Prompt:
Human: Before we begin, I'd like to mention we will be discussing future estimates and expectations during our call today.
On the call today, we have Scott Donnelly, Textron's chairman and CEO; and Frank Connor, our chief financial officer.
Revenues in the quarter were $2.9 billion, up from $2.8 billion in last year's first quarter.
During this year's first quarter, we reported net income of $0.75 per share.
Adjusted net income on a non-GAAP measure was $0.70 per share for the first quarter of 2021, compared to $0.35 per share in the first quarter of 2020.
Adjusted net income for 2021 excludes $6 million of pre-tax special charges, $0.02 per share after tax related to the 2020 restructuring plan, and $15 million of pre-tax gain on the sale of TRU Canada, $0.07 per share after tax.
Segment profit in the quarter was $256 million, up from $156 million in the first quarter of 2020.
Manufacturing cash flow before pension contributions totaled $71 million, up $501 million from last year's first quarter.
Overall, the first quarter was a strong quarter for Textron.
Segment margins were up 330 basis points in the quarter, driven by strong execution across all of our segments.
At Bell, revenues were up in the quarter on higher commercial revenues, partially offset by lower military revenues.
On the commercial side of Bell, we delivered 17 helicopters up from 15 in the last year's first quarter.
We saw solid order activity in the quarter across our commercial models, both domestically and internationally and across multiple end markets, including corporate, private, utility, and emergency medical services.
On future vertical lift, that was awarded a contract modification of $293 million for the second phase of the competitive demonstration and reduction program for FLRAA.
As we conclude final flight activity on the V-280, I think it's important to highlight the impressive performance milestones that the aircraft has demonstrated in over 215 flight hours over the past three-plus years.
This included 305 knots of demonstrated true airspeed, level 1 handling qualities, and autonomous flight.
On FLRAA, Bell is continuing with its build of the Invictus 360 prototype, where we are about a third of the way through the manufacturing process in anticipation of first flight in Q4 of next year.
Moving to Textron Systems.
Revenues were flat in the quarter while the business continued to execute well with improved operating margins.
In the quarter, Systems was awarded a contract to up to $607 million from the U.S. Army for the sustainment and modernization of existing shadow systems to the upgraded Block III configuration.
Also in the quarter, Systems successfully participated in the U.S. Army's Future Tactical Unmanned Aircraft Systems rodeo at Fort Benning and completed direct soldier flight demonstrations of our platform, the Aerosonde HQ.
Systems is currently responding to the FTUAS RFI, which will help inform the next phase of that program.
Systems also delivered the first RCV medium prototype to the Army customer as they look to test these vehicles and define requirements for the future of robotic combat vehicle programs.
At ATAC, we are continuing to ramp F1 flight hours at the operating sites related to the three awards of the U.S. Air Force CAPCAS program.
At the end of the quarter, we had 16 F1 aircraft certified for operation and deployed across our customer sites.
In Aviation, revenues were up -- I'm sorry, revenues were eventually flat in the quarter with slightly lower volume, reflecting lower aftermarket revenues, partially offset by higher pricing.
We delivered 28 jets, up from 23 last year and 14 commercial turboprops, down from 16 in last year's first quarter.
Order activity was strong in the quarter, resulting in backlog growth of $450 million to $2.1 billion at quarter-end.
In the quarter, we delivered our 1,560 XL-based Citation jet.
This milestone delivery is a testament to the value and performance of this platform, as well as Textron Aviation's commitment to the ongoing support of the fleet.
We also announced the new CJ4 Gen2 and delivered five aircraft in the quarter.
This model upgrade is another example of our continued investment in our existing portfolio of aircraft.
On the new product front, the Cessna SkyCourier aircraft certification program continues to progress well as we work toward entering to service targeted toward the second half of this year.
Revenues were up from last year's first quarter, primarily driven by higher volume and price in our specialized vehicle product line.
At specialized vehicles, we continue to see strong retail demand across our customer end markets.
At Kautex, we saw our volume of fuel systems for hybrid electric vehicles more than double to about 9% of our total production volume in the quarter, the start-up of four new models.
While the retail demand in industrial-owned markets has been improving, channel inventory remains below targeted levels as we work through supply shortages and disruptions, which we expect will improve throughout the course of the year.
In summary, it was a great start to the year.
We've seen improving customer demand in our end markets, increased commercial order flow at Aviation and Bell, and continued solid execution in our military businesses with strong cash generation in the quarter.
Let's review how each of the segments contributed, starting with Textron Aviation.
Revenues at Textron Aviation of $865 million were down $7 million from a year ago largely due to lower aftermarket volume, partially offset by higher pricing.
Segment profit was $47 million in the first quarter, up from $3 million of profit last year primarily due to a favorable impact from performance and the mix of products sold.
Backlog in the segment ended the quarter at $2.1 billion.
Revenues were $846 million, up $23 million from last year on higher commercial revenues, partially offset by lower military revenues.
Segment profit of $105 million was down $10 million primarily due to higher research and development in the quarter, largely related to future vertical lift programs.
Backlog in the segment ended the quarter at $5.2 billion.
At Textron Systems, revenues were $328 million, flat with a year ago.
Segment profit of $51 million was up $25 million due to a $27 million favorable impact from performance and other.
Backlog in the segment ended the quarter at $2.4 billion.
Industrial revenues of $825 million were up $85 million from last year, primarily from higher volume and mix, as well as price at specialized vehicles and foreign exchange fluctuations.
Segment profit was $47 million, up $38 million from the first quarter of 2020 primarily due to higher volume and mix, price, net of inflation, and favorable performance at specialized vehicles.
Finance segment revenues were $15 million, and profit was $6 million.
Moving below segment profit, corporate expenses were $40 million, and interest expense was $35 million.
With respect to our 2020 restructuring plan, we recorded pre-tax charges of $6 million on the special charges line.
We also completed the sale of TRU Canada in the quarter and realized a pre-tax gain of $15 million.
Cash performance in the quarter was strong with $71 million on manufacturing cash flow before pension contributions, a $501 million improvement over last year's first quarter as we continued our focus on inventory and working capital management.
In the quarter, we repurchased 1.8 million shares, returning $91 million in cash to shareholders.
To wrap up with guidance, we're raising our expected guidance of adjusted earnings per share to a range of $2.80 to $3 per share, up $0.10 from our prior outlook.
We're reiterating our outlook for manufacturing cash flow before pension contributions of $600 million to $700 million with planned pension contributions of $50 million.
 Assistant:

Chosen response:
q1 adjusted non-gaap earnings per share $0.70.
q1 earnings per share $0.75.
full-year adjusted earnings per share outlook raised by $0.10.
now expects 2021 earnings per share from continuing operations to be in a range of $2.76 to $3.00, or $2.80 to $3.00 on an adjusted basis.
qtrly revenues at textron aviation of $865 million were down $7 million from q1 of 2020.
bell backlog at end of q1 was $5.2 billion.
qtrly bell revenues were $846 million, up $23 million from last year.


Prompt:
Human: Before we begin, I'd like to mention we will be discussing future estimates and expectations during our call today.
On the call today, we have Scott Donnelly, Textron's chairman and CEO, and Frank Connor, our chief financial officer.
Revenues in the quarter were $3.3 billion, down from $3.7 billion in last year's fourth quarter.
During this year's fourth quarter, we reported income from continuing operations of $0.93 per share.
In the quarter, we recorded $5 million in pre-tax special charges related to our 2020 restructuring plan or $0.01 per share after tax.
Excluding these special charges, adjusted income from continuing operations, a non-GAAP measure, was $0.94 per share for the fourth quarter of 2021 compared to $1.06 per share in the fourth quarter of 2020.
Segment profit in the quarter was $310 million, down $14 million from the fourth quarter of 2020.
Manufacturing cash flow before pension contributions totaled $298 million in the quarter.
For the full year, revenues were $12.4 billion, up $731 million from last year.
Adjusted income from continuing operations was $3.30 per share compared to $2.07 per share in 2020.
Manufacturing cash flow before pension contributions was $1.1 billion, up from $596 million in 2020.
Our business has closed out the year with another solid quarter.
At aviation, we continue to see favorable market conditions, including improved aircraft utilization, low preowned inventory levels and strong customer demand.
Order activity remained very strong with backlog growth of $655 million in the quarter and $2.5 billion for the full year, resulting in a $4.1 billion backlog at year-end.
As a result, we delivered aircraft on a more linear trend through the year, which improved manufacturing efficiency and cash flow generation.
Reflecting this improved operating environment and strong execution of our teams, aviation achieved a segment margin of 10.1% in the fourth quarter.
