BKW AG (BKW) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, here in the room, ladies and gentlemen, in the live stream. On behalf of BKW I wish a hearty welcome to the analyst and media conference on the annual result 2022 of BKW. I'm René Lenzin. I'm in charge of News Media and Public affairs. Here on the panel, we have Roger Baillod, our Chairman of the Board. And in the past financial year, he was the ad interim CEO. And then Robert Itschner, since the 1st of October 2022, he has been our CEO; and Ronald Trachsel to my far left, our CFO. The agenda of this conference. Roger Baillod will give you a brief overview of the annual results. And then Ronald Trachsel will give you the details on the annual results. And to conclude our CEO, Robert Itschner, is going to give us an outlook over the next year and beyond. And then it's up to you for Q&A. We'll have hand microphone. At home in the live stream, you can submit your questions. As of now, we will answer them after the conference.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. A hearty welcome from my side. Before looking at the updated results, I would like to give you an overview of our strategy. 2012, the Board of Directors of BKW decided to reduce the dependency on the policy. So electricity prices and capital requirements were at stake. And of course, we want to stay in the business in the difficult years with electricity prices below our production costs, we had massive losses and we could rely on our great income and develop services. Today, 10 years later, in services, we have reached a size that makes it possible to focus on renewable production in smart grids and smart buildings, and we can generate further growth on a very solid basis. BKW had an extraordinary year in 2022 and achieved an extraordinary result. Revenues and profit could be increased in a sizable way. They are impressive figures. This is just a teaser. Our CFO is going to go into more details. This extraordinary result allows us to be more generous this year when it comes to dividend. In 2023, this year, we're celebrating our 125-year anniversary. We started our success story in 1898 with Hagneck, the hydroelectric power plant, and we still continue writing history with this excellent business result 2022.  We remain on the sustainable growth course that we announced before the major turbulences on the energy market. And we will be able to continue investing. So the Board of Directors of BKW proposes to the Annual General Meeting that the dividend be increased by [ CHF 20.17 to CHF 20.80 ]. And furthermore, the Board of Directors proposes a one-off anniversary dividend of CHF 0.01 per business year, so a total of CHF 1.25 per share. It's another CHF 66 million that we will pay out. The financial year 2022 led to changes in the Executive Board. Susan Thomas stepped down from her post, and we're very happy to welcome Robert Itschner as new CEO on the 1st of October 2022. Last fall too our CFO, Ronald Trachsel announced that he would be leaving BKW by the end of June 2023. He would focus on mandates in Boards of Directors. We initiated the succession process, but we are taking our time to find a suitable successor, whether it's a man or a woman for this important position. And with this, I'd like to hand over to Ronald Trachsel.

