“We continue to expect merger-related costs, which are not included in adjusted or core adjusted EBITDA, to be approximately $1 billion before taxes.”

In context

“higher postpaid phone net ads and still increase our core adjusted EBITDA expectation, which we now expect to be between $29 billion and $29.2 billion. This is up over 10% year-over-year at the midpoint, fueled by higher service revenues and synergies, and excludes leasing revenues of approximately $300 million as we transition substantially all remaining customers off device leasing by year end. Our merger synergies are expected to be approximately $7.5 billion in 2023, achieving the full run rate synergy target provided at our Analyst Day a year ahead of schedule as we build towards the full run rate synergies of $8 billion in 2024. Now with the merger integration now substantially behind us, we will discontinue reporting synergies separately from overall business results going forward. We continue to expect merger-related costs, which are not included in adjusted or core adjusted EBITDA, to be approximately $1 billion before taxes. And we now expect cash merger related costs of $1.7 billion to $1.9 billion for 2023 as they have under run the P&L recognition to date. Net cash provided by operating activities which include payments for merger related costs are now expected to be in the range of $18.3 billion to $18.5 billion. We now expect cash CapEx to be between $9.6 billion and $9.8 billion, delivering our network milestones ahead of schedule at a capital efficiency unmatched in our industry. The higher operating cash flows not only fund the increased CapEx, but also allow for a slight increase to free cash flow, now expected to be between $13.4 billion to $13.6 billion, which includes payments for merger-related costs. Not only is this up approximately 75% over last year, thanks to our margin expansion and capital”