For the year, we delivered 167 jets, up from 132 last year and 125 commercial turboprops, up from 113 in 2020.
Also in the year, we saw sequentially higher aftermarket revenue on a quarterly basis driven by increased aircraft utilization.
Moving to defense, aviation was awarded a $143 million contract for eight AT-6 aircraft, ground support equipment, spare parts and training from the Royal Thai Air Force.
This contract establishes Thailand as the international launch customer for the U.S. Air Force's latest light attack aircraft.
On the new product front, the Beechcraft Denali completed its first plate in November, launching the start of the flight test program.
Total revenues were down slightly in the quarter, largely on lower military revenues as expected, reflecting the continued wind down of the H-1 production program, partially offset by higher commercial revenues.
In December, Bell completed the first assault improvement modifications of an Air Force CV-22 Osprey.
This effort is part of an ongoing process to upgrade the Air Force Osprey fleet.
On the commercial side of Bell, we delivered 156 helicopters in 2021, up from 140 in 2020.
We also saw solid commercial order activity for the year, reflecting broad-based demand.
Moving to Textron Systems.
We saw another strong quarter of execution that contributed to a full year margin of 14.8%, up 320 basis points from 2020.
During the quarter, we delivered the fourth Ship-to-Shore Connector to the U.S. Navy after its successful completion of acceptance trials.
On the Shadow program, systems was awarded an $82 million logistics support contract for 2022.
On our common unmanned surface vessel platform, we completed file testing related to the unmanned influenced sweep system program, setting up potential for a production contract award in the first quarter of 2022.
Revenues were lower in the quarter as we continue to experience supply chain challenges, including order disruptions in Kautex related to global auto OEM production schedules.
At Textron specialized vehicles, we continue to see a strong pricing environment and steady retail demand.
Despite the ongoing supply chain challenges, both businesses saw sequential revenue improvements in the quarter.
In summary, there were many items to highlight in 2021 across our segments.
In aviation, strong order activity and customer demand throughout the year drove $2.5 billion of backlog growth.
On the new product front, we continued our product refresh strategy with the introduction of the Citation M2 XLS and CJ4 Gen2 aircraft.
Sky Courier completed the flight test program with 2,100 hours of flight test activity, and we expect FAA certification in the first half of 2022.
At Bell, we continued our work on the FVL programs.
We submitted the proposal for the FLRAA program in September, and the U.S. Army is expected to award the FLRAA program contract in 2022.
On FARA, we've made significant progress on the 360 Invictus prototype build with 75% of the effort complete at year-end.
We opened the Bell Manufacturing Technology Center, an innovative proving ground to test and refine technologies and processes across Bell's core production capabilities.
Textron Systems, ATAC continued to grow its fleet of certified F1 aircraft in support of increased demand on U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corp tactical air programs.
We continued our innovation and development activities with the rollout of the Ripsaw M5 prototype vehicle for the U.S. Army and the Cottonmouth ARV for the Marine Corps.
At Textron specialized vehicles, we entered into a strategic collaboration with GM, which will assist our ground support equipment business and electrification of baggage tractors, cargo tractors and belt loaders for use in airports globally.
We also introduced the Liberty, the industry's first PTV to offer four forward-facing seats in a compact golf cart-sized platform powered by lithium-ion battery.
At Kautex in 2021, we were awarded eight contracts on new vehicle programs for our hybrid electric fuel systems.
Looking to 2022 at aviation, we are projecting growth driven by increased deliveries across all product lines and higher aftermarket volume.
At Bell 2022 represents the beginning of a transitional period as we expect lower revenues related to military production programs while awaiting a downselect and award on the FLRAA program.
At systems, we're expecting flat revenue with growth on ship-to-store and tactical air programs, offset by lower fee-for-service volume.
In industrial, we're expecting revenue growth and margin improvement.
Within Kautex, we expect increasing volumes from improving OEM auto production.
While specialized vehicles, we anticipate improving supply chain conditions and increasing volumes across our products.
Earlier in 2021, we launched our eAviation initiative to leverage the resources and expertise across our aviation businesses to develop new opportunities in aircraft-utilizing electric propulsion systems.
In 2022, we plan to expand these efforts and increase our investment in developing technologies to accelerate the shift to sustainable flight, including eVTOL and fixed-wing aircraft.
With this backdrop, we're projecting revenues of about $13.3 billion for Textron's 2022 financial guidance.
We're projecting earnings per share in the range of $3.80 to $4 per share.
Manufacturing cash flow before pension contributions is expected to be in the range of $700 million to $800 million.
Let's review how each of the segments contributed, starting with Textron aviation revenues at Textron aviation of $1.4 billion were down $201 million from a year ago, largely due to lower aircraft volume, partially offset by higher aftermarket volume.
Segment profit was $137 million in the fourth quarter, up $29 million from last year's fourth quarter, largely due to favorable pricing net of inflation of $21 million and improved manufacturing performance.
Backlog in the segment ended the quarter at $4.1 billion.
Revenues were $858 million, down $13 million from last year, reflecting lower military revenues, partially offset by higher commercial revenues.
Segment profit was $88 million -- of $88 million was down $22 million, primarily due to lower military volume and mix.
Backlog in the segment ended the quarter at $3.9 billion.
At Textron Systems, revenues were $313 million, down $44 million from last year's fourth quarter due to lower volume, which included the impact from the U.S. Army's withdrawal from Afghanistan on the segment's fee-for-service contracts.
Segment profit of $45 million was down $4 million from a year ago, largely due to the lower volume.
Backlog in the segment ended the quarter at $2.1 billion.
Industrial revenues were $781 million, down $85 million from last year, reflecting lower volume and mix of $133 million, largely in the fuel systems and functional components product line, reflecting order disruptions related to the global auto OEM supply chain shortages, partially offset by a favorable impact of $50 million for pricing largely in the specialized vehicles product line.
Segment profit of $38 million was down $17 million from the fourth quarter of 2020, primarily due to lower volume and mix, partially offset by favorable impact from performance.
Finance segment revenues were $11 million, and profit was $2 million.
Moving below segment profit, corporate expenses, and interest expense were each $29 million.
Our manufacturing cash flow before pension contributions was $298 million in the quarter and $1.1 billion for the full year.
In the quarter, we repurchased approximately 4.5 million shares, returning $335 million in cash to shareholders.
For the full year, we repurchased approximately 13.5 million shares, returning $921 million of cash to shareholders.
Turning now to our 2022 outlook.
At Textron aviation, we're expecting revenues of about $5.5 billion, reflecting higher deliveries across all our product lines and increased aftermarket volume.
Segment margin is expected to be in the range of approximately 10% to 11%, reflecting higher volume, favorable pricing and increased operating leverage.
Looking to Bell, we expect revenues of about $3 billion, reflecting lower military volume, primarily related to lower H-1 production.
We're forecasting a margin in the range of about 10% to 11%, largely due to the lower military volumes and continuing high levels of R&D investment.
At systems, we're estimating revenues of about $1.3 billion with a margin in the range of about 13.5% to 14.5%.
At industrial, we're expecting segment revenues of about $3.5 billion on higher volumes at Kautex and specialized vehicles.
We're estimating industrial margins to be in the range of about 5.5% to 6.5%.
At finance, we're forecasting segment profit of about $15 million.
Moving to slide nine.
On a consolidated basis, we're expecting earnings per share to be in the range of $3.80 to $4 per share.
We're also expecting manufacturing cash flow before pension contributions to be about $700 million to $800 million, which includes an approximately $300 million impact from a change in the R&D tax law beginning in 2022.
Looking to slide 10.
We're projecting about $150 million of corporate expense, which includes $30 million of investment in eAviation.
We're also projecting about $120 million of interest expense and a full year effective tax rate of approximately 18%.
Looking to the other items and turning to slide 11.
We're estimating 2022 pension income to be about $120 million, up from $30 million last year.
Turning to slide 12.
R&D is expected to be about $585 million, down from $619 million last year.
We're estimating capex will be about $425 million, up from $375 million in 2021.
Our outlook assumes an average share count of about 219 million shares in 2022.
 Assistant:

Chosen response:
q4 adjusted non-gaap earnings per share $0.94 from continuing operations.
q4 earnings per share $0.93 from continuing operations.
sees fy earnings per share $3.80 to $4.00.
sees 2022 revenues of approximately $13.3 billion, up from $12.4 billion.
expects full-year 2022 earnings per share will be in range of $3.80 to $4.00.
aviation backlog $4.1 billion at year-end, up $655 million in quarter and $2.5 billion full year.
bell backlog at end of q4 was $3.9 billion.