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm very pleased to hold this very last media conference and to present to you the financials, which are actually absolutely fantastic this year. This is an overview, 46% plus when it comes to operating revenue, a plus of 163% in EBIT, almost CHF 1.4 billion. Then the operating net profit, that's the net profit, showing our performance. That's before the decommissioning fund for nuclear installations, a plus of 191% up to CHF 730 million and the reported net profit. If we take or include the performance, we can boast a plus of 75% to CHF 574 million. First of all, I'd like to present to you our company, what you can see that's the entire history of comprehensive and then I'll go into the individual business areas. Now if you look at the net profit, we can see a plus of 46%, up to CHF 5.2 billion almost. That's a plus of CHF 1.6 billion, 2 areas that contributed to this fact. First of all, that's, of course, energy. That's almost CHF 1.4 billion of the CHF 1.6 billion. And then services, these were mainly acquisitions that we did. When it comes to EBIT, we can have more or almost the same sources, really, again, energy business area contributes is great result. I will come back to that in detail as to the split up of the individual pillars and the operating net profit, that's the tax WACC result at the reported net profit in operating. If we look at the reported net profit [indiscernible] is the decommissioning fund for nuclear installations relating to the nuclear power station in Mühleberg, almost CHF 2 billion in finances have to be invested, but that's not us doing this, but that's the federal government, but it has to be included in this reporting. And there, we have, of course, a great difference. If we look at 2021, we had a performance of about CHF 100 million that we generated. And in 2022, a negative performance of CHF 170 million, which makes a delta of CHF 270 million, which is now between CHF 21 million and CHF 22 million that shows here. If you look at the profit. So if you look at the performance only, you'll have to look at the operating net profit, which is a plus of 191%. Now here, this is the history of our EBIT. I mentioned 2014 as the starting point where we started our new strategy. 2012, we installed the new strategy. So these are the developed hedged prices that you can see here in orange. Now why are they hedged?  These are the prices that very tangibly really have an impact on our EBIT. So from 2014 to 2019, that was the compensation phase, as I'd like to call it, we had to accept reducing or lowering energy prices, electricity prices. We built up our services business. We also made a new valuation of our grids. That's what we did. And we also set up a new approach for trading. Then until '20 or 2019 was a slight increase. However, we had to compensate that. Then as of 2019, we had what I call the normalization phase, energy prices converted -- reverted to normal between 15 and 16. And now this is a phase that is continuing with the hedged prices up to 2024. And now you can see the result in -- that we achieved in 2022 is not an impact from hedged prices. They will only have an impact as of 2025, which already hedged the year as 2025. Currently, we are hedging 2026 already. That's why it's only a dotted line. These prices are not yet fixed. So it's a really extraordinary result. However, it does not have to do anything with hedged prices because this development will only have an impact as of 2025 and that will then come or lead to a growth phase.  Here, the individual business areas, you can see 2 business areas, that is energy and services, which have a great plus in terms of revenue. Grids are a bit reduced. We will come back to that later on. When it comes to EBIT, only energy shows an increase, CHF 888 million is the result, and this is mainly the trading result. I'll come back to that later on in detail. When it comes to services, there is a reduction to CHF 53 million and grids a minus of 28% down to CHF 146 million. However, all business areas are still in the positive, which is very gratifying. Now we invested CHF 636 million last year. That's about the double of what we invested in 2021. What you can see here on this slide, almost 3/4 of the investments go to growth and 26% went into maintenance, replacing replacements and so on. If we look at growth and split the split up of growth, 3 quarters went to the services area. These are mainly acquisitions that you can see here. And 1/4 a bit more is flowing into energy. That's mainly the wind parks in France that we bought in 2020, but also small-scale hydro power stations that are now being constructed. When it comes to maintenance, the major part goes into the grid with 67%, major part of maintenance, therefore, into grid, and we can already say now that this figure will increase in the coming years due to the transition phase in the energy market. We will have to reinforce our grids because of PV installations, new controlling systems will have to be installed and so on. So a lot of things are awaiting us, for example, smart meters, such as one key word that I'd like to mention here. So there will be higher investments in the grid area.  Let's have a look at the cash generation because we always have to relate this with investments here. These are the funds from operations, FFO. That's the cash that we directly relate to our investments here. We are at above CHF 1 billion, CHF 1.09 billion really in 2022. And this more than compensates our investments of CHF 636 million. And due to the fact that it is higher than the investments, it, of course, strengthens the financial position of BKW. I would also like to point out that we have a very nice cash conversion rate. If you look at the EBIT, the EBITDA that we generated in 2022 is about at CHF 1.2 billion. CHF 1 billion is in cash. Our cash conversion rate is about at 85% to 87%, which is very gratifying, I should say. Now let's talk about net working capital management briefly. You can see an increase in net working capital here. These are -- this is the dark blue column at the very end in 2022. In 2021, we were at CHF 145 million. 2022, it amounted to CHF 266 million. So of course, this is the energy prices that drove the increase in net working capital. It's also separately shown what we have to provide in cash collaterals at the energy exchanges. Of course, that impact net working capital as well. It was CHF 223 million in 2021 and CHF 201 million in 2022. So this was a little bit reduced when it comes to cash collaterals. Now what do we need as a company when it comes in operating cash in a normal situation? We are at a liquidity of about CHF 50 million. Now CHF 5.2 billion is our capitalization. So when it comes to our acquisition strategy, I would say this is a very gratifying line. Below 100 is gratifying. And I think we are very well on track that net working capital management is really something we can be proud of.  