Boralex Inc. (BLX) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Boralex 2025 Investor Day. I am Coline Desurmont, Director of Investor Relations. And I would like to thank you for joining us today here in the room and also those that are joining us on the webcast. Regarding the organization, we will start with a full 2-hour presentation, followed by a 30-minute Q&A session, both in person and online attendees are encouraged to participate and ask questions. Afterwards, we invite you to join us for lunch where you will have more opportunity to interact with our management team here today. So before we proceed, I would like to draw your attention to the disclaimer statements. This contains important information regarding forward-looking measures, non-IFRS measures and other financial measures, combined basis non-IFRS measures that we use during the presentation. For more detail definitions of these items, please refer to the non-IFRS financial measures slides at the end of this presentation. We do not have any printed presentation here in the room, but I think you should have received it by e-mail and otherwise, it's available on our website. Now let's start. Here in the front row, we have a good group of speakers representing a mix of corporate and business unit leaders, starting with Patrick Decostre, President and CEO; Bruno Guilmette, EVP and CFO; Pascal Laprise-Demers, SVP, Corporate Strategy and Business Performance; Marie-Pierre Morel, Senior Director, Development in Quebec; Adam Rosso, SVP, Development, North America; Julie Cusson, SVP, U.K.; Nicolas Wolff, EVP and General Manager, Europe; Robin Deveaux, EVP and General Manager, North America; and to finish Mihaela Stefanov, SVP, Integrated Risk and Management and CSR. You can see we have a complete agenda today as we aim to provide you with valuable insights into Boralex strategic direction. So I hope you enjoy it. And with that, I hand it over to you, Patrick.

Thank you, Coline, and it's nice to be here. The last time we were in presence, it was 2019. It was before a new name was known for all of us, COVID-19 and then in 4 years ago, we did it completely virtually. So it's great. And as you can see, the team has been also renewed. And as I will say now and in conclusion, we're showing you our bench, but a very small part of the bench of talent at Boralex. And that is one of the goal today is to show you that. So just to start of a quick snapshot of Boralex. We're in this business in 35 years. And so we have a real industrial experience. We have been through many turbulent period, many crisis, and we have, from the beginning, an industrial approach of our business. Our success, I was mentioning that, is based on the 825 people who are working for us and in the 4 different jurisdictions that we are operating. We have 3.3 gigawatts in operation to date, it was 3.2 at the end of last year, and it's diversified in technology and geographies. 93% of our revenues are contracted with 11 years of remaining duration. We will certainly come back to this figure later today. We're listed in Toronto with around $3.3 billion market cap. The strat plan that we will present to you today, [ 2023 ] reflect the important effort that we put the last years on our growth strategy to increase significantly our pipeline of projects -- our portfolio of projects from 3 gigawatts to 8 gigawatts today. It means that the plan is fully organic -- fully organically based. It doesn't mean that we will not do any M&A, but it's -- we achieved the financial target with only organic projects that we know are in the pipeline today. And this is completely de-risk if you compare to the last plan we present to you. The installed capacity has increased from 2.2 gigawatt to 3.2 gigawatt by the end of '24. And again, it confirms our ability to put in service new assets. And this year, we will put in service more than 600-megawatt by the end of the year. During this period, our combined EBITDA at a compound annual growth rate of 7%. For the future, we're targeting a higher organic EBITDA CAGR, reflecting our confidence in the strength of our pipeline and our execution capabilities. We're also introducing a new AFFO per share metric fully aligned with long-term shareholders' interest and directly tied to our management incentives. And for all employees, I repeated that many times with Investor Relations, all employee at Boralex as from 40% to 50% of their short-term incentive plan linked on the increase, the growth of the AFFO per share metric. We will maintain our financial discipline. If you see, and Bruno will come back to that, if you look to the last 4 years, we have demonstrated that when we're speaking about financial discipline, it's really something real at Boralex. And the balance sheet today is stronger than it was 4 years ago and 6 years ago. And we will invest a little bit less in 2025 and 2026, but start investing a lot of new projects from 2027, which are, as I mentioned already in the pipeline. Finally, we will continue to target a minimum internal rate of return between 10% to 12% with adjustments over time to reflect our cost of capital, specific risk technological risk or regional risk. And finally, we are strategically positioned to leverage the strong market fundamentals despite the noise that we are hearing probably every day of every hours, the long-term fundamentals have not changed and even more, it's accelerated, and that's an important point. We aim to extend, I mentioned that, the average remaining duration from 11 years in 2024 to 14 years in 2030, increasing revenue visibility financial stability in line with our long-term growth objective. As a joke, I can say to you, we have no view to mid-40s and just think or hold you will be in the mid-40s. This would give you a view of the stability of Boralex for the next 20 years. We are actively exploring strategic M&A in the U.K. and key regions of the U.S. to complement our organic growth and make us an important player in this market, specifically New York and the U.K., as I mentioned. And as I mentioned, again, one of the objective of today is to show you a part of the bench, a part of the team of Boralex and be sure that your investments are in good hands with us. So now I will leave the floor to you, Bruno. You will start with the financial strategy and objective, and I will be back for a question period afterwards. Thank you.

