Free Cash Flow and Capital Structure
In Q4, free cash flow amounted to -$524 million, bringing full year 2017 FCF to -$2.0 billion, at the lower end of the -$2.0 to -$2.5 billion range we had previously indicated. This was largely due to the timing of content payments, which will now occur in 2018.
Our operating margins and income are rising, and our only material cash-ahead-of-P&L-expense is content. When we develop a title like Bright , the cash spend is 1-3 years before the viewing, associated membership growth, and P&L expense. Thus, the faster we grow our originals budget (particularly for self-produced content), the more cash we consume. We are increasing operating margins and expect that in the future, a combination of rising operating profits and slowing growth in original content spend will turn our business FCF positive.
In the near term, however, membership, revenue and original content spend are booming. We’re growing faster than we expected, which allows us to invest more in original content than we had planned, so our FCF will be around negative $3B-$4B in 2018. Given our track record of content investments helping to increase growth, we are excited about the growth in future years from the increased investments we are making in original content this year.
We anticipate continuing to raise capital in the high yield market. The new limitation on deductibility of interest costs is not expected to affect us. We are striving to make the right choices and investments to grow the value of the firm, and that is what also ultimately secures our debt. High yield has rarely seen an equity cushion so thick.
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