Let's look at our liquidity development. We started the year with CHF 1.48 billion and stop at -- or at the end of 2022, it was CHF 848 million. And we invested CHF 636 million this year. So it goes to show that we are at a very good level when it comes to liquidity. And in this area, of course, our committed credit lines are not included here. We have an addition of CHF 2 billion that we can call upon that are at our disposal so that we can remain active when it comes to financing new activities. Maybe one figure that I would like to go into. That's the reduction of short-term financing. This was reduced by CHF 162 million. You might think this is a little bit strange. So we pay back something, but the shift is here. The main reason we had short-term financing, which were now shifted into a long-term financing because we saw that this electricity to energy prices will remain high. So that's why we made this shift. I would like to remind you that at the beginning of last year, we took up CHF 200 million with a new bond. And now we have a green bond amounting to CHF 100 million and another bond of CHF 100 million of short time financing that all happened in 2022. So we made this shift at the end of 2022. CHF 560 million in terms of short-term capital was paid back. So we got free our short-term credit lines and have a bit more leverage yes. So this is this number of 162 that can be explained by this.  Then net debt and maturity profile of bonds, that's the next slide. Here, you can see the net debt. It increased by 1 from CHF 1 billion from CHF 1.22 billion. This is mainly impacted by the cash that was reduced by the CHF 200 million and then the liabilities that stayed the same over this period of time, and it now goes to minus CHF 1.22 billion. However, it is not an issue due to our very strong financial position, and we were able to maintain our rating, although net debt has increased. Maturity profile is very balanced, I think, what you can see here. We have run great flexibility of our financial structure, and we can adjust it to the respective needs and we don't have to -- don't have to wait for another 10 years to adjust the strategy. But once we don't need it, we can make adjustments very quickly and easily. So we do not have any refinancing needs in the near future. As you can see, it's very well staggered, very well balanced, and that also provides us great flexibility when it comes to financing issues. Let's have a look at the balance sheet. Just very briefly, we have a rather expanded -- a stretched balance sheet, 12.1 million in last year, now CHF 11.9 billion in 2022. That's mainly due to the derivatives and the collaterals that are included. And this is not something that's going to wash out very quickly because these collaterals will not come down very quickly because it depends on prices, which react quite quickly, but it also is about the liquidity of the market, which reacts quite slowly. And then volatility, of course, also impacts this volatility of the market depending on how much cash collaterals you have to provide. So if we look 12 months back or for example, August 2022, as long as August 2022 is still there, the prices or hedging prices will remain high. Once this is out, it will look better. So once this is out, we will be down at about CHF 9 billion. Now this is a stretched balance sheet. However, we were still able to have an equity ratio that has increased up to 37% from 35% in 2021, so gratifying as well.  So let's get into detail of the individual business areas. First of all, energy. Maybe first of all, production because that, at the end of the day, of course, makes up the revenue. Now what about production? We have a production mix that you can see on the right-hand side. First of all, water, hydro power stations from 3.9 terawatt hours in 2021. This was reduced to 3.3 terawatt hours in 2022. So that's the resource of water. There was less water available in 2022 than in 2021 and before. And even 2021 was not a great water year, but 2022 was even worse. Then the thermal power plants, gas and coal plants that was also reduced. It went back to 2.1 terawatt hours. It's not due to the price actually in 2022. But here, we had various technical problems, for example, in Livorno Ferraris, but also in Wilhelmshaven, we had stand still due to the power plants and these power plants were just not available to produce electricity. Then wind that was increased from 1.4 to 1.6 terawatt hours. This is also in line with our strategy. This is mainly due to the fact that we acquired the wind parks in France but also with better wind resources that we just had in 2022. So it's also related to resources. And last but not least, nuclear, a plus or an increase from 1.6 to 2.1 terawatt hours, which might be a little bit difficult to understand because we have read that the French nuclear power stations were not in operation. However, this is related to KK livestock. You might remember in 2021, we had a major overhaul, a major outage, which lasted longer than we actually wanted and thought it was going to be. This sell away in 2022, and it was a record year for this nuclear power plant in Leibstadt in 2022, which then resulted in this good result and more than compensated the loss that we had from the French nuclear power plants. So that's why we have 2.1 terawatt hours, which is more than in 2021.  Now what are the drivers? There are actually 2 drivers for the increase. First of all, of course, it's increased energy prices that drove revenues. And in particular, this involves the power plants, for example, gas and coal that need fuel. So this does not reflect in the EBIT because the input costs are also higher. However, about CHF 500 million come from this area from the price area and the other one is, of course, the margin, the trade margin. So that is anything that does not supply anything physically. So this margin is then, of course, booked in the revenue. If we look at the EBIT, the CHF 888 million, an increase from CHF 140 million, a plus of 536%, we can say that the major difference comes from trading. Some negative effects had to be compensated in this area. We had less volumes, for example, from hydro, but also from thermal power plants. There were less volumes. We had to buy these volumes because they were already sold. So we had to buy them back at rather high prices. That's what drove the costs and increased the costs at a great extent. So there were some negative effects here. However, some negative effects from KK live shut were also included because the fund performed worse than we expected. However, controlling cannot really do anything about it. It's really the market that drives these developments. But of course, this, again, results in CHF 100 million that plays a part here. However, the trade result was really good.  Now the trade result, I have tried to show you a chart or a slide that explains what I mean by the trading result.. Of course, the reason is to hedge our prices. That's why we trade. We want to do this optimally. We do not have a profitability goal as such, but it's really about hedging the prices and production. So that is something that we need to understand. So the drivers of the outstanding result on the left-hand side, you can see we have the spread positions. They have higher prices that increase the value of the spread positions, then we have a higher volatility that created more trading opportunities and ancillary services that were sold at higher prices. Let me talk about the spread first. What does that have to do with hedging? Now what we want to do is the following. Our entire production has to be hedged 3 years in advance. So now the year 2026. That's what we're currently doing. Now of course, we want to do this as perfectly as possible. I can do this in Switzerland, but we cannot do this alone because the market in Switzerland is too small. It doesn't make sense to hedge the prices in Switzerland alone. So we need to go abroad. That is mainly France, but it's also Germany, for example. Germany is, of course, closest to here to Switzerland. This results in a proxy hedge, and this results in a spread.  