Prompt:
Human: I'm Amir Rozwadowski, head of investor relations for AT&T.
Joining me on the call today are John Stankey, our CEO, and Pascal Desroches, our CFO.
Before we begin, I need to call your attention to our safe harbor statement.
Results may differ materially.
Additional information is available on the Investor Relations website.
And as always, our earnings materials are on our website.
In addition, the FCC Spectrum Auction 110 results have been announced, but we're still in the quiet period, so we're limited in what we can say.
I hope you're all doing well, and a belated happy new year to all of you.
1.5 years ago, we began simplifying our business strategy to reposition AT&T for growth.
As you can imagine, this was a significant undertaking requiring us to not only focus our operational efforts toward growing customers, but also doing so in a manner that set us up for an improved profit trajectory in the coming years.
Simultaneously, we took on the task of structuring our communications, video, and media businesses in a manner that ensures their future success with the right capital structures, access to capital, and most importantly, the ability to drive better returns in a manner consistent with their respective market opportunities.
I'm pleased with the results our teams delivered last quarter, last year, and for the last six quarters while this repositioning was underway.
We finished last year with strong momentum in growing customer relationships, achieving outstanding yearly subscriber growth across Mobility, fiber, and HBO Max.
In Mobility, strong network performance and a consistent go-to-market strategy helped us lead the industry with about 3.2 million postpaid phone net adds.
That's more customers than we added in the prior 10 years combined.
We achieved this growth the right way with full year Mobility EBITDA up about $1 billion.
In fiber, we ended the year with a great build velocity, passing more than 2.6 million additional customer locations.
We added more than one million fiber subscribers for the fourth consecutive year, and full year broadband revenues were up 6.5% as we returned our Consumer Wireline business to revenue growth.
We also surpassed our high-end guidance for global HBO Max and HBO subscribers, adding 13.1 million subscribers in 2021, more than any year in HBO's history.
HBO Max and HBO now reaches a base of 73.8 million subscribers globally.
WarnerMedia is well positioned as a dynamic global business.
In addition to growing customer relationships, we also continue to make great progress in repositioning our operations to be more effective and efficient.
We achieved more than half of our $6 billion cost savings run rate target, which we've reinvested into operations supporting our growth.
This includes simplifying and enhancing our customer experience, which has resulted in higher customer self-service, lower customer churn and greatly improved mobility NPS and industry-leading fiber NPS.
We also continue to rationalize our low-margin Business Wireline services as we reinvest savings into segments that support improving returns.
video assets in Vrio to our pending WarnerMedia transaction.
Together, these and other asset monetizations will generate more than $50 billion, and AT&T shareholders will own 71% of one of the world's foremost media companies in the new Warner Bros.
We also continue to generate meaningful levels of free cash flow, nearly $27 billion in 2021, a number we feel good about when looking at our business after the WarnerMedia transaction.
So to summarize, we did what we said we were going to do last year.
I'm really proud of what our team has accomplished, and we're very pleased with the momentum we have.
Turning the page to this year, we'll be consistent in focusing on these same three operational and business priorities.
Now that our asset disposition initiatives are largely complete, I expect we'll take our execution to the next level.
To that end, we're encouraged with how the process for the WarnerMedia deal is progressing and now expect the transaction to close in the second quarter.
Going forward, we aim to be America's best broadband provider powered by 5G and fiber, and defined by greater ubiquity, reliability, capacity, and speed.
We're confident we can achieve that because in wireless, our focus will be continuing our subscriber momentum while increasing the pace of our 5G deployment.
We're confident in our ability to compete with 5G and our disciplined approach to selectively targeting and taking share in underpenetrated segments of the consumer and business marketplace.
While we're still in the quiet period, I can share that we're very pleased with the results of Spectrum Auction 110.
We received 40 megahertz of quality mid-band spectrum that we can begin to put into service this year, and we plan to efficiently deploy it with our C-band spectrum using just one tower climb.
We're on track to cover 200 million POPs using mid-band spectrum by the end of 2023.
And our network is only going to get better as we effectively deploy our new spectrum holdings.
In wired broadband, we have the fastest-growing fiber network and expect to capitalize on the expansion of our fiber footprint and accelerate subscriber growth.
The best-in-class experience we provide is getting even better with our multi-gig rollout, which brings the fastest Internet to AT&T fiber customers with symmetrical 2-gig and five-gig speed tiers.
This will truly differentiate how our customers experience the Internet.
Coming off an outstanding year with HBO Max, we plan to hand off the business with a strong exit velocity, and we look to further our international momentum and deliver more world-class content for viewers.
When the deal closes, the investments made in both content and HBO Max growth, coupled with strong execution by the team, will ensure Warner Bros.
Discovery is positioned as a leading global media company with the depth of content and the capabilities required to lead in the next era of media.
As we expand our customer base, we'll continue to responsibly remove costs from the business.
We have a clear line of sight to achieving more than two-thirds of our $6 billion cost savings run rate target by the end of this year.
And importantly, we expect the CD savings start to fall to our bottom line beginning in the back half of the year.
Our increased ability to reinvest in our business will fuel growth and allow us to deliver an even better customer experience as we further improve NPS and sustain low churn levels.
As we expand our fiber reach, we'll be orienting our business portfolio to leverage this opportunity and stabilize our Business Wireline unit by growing connectivity with small to midsized businesses.
We also plan to use our strong fiber and wireless asset base, broad distribution and converged product offers to strengthen our overall market position.
We're now at the dawn of a new age of connectivity where customers want more consolidated and integrated offers, and we're well positioned to meet that demand.
Our 5G network is already the best and most reliable.
And it will be enhanced by our accelerated fiber expansion in 5G spectrum deployment, a great reputation for advanced and reliable networking and our expertise to bring it all together for the customer.
We remain laser-focused on reducing debt, and we'll strengthen our balance sheet by using proceeds from the WarnerMedia transaction to achieve a 2.5 times net debt to adjusted EBITDA by the end of 2023.
We also expect to remain a top dividend-paying company after deal close, with a dividend payout in the $8 billion to $9 billion range where anywhere in that range should rank us among the best dividend yields in corporate America.
We're now in the middle innings of our transformation, and the momentum we have is real and sustainable.
We're well positioned post deal close to have a capital structure and balance sheet that puts us in an attractive position relative to our peers.
In addition, we believe it provides us with the financial flexibility to invest significantly in our business and the flexibility to pursue additional shareholder value creation initiatives over time.
We look forward to giving you more detail at our virtual analyst event, which we expect to host in March.
Slide 6 should look familiar.
As our pre-release earlier this month already indicated, we continue to deliver growth in postpaid phones, fiber, and HBO Max.
John just highlighted our full year results.
We're really pleased with them and expect the momentum we've built in 2021 to carry over to 2022.
Let's now take a look at our financial summary on Slide 7, starting with revenues.
Adjusted EBITDA was down 8% for the quarter on a comparable basis.
Growth in mobility was more than offset by a decline at WarnerMedia from the increased HBO Max investment, the new DIRECTV advertising channel arrangements, and lower contribution from basic networks.
Our consolidated operating income results continue to be impacted by certain retained costs from DIRECTV that are in the process of being rationalized.
Apart from WarnerMedia's contributions, our Communications segment EBITDA was up approximately 2% for the quarter.
Adjusted earnings per share for the quarter was $0.78.
In addition to merger amortization, adjustments for the quarter were made to exclude our proportionate share of DIRECTV intangible amortization and a gain in our benefit plan.
For the year, earnings per share was up nearly 7% with strong organic growth in mobility, lower interest, lower benefit costs, and higher investment gains.
We exceeded our free cash flow guidance for the year.
For the quarter, cash from operations was $11.3 billion, spending increase year over year with capex of $3.8 billion and gross capital investments totaling $4.9 billion.
Free cash flow for the quarter was $8.7 billion even with a year-over-year increase of $1.4 billion in capex.
For the full year, free cash flow was $26.8 billion despite an increase in capex of about $900 million and more than $4 billion in higher cash content costs.
Our total dividend payout ratio was about 56%.
This included cash distributions from DIRECTV of $1.9 billion.
Let's now look at our segment operating results, starting with our Communication business on Slide 8.
For the second consecutive quarter, our Communications segment grew both revenues and EBITDA.
A big part of that growth was driven by our increasing strength in mobility, which turned in another solid quarter.
Service revenues were up 4.6% for the quarter and 3.7% for the year driven by postpaid and prepaid subscriber gains.
Postpaid phone churn continues to run at low levels and in fact, hit a record low for the full year.
Our strong subscriber momentum continues with industry-leading postpaid phone growth.