Thank you, Patrick, [Foreign Language]. Good morning, everyone. [Foreign Language]. It is my pleasure to be here with you today. With the first slide -- controlling the slides, thank you. You see my favorite words there, financial discipline. Over the last 5 years, we have grown our cash flows and cash flows on invested capital more than the average of our peers while maintaining a strong balance sheet. You can see on the slide how efficient we have been on the use of our capital. We will maintain this disciplined financial strategy for the next 5 to 6 years. The capital allocation to -- there you go, the capital allocation to develop the pipeline of projects and to build our new projects is our priority. We have been able to grow while controlling the amount of debt, which has grown only by a CAGR of 3% over the last 5 years between '20 and '24. And we have issued equity only once in the last 6 years. How did we do it different ways? We have been able to size important refinancing opportunities for more than $2.7 billion. We have also sold 30% of our French business to our partner -- our Swiss partner, EIP at an interesting and attractive value demonstrating that we can take advantage of the value gap between private markets and public markets. Our refinancings have yielded lower interest costs and higher net cash flows. And we continue to unlock capital and we'll continue and insist on recycling capital in and demonstrate that we have more opportunities to do so in this new plan. We continue to create value towards this. This is a way to finance our growth, and we'll increasingly do it. The next few pages may be of interest to you. We're presenting our new targets. First, let me start with the business targets for 2030. We intend to double our capacity to reach 7 gigawatts by 2030. We have a strong pipeline, a strong growth path, and we intend to leverage it to get to that result. Will -- our team is committed to continue to build a safe, inclusive and responsible organization committed to a net-zero trajectory by 2050. Let me then talk to -- I'll just insist on one thing, but I believe Patrick mentioned it as well, is our installed capacity and our growth is going to be in our 4 key markets: Canada, France, the U.K. and the U.S. In Canada, we'll focus on mainly Eastern Canada, Ontario and Quebec and see if we can find other opportunities throughout the country. On the financial targets. The first thing I'd like to say is these targets are built around our organic growth only. we'll look opportunistically at doing M&A, but these are financial targets for organic. Therefore, a strong base again, based on our existing pipeline and growth path. We added some financial targets for 2030. You will see operating income consolidated growing by 12% to 14% CAGR. 7% to 9% on consolidated EBITDA CAGR, and 8% to 10% on combined EBITDA to reach more than $1 billion in 2030 on combined EBITDA. Just a quick flash back. It was $492 million when I joined in 2019. We've gone quite a bit. We've seen quite a bit of growth since then, and we expect to see even better growth in the future. Our minimum return in -- for investment criteria in our projects remains at a minimum 10% to 12% IRR delivered. We've also introduced new targets. New targets on a per share basis. We've presented net cash flows from operating activities per share consolidated and net and discretionary cash flows per share consolidated. And you can see that we expect to reach up to $2.70 for the discretionary cash flows per share in 2030, and 8% to 10% CAGR for both of these measures over the next 5 years. On to the next slide. How are we going to fund this? Our analysts are eagerly waiting for that slide as I was told this morning because we did not share this one with them in the early part of the day. The allocation for growth for projects that are going to be COD before the end of 2030 is $6.8 billion. The $1.2 billion that you see there is the allocation for capital for projects that are going to be COD after 2030. Of the $6.8 billion, approximately $5 billion of this is going to be funded via project debt. We already closed on the 2 financings for our battery projects in Ontario and the Des Neiges Sud project the financing, which was nearly $1 billion, sorry. Noteworthy is also the change in the range of ratio of our dividend payout ratio of 20% to 40% of our AFFO. Beyond project debt, our plan includes proactive capital recycling for $900 million to benefit from the valuation gap that still exists between private market valuations and public markets. So we'll do -- we'll continue to do partnerships like we've done with EIP in the future. We have -- we are targeting certain types of assets, but only once we've created the value with these assets that we can leverage with our teams. We do not have plan to issue equity in the short term. But I've here marked in this plan, approximately $500 million over the course of the next 5 to 6 years. But again, there is no need for equity this year or next year. Depending on the results of our other financing initiatives, we certainly will continue to try to lower that amount of needed equity. Another important aspect of our growth in this plan is the increase of the average PPA duration. As you can see on this slide, we can -- we're going to see an increase of an average duration of 11 years at the end of 2024 to 14 years at the end of 2030. And that is because our projects today have a longer PPA duration on average, if I recall, of 22 years. These are the projects that we're signing today of PPA is ranging between 15 years and 30 years. So in conclusion, our financing strategy is on track. It's not a revolution. It's an evolution of what we have been doing in the last few years. We are confident in achieving all of these elements that we talked about today, we have proven that we can do so. We have additional capital recycling opportunities, namely we already mentioned that we're looking at capital recycling in with our Canadian hydro assets. This is ongoing, and we hopefully can give you additional information at the next quarterly results. We have ongoing discussions to potentially increase our debt at the corporate level, a more information to follow. And we also are looking at refinancings across our portfolio in the different regions and the different types of assets. I will now invite my colleague, Pascal Laprise-Demers. Please, Pascal, please join me.