The electricity prices in the coming year will probably not develop in line with Swiss price. So that is the spread. The spread between the 2 countries, let's call it, the country spread. So at the end of the day, of course, we want to have the positions back in Switzerland. So therefore, we have to get them back. And what's in between that, that's what we call the spread. This spread has a relative function. So the price, how does it behave compared to the price in Switzerland? So if we, let's say, CHF 50 in Germany for a megawatt hour, CHF 50 and in Switzerland, we have maybe CHF 45 for a megawatt hour, so we have a spread of 5%. Now if we do this at tenfold, which is was the case last year. So we had 500 last year, then it was 450 in Switzerland. The spread is 50%. So we have a spread that was suddenly a value that was tenfold. And that was exactly what happened. We did not increase our position or strengthen our positions, but we decreased them even, but these are the megawatt hours that were still open. We reduced the open position. So we have summer 2021 until the end of 2022, that's depicted here. And from these positions, we always took out exposure, but we still had an increase in value of the spread positions. And with this, we can work. So that is our trading activity. What we do with the spread, you could maybe take them from Germany to France or do something else depending on the situation. However, the important thing is it is all about hedging of prices.  The second point is, okay, the question of volatility. And this has to be related to our trading strategy. We have a fundamental trading strategy, trading approach. Our fundamental position is based on supply and demand where we want to be at. So it's not about the absolute price, but it's the relation, the proportion between prices in Germany and France or France and Germany, Italy and Switzerland and Germany or than Switzerland. So sometimes, let's say, Italy is most expensive, then Germany, then Switzerland and last but not least, France. So this is a ranking that is almost nature given, so to say, in the year 2022. We had extreme differences, especially in August of 2022 and September '22, it was rather crazy. For months, Italy was the cheapest market and France was the most expensive one. So it was just vice versa as compared to what it is normally. Our position assumes that this will revert back to normal. We have not changed anything. We did that in 2021. We did that in 2022. So these are the bets that we actually take. So now what we have to do is to have enough power to maintain and uphold the strategy. If the price is at 1,000 in August, let's say. And if we fear that it goes to 2,200 or 1,200. And if you do not have the cash collaterals that you can provide, then you will have to close down your positions. However, we do have a lot of financial power. We were able to maintain this position and we're able to benefit from this once prices reverted back to normal. And this profit is not to the detriment of the customers, but it was actually to the detriment of those who had to close down the positions at these various points in time. They did not have another perspective of the market, but they were just not so strongly financed as we are or were.  Swiss grid asks for ancillary services. That is the third point. They reduce it. They need additional ancillary services and can provide and supply the performance. This is also done with prices that's usually in the spot price. And these were, of course, for us, great prices. They were quite high in 2022, and we were able to benefit from that. Then grid. In terms of revenue, a minus of CHF 30 million. 2 reasons for this. We had higher temperatures on average in 2022 compared to '21, therefore, lower transmission volumes that cost us about CHF 15 million, maybe CHF 20 million. And the remainder is tariff reductions that we announced in 2021. We said, okay, our difference is that we still concluded in the tariffs that have now been used up. So we will now announce a tariff reduction. That's what we did in 2021. We implemented that tariff reduction and this amounted again to about CHF 15 million when it comes to revenue. Then the EBIT was reduced even more. Why is that? Swiss grid in contrast to BKW Swiss grid asks for higher prices. So the higher transmission grid costs were one part of this higher difference in terms of EBIT. However, you have to note that the transmission volumes, of course, can be invoiced again. So in the course of the coming years, we will have the opportunity with the tariffs to invoice that again and offset that, but it requires about 2 years' time to do that.  Then on to services. That's the third pillar, the third business area, a very gratifying plus of 16% in terms of revenue. 2 major acquisitions there. We have UMB that's included here, the Building Solutions, and we have Solstice that's also including here, that's a PV installation company that we acquired in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. So the -- and also Building Solutions. The organic is -- growth is plus/minus 0. But when it comes to EBIT, we see a reduction down to CHF 53 million from CHF 92 for this decrease. First of all. Let's say we have a new valuation of various projects. That's what we had to do. We identified various projects that quite certainly will incur losses in the coming years. These are projects where we saw well, there are certain claims that incur and they have probably to be paid with the business. So you can make -- you do provisions. And we did that this year, about CHF 40 million in terms of new valuations or revaluations were done last year. So if we calculate this on top of it, we are almost at the same level or we are at the same level as last year. But if we have revenue of plus 16% and an EBIT of minus 42%. So of course, this is not really great, but it really has to do with the market development. Other service providers also had to face challenges in the supply chain. Everyone knows that. It was very difficult to procure and then to pass it on to our customers, especially in the first half year, also due to the COVID pandemic, we still had lower efficiencies. And of course, this had an impact on profitability. However, the decrease from CHF 92 million to CHF 53 million is not just due to economic reasons, that's the smaller part. The major part is, as I said, the new valuations or revaluation of various projects.  Now overall, the result has been taken very well when it comes to the share price. You can see here on the left-hand side, the SMCI that's our benchmark. You can see the very nice performance there since 2024. Also, market capitalization has been increased to CHF 6.7 billion end of year 2022. And I think the nicest figure really is that about 22% is a total shareholder return since 2014. I think this is really a gratifying figure that we can be proud of. Here is a rather theoretical approach when it comes to our dividend. We heard that we have a 2-step dividend payout this year. First of all, we have that, let's say, standard dividend increase, which is in line with our policy. That's an increase of CHF 260 to CHF 280 per share. We have communicated 40% to 50% that we want to pay out. And with the 280, we are at about 41%. So that is still in this bandwidth. But now we have a second step. This is an additional 125 year dividend of CHF 1.25 on top of it. This leads, of course, to the fact that we have a higher payout ratio of more than -- or at about 60%, but this is an individual payout this year. Our strategy is a constant strategy when it comes to our dividend policy, and this is still absolutely in line with the CHF 2.80 per share that we were going to pay out. Now this is actually concludes my statement. Thank you very much for your kind attention. On to you, Robert.