Prepaid also continues to deliver impressive results with phone churn less than 3% and revenues up mid-single digits.
Cricket momentum continues with strong ad and phone churn substantially lower than 3%.
Mobility EBITDA was up more than $300 million, driven by growth in service revenues and transformation savings.
This growth comes without a material return to international roaming and with 3G shutdown costs of about $130 million during the quarter.
We remain on track to successfully shut down our 3G network next month and expect 3G shutdown impacts to peak in the first quarter of 2022 at about $250 million.
In addition, we expect another $100 million of expense in the first quarter associated with investment in our FirstNet operations and the completion of support funding for the CAF II program.
Business Wireline EBITDA margins continue to be stable as we rationalize our portfolio of low-margin products.
This rationalization process will continue in 2022.
And as we lap the beginning of this process, we should see improving revenue trends in Business Wireline in the latter part of 2022.
We believe we're really well positioned in the enterprise space.
And there is an interesting dynamic as public and private networking stock.
We have the account management infrastructure, the consulting expertise and the capabilities to support those businesses through that evolution as converged wireline and wireless solutions become the norm.
At the same time, we're energized by the opportunities that our fiber expansion creates in the small to midsized business segment, and we plan to be more active there going forward.
Turning to Consumer Wireline.
Our fiber customer growth and fiber network expansion continues.
And we continue to win share wherever we have fiber.
We added 271,000 fiber customers even in a traditionally slow fourth quarter.
And our fiber network continues to get even better with our new multi-gig speeds for AT&T fiber.
Driven by our strength in fiber, total Consumer Wireline revenues were up for the third consecutive quarter.
We had sequential EBITDA growth in the fourth quarter.
Segment EBITDA did decline year over year due to a onetime pandemic-related benefit in last year's fourth quarter and higher network costs, including storms in the quarter.
Let's move to WarnerMedia's results, which are on Slide 9.
WarnerMedia revenues were up 15.4%, led by strong content licensing and D2C growth.
D2C subscription revenues grew 11%, reflecting continued success of HBO Max, partially offset by lower wholesale revenues related to the termination of our arrangement with Amazon at the end of the third quarter.
Content and other revenues were up 45%, reflecting higher TV licensing and theatrical releases.
Advertising revenues were down about 13% primarily due to lower audiences with tough comparison to the political environment in last year's fourth quarter.
Costs were up year over year due to a significant increase in programming and marketing, including the international launch costs for HBO Max.
Incremental HBO Max investments for the quarter was approximately $500 million.
The fourth quarter also included the impact of about $380 million in DIRECTV advertising revenue sharing cost.
We also launched some incredible content in the fourth quarter, including the premiere of the hit series And Just Like That and the third season of Succession.
With the production team operating close to full throttle, we expect peak content investment in 2022 with an even stronger release schedule, including Batman, Winning Time: The Rise of Lakers Dynasty and the highly anticipated Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon.
Now let's look at our 2022 guidance on Slide 11.
What we're showing you today is a full year view of our consolidated revenue outlook excluding DIRECTV and Vrio from both periods.
Our outlook does include a full year of expected results for WarnerMedia and Xandr.
We also included our full year expectation for WarnerMedia's stand-alone contribution to help you model post close.
We now expect the WarnerMedia Discovery transaction to close in the second quarter.
Given this, we plan to update guidance for Remainco at our upcoming virtual analyst event in March.
Until then, let me walk you through our expectations for the year.
First, we expect consolidated revenue growth in the low single-digit range with wireless service revenue growth of about 3% plus for the full year.
Mobility EBITDA is expected to grow low single digits plus over the course of the year as we continue to take disciplined share of subscribers with attractive long-term value.
As noted earlier, several onetime related impacts such as peaking 3G network shutdown costs are expected to impact year-over-year EBITDA trends in the first quarter.
Consumer Wireline revenues and EBITDA are expected to grow on improving fiber subscriber trends.
However, we expect front-end loaded investments to impact first quarter year-over-year EBITDA trends as we ramp up promotional efforts around our new multi-gig offering.
As noted earlier, we expect year-over-year comparison pressures to ease in our Business Wireline segment through the course of the year.
However, we expect product rationalization to peak in the first quarter, resulting in more pronounced margin pressures in the first part of the year before recovering in the back half of the year.
Consolidated adjusted earnings per share is expected to be in the $3.10 to $3.15 range.
This guidance reflects WarnerMedia's declining contributions due to anticipated investment initiatives, a 200 basis point increase in our effective tax rate and no anticipated investment gains.
We also expect adjusted equity income contributions from DIRECTV to be about $3 billion for the year.
Look for more details on our earnings outlook during our upcoming virtual analyst event.
Gross capital investment is expected to be in the $24 billion range and capital expenditures in the $20 billion range.
Free cash flow is expected to be in the $23 billion range.
That includes expected DIRECTV cash distribution of approximately $4 billion and $2 billion in higher expected cash taxes in 2022, reflecting the expiration of the immediate expensing of R&D and lower limitations on interest expense deductions starting this year.
We expect WarnerMedia's full year contributions when including Xandr to be revenues in the $37 billion to $39 billion range, EBITDA in the $6 billion to $7 billion range, and free cash flow contribution of approximately $3 billion as we expect 2022 to be the peak investment year for HBO Max.
We're now ready for the Q&A.
Operator, we're ready to take the first question.
 Assistant:

Chosen response:
at&t - qtrly earnings per share $0.69; qtrly adjusted earnings per share $0.78; qtrly consolidated revenue $41 billion versus $45.7 billion.
at&t - qtrly mobility service revenues $21.1 billion, up 5.1%; qtrly warnermedia total revenue $9.9 billion, up 15.4%.
at&t - at quarter-end, there were 73.8 million global hbo max and hbo subscribers; qtrly domestic subscriber arpu was $11.15.
at&t - qtrly results that showed continuing customer growth in wireless, fiber and hbo max.
at&t - 271,000 at&t fiber net adds in quarter for consumer wireline.
at&t - expects to close in warnermedia transaction in second quarter.
at&t - for 2022, including warnermedia and xandr, co sees consolidated revenue growth in the low-single digits range.
at&t - for 2022, including warnermedia and xandr, co sees adjusted earnings per share from $3.10 to $3.15.
at&t - for 2022, including warnermedia and xandr, co sees gross capital investment in the $24 billion range.
at&t - for 2022, including warnermedia and xandr, co sees free cash flow in $23 billion range.
at&t - for 2022, co sees revenue contribution for warnermedia and xandr to be in $37 billion to $39 billion range.


Prompt:
Human: So the first quarter results were very good, looking at it from both year-ago comparisons and then to go back to two years ago comparison, pre-COVID.
Revenues were up 39% and versus two years ago, they were up 9%, so the pre-COVID timeframe.
EBITDA grew 119% versus year ago this quarter -- this year and then up 62% versus two years ago, so both give us a strong start for fiscal 2022.
In fact, it gives us confidence to firm up our full year guidance and increase it modestly even after considering the impact of some of these micro -- macro headwinds that we're looking at right now such as labor, raw material increases and supply chain challenges.
So Craig and Eddie will take you through those details in the next few minutes, but here are four trends that we're seeing coming out of the first quarter.
The first one is the diversity of our geographic portfolio, it is a strong positive for us, so this quarter, Brazil and Asia had a very strong Q1.
North America came in right above what we forecasted, but they could have done better.
The labor shortages in the U.S. kept us from producing to demand, and we expect that that headwinds probably going to persist through quarter two.
And then in the second half of the year, we expect to see some improvement in that trend.
Then, I think you can expect North America to start contributing more to our growth.
The second trend coming out of the first quarter was REPREVE sales growth continues to build.
So you look at REPREVE sales versus year ago first quarter was up 39% and then from two years ago, pre-COVID, it was up 27%.
I think, customers right now are continuing to step up their commitment to recycled materials in apparel and footwear and auto and we've had numerous positive customer wins over the last quarter.
The third trend is productivity and the investment in EvoCooler technology and our operation will provide strong long-term productivity and we will begin seeing a little bit of that in the fourth quarter of this fiscal year.
The production on the current small scale that we rolled out is meeting our expectations in terms of efficiency and output.
And the fourth trend is labor and labor in the U.S. is a challenge right now.
Our manufacturing and HR teams have been working on the obvious fixes such as labor rate and benefits to make sure that we remain competitive in the marketplace.
However, they have discussed -- they discovered several longer term solutions by conducting front line employee round tables in our plants.
We've asked our employees what can we do to make their jobs more fulfilling and to keep them with us for a longer time and they've come up with several very interesting improvements that are pragmatic and they're being implemented, everything from the quality of training and the amount of training to changing the way that the work gets done.