Thanks, Bruno. So it's a pleasure to see you all here today to talk about our strategy. For the next section, I will try to bring you in a bit more depth of actually how we aim to deliver on the targets that Bruno just mentioned. So basically, what we need to actually deliver, but also what is the business model that will get us there. So let's start by a few fundamentals on our business model and how we actually create value. We truly believe those are important to differentiate us and allow us to create the best across the full life cycle of the project. They are not new actually. They are actually how we run our business and how we manage uncertainty around our strategy. First one, we are a real industrial player that work on the details that matter. We are on site. We have a comprehensive approach to asset management and to development. The performance of our asset is a priority and our position of a developer and owner and an operator, bring unique qualities to our project and a full life cycle approach that not a lot of players can have to the depth that we do. Second, we have a long-term and disciplined investment strategy, just as Bruno just mentioned. We are balancing the risk and the cash flows, and we are a rigorous investor. We always aim to have the benefit of the risk that we take, and we remain in very proven technologies, market and approach. Our value creation thesis is always clear, and we are very disciplined at executing it. Third, we are entrepreneurs. We actually are very stakeholder-centric in our organic development, and we try to anticipate market made reasonable and calculated bets that lead us to be ahead of the curve. That's actually how we did in Ontario, and that's why we have actually great battery projects that are going to be COD in the next year and as well in Quebec, where we were some of the first to actually bring back projects in line. Fourth and last, we manage our portfolio of assets based on its market valuation, but also on the marginal value that we can add. We make the arbitrage between the capital sources, of course, including recycling, but we take portfolio decisions based on the value that we can bring and the runway that we see further in the segment. It's essential to maintain our eyes on the right priorities and build the right competencies. So those 4 fundamentals are really how we work days and nights and give you, hopefully, a bit more color at how we are balancing the sustainable growth with performance. Let's move to how we actually deliver on our plan by 2030. Our strategy is kind of simple and based on 3 pillars that you see on the screen there. Our growth is mainly targeting at executing the projects that we have in the pipeline while continuing to plan for our growth after 2030. The second pillar is the efficiency and the resiliency that we are building as we grow our company and structure ourselves across several dimensions. We see opportunity to enhance our margin through digital and automation, but also through simplification and optimization. This goes across different domains from the financial standpoint all the way to the very operational on-site problems that we aim to solve and always get better. Over the '25 to 2030 time frame, we also seek to continue to build a safe, inclusive and responsible organization that is committed in a trajectory of net-zero by 2050. This will make us better equipped to grow and to go through the different cycles and uncertainty like we see these days. Finally, there's a few dimensions that we truly believe will differentiate us in the long run. And those -- and one of this is actually being close to our client and really be a partner of reference for them. We also believe that in the time frame, we'll need to learn even better how to nurture and develop talents because this will be key for the next time horizon and actually to win versus others. So by working on those 3 levers, we are comfortable that we balance our growth and performance, but also through time because it would be wrong to forget some of those dimensions in the early days. But we cannot go past having the performance in the short term. So let's dig a bit more into our growth plans actually. So I will not go through all, but you can see on the screen, across our markets, ambitions are fairly high for renewable. And the topic right now is not that much about the ambition, but it's about delivering. It's good to have plans but like plans are just as good on paper. We need to actually get the assets to the clients, and that's what the market are asking from us. So of course, the levers behind this growth are similar across the world. We can talk about decarbonization as one of the -- sorry, we can talk about electrification as one of the only serious decarbonization lever. We can talk also about the economic transition to electrification because there's a bunch of use that are actually economically more viable now with electricity. I don't think I need to talk about AI to this crowd. I'm sure you're following that daily. So I'm sure it's a big topic that you know about. We often forget about the aging fleet of electric assets, and this starts to be more and more real through time and is actually driving demand as well in our markets. Finally, population growth, but also movements are actually having impact on the different market that we target -- that we target here. So what about our plan when we look at that? Doubling every 5 year doesn't sound that aggressive after all. But that's why we also need to continue to prep for 2035 and beyond. So let's go more specifically into our growth. So as mentioned earlier, our growth is based on a healthy organic pipeline of almost 8 gigawatts that we built over the last year. Our priority is now to execute and deliver. We aim to double our installed capacity within 5 years, as you can see, within our 4 core market of U.S., Canada, France and U.K. Over the next 5 years, in an industry that takes 4 to 8 years for projects to be developed, there's not a lot of surprises. So the projects that you see there are, for most of them, they are big ones that you already heard about. We can talk about the battery project in Ontario, where we have 2 this year, but also Oxford coming up for a total of 55 megawatts of 4-hour batteries. You will also see the 1,200 megawatt of the Des Neiges project in Quebec that we have in partnership with Hydro-Quebec in Énergir. You will see the 2 major projects we announced in New York for 450-megawatt of solar, and this will always already bring us to 5 gigawatts. So what does it mean? It's that through our advanced project and through our pipeline of 6 gigawatt, we need to secure 2 more over the next few years to actually fuel this growth, also bring some other back early. You see a lot of key advanced projects in secured that we aim to bring earlier in the pipe. And this will drive our growth. M&A will be opportunistic, but also more targeted on markets that we aim to accelerate like the U.S. and the U.K. So this brings me to the path we will use to accelerate in smaller markets like U.S. and U.K. The cycle you see actually on the screen represents our approach that is based on talent first and leveraging existing expertise within Boralex to accelerate the cycle. Taking projects in different stages of development, allow us to beat the long development time line at reasonable cost. And on the other side, recycling capital fast allow us to bring scale, which is often required to really lead in those markets. So this cycle is nothing new actually. That's how we developed with a partner in the U.K. over the last years. That's actually how Patrick developed France as well through time over 15 years. And it also represents the knowledge that we have that our development will be through local talent and expert that will continue to drive our growth. So this sum up how we aim to deliver by 2030 and how we are prepping to continue actually our growth story beyond as well. Our 3 pillar of growth, efficiency and the topic where we need to differentiate long term are a strong base and will drive performance over the next few years. On this, I will let Marie-Pierre come and talk about more specifically our presence in each of our markets and the rest of the team.