A happy welcome from me, too. I'm very happy to be able to present BKW for the first time. It is really a company that is exciting to work for. I would like to take up a few points that the previous speakers mentioned and look at why BKW got through so well through the turbulences. We heard about the price volatility, the liquidity requirements, et cetera, all the issues we had in services, everything that was mentioned before. We were able to get through this because we have a very strong liquidity management, the solid liquidity management. So you saw the figures and the very strong balance sheet. Indeed, that allows us to get the liquidity we need. So it's the 3 biller strategy as a basis for the further development of BKW and that's the right approach. Let's have a look at the market. The megatrends are the same. The potential for BKW is enormous electricity requirements are growing massively, 60 terawatt to 90 or 80 or 90 terawatt in Europe. We're speaking of a doubling of the electricity requirement around 7,000 terawatt hours by 2050. And we want to grow via investing into renewables. We do this in our grid. We have 18,000 photovoltaic systems that we integrated in the BKW supply area, 4,000 private solar plants were connected to the Grid cell. You can see that we live this energy transition in Switzerland, and that brings about some challenges in the grids and then a modernized infrastructure. Robert mentioned it in Germany. We have a storm 2030, the electricity development plan, CHF 65 billion investment. These are enormous projects, and we are well positioned to participate. And in Switzerland, we do have projects to in infrastructure expansion, rail and road, CHF 13 billion and the national roads step 2030 with more than 11 billion investments, and we are investing a lot in Switzerland. And we are well positioned to make a major contribution there.  And then energy efficiency is a big topic in buildings, in the infrastructure that's critical and that's part and parcel of the state strategy, and it's included in our plans. In Switzerland, buildings consume about 40% of the total energy consumption, and this has to be reduced and building automation, smart connection of decentralized electricity providers, et cetera. And there, we can offer excellent services. So what Roger Baillod mentioned, the overall package, smart energy investment into renewables and resource savings in building. So this is a very good basic to grow in the future. What do we do specifically some projects were already mentioned. And we mentioned in our investment in renewables, wind and solar, 800-megawatt is the installed wind power capacity currently. And by 2026, we want to achieve this 1 gigawatt and as soon as we have achieved that, we will set new goals. It's very gratifying to see that in Switzerland, there is a lot of movement, a lot of drive in the topic of energy. We want to use this drive. We want to expand our renewables offer. We have a few projects in hydropower, wind and solar power. We have a very strong project pipeline there. Of course, we want to profit from the good market conditions in the energy business, Ronald mentioned that already. In the coming years, we have set clear goals.  And then in the power grid, we want to provide the basis to do this transition in an intelligent, in a smart way. We have some regulation issues, but we are very well positioned as I said before. Then skilled labor, that's one of the bottle mix that the industry has. And then last but not least, in services, I mentioned it, I mentioned the large programs. We will make a contribution there. In decentralized energy production, we did a lot. We installed a great number of photovoltaic systems. That's 20 megawatts peak power generation in Switzerland. This is a trend that is expanding in Switzerland, and we want to further grow. In services, we expanded the portfolio quite tremendously. And now we want to take out some of the pace. We want to profit for the market potentials that I mentioned. Primarily, we want to grow organically to realize some of the potentials in these portfolios and harmonize them in the services business tool and set the basis to then grow faster in the interesting markets at a later stage. Energy, you heard of all these projects. I assume these are only the Swiss projects here. We have a pipeline of other potential projects abroad that we are evaluating. As I said, we're very happy that in Switzerland, there is some movement and hydropower in the canton of burn a very important component, contribute to the electricity supply reliability. Thrift is a very important project, and it seems that we can move ahead and the great Council of boron the permit is being discussed, and there seems to be a lot of drive there.  We have some smaller projects that we were able to realize. 40 gigawatt hours small hydropower stations will be commissioned. They will not make the headlines, but they make a contribution to the capacity in Switzerland. And then wind power, the federal government revised the forecast. We see a lot of potential 30 terawatt hours. We have been working on these 2 projects for a long time since 2008 to be precise. And we do hope that with this new drive, the new permits will be given and that we can realize them very fast. Wind farms have a short realization period. So I do hope that we can commission these projects before long. And then solar power, that's an important element in the new energy strategy in Switzerland. Bournemouth, that's the Burn Airport. That's a project that we launched very good echo, an interesting project, 35 gigawatt hours electricity production at an ideal side close to a center, densely populated. So we're using an airstrip of the airport, and that's a win-win situation. And then we're looking at Alpine locations for Alpine PV plants. We want to have a total of about 10 projects that we would have on a short list. That's not always easy. Connecting to the grid is always a big issue. That's again the bottleneck. The grids are quite thin.  So let's have a look at grids. We have a growth of connection applications there and will have a smart rollout program, 400,000 meters will be replaced. I'm talking about replacement of meters to turn them to smart meters. That's a big investment. We are well positioned again. We used the time well and BKW has several thousand smart meters in operation in a pilot. We will replace them for the ones that were chosen for the big rollout. Digitalization, that's, again, a big topic. We did a lot. The whole planning is digitalized. You can use an iPad and see immediately what Grid expansion is planned. And then last but not least, the services, I said, we want to grow in PV, photovoltaics. Again, we are well positioned here. We will be able to cover even more in the way of surface in Switzerland. Let me just mention a few projects, Roche towers. That's a big contract for BKW. Building Automation is what we offer there in a really state-of-the-art building, the control of building technology, cooling, heating, room automation, light, et cetera, and Roche is building an energy-efficient building. And that's a good reference project for us. We also did the installation in this building. So that's a nice mandate for us.  Engineering, let me just mention one project, hydroelectric power. That's something that we help planning. We have a number of projects that we work on together with partners, BASF and Siemens Energy in Ludwigshafen, 50 megawatts of hydroelectric power plant is going to be built. So we are active in the field of this. Infra Services now. You might have read the press release of the project, CHF 150 million power line contracts is what we were awarded CHF 150 million is the sum. So this is a booming market for Infra Services and power lines. And we're building up resources and also training people. And then a project that has something to do with Swiss rails modernization of railway tunnels. We are well positioned again. When it comes to tunnel communication, we are installing what is called the beam cable their antennas that are very important for SBB. I hope I could give you a brief overview of what we're doing in these various units and what our claim is and that this really goes together very well. We have a long history in these 3 business units and a good future.  A topic that is very important to us is sustainability. We are accelerating our activities. Last year, we launched our success framework and started projects so that we can show deliverables already this year. So our CO2 footprint, we want to communicate that and how it is developing in the course of the year. That's something we're working, on governance issues, compliance issues. We want to make sure that in this company that has grown very quickly, everybody is in line with our mission and vision and that they know our tools and use them. So we're totally committed to that. And we do this with a lot of drive and pressure. So this concludes my presentation. I would like to summarize very briefly. I hope I could give you an idea of our company and then we are well positioned where we are active, that we are active also in infrastructure and building automation and that the 3-pillar strategy is a good basis for further growth. And last but not least, the EBIT outlook that we communicated you saw that CHF 50 million to CHF 600 million. That is what Ronald Trachsel presented already, and of course, this depends a lot on the electricity prices. And this brings us to the Q&A. Thank you. Thank you to the 3 presenters. And now it's up to you in the live stream. We have a few questions here in the room and in the live stream.