We sometimes forget, I think that the employees that are closest to the action can solve problems probably better than anyone else in the company.
So, we'll share more of this with you in the upcoming quarters.
So all-in-all, a good start to the fiscal year.
There is still a great deal of work to do, but we're optimistic about the outlook.
As Al mentioned, our first quarter fiscal 2022 results surpassed our initial expectations and the strong results reflect the flexibility of our global business model, our strong presence in each region and the hard work and dedication of each and every one of our employees who as we like to say at Unifi are working today for the good of tomorrow.
We continue to be grateful for the daily contributions our employees make to our company and to our customers.
Their commitment to Unifi has allowed us to continue operating a strong business, while navigating the recovery.
On Slide 3, we provide an overview of the quarter and as Al said, we are executing very well, driving growth and proving out how resilient our business model has become.
Q1 revenues were up 6% sequentially, slightly ahead of our expectations and up 39% on a year-over-year basis.
Alongside our focus on meeting customers' expectations, the growing demand for our core products and product lines in each region contributed to the increased revenues, which of course naturally translated into significant year-over-year profit growth.
Despite Q1 exceeding our initial expectations, we had to navigate several cost headwinds and input constraints.
Hiccups in the supply chain from global logistics stoppages and domestic labor shortages placed even more pressure on each business segments.
Despite of these difficulties, our teams' quick actions ensured no meaningful disruptions to our lines of business.
I'll break down our execution as well as some of the challenges we faced during Q1 by region.
In Brazil, the volatility remains post the regional shutdowns that impacted our business in April and May period.
In fiscal Q1, the volatility in the market was driven by the rising freight costs from China, the uncertainty in the exchange rate and the rising cost of textured yarn and Asia, all of which has increased the local market price for textured yarn.
The situation has been compounded by inflation concerns, which are increasing at a pace not seen in several years.
Early indications are this may have some impact on demand.
However, this may actually result in customers consuming more locally produced yarns, which would help us gain market share.
This is something that will remain on our radar as we move through the rest of the fiscal year and we will keep you updated on this.
Despite all of this, as you can see we had another excellent quarter in Brazil.
In the U.S. and Central America during the quarter, we continue the process of catching up with raw material and other cost increases through proactive selling price adjustments.
We have additional work to do in this area as we can already see that polyester and nylon raw material prices are rising as a result of the recent increase in crude oil prices.
While this is a very painful process, it is something our customers are facing too and like us, they are having to pass on their input cost increases to their customers.
In the U.S. specifically, like many other businesses also faced labor challenges.
We see this as an opportunity to become a better employer and are allocating more resources into training and retention.
Fortunately, the elimination of the federal subsidy at the beginning of September has once again brought more people into the workforce, and we are taking advantage of that.
It should be noted that the impacts of COVID are still being felt primarily in our manufacturing plants, resulting in us having to quarantine a number of employees.
Unfortunately, we have also lost a few of our employees to the virus, and our thoughts go out to their families and friends.
Lastly, we have experienced a few delays in the supply -- extended the lead times of certain products, but nothing that is truly disruptive to business.
And in Asia, we experienced a very positive start to the quarter with continued sales increases in our REPREVE brand and other value-added products.
As you are aware, there are some concerns at the Chinese central government label around the energy consumption and air pollution levels and this placed some pressure on the business at the very end of the quarter.
We are seeing minor caution from customers and suppliers who are battling COVID lockdowns and energy cuts.
This situation remains volatile and introduces some uncertainty for the short term.
We do expect to overcome these challenges in the next few months as the demand is usually strong leading up to the Lunar New Year, which this year is at the very beginning of February.
Ascending back to the consolidated business.
It's great to see the progress we have made toward our fiscal 2022 and longer term goals in the face of these multiple headwinds.
We remain committed to maintaining a solid financial position and our current balance sheet provides a strong backbone for us to execute on growth-focused capital allocation priorities.
Beyond the financials, we continue to observe a growing number of customers shifting their commitments to making products using recycled material.
During the first quarter, we shipped more than 23 million hang tags to brand customers.
You will note that on Slide 4, products made with REPREVE fiber comprised 37% net sales, consolidated net sales increasing from 36% in the first quarter of fiscal 2021.
This growth is regional and is primarily in our Asia, U.S. and Central American revenues.
Our REPREVE momentum into new textile sectors and multiple brand adoptions across Europe has been very strong.
Last month TenCate protective fabrics, a traditional workwear and industrial textiles company from the Netherlands began marketing, it's Tecapro line of workwear using inhibits taking -- REPREVE inhibit taking REPREVE further beyond traditional fashion textiles and into protective wear.
This is the first time our multi-functional REPREVE inhibit value-added combination is being used in flame retardant workwear to add in a sustainable twist to a highly durable products.
TenCate chose REPREVE inhibit for quality, reliability, reputation, traceability and transparency and we've been excited to help them tell the sustainable and flame retardant story through a variety of co-marketing mediums.
REPREVE's strength in the Turkish market continues, with a new line of denim by Mavi jeans.
Mavi jeans launched a nationwide TV commercial that showcases their adoption of recycled polyester in the new line of jeans.
Other recent adoptions by European brands include French brands Jules and the German brands Marc O'Polo, Duke and Street One owned by CBR Fashion Group.
One of Inditex' brands Massimo Dutti has continue to roll out products using REPREVE RO.
In the U.S., we continued to see strong co-marketing in the menswear segment.
Haggar has launched a new line of suit separates in a variety of fits under the name Smart Wash REPREVE suits.
And I know from talking to employees and having direct conversations with them, it's a proud moment when they walk into are Kohl's or JCPenneys or go online and see this iconic U.S. brand shout out their sustainability story, which is based on REPREVE.
Going outside of the apparel market, our placements in the global homes good sector continues, with a new launch of several CD mattresses in Canada that feature REPREVE.
Now turning to our operating segment performance during the first quarter.
I'll provide some high level comments before Craig walks you through more specific details.
Strength in our polyester and nylon segments persisted in the first quarter and benefited from strong sales momentum with robust customer demand.
Our commercial and manufacturing teams have done a tremendous job navigating the headwinds I mentioned previously and we remain optimistic about the sales mix and pricing dynamics going forward for this segment.
The Asia segment demonstrated another strong quarter and volumes increased due to pull through on new and existing customer programs.
Shutdowns and uncertainty in Vietnam and Southeast Asia have not impacted us perhaps as much as other companies since it's a smaller part of that business.
While we do anticipate some soft spots in China based on new temporary shutdown mandates related to managing energy level there, businesses are still running and the demand for sustainable yarns has never been higher.
I'm confident that the teams' continued focus on meeting the ever-increasing sustainability and value-added demands of their customers will help us weather these challenges.
As mentioned by the financial performance, the Brazilian team has continued to do an exceptional job.
During the first quarter, the strong price mix performance increased sales over 50% from the year ago quarter, driving more than 100% increase in gross profit dollars.
Looking forward, we continue to anticipate a degree of moderation in profit from this region with the full year gross margin settling just below 20%.
Last week, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced its final determinations that imports of polyester textured yarn from Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam are being unfairly sold below their fair value in the U.S. The financing dumping duty deposit rates range from 2% to 56% and are currently in effect.
The next step in these trade cases will be the U.S. International Trade Commission's final determination, which is scheduled for November 30th.
With that, I would call the -- call over to Craig.
The remainder of our financial statement metrics were generally consistent with our expectations as it relates to overall SG&A spending, our effective tax rate and the amount outlaid for capital expenditures and working capital associated with our investments in the business and our strong sales performance.
Consolidated net sales increased 38.5% from $141.5 million to $196 million, primarily due to business recovery we have seen over the last five quarters of sequential sales growth.
For the Polyester segment, the single-digit volume change was muted partially by the labor pool challenges Al and Eddie mentioned earlier.
The price and mix change demonstrates the selling price adjustments that have been made over the last several months in response to rising input costs although we have not fully normalized the portfolio for today's cost levels.
In Asia, the sales volume growth again demonstrates new and existing customer programs that continue to be successful on the REPREVE platform, while higher pricing associated with raw material costs was offset by a greater mix of lower priced products.
In Brazil, momentum surrounding higher pricing and market share continued to benefit revenues, as pricing was up over 50%, driving a significant change in quarterly revenues for that segment.
And nylon exhibited stability with much higher sales and production volumes to start off fiscal 2022.
Turning to Slide 6.
Polyester demonstrated significant gross profit and margin improvement, despite labor inefficiency challenges in the current environment and some pricing lags.