[Foreign Language] Good morning, everyone. It's such a pleasure to be with you today here to discuss further the market opportunities for Quebec. So first, let's take a glance on our position in Quebec. And I think Patrick has alluded to it in the opening. We have obviously 30 years -- 30-plus years of experience in Quebec, making Boralex one of the largest IPP owning 688 megawatts of combined installed capacity of project with wind and hydro operating assets. Our position is not only based on the experience, but also what we've built throughout those years of experience out in the field. Obviously, one of the key things that we have is solid partnership with host communities and local communities where we have our project and First Nation obviously, as well. Another thing that we have is the experience that we built throughout the years for developing large-scale wind projects but also many type of projects. And also, we have the ability -- we built the ability to build those strong relationship also with the government of Quebec and Hydro-Quebec as well. And all this leads to a strong position in Quebec and a deep understanding of this market and obviously, the local grid. And therefore, this prove that Quebec is a strong home base geared for what's next. And speaking of what's next, let's deep dive a bit into the market overview of Quebec. By 2035, Hydro-Quebec will seek an additional 10 gigawatts to 10,000 megawatts of additional wind capacity, so wind-only capacity to add to its current portfolio. And the market in Quebec is really booming for many reasons, and one of them is the government of Quebec aims for reducing its greenhouse gases emission by 37.5% and by 2030. Another reason why the Quebec market is booming is also because we have this new business model, I would say, new business model, but it's core to Boralex for many years is that the partnership with First Nation and local community would be at the heart of every renewable energy project leading the energy transition in Quebec. And I'll come back to that in a minute, but that's really one of our strength, and that's really important in the whole strategic plan of Boralex because we have the ability to build trust and authentic relation with local partners. And obviously, a booming market plays favorable political and regulatory environment, one that is really hungry for the energy transition. So now, are we on track to meet our ambition in Quebec? While we currently have 683 megawatts of contracted projects, which will be commissioned by 2030. We have the Apuiat project. This project of 200-megawatt is located on the north shore of St. Lawrence River near Sept-Iles, and it is on jointly at 50% with the Innu Nation, which is the First Nation in Quebec. We have also -- and Pascal has alluded to this large-scale project, so the Des Neiges portfolio is a large-scale project located on the flagship site of la Seigneurie de Beaupré. This is still on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River but closer to Quebec City. So this portfolio is composed of 3 phases of 400-megawatt each. The first one is Des Neiges Sud, then we have the Des Neiges Charlevoix, and then we have the Des Neiges Ouest. And this portfolio of project is owned at 33% by Boralex with partners, mainly Hydro-Quebec and Énergir. Other key projects that will be commissioned by 2030, we have a smaller project, which is called Monnoir. This project of 100-megawatt is located on the South Shore of Montreal. And it is owned jointly at 50%, jointly with local electricity co-op on the South Shore of Montreal. And then we have Arthabaska, 265 megawatts a project that is located very close to our office in Kingsey Falls at the center of Quebec near Victoriaville. And this project is owned as well at 50% jointly with local community, namely [indiscernible]. And on top of that, obviously, we were adding a pipeline of projects of more than 1 gigawatt in development. So all in all, our ambition in Quebec is to capture 1/3 of the wind market opportunities. And you recognize that we'll develop this will achieve this target based on the growth pillar that Pascal just presented to you those 3 pillars. Here, it's decline in 4. So I'll explain them to you. First is we're going to leverage development and large-scale project expertise that we currently have as the one that we put forward in the Des Neiges portfolio. The second pillar is we'll continue to grow a ready-to-bid win portfolio just to make sure that we are agile and quick onto any offtake opportunity whenever or wherever they arise in the market. The third one, mainly -- I mean, this is the key pillar for Quebec for the jurisdiction, I should say. We have to continue to nurture and strengthen our relationship with the key stakeholders and partners and obviously, First Nations. Again, this is really a cornerstone in this market. It is truly a competitive edge for Boralex, and that allows us not only to build a foundation for future and long-term growth, but also to be present locally out in the field, something that is embedded in our culture. And finally, the last pillars -- the last pillar, I should say, act with agility to capture any potential complementary opportunity in the market. And on that, I'll leave it to you, Adam. [Foreign Language]

[Foreign Language] Hello, everyone. We will continue the discussion through our different jurisdictions by going west into Ontario where good things grow. My name is Adam Rosso, and I'm the Senior Vice President of Development here at Boralex. I'll start off with a quick review of our operational assets in Ontario. We currently own and operate 346 megawatts over 2 technologies. We have a portfolio of wind projects down in the southwestern part of Ontario. We have a large-scale transmission connected project, namely the Niagara Region Wind Farm, which I will touch base on a little bit. And a 16-megawatt hydro assets in the North, a run-of-river asset named Yellow Falls. We have extensive knowledge in Ontario, predicated on all of the development work that we've been doing on the wind portfolio as well as our battery storage portfolio. We have execution capabilities that are being demonstrated right now within the battery storage portfolio, which we'll touch base on a little bit. As Marie-Pierre indicated, one of our cornerstone attributes is strong relationships. We're able to create trust with our local municipalities, create trust with our indigenous communities. And I'll get into a quick example of such endeavor with the Niagara Region Wind Farm, because it is an archetype of how we have approach development writ large across our key markets within North America. That project was one of the very first projects Boralex entered into with a 50-50% indigenous partnership as well as working with 5 key municipalities on the development and building and support of those projects within those key communities. And we have leveraged those attributes to continue the development across our key markets. All right. Ontario, Minister Lecce released the IRP last week, the integrated resource plan. And to say the least, it is an ambitious project. You listen to the types of things that our Minister is talking about with regards to nation-building projects, large infrastructure projects and unleashing the north -- the potential of the north in our province of Ontario. To be able to execute on large infrastructure projects, there's one key element that we need in this province, and that is energy. If you look at the IRP, Ontario is projected to have a 75% growth by 2050 in our energy markets with a large amount of that being procured and installed and built out in the next decade. Well, what does that mean for a company like Boralex? We very have local -- we have very strong local ties. We've got fantastic relationships with our procurement entities and our aim here is to be a reference developer within the province to provide solutions to the province with regards to their energy needs. If you look at how the IRP is set up, Ontario is looking at attempting to procure 7.5 gigawatts of procurements before the end of 2034. Our intent here in Ontario because this is one of our home markets and a key market for us is to develop strong key fundamental projects. We have a guiding tenant in our development team, and that's -- think like a smart system planner, where would a smart system planner want our assets. And that guides us in terms of having disciplined investment, strong quality projects that we plan on executing on in the next number of years. Ontario -- if you read the IRP, Ontario really is using a everything goes kind of approach. Nuclear is going to play a role, battery