I have a question on the trading business where you were very successful. You said you reduced your position and reduced the risks too. How exactly did you do this? Because the hedging business was not adjusted, if I understood you correctly, the hedging strategy. Maybe I misunderstood you.

Can we answer this question first, maybe and then move on to your second question. So we maintain our hedging strategy. We hedge 3 years ahead of time. This year, the plan is to hedge a little bit less, not the full production to take into account that -- how shall I put it? That the replacement procurement is relatively expensive so that we have a certain reserve, and we want to compensate that with our long positions. Normally, it's not a problem. There's not so much volatility, normally, but with the price levels we have still, and we don't know where the prices are moving this year. We want to be cautious and have a certain reserve to be a bit more cost efficient.

So are you talking about the year 2026?

Yes.

But you're not saying how much how much buffer you have? You're not saying that?

It's around 5%. It's not enormous. We are hedging 5%. You saw 9.1 terawatt hours that we don't need to fully hedge that everything that is contracted does not have to be hedged, the whole basic supply, et cetera. And the 5% of what we need to hedge.

Second question, midterm goals, can you confirm them? This year, you had the onetime effects. Do you think that your EBIT will normalize faster that you will achieve the goal faster.

The midterm goals that we announced at the Capital Markets Day, they refer to the prices that we had hedged at the time. Then we had hedged the year '24, and it was around CHF 75. And now we hedged the year '25, and now we are about to hedge the year '26. And the prices, as you will all know, are higher and the result will improve accordingly. We showed the curve. And I showed compensation, normalization and growth. And growth is something you see in these goals, but that has nothing to do with the result 2022. And this is also reflected in our guidance that's at a higher level than what we would normally do. Why is it higher? Because we assume that in trade due to the higher price level that we still have that there is some upward room there. So we are a bit higher than in a normalized year.

Alexandra Bossert, UBS. I have 2 questions regarding cash flow and balance sheet. First of all, you mentioned that you will have higher investments in the future. You'll have to expect that. Now it's CHF 636 2022. M&A have to be reduced in services. But maybe could you give us a feeling of where you will see CapEx in 2023? And in relation to that, net debt has increased in absolute terms in 2022. So relatively, the leverage came down, but now you have a -- or expect a lower EBIT for 2023. So net debt will likely rise in 2023, also due to the special dividend. So what's sort of the ratio that you want to achieve there?

Well, first of all, we have one rule. We want to keep the A rating absolute. That's an absolute fact. And we can maintain it in 2022. And it's not just take up money at lower prices, but that you can get -- take up money quite fast. That's why we need A rating. Our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio will therefore be maintained. If you look at this, you can look at it in detail. But if you include everything, and you should not forget, it's not just net debt-to-EBITDA ratio. You cannot calculate it just by reading the annual report because there are all the positions -- or there are so many positions with partner companies that are not included, and you have to calculate that as well. So you come to 3.1% of a level. If it's more than that for a longer period, then you will have to talk about the A rating or consider it, but that is really, really in the far distance. We are not even close to that. So this is the ratio that we want to maintain. And comprehensively speaking, we can say we are still below 3. And therefore, we are very optimistic. And you know, I mean the investments we heard that they were acquisition-driven sometimes or in some instances, in 2021 and 2022. The major part of services that was included there that will become more quiet now. So for sure, what we will have to add in terms of grids, I'm quite sure absolutely convinced that we will be able to maintain this good level of below 3. Next question, please.

From GI Swiss, the EBIT guidance, you've already mentioned it. It is, again, a very good result to be expected in energy. What about the 2 other pillars because they have a negative performance compared to last year, do you expect an improvement for 2023? Because in the long term, you, of course, want to grow as well in the other business areas. Maybe you could give us a bit of a guidance there.

Well, maybe my answer relates to Grid and services. I can then pass on to Robert. Now when it comes to grid, I can say the following. We are dependent on transmission volumes, of course. So when it comes to tariffs, there is nothing new to expect. We are very stable there. And that's already been announced for 2020 though. We have stability in this segment. The transmission, of course, always depends on temperatures. And we can expect a normal temperature there, but there are no special effects that we have to assume our forecast here. So even in terms of Swiss Grid, everything is planned and identified for the coming years. So currently, whatever is fluctuating is the temperature really and the transmission volumes, of course, when it comes to grids. And in terms of services, I can say the following: we have implemented certain measures. We have monitored the situation last year, the year before, we adjusted our prices. That has already happened. We have a very good top line still. Our order backlog is very gratifying. And I'm quite sure that we will significantly improve in services. All right.

Then maybe a question from the live stream. We have tax advisers good. Mr. Gritly asked about the water reserves. The filling levels in 2021 were higher than in 2022. Now what is the EBIT from the water reserves if you sold these reserves in 2022? I'm not quite sure whether he relates to the water power plant, hydro power plants from the federal government. But maybe you can say something about EBIT from hydropower reserves.

Well, I can only point out that -- I mean, there was not much time. We made an offer there, and we had to buy this energy or we had to buy it back because it was already contracted and it contained a risk premium.

The next question also from Peter about nuclear power stations. There are projects maybe for new power plants is the electricity industry interested in new nuclear power plants?

Oh, I'm not sure that there is any interest. I do not think that there are any plans for developing or constructing a new nuclear power plant. In Switzerland, there are, of course, various companies that have a stake. However, I can only speak for BKW. BKW upholds that since there is a technology band on nuclear power plant or on nuclear power, we are not having any plans for supporting the construction of new nuclear power plants.

