalize the balance sheet. You know, it's interesting. We love, love, um, Chris talking to the C-suite because it's just there's