storage is going to play a role, gas may even play a role. Renewables in our opinion, will certainly play a major role, well-sited quality projects will ensure that our province is able to meet our infrastructure goals and our energy requirements within the province. The ISO right now is running a procurement called the long-term energy 2 Window 1 procurement that will both have energy and capacity streams. We plan on participating in both of those procurements with an eye on developing long-term projects, a long-term pipeline of quality assets, thinking again like a smart system plan or where would they want to put them. Our battery storage portfolio is a signature portfolio projects. And I want to refer back to the Niagara Region Wind Farm because it's archetype really did form the process and the approach of the success of really the underlying success of our battery search portfolio. All 3 of these projects are 50% indigenously owned and supported. They all have municipal support resolutions and agreements with our local municipality. I know some of you were able to go visit the Hagersville battery storage project yesterday, and I'm happy to answer any questions and tell you the stories of how that project came to be over the lunch hour because I think it's a pretty fascinating experience. It was one of the very first things that I did at Boralex nearly 13 years ago was actually signed with a parcel of land. So I'm happy to give you the history on how the Niagara Region Wind Farm and the relationship specifically with Six Nations and some of the local municipalities, we were able to leverage those things. As Marie-Pierre indicated, strong municipal relationships going above and beyond in terms of managing our relationships and creating trust and transparency with the local communities really is a cornerstone of how we develop both in Quebec, Ontario and New York. The Tilbury site is an 80-megawatt battery storage project located directly beside a transmission asset in the community of Lakeshore. It is a 50% indigenously owned project Walpole Island. They were a legacy community that we had strong relationships with in prior procurements. And I'm very proud to say that we were able to get one across the line with that community for their benefit and look forward to that project COD in the next number of months. And not to be outdone in the LT1 procurement. We won the Oxford project. It was an additional 125-megawatt for our battery storage system that will come online sometime in 2027. That portfolio of projects is 2 gigawatt hours worth of battery storage systems, which represents one of our fastest and most successful portfolios that we've been able to deliver to date in the province, very proud for these things. Battery storage will have obviously a 22-year contract, a 28-year tenure, complemented by our recently developed trading group within Boralex. We look forward to maturing into that market in Ontario and really driving value through understanding the local market ensuring that we've got the talent properly developed and acquiring and hiring the right type of people to do that right work and look forward to working with the trading team on those assets. And again, one last quick point. All 3 of the projects are eligible for the 30% ITC. So our goal here in the province of Ontario really is to be the reference development shop. We have a very strong team here in Ontario, supported by all of our teams across Boralex, but the local knowledge that we have here in the province is wonderful to have within our company. Again, cornerstones, First Nation projects are absolutely key. Based on where we are developing, we should anticipate continued investment and collaboration and equity partnerships with indigenous communities on almost all projects going forward in the province of Ontario. Most importantly, we're looking at building on our past wins. Right now, the team has momentum. Boralex has momentum within the province of Ontario, and we continue to want to drive that momentum forward and bring our unique way of working and doing development within the province to hopefully, a suite of projects that will participate in the Window 1 energy and capacity markets. All right. Shifting gears, heading south to the United States. Boralex has 20 years of experience or expertise in the United States across 3 different technology platforms, largely due to our run-of-river facilities in New York. We have a portfolio of wind assets in Northern Texas and Western or Eastern New Mexico and a solar portfolio of -- sorry, portfolio of projects within the CAISO market in California with additional projects in Alabama and Indiana. The United States represents obviously a very strong demand growth. As Patrick indicated earlier today, the fundamentals of energy growth and -- of energy growth period will drive investment for us in the United States, focusing on high-quality core fundamental projects. Again, putting our hat on thinking like a smart system planner, our approach in our key markets like New York really rely on smart transmission system planning community support and good project fundamentals with strong, strong community support. New York, recently, or NYSERDA, recently, have reiterated their strong commitment to the renewables movement within that state, which gives us strong indication for continued investment in New York. What we are seeing is PPA is also becoming longer in tenure, they provide opportunities for us to look at other markets. We see growing opportunities for the collaboration between business and local governments. We see repowering and restructuring as a potential option on some of our current assets. We will continue to investigate those as the time goes on. And we also see mid-stage projects, some of which we'll discuss in a moment, being available and well positioned for buyers in terms of increasing demand for high-quality assets. Given the rhetoric that you hear within the news, we see still very strong appetite for continued investment and interest in high-quality projects that are helping states who are responsible for their energy meet their demands. So in the recent weeks, we had a very exciting announcement in terms of 2 solar projects. These projects are in the north country -- in the north part of New York State. You could probably throw a stone from Quebec and hit some of our solar panels once they're built. We may put a little [indiscernible] on the back of some of those panels for our Quebec folks. Fort Covington coming in is a 250-megawatt AC solar facility located in the town of Fort Covington and Franklin County. We have the 2 Rivers project is a 200-megawatt AC solar project located in Brasher and Massena, at St. Lawrence Counties. These two projects are core and fundamental for our strategy in New York. They connect to a brand-new transmission line. The North Country is in full support of our projects our approach, our long-time investment in the community and relationships with our -- both our landowners with many stakeholders across the New York Spectrum, both with strong support from NYSERDA and strong support from ORES. We hope to mature these projects in the coming months to drive them towards a COD date within the 28 time frame. There's still things that we need to be able to accomplish in terms of engineering and investment to nail down a firm date, but that's where the projects are trending right now. We do have a pipeline of nearly of just over 1,000 megawatts of mid- to late-stage solar projects or mid-stage projects within the state of New York that we look to continue to invest and grow our pipeline because of the strong signals from NYSERDA continued support and investment within that state. Okay. So I've mentioned this a few times disciplined approach. Within the New York market and given the uncertainty that you see within the policy at the federal level. We are taking a very disciplined approach, meaning only the highest quality projects that we are bringing to the table from a development perspective, receive resources. We prioritize these markets that have good strong signals. We strengthened -- we plan on continuing to strengthen our regional team by investing in people and ensuring that we acquire all of the right talent to be able to execute on these projects properly and within a timely manner. And we will be taking a look at using strategic M&A opportunities to either accelerate into different markets and to use a risk adjusted awareness approach to ensure that the projects that we do bring to bear are the ones that have the highest chance of receiving a final investment decision. And on that note, I'd like to invite Julie.