The gross margin increase of 260 basis points is very commendable under today's circumstances.
The Asia segment's volume growth led to a $2.4 million improvement in gross profit as that segment continues its strong year-over-year growth trajectory and remains a significant component of the global commercial model.
In Brazil, our agility against competition and commitment to deliver high value to the market allowed us to maintain strong pricing levels and market share, double gross profit and driving margin improvement of 910 basis points.
Lastly from a segment performance perspective on slide 7 and 8, we've included a two-year GAAP comparison for enhanced understanding of this just completed quarter's performance.
Slide 7 shows the consolidated sales increase of 8.9% from the same quarter two years prior lifted by a healthy combination of volume, pricing and mix across our segments.
Slide 8 provides a gross profit overview for the two-year comparison.
Shown here, the Polyester segment exhibited strength against the previously discussed headwinds.
The Asia segment exhibited a 430 basis point increase in gross margin with recent mix and efficiency gains and the Brazil's segment exceptional performance is highlighted with the comparable doubling of gross profit.
Again, we are pleased with the progress made across our portfolio over the last several quarters.
Moving on to Slide 9, which provides a brief update on our balance sheet and capital allocation priorities.
We continued to have zero borrowings on our ABL revolver, which had an availability of $74 million as of September 26, 2021.
Under our balanced approach to capital allocation, we expect to continue to invest in the business to drive innovation and organic growth, maintain a strong balance sheet and remain opportunistic with share repurchases and M&A opportunities.
Before I pass the call back to Eddie, I'm pleased to announce that Unifi will be hosting an Investor Day event in February 2022.
The event will be hosted by our leadership team at our manufacturing facilities in North Carolina.
We believe it's important for our investors to explore our world-class facilities first hand.
More details will be released on this event in the near future.
However, doing so will mean continuing to remain nimble as we navigate the numerous market dynamics.
These include inflationary pressures, particularly related to the cost of recycled inputs, energy shortages in Asia that have resulted in temporary slowdowns for several of our customers and suppliers, uncertainty related to the continued impact of the pandemic and ongoing labor pool constraints in the U.S. Again, our team has done a tremendous job navigating all these headwinds and I believe they will continue to do so.
We will keep a close eye on all of these issues as we progress through each quarter.
Looking forward, we are excited by recent trends in our REPREVE and other value-added products.
Our expectations remain positive on these developments and will continue to be driven by our innovation and commercial teams and we anticipate them to grow long term.
Our strong performance during the first quarter reflects our regional focus, global commercial model, innovation pipeline and the upside potential each has even when stressed with challenges in the broader market.
For the second quarter that ends in December 2021, we expect net sales to range between $185 million and $190 million and after consideration for seasonally higher SG&A level, some normalization of Brazil segment profitability and recent increase in oil prices, we expect to achieve an adjusted EBITDA between $14 million and $15 million.
For the full year fiscal 2022, we expect sales to surpass $750 million, representing a 12% or more increase from fiscal 2021's revenues.
We expect adjusted EBITDA to grow from the fiscal 2021 level in a range between $65 million and $67 million and our effective tax rate guidance remains in the range of 35% and 40%, while our capital expenditures will range between $40 million and $44 million.
We will continue to focus on partnering with global brands and retail leaders who want to position themselves using sustainable products.
As stated on previous calls, we believe the importance and demand for sustainability will only grow and consumer behavior attest to that.
We remain dedicated to innovating and repositioning the business to drive long-term organic growth.
 Assistant:

Chosen response:
q1 sales $196 million.
sees q2 sales $185 million to $190 million.
sees sales volume and repreve fiber sales growth driving fiscal 2022 net sales to $750 million or more.


Prompt:
Human: We'd like to highlight just a couple of developments and business trends before opening the call up to questions.
On a combined basis, these items had a net favorable impact on after-tax earnings of approximately $30 million during the second quarter of 2021.
Even if one chooses to ignore the favorable impact entirely, our earnings during the quarter still exceeded our internal forecast by a wide margin.
For most of the second quarter, we experienced a continued decline in the number of COVID-19 patients being treated in our hospitals and a corresponding recovery in the number of non-COVID patients.
As a result, most of our key volume metrics, including acute and behavioral patient days, emergency room visits and surgical cases grew to levels approaching those that we were tracking before the pandemic began.
This robust recovery in volumes exceeded the pace of our original forecast and drove the favorable operating results even in the face of continuing labor pressures in both of our business segments.
Our cash generated from operating activities was $119 million during the second quarter of 2021 as compared to $1.45 billion during the same period in 2020.
The decline in cash provided by operating activities was driven by the previously announced early repayment of $695 million of Medicare accelerated payments, which were received by us during 2020 and repaid to the government during the first quarter of 2021.
We spent $482 million on capital expenditures during the first six months of 2021.
At June 30, 2021, our ratio of debt to total capitalization declined to 35.7% as compared to 38.3% at June 30, 2020.
As previously announced, we resumed our share repurchase program in the second quarter of 2021 after suspending it in April 2020 as the COVID volume surged for the first time.
During the second quarter of 2021, we repurchased approximately 2.21 million shares at an aggregate cost of $350 million.
And yesterday, our Board of Directors authorized a $1.0 billion increase to our stock repurchase program, leaving $1.2 billion remaining authorization.
We were extremely pleased with our second quarter 2021 operating results, which we noted were well ahead of our internal forecast.
As a consequence, we also raised our full year earnings guidance, including an approximately 6% to 8% increase in our full year forecasted adjusted EBITDA.
I would note that during the past four to six weeks, many of our hospitals have experienced significant surges in the number of COVID patients, and it is not evident that this surge has yet reached its peak.
Given the uncertain impact of this most recent surge on non-COVID volumes and on labor shortages, we based our guidance for the second half of the year, primarily on our original internal forecast.
 Assistant:

Chosen response: universal health services increases 2021 fy earnings guidance.


Prompt:
Human: Our SEC filings can be found in the Investors section of our website at unum.com.
Net income for the second quarter of 2021 included the after-tax cost related to the early retirement of debt of $53.2 million or $0.26 per diluted common share.
The after-tax amortization of the cost of reinsurance of $15.5 million or $0.08 per diluted common share, an after-tax impairment loss on the right-of-use asset related to one of our operating leases for office space we are no longer using to support our general operations of $11 million or $0.05 per diluted common share, a net after-tax realized investment gain on the company's investment portfolio of $600,000 or $0.01 per diluted common share and a net tax expense related to a U.K. tax rate increase of $24.2 million or $0.12 per diluted common share.
Net income in the second quarter of 2020 included an after-tax impairment loss on the right-of-use asset of $10 million or $0.05 per diluted common share and a net after-tax realized investment gain of $25.4 million or $0.12 per diluted common share.
So excluding these items, after-tax adjusted operating income in the second quarter of 2021 was $286.2 million or $1.39 per diluted common share compared to $250.1 million or $1.23 per diluted common share in the year ago quarter.
I am very pleased with our second quarter results.
We showed a 13% increase year-over-year in after-tax adjusted operating income to $1.39 per share.
These improved results were driven in large part by the significant decline in COVID-related mortality this quarter and by excellent performance in our investment portfolio.
Given our strong second quarter results, we are raising our outlook for full year 2021 growth in after-tax adjusted operating income per share to a decline of approximately 1% to 3% compared to our previous outlook of a decline of 5% to 6%.
We believe we're making good progress to returning to our pre-pandemic levels of profitability and margins over the coming quarters with the trajectory of that improvement dependent on the developing trends in COVID and the Delta variant.
Embedded in our expectations is that COVID mortality will improve but only slightly in the third and fourth quarters.
In many ways, results for this quarter played out in line with our expectations, with declining mortality impacts, solid underlying premium trends and further strengthening of our healthy capital position.
This quarter was also highlighted with some areas of positive upside relative to our expectations.
Most notably, we saw continued excellent returns from our alternative investment portfolio, which is benefiting from the strong financial markets and growth in the economy.
We also saw a record level of quarterly operating income for Colonial Life along with an impressive recovery in sales.
And rounding it out, we had favorable underlying benefits experience from our Closed Block business lines, both long-term care and the Closed Disability Block.
In addition to the positive trends we saw this quarter, I am pleased that our indicators continue to support our expectation of generating slightly positive growth in premium income in our core business segments this year with further improvement expected into 2022.
Sales trends are emerging in line with our expectations at our primary business lines within Unum US.
And Colonial Life showed very strong results this quarter with over a 50% increase from the year ago quarter, a good indicator of consumer interest in the basic financial protection products we offer.