Then another question about hedging prices for '25 and '26. What was the size?

We are about at CHF 105 million. Okay. Any further questions here in the room? Yes, please.

Andreas Arx. Three questions. First of all, the services business. Am I right in the CHF 40 million adjustment. Is this a loss that was incurred or that will incur in the future that was actually included in advance. Isn't that a bit unusual because later, these losses will not be reported and the EBIT figures in service in the coming years will be a little bit higher. So that is the first question. Can we answer this question first? But I know I have a related question. So if we take this CHF 40 million, and we take them out, we come to CHF 90 million EBIT at 1.8 revenue. Now if I remember well, the investments in this area, including goodwill are certainly more than CHF 1 billion, right? So are you of the opinion that you can generate shareholder value here? Or can you indicate about the size of the assets compared to the CHF 90 million?

Okay. First of all, the CHF 40 million. The CHF 40 million that are included. Now these are new valuations of projects. That is correct. You are correct in assuming these are losses that will incur in the future. If the project will not incur a profit in the future, then you cannot make any provisions. You can only do that. You can only make provisions if you know that you will generate a loss from a project. So it's not a correction, meaning or in terms of, oh, we're going to make loan we're going to make a provision. No, these are true assumptions. It's the same with claims. If I know that I will have claims in the future. And if the chance that these claims can be rejected and if the chance is lower than 50%, then we can include it. So these are the main reasons behind this. Or for example, if you have a project, maybe you were awarded it in a bid. However, this project is just not going to happen for whatever reasons, it's not going to be paid. So therefore, you have to book it out. So these are the positions that we mean by that. And of course, we have to report this. We are accountable for this and what happens with these positions. But you are correct in assuming that at the end of the day, it improves the EBIT position for the next year. However, because there are differences in valuation, it also shows a clear picture of what is happening in this area. Then the exact capital that we invested in terms of services, I would not like to provide any precise details. However, what I can say is that you are, of course, right, if we take the CHF 93 million and if we extrapolate it, we'll come to about 5%, that's included. And that is, of course, not what we want to be or where we want to be at. We want to have a margin for the entire area between 7% and 8%, of course. That's our target. And that's what we're working on right now. And we are expecting growth in all areas. Today, we have a market position where we are leaders. We are #1, 2 or 3 in almost all markets and areas. So of course, we have to work on the margin from 5% to maybe 7% and then to 8%. And we are not destroying any shareholder value there, I can assure you.

What about the midterm? The 9% return on capital? I'm just asking the question because we can assume that the investments in Grid will probably be a bit higher in the future. That's what I assume. And the investments in renewables will be probably higher as well because they will have a weakening effect on the returns on the capital yield. So do you think it's still going to be in excess of 9%, 2025, '26? Yes. And the projects, especially the renewables in Switzerland. Can you give us any indications what the minimum return is there so that the investments pay off.

I mean if we just look at the megawatt and then compare it with the CapEx, then I get very different returns depending on the project. So is there any kind of security for the investors that the yield can be generated for each technology and for each country where we invest, we have a clear hurdle rate. Now what does that mean? The rough hurdle rate, of course, is our capital costs need to be covered. If this is not the case, we do not invest. As simple as that. And this is also the reason why we sometimes proceed maybe a little bit more slowly than in other cases because our projects need to be profitable. They need to fulfill the criteria and they are not that diversified. There are many projects, that's true. However, the profitability target, if you want to fulfill them, then you need to proceed slowly. It's not that easy. You will find these projects also bigger tickets, large-scale plants, maybe not 20, 30 megawatts, but maybe plants with, like in France, 100 megawatt or even more. So these are the strategic players that are really playing a part there and participate. And they have similar capital requirements. As BKW if you have financial players, that's a bit of a different story, of course. So therefore, these projects are, for us, not really something we're looking at. But you can be absolutely sure we will not invest if not at least our capital costs are covered. And the hurdle rate is even -- is on top of that, depending on the individual technology and the long-term horizon. Any further questions? Yes, please.

Question about decommissioning Mühleberg. I'm hearing an undertone that you are quite happy what's happening in terms of deadline and also in terms of costs despite there is probably a shortage of labor.

Yes, you are absolutely right. We are happy about the progress at Mühleberg. We are exactly on track. I had a precise look at it. The target is still spring 2024, it should be completed, and we are really happy and on track. And in terms of costs, also on schedule. So you're not much better on track than I thought you'd be. Well, if you look at the provisions in the funds, then we are absolutely on the safe side.

You talked of growth in Switzerland. We consume more electricity in Switzerland, but you also said that you have now connected more PV installations with the Grid. But a major part of this growth in Switzerland is -- of this pie is actually eaten up by the smaller players, by smaller PV installations. So you, as a major player, actually, not much of this growth really will come to you. Well, there is a great need. So therefore, we can see great growth rates, especially when it comes to decentralized production. But I think there is huge potential left for companies like BKW with larger installations.

And it's not only own consumption of these plants. If you look at these systems, they offer quite a lot of performance more than what they consume themselves. So there is decentralized power production. That's what we mean by decentralized offer. So this electricity is then sold is negotiated, not our job. So part of what is connected and is not used for own consumption is fed into the production grid.

You mentioned small hydroelectric power plants that are connected too. The situation there is somewhat different. That's your own power production. Is that correct?

Yes, that's correct.

And the last question. About the BELP project. Intermediate use. I think that's something you said. Is this only intermediate for the time being.