Good morning to our North American audience, and good afternoon to our European audience, I think who are online. So it's a pleasure to be with you today to present our -- is it changing? Here we go -- to present who is Boralex currently in the U.K. and what are our ambitions for the future. So we've been around since 2017 because of a 50-50 joint venture that we signed a couple of years before, at the time -- I'm sorry, with Infinergy. We acquired all the shares of Infinergy in 2022. Acquiring at the same time, a great portfolio of a project of just about 700 megawatts. And we commissioned on April 1 of this year, our first project, wind farm, our Limekiln projects, the flagship of our U.K. development, a 106-megawatt wind project in Northern Scotland. So by commissioning this project, we became also an owner and operator of asset in the U.K. So that was a great achievement for all the team. So why the U.K. is so interesting for Boralex, and that's what I want to discuss with you this morning. I think there's 4 things that we need to discuss. So first, the government ambition. It's not just about policies. It's also for the U.K. government. The question of energy security since 2005, the U.K. has became a net importer of energy. So it's very important for them, not only for net-zero, but also to assure their independency. They also have a growing population, just above 80 million. I think for the first time of the European history, they are larger than their friends. So it's also a growing need and demand for the U.K. market. So they set up a very ambitious renewable targets that what you can see on the screen at the moment. What they want to develop through the Clean Power 2030 action plan is really to double the onshore wind capabilities and also almost triple the solar also assets there and it's not written on this slide, but also just in terms of best projects, so battery projects, they want to go from a current 5 gigawatt to 25 gigawatts of battery projects by 2030. So very ambitious target. So that's the second point. They are there. The U.K. is there to outcome our project. The third aspect is also the market. So we do have in the U.K. CFD contracts through allocation round. So we're just about to start the 7th round on August 7. So it's coming very soon. It's going to be an ambitious round because this allocation round is CFD contracts will mostly be in operation for 2030. So it is a big target for the U.K. government. And with that comes a 15 years contract, so steady flows of revenues, which is also something that we do like for us and for our investors. And then the fourth aspect is the real possibility for us and Boralex to become leaders in the U.K. market. So when we look around, when we look at our competitors, we think we can become in the top leaders of the U.K. market as independent producer. That's also very interesting for us. All the government wants to do that and how they want to accelerate this program. And it's -- probably those of you who knows well, the -- well, the U.K., you've heard about the REMA, Review of Electrical Market arrangement. So the government of the U.K. wants to set up a framework, a regulatory framework that is there, that is modern, that will allow removing constraints, lowering costs also of energy in the U.K. So this is something that we expect. And also, they want to build a stronger grid capacity to reduce, as I said, the constraints and cost. So right now, everybody is asking the same question when we will have news from the REMA regulations. We're expecting this probably during the summer because we need to know what will happen probably before the start the launch of the allocation round 7. If it's not this, it's going to be another reform of national pricing systems. We know that the U.K. needs to unlock constraints just in terms of grid. So whether you speak with people at the Department of Energy, whether you speak to the NISO, so the grid operator of GEM, which is the regulatory body in the U.K. everybody is really thinking about how to bring inward investment out to make sure that we deliver the target that the government of Mr. Starmer committed to. So it's going to be still exciting place to continue to drive. There is also something that I haven't mentioned, but it is really important. So when you look at the grid management at the moment, we see a lot of what is called the [ Zambia ] project. So it's congesting the grid. We are currently the government through NISO is reviewing this. So it's going to be a first ready, first connected type of system. We expect us as developers in the U.K., we expect a lot from this because it's going to remove some projects from the interconnection queue. So when we look forward, what are we doing? We're setting the pace to succeed in the U.K. That's what we've been doing for the past years. We are building currently -- we continue building the team, the development team, whether it's estate people project development, people, talent that are also very knowledgeable in terms of getting planning consents. So that's what we are building at the moment. We also want to diversify not only in Scotland, but in England and Wale. So we're looking at that, breaking also new skills internally, whether it's with new technologies, so not only when, but looking at best projects, solar projects, so that's very interesting. We do have a dedicated now M&A team in Europe that, as Patrick mentioned, is very much focusing in the U.K. So this is what I talking about when I say we're setting the pace for the organic growth. We are also developing our energy marketing perspective. The U.K. market is a very mature complex market. So that's also internal capabilities that we are still developing. So what are we doing? We're doing the recipe of success of Boralex over the past 35 years, getting this at this crossroad of having great talents in markets where we think that they are going to drive and deliver. So that's it for me. I think I'm going to hand over to Nicolas.