It also highlights that the agency model of Colonial Life is quite resilient as we saw some of the most pronounced headwinds in the early stages of the pandemic.
In addition to sales trends, we remain very encouraged with the strong levels of persistency we're seeing across the majority of our business, which provide a solid base to grow.
Finally, we're seeing a pickup in natural growth primarily from higher wages in many sectors of the economy as we continue to build back premium income that was impacted by the sharp spike in unemployment in the first half of 2020.
The environment we are seeing today is quite good for our core business.
We often talk about wage inflation, but you have to add to the mix there is renewed recognition for the need to prepare for the unexpected.
And in a competitive world for talent, employers are looking to ensure that they have competitive benefits package for their current and prospective employees.
Turning to our capital position at quarter end.
It remained very healthy as well, with holding company cash of $1.7 billion and weighted average risk-based capital for our traditional U.S. insurance companies at 375%.
Both of these measures are in excess of our targets and provide substantial flexibility for us going forward.
Additionally, this quarter, we successfully completed a 30-year debt issue and redeemed a shorter high-coupon maturity, enabling us to further extend our debt stack while reducing the overall coupon.
Leverage remains approximately 28% -- 26% and provides further capital flexibility for us.
This strong capital position creates options for us as we look to create value for our shareholders.
Our deployment strategy will first focus on continuing to invest in the growth of our core business segments, both organically and through capability-driven acquisitions.
We like our position in the employee benefits market, and putting money to work to grow our core franchise is where we are focused.
We also expect to be consistent in returning capital to shareholders through dividends, which will increase by 5.3% with the dividend to be paid this month.
We do have funds in excess of these needs, so as we look to the future, we are constantly evaluating how to best deploy or hold on to this capital.
A key question is how we can use these funds to lessen the challenge to our current share price from the overhang of our legacy LTC block.
Our goal is to help reduce the LTC discount in our stock.
And in the future, this funding would be utilized in any risk transfer transaction that we explore on a portion of this block should that become an option for us.
While we are clearly optimistic looking forward, we do see areas of our business that continue to be impacted by the pandemic.
Results in our short-term disability line and leave services continue to be impacted by COVID-related claims, which remains stubbornly high.
The group life and AD&D business within Unum U.S. returned to profitability in the second quarter after recording losses in the previous two quarters as COVID-related mortality in the U.S. declined materially from the peak levels experienced late last year through the early months of 2021.
What we are watching now is that the Delta variant is impacting a younger, unvaccinated population that has different dynamics from what we have seen to date from COVID-19.
Recently updated estimates for COVID-related mortality for the third quarter and second half of 2021 are pointing to persistently high counts and only a marginal improvement relative to the second quarter.
We continue to watch these trends closely and are reflecting them in our own plans.
There is room for optimism, though, as we have started to see employers looking at the role that they might play in getting more of the population vaccinated.
As we look at growth in our enterprise, the steps we're taking -- we've taken to run our business more efficiently have freed up funds that we're reinvesting in new products and capabilities that tackle some of today's critical business workplace challenges.
During the quarter, we launched our new Total Leave and behavioral health solutions, and we've logged our first sales for both offerings.
On the digital front, platforms like My Unum and Colonial Life's improved portal are steadily providing more self-service, real-time capabilities for clients and customers.
And new technology we're testing will enhance the digital enrollment experience, automate processes and allow people to interact with us in new ways.
Equally important is the work we're doing to strengthen our culture and engage our employees across the enterprise.
We've taken steps during the quarter to accelerate and expand our inclusion and diversity journey, and we broaden the scope of our social justice fund to support even more groups facing discrimination.
These and many other efforts help place Unum among the Points of Light, Civic 50, and in Forbes Best Employers for Diversity, Best Employers for Women and Best Employers for New Graduates.
We're also happy to receive another perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index and to be named a best place to work for disability inclusion.
These efforts and accomplishments reflect the strong culture we have built.
We are proud of how it has helped us endure through the challenges of the past 1.5 years and how the engagement of our team will propel us going forward.
Now I'll ask Steve to cover the details of the second quarter results.
I'll start with the Unum US segment, which reported adjusted operating income for the second quarter of $179.3 million compared to $115.7 million in the first quarter.
These results improved significantly due to the improvement in COVID-related mortality in our group life business line, which I'll provide more detail on in a moment.
We also saw improved operating income from the supplemental and voluntary line, while income in the group disability line declined compared to the first quarter.
Within the Unum US segment, the group disability line reported operating income of $59.9 million in the second quarter compared to $64.1 million in the first quarter.
The primary driver of the change was lower net investment income, which largely resulted from a lower level of on calls.
Premium income was generally consistent between the two quarters and on a year-over-year basis increased 1.1%.
The group disability benefit ratio for the second quarter was 74.7%, which is consistent with the first quarter benefit ratio of 74.8%.
We feel the benefit ratio will likely remain at this level over the near term due to the impacts we are seeing from COVID in the Delta variant, which we now believe will likely persist through the second half of the year.
Adjusted operating income for Unum US group life and AD&D showed a sharp improvement in the second quarter to income of $5.2 million compared to a loss of $58.3 million in the first quarter.
This improvement is consistent with our expectations and largely explained by the significant reduction in COVID-related mortality in the U.S., which declined from approximately 200,000 nationwide observed deaths in the first quarter to approximately 52,000 in the second quarter.
We estimate that we incurred approximately 800 excess claims from COVID in the second quarter compared to an estimate of 2,050 COVID claims in the first quarter.
Our average size of claim increased in the second quarter by approximately 10% as we experienced a mix shift to a more younger, working-age policyholders who typically have higher benefit amounts.
Non-COVID-related mortality had little impact on results this quarter relative to the first quarter as lower incidents was offset by higher average claim size.
Now looking ahead to the third quarter, our current expectation for nationwide COVID related mortality of approximately 40,000 compared to approximately 52,000 experienced in the second quarter.
Assuming the shift in the mix continues to more younger, working-age individuals with a continued higher average benefit amount, we would estimate third quarter group life operating income to show a modest improvement over second quarter results to approximately $15 million.
We are closely watching the impacts emerging from the COVID variants, which have led to increase in estimates for second half mortality expectations.
Now shifting to the Unum US supplemental and voluntary lines.
We saw an improved quarter with adjusted operating income of $114.2 million in the second quarter compared to $109.9 million in the first quarter.
Looking at the three primary business lines.
First, we remain very pleased with the performance of the individual disability recently issued block of business both in the second quarter and throughout the pandemic.
Though the benefit ratio did increase to 48.4% in the second quarter from 42.4% in the first quarter, it continues to perform quite well compared to our pre-pandemic experience as new claim incidence trends and recovery levels remain favorable.
The voluntary benefits line recorded a strong level of income as well.
The benefit ratio increased in the second quarter relative to the first quarter, though it did remain consistent with the pre-pandemic results.
The benefit ratio in the group critical illness line increased, offsetting the improved experience in the life lines of business.
And then finally, utilization in the dental and vision line was higher this quarter, as was the average cost per procedure, pushing the benefit ratio to 77.1% in the second quarter compared to 73.2% in the first quarter.
Dental and vision utilization has been volatile since the significant decline in utilization we did experience in the second quarter of 2020.
Sales for Unum US in total declined 3.1% in the second quarter on a year-over-year basis compared to a decline of 10.3% in the first quarter.
For the employee benefit lines, which include LTD, STD, group life, AD&D and stop loss, total sales declined by 3.1% this quarter.
We saw good activity and results in the core markets for group disability and group life.
While large case sales were down year-over-year, we are seeing a good level of quote activity in the group markets, which is back to pre-pandemic levels.
Sales trends in our supplemental and voluntary lines showed similar improvement in the second quarter relative to the first quarter.
For this quarter, total sales declined 3.1% year-over-year compared to the 22.3% decline in the first quarter.
Our recently issued individual disability sales increased 4.9%, and dental and vision sales increased 2.4% year-over-year.
Voluntary benefit sales were down 7% in the quarter, which is consistent with our view that these sales will take longer to recover.
Large case DB sales in particular have a longer sales cycle and are more concentrated around January one effective date.
Persistency for our major product lines in Unum US remained in line to higher this quarter relative to the first quarter of 2020, providing a good tailwind for premium growth for the full year and into 2022.
We have also seen favorable trends and natural growth in our employee benefits lines primarily from higher wage growth at this point.
Now moving to the Unum International segment.
Adjusted operating income for the second quarter was $24.8 million compared to $26.4 million in the first quarter and $15.1 million in the second quarter of 2020.
The primary driver of these results is in our Unum UK business, which generated adjusted operating income of GBP16.8 million in the second quarter compared to GBP18.6 million in the first quarter and GBP10.1 million in the second quarter of 2020.