Yes, for the airport, that is their point of view. So they could expand the airport if they wanted to. And from the point of view of the airport, this is an intermediate use, but a long-term intermediate use at the back.

The question on the midterm ambition by 2020. the EBIT goal. If I understood Mr. Trachsel correctly, the ambition has become less ambitious in the past quarters. Am I interpreting your statements correctly and CHF 1 higher in the electricity price. What would that mean for the EBIT?

I can confirm how you see the situation, yes. Let's move on or if there are no questions here. Bosco Ojeda from UBS has a question.

In England, could you give some detail on hedging strategy on pricing outlook for future prices?

I said most of it, our hedging strategy, hedging 3 years ahead of time. Proxy hedges are necessary, and then we have spreads and we work with the spreads. It's exactly the same situation. We have a small reserve for future replacement procurement so that we have a long position and do not have to buy on the market immediately. So that's the only thing I can add. And then electricity price development. I cannot make a forecast really we hedged prices, and you saw how we hedged. Between '23 and '24, we are going into a flat development when it comes to hedged prices. And then in 2025, will go up from the CHF 50 to CHF 60 that we are at today. And if you look at the electricity price curves, everybody hopes for a normalization around CHF 70 or CHF 80 per megawatt hour -- that these curves have never -- and these forecasts have never been correct. And then the second question on services, that is answered. I think third question in inflation and what are the repercussions on the commission and disposal fund? Not for the time being. Thank you. So let's check here in the room. Are there any more questions?

Thermal power plants. You mentioned failures in Italy and Wilhelmshaven. Coal is not really avail and gas is not either. What is your strategy with regard to thermal power plants?

This is a question that we will look at this year, how to work with this portfolio in the longer term. We need these power plants right now to really maintain supply reliability in this unusual situation with the Russian gas that is not available. We do have a political situation that restricts us somewhat with regard to the options that we otherwise would have, but that's a long-term goal we're looking at. Thank you. Any more questions? Yes, please, Mr. [ Eslin ].

You mentioned the wind potential 30 terawatt hours. There was a survey with the Swiss would rather have a new nuclear power plant rather than many wind turbines. Isn't that an illusion to think that Switzerland will be wind energy producing country?

30 terawatt hours. I'm not sure we can achieve this. But we can produce more wind energy. We have the biggest wind park in Switzerland, 50 to 60 gigawatt hour energy production. That's a small volume that we use in Switzerland. If we really want to manage this energy transition, we need an intelligent mix between photovoltaics, big volume and then wind when that can produce energy in winter more than PV and of course, hydroelectric power on solar energy, as I said. So this is one possible approach too on how to bring about energy transition.

I do have a question on the returns. So we have a higher interest rate level now and if we look at the hurdle rate now, how much higher is it? And is there an indication on when interest rates increase by 1%, electricity prices would have to grow by such and such an amount?

I cannot answer that question. I cannot give you a concrete answer. It takes a more refined calculation. First question, yes, the hurdle rates were increased by about a percentage point. Let's go back to the live stream. I think we have 1 or 2 questions. Peter Gritly asks a decommissioning of the German nuclear power plants. Can we feel the repercussions in the electricity prices? What I can say is that most market actors like BKW are calculated on how this market price could develop. We have long-term price models. And I would assume most market actors anticipated such developments. I'm not sure whether every market active data.

To avoid a reversal of energy performance in 2023 as power prices fall, it's on [indiscernible] management of [indiscernible].

So are we prepared? Yes, absolutely. We have to be prepared. We have a state-of-the-art risk management. We are not just looking at where we are just once a month. We are looking at where we are several times a day. We have very high transparency, and we are well prepared for such scenarios. Thank you here in the room again?

The power agreement that we don't have 2025 in the EU. We're not part of it. What are the repercussions for BKW. What could be the problems that might arise? That's my first question.

The biggest problem for Switzerland is the uncertainty whether we can import the power that we need. That's a bigger issue than grid stability issues because we are physically connected with the European grid but have no control with energy flows. We will have to manage. And for BKW the limiting capacities, that's another question. The volumes that we are trading with and importing from other countries. So trade could be hit by this by 2025. Yes, I think so. I think you're right, especially trade across borders at short term. There, we have a disadvantage because we don't have the coupling. First, we need an energy contract and then we have to see who has the necessary grid capacity. And if you have to do both, you're generally too late. We do not work a lot across borders. In this field, we are more active in Switzerland. And this keeps us busy. But of course, we could include Southern Germany, but there we are somewhat handicapped.

And the last question, licenses. How does this concern you? I'm speaking of Uber Horsley. Is this just one license for all of these plants or several licenses? The Grid system has a concession license up to 2040. And then the license will mature as it were, and then we have to negotiate with canton. In your situation, you were quite well positioned. As you said. Your owner, the location of the plant. It's the same canton. You're in a good situation.

Yes. Yes, I feel a lot of support from the Canton for this model and the Grid system. We will find a solution. We are invested in plants outside of the Canton of Burn in the later years, the 30s and 40s. We have some challenges coming up. So these are discussions that we are going to have in the next 10 years, long-term discussions.

But looking at the production capacity, this doesn't really concern you all that much. There are worst cases than yours.

Yes, there are worst cases than ours, yes, absolutely. Thank you. One last question. It doesn't seem to be the case. And I'd like to thank you for coming in such great numbers, and thank you for your interest in BKW and our annual statement. I'd like to invite you to drinks. And I hope to see you again in September when we present the next semiannual figures. Have a nice day. Thank you. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]