Good morning. Thanks, Julie, for this presentation. I've gone through the growth platform. So we'll be discovering now the mutual platform, the French platform. In France, we have now more than, I think, 25 years of experience. It's a lot. It's a lot of experience. We are the first independent player in the wind sector. We have more than 1.34 gigawatts in operations, which is pretty significant with more than 315 people. And we do have a strong pipeline of developing projects over 2 gigawatts. We've doubled the size of this development portfolio over the past 5 years. And as mentioned by Bruno, a few years ago, 3 years ago, we signed an agreement with a Swiss Infra fund, Energy Infrastructure Partners, selling 30% of the business, operating assets and development portfolio, helping us to boost the business in France. We have now a mature market, of course. And on this market, we see a few positive elements. First of all, we do have a very strong and robust regulatory framework. The states over the past years has been pushing for decarbonization with very challenging targets in terms of renewable, solar and wind. We have now a kind of consensus regarding 2 pillars, renewable and nuclear. And this wasn't the case a few years ago. But right now, as we speak, I think we all understand that we do need those 2 pillars to achieve those decarbonization targets. We also have a very competitive auction system. The solar auction is providing us with around EUR 80. The wind auction system is putting us with around EUR 87, EUR 88. So super good prices compared to the rest of Europe. As it is a mature market, we do have also some opportunities in terms of reporting, so replacing old machines by new machines. So those projects have been put on hold during the crisis because the prices were pretty high. But right now, we are coming back to, as we call standard prices. And I guess this reporting opportunities would be booming. As it is a mature market is also a consolidation market. And therefore, we believe that some of the small players will probably disappear because the market is now super competitive. And it is some up Boralex additional opportunities. And last but not least, during the Choose France Summit a few weeks ago in Versailles, President Macron announced a massive plan regarding intelligence -- artificial intelligence and data centers. And we are looking at developing France as a kind of a hub. And of course, this will generate a lot of needs in terms of green electricity. And for sure Boralex will play an important role in this program. Now our goal today on this market is, first of all, to capitalize on our strong position regarding the wind assets. We will pursue our efforts regarding the solar projects. And we do have a lot of new solar projects arriving later in '26, which are the benefits of the investments we've made during the first strategic plan. We do also foresee some reporting opportunities, looking at our very old assets, and we aim at replacing those all machines by new technology, producing more and decreasing the cost of energy. And also, we do have a specific asset in France is what we call the Energy Solutions. And I would like to spend some time on this particular topic because I think it's a key differentiator of regarding Boralex. So a few years ago, we've developed what is called today Energy Solutions department. And this structure is helping us to navigate from the different commercialization platforms. So of course, a few years ago, we were only having stated CFDs, formerly known as filling tariffs. As you know, the CFDs are providing us with good tariffs right now as we speak. But we've also launched a few years ago, the PPAs -- corporate PPAs, aiming at creating some contracts directly with big industrial companies. And we've created a team to do so. We've developed a sales approach or, let's say, a more customer-centric approach to achieve that. And a year ago, we developed what we call now the Utility PPA and the merchant positions. So in other words, instead of being stuck to only one platform, we are able to navigate for the platforms, optimizing our position and making some arbitrage on this platform, aiming at creating more value. So we do have -- thanks to those different platforms, a very dynamic way of managing our portfolio, optimizing the value creation throughout our 90 projects being currently in operations in France. And I do think this is a key differentiator regarding Boralex versus the rest of the competition because this is basically giving us a lot of agility in the way we manage those assets. So here are some examples of initial companies with whom we signed corporate PPAs over the past years. So as you know, we started a few years ago, in a very basic manner, selling our greenfield, the old projects we had, which were getting out of the filling tariff. And we gave them a second life through those corporate PPAs. And then 3 years ago, we started with greenfield PPAs, meaning that we've created new projects using a PPA to finance, install and operate the solar projects or the wind farms. And right now, as we speak, we can sign 20 years corporate PPA. So this is giving us a good visibility. And as mentioned by Bruno, this is really important regarding the long-term stability for the company. So to conclude, I would like to underline that we are slowly but surely moving from a megawatt centric organization to a value creation organization. And the company has been shaped around this new target, and I think we'll be very successful in the future. So without further ado, I will ask Robin to join us on the stage. Robin?

Thank you, Nicholas. First hello, everyone. Thank you again for joining us today. I am very pleased to be here with the rest of the very talented group to look at the initiative the company is putting together for -- to address this -- and to address this very incredible market that we're seeing right now. First, let me also introduce myself, Robin, and acknowledge the recent change we had in the leadership 6 days in the job today. Recently got announced last week after the announcement of the retirement of Hugues Girardin, who's been with the company for close to 35 years. So I want to thank him as well for all the hard work he put in. That's not a small feature. Now in the current context, we've decided to take the opportunity to present to you a portion of the procurement strategy that we're putting in North America and how we think it's going to play a key role in the years to come. So being on the discussion on the change in the organization, over the past year, we have centralized the procurement activities to be managed by experts from a decentralized, closer to the operation and the construction team, we've centralized that in order to address the challenges that we see in the market. Today, a dedicated team, a dedicated team of talented individual is working constantly to deploy the best practices and laying out the foundation necessary to address the challenges that we see. One, attract and retain the right talent, define the coherent procurement strategy and support the execution of our strategic plan. We believe that an approach that is aligned towards the total cost of ownership will drive significant value for the organization and for most derisk the project over a great period of time. Now regardless of all of that centralized function, and we believe that there are still challenges that exist, and we need to -- those will need to be addressed in the years to come. So again, a slide to show what we believe will be the challenges that we'll face in the next -- during that strategic time line in the next 5 years. So we've proposed to lay it out for you one of those -- a couple of those challenges and how we plan to address it. On the wind side, we see 3 major ones: increased complexity in the logistics, particularly on the -- due to larger onshore turbine size, both from a hub height and a rotor diameter. We now face a world where 98% of the turbines sold today have more than 115 meters of hub height. So that creates a lot of risk on the execution. So decreasing willingness, second, decreasing willingness of the supplier to assume those logistical risk. So that's a risk that is now there more by the developers. And we see also a shortage of across markets of shortage of specialized labor, crane operator, experienced technicians and commissioners. How do we plan to address that? We integrate the logistics as part of the early planning process of those projects. This includes preliminary assessment during the development phase and detailed analysis during the RFP phase as well in stages throughout the market. We also include prenegotiated contract terms that prioritize the responsibility, that prioritize so we share responsibilities with the suppliers prebaked as we advance on the contracts that we negotiate with the supplier story. On the solar side, what we see is a global supply market of panel now exceed the demand, leading to a lower module price despite protectionist measures. Having said that, regulatory uncertainties in the U.S. with regards to incentive programs and restrictions related to foreign entities are creating challenges for the domestic solar manufacturing. We also see