We are pleased with these results, which showed improved underlying benefits experience particularly in our group life line.
The reported benefit ratio in Unum UK, which showed an increase to 82.5% in the second quarter from 75.3% in the first quarter was impacted by the increase in inflation in the U.K. in the second quarter compared to the first quarter.
Higher inflation triggers higher inflation-related benefits to certain of our policyholders as well as higher net investment income from the inflation index linked yields in our investment portfolio.
The rapid increase in inflation in the U.K. from the first to second quarter did distort somewhat the timing of these two factors and produced a net negative impact of slightly less than GBP three million to adjusted operating income this quarter.
This short-term impact to income is expected to balance out over the course of the year.
Overall, we are very pleased with the results in our International business with benefit ratios adjusted for inflation for Unum UK improving both on a sequential and year-over-year basis.
Premium growth for our International businesses was also favorable this quarter compared to a year ago.
Looking at the growth on a year-over-year basis and in local currency to neutralize the benefit we saw from the higher exchange rate, Unum UK generated growth of 3% with strong persistency and the ongoing successful placement of significant rate increases on our in-force block.
And Unum Poland generated growth of 12.4%, a continuation of the low double-digit growth this business has been producing.
With this growth, our Unum International in-force premium is now at its highest level.
Next, we are very pleased with the results generated by Colonial Life, with adjusted operating income of $95.8 million in the second quarter compared to $73.3 million in the first quarter.
This record quarterly income level was primarily driven by improved benefits experience and higher net investment income.
The benefit ratio improved to 51.7% in the second quarter from 55.4% in the first quarter as experience in the life insurance block improved with the overall decline in COVID-related mortality.
Experience in both the accident, sickness and disability lines and the cancer and critical illness line also improved relative to the first quarter.
Additionally, net investment income increased on a sequential basis, which was primarily driven by higher income from bond calls.
Looking out to the third quarter, we anticipate adjusted operating income to settle back to the low to mid-$80 million range as some of this favorable experience moderates.
We're very excited with the rebound in sales activity we experienced in Colonial Life this quarter, increasing 53.7% on a year-over-year basis.
While this strong recovery comes off of a COVID depressed result in the year ago quarter, this quarter marks a return to year-over-year growth as face-to-face sales reemerge, and we drive further utilization of our digital sales and enrollment capabilities.
As expected, premium income declined 4.3% on a year-over-year basis and will likely continue with negative comparisons for the next couple of quarters until sales volumes have sufficiently recovered.
Persistency for Colonial Life continues to show an encouraging trend at 78.3% for the first half of 2021, almost one point higher than a year ago.
Then in the Closed Block segment, adjusted operating income was $111.2 million in the second quarter compared to $97 million in the first quarter, both very strong quarters relative to our historical levels of income for this segment.
Results this quarter benefited from strong levels of net investment income due to higher levels of miscellaneous investment income, which I'll cover in more detail in just a moment, as well as favorable underlying benefits results in both long-term care and the Closed Disability Blocks.
Looking within the Closed Block, the LTC block produced a slightly lower interest adjusted loss ratio of 74.6% in the second quarter compared to 77.7% in the first quarter, both results quite favorable to our long-term expected range of 85% to 90%.
Over the past four quarters, the benefit ratio for LTC was 70% excluding the impact of the fourth quarter 2020 reserve assumption update.
We continue to see higher mortality experience in the claim a block in the second quarter and estimate that counts were approximately 5% higher than expected.
LTC claims incidence was slightly higher in the second quarter, though we have seen higher recoveries on many of these claims, which mitigates the financial impact.
Looking forward to the second half of the year, we anticipate that the interest adjusted loss ratio for LTC will likely remain slightly favorable to our long-term assumption range as mortality and incidence trends continue to normalize from the impacts of COVID.
For the Closed Disability Block, the interest adjusted loss ratio was 69.6% in the second quarter and 68.9% in the first quarter.
The underlying experience on the retained block, which largely reflects the active life reserve cohort and certain other smaller claims blocks we retained, performed favorably to our expectations primarily due to lower submitted claims.
So overall, it was a very strong performance this quarter for the Closed Block segment driven by both higher miscellaneous income and favorable underlying benefit experience.
We estimate the quarterly operating income for this segment will over time run within the range of $45 million to $55 million, assuming more normal trends for investment income and claim results.
So wrapping up my commentary on the quarter's financial results.
The adjusted operating loss in the Corporate segment was $48.5 million in the second quarter compared to $38.9 million in the first quarter.
We anticipate the quarterly losses in the Corporate segment will moderate in the second half of the year to the low to mid-$40 million range.
I'd now like to turn to our investment portfolio, where we are seeing very favorable overall credit trends.
First, there were no downgrades of investment-grade securities to high yield this quarter.
In fact, we had net upgrades in ratings overall for the portfolio, which generated a small capital benefit to us this quarter.
In addition, our internal watch list of potential credit concerns is now lower today than it was coming into the pandemic in early 2020.
First, we saw a high level of miscellaneous investment income from bond calls again this quarter as many companies look to refinance higher coupon debt and take advantage of today's lower interest rates and tight spreads.
We had approximately $10 million higher investment income from bond calls this quarter relative to our historical quarterly averages.
Over the past several quarters, this has been extremely volatile and difficult to predict from quarter-to-quarter.
While these bond calls enhance current period investment income, it is a challenge to replace the lost deals in today's low interest rate environment.
Second, as I mentioned previously, we continue to see strong performance in the valuation mark on our alternative investment assets, which totaled $51.9 million in the second quarter following a positive mark of $35.9 million reported in the first quarter.
Both quarters are well above the expected quarterly positive marks on the portfolio of $12 million to $14 million.
This quarter's very strong returns, primarily reflected returns for the period ending March 30, 2021, due to the lags in reporting typical on many of these investments.
The higher returns this quarter were generated from all three of our main sectors, credit, real estate and private equity, and reflect the strong financial markets and strong economic growth.
It is hard to predict quarterly returns for miscellaneous investment income, but the third quarter so far, we are seeing a continuation of favorable trends in bond call premiums.
Moving now to our capital position.
The financial position of the company continues to be in great shape, providing a significant financial flexibility.
The risk-based capital ratio for our traditional U.S. insurance companies improved to approximately 375%, and holding company cash was $1.7 billion as of the end of the second quarter, which are both well above our targeted levels.
During the second quarter, we successfully completed a debt offering issuing $600 million of a 30-year senior note with a coupon of 5 1/8.
This was the lowest coupon on a 30-year debt issue in our history.
The proceeds from the issue were used to redeem the $500 million of 4.5% issue that would have matured in 2025.
And you'll see the debt extinguishment costs associated with the redemption included in our net income this quarter.
Importantly, this transaction enabled us to extend the duration of our debt stack and reduce the overall coupon on our outstanding debt.
With the issuance and the redemption completed in the second quarter, our leverage ratio currently is 26.2%, providing additional financial flexibility.
An important industry development recently was the finalization of the C1 factor changes, which have been under consideration by the NAIC for the past several years.
At our outlook meeting this past December, we indicated that our capital plan for 2021 -- in our capital plan for 2021, we assumed a negative impact of approximately $225 million from the adoption of the factor changes.
As you are likely aware, the NAIC concluded by adopting a recommendation from Moody's analytics, which are not as impactful to our capital plan as we previously had assumed.
We now estimate the impact to our capital position to be less than $70 million rather than the $225 million we had previously projected, a very good outcome for us, which provides upside to our capital expectations for year-end 2021.
I'll close my comments with an update to our outlook for 2021.
Previously, we expected a modest decline of 5% to 6% for full year 2021 after-tax adjusted operating income per share relative to the 2020 level of $4.93 per diluted common share.
Given the strong second quarter results and our updated view on COVID trends, we are revising our outlook upward and now look for 2021 after-tax adjusted operating earnings per share to decline by a range of approximately 1% to 3% relative to 2020.
Our underlying performance is expected to remain quite healthy, but COVID and the Delta variant will continue to be an important driver of results.
As you'll hear from the rest of the team, we continue to be very pleased with the operational performance of this company through what has been an extraordinary environment.
We believe we are well positioned to benefit from today's improving business conditions, and we remain vigilant as the pandemic continues.
So let me ask the operator to be open up the session.
 Assistant:

Chosen response:
unum group q2 adjusted operating earnings per share $1.39.
q2 adjusted operating earnings per share $1.39.
full-year 2021 outlook increased.
sees decline of about 1% to 3% in after-tax adjusted operating income per share for 2021 relative to 2020.