issues with traceabilities of materials and labor on the solar supply chains. Again, how do we address that? We foster through strategic partnerships with Tier 1 suppliers. We collaborate with O&M to anticipate risk. And again, prenegotiations of key terms of contract within the RFP stage is also a key -- play a key role sorry. We're also taking active positions with our government relation groups to influence policies on both sides of the border. We believe that it is this current environment, this will be key to see the problems for. On the ESG side, we enforce a strategic -- strict ESG requirements including force labors prevention and carbon footprint certification. My friend, Marie and I will definitely cover that in the presentations to come. So no, I'm not going to spoil the presentations. On the storage front, again, 3 main risks. Adam spoke about the greatness of those projects. We see a unique business model requiring complex evaluations and suppliers and equipment while the technologies and the regulatory landscape are still evolving. That is specific to the batteries. We see rapidly expanding markets with many unproven new suppliers. And we see also protection measures and dependencies on the Chinese supply chains that we'll need to address. Again, how do we address that? We closely work with battery market trends. We closely monitor battery market trends. We evaluate non-Chinese alternatives and work with technical teams, both internally and externally to address concerns. We model key inputs in our investment model that includes tariff, lithium pricing, all of the key movers both the RFP stage and the FID decisions. So that's very key for us. We prioritize life cycle cost, safety, warranties and technology selections. And again, those prenegotiated contractors that focused on risk sharing. Last but not least, major electrical equipment. What we see is a newly extended lead time for key components, such as transformer. We now see some suppliers with lead times up to 36 months. This has been the norm for the last 2 to 3 years, and we have limited -- we see very limited and insight in terms of solving that issue for now. So volatility in the market price like copper and steel is also a risk that we're tackling on and we're following on. Solution plant flexibility in the procurement of long lead items. That includes aligning the project pipeline with the lead times. It's also deciding whatever we want to integrate the procurement as part of the BOP or the BOP contract or self-source the equipment on our side. All of those risks and solutions are now built within our procurement strategy lean on 4 essential pillars. What are those pillars? The business intelligence where we stay informed on the market trend, we make well-informed decisions. We make strategic partnerships, invest in relationships with the right suppliers to optimize efficiencies and reduce the risk. We also look at the risk management by identifying risks such as tariff and local content requirements and keep options open. Last but not least, the sustainability-driven procurements, it aligns our investments with our core values that will -- and the market realities that we'll be describing later on. So now in a couple of minutes on in the case of New York Solar. I know the slide is pretty packed, but I want people to focus on the derisking aspect of the project. Goal here is to present an opportunity for everyone to see how every step of the way we derisk the project from a procurement perspective. So if you look at the -- at where we started, we structured the process to start early on during the RFP phase last year, we focused on unifying options and the sensitivities and the risk as well, sorry. This is also where our key relationship with suppliers comes into play between -- before the RFP, sorry. After that, between the RFPs and the PPE awards, we continue to refine our strategies, we challenge ourself. We track the domestic content manufacturing process to make sure that we're up to speed with the latest and greatest information that are available, especially in this current environment. Given the current environment, again, our GR group is regularly in Washington to meet with policymakers to make sure that we have the maximum visibility over the investment horizon. We also put forward a safe harboring strategy with long lead items that given the risk that we were seeing on the ITC will pay off in the investments to come. We've worked with BOP -- again, in that phase, we've worked with the different BOP contractors to obtain the optimal results between the price, the quality, the schedules and the health and safety on the sites. After that, between the PPA and then final investment decisions, what we're going to do is we're going to select and secure the equipment from a BOP perspective and also focusing on the terms that will allow us to build the project. Last steps for us will be able to transfer the project to our dedicated team on the operations and maintenance team and the asset management that will take care of our asset for the next 30 years. Thank you very much. And I'll have Mihaela present the ESG initiative.

[Foreign Language] You didn't spoil my presentation. I have many other scoops. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for coming today. So my name is Mihaela Stefanov, and I'm responsible for corporate social responsibility and risk management at Boralex, and I will speak about our CSR strategy today, a topic that I'm absolutely passionate about. So as you have probably noticed, it's the second strategic plan in which we do have a CSR ambition. So probably where I would like to start today is really to -- by answering the question, why? Why is it so important for us as a company? You have heard many of my colleagues presenting our strategic plan, it's a good plan. It's a solid plan. We're eager to jump in and to execute it, but it takes 2 things, 2 things that are quite important for us to succeed. First of all, it takes focus. Focus on the needs and the priorities of our stakeholders. You have heard my colleagues talk about local communities, health communities about our talent, about our people, about procurement as well. So the focus on the needs and the priorities for all of our stakeholders is absolutely key because those are key ingredients for us to succeed in our strategic plan. And yes, I'm not going to forget you your priorities as investors and lenders, obviously, also quite important. The second thing that we need is rigor, again, rigor in execution, but also rigor in targeting the risks and the opportunities which even though they're not financial. If we don't manage them well, they will have very real, very concrete financial impacts. I'm talking here about local acceptability. Health and safety. Again, having the right talent and the right expertise to execute our plan. So this is what our -- I forgot to change the slide. My apologies. This is what our strategy is all about is actually how we create value for our stakeholders and also how we protect the value for the company, the financial value of the company. This is what our CSR strategy is all about. So where are we headed for 2030? Before getting there, I would like to actually backtrack a few years and tell you how we started. Our first CSR strategy was created in 2020 when we became very, very intentional about managing the risks and the opportunities that are related to our business model and that are extra financial. So what we did is that we identified 10 priorities very much linked to our business model. We hired a team. We defined a plan, and then we executed it. And fast forward a few years later, as you can see, we're starting to be quite recognized in our sector. And just because we're among friends, I don't think this is recorded here. So I'll give you in a scoop -- a scoop. Oh, it is. They're going to be -- we're going to be kidding aside. There's going to be some really exciting announcements next week. So please stay tuned for that. But besides the reputation of advantages of the positioning that we're getting into a sector and also with our different stakeholders, we're also achieving some quite interesting benefits in terms of financials. You have a few examples here. We have increased the pool of investors. So you may know that many of our investors are based in Europe, where the CSR performance is part of the criteria that they actually use in order to decide whether they want to invest or not in our company. Same thing for lenders in order for us to access financing for new projects. Today, we have to demonstrate a certain threshold of CSR performance. Otherwise, we're not going to get the money that we need in order to continue developing. We are able to access exclusive RFPs because we do have a certain level of performance. Again, this is [indiscernible] linked with our growth. Robin, you mentioned also leveraging CSR as a vector to develop strong relationships with some of our suppliers. This is what we do as well. That's how we secure our supply chain in order to help us continue growing. And obviously, we're attracting very talented people who are excited to work in a company like ours. So we will be continuing our journey in 2030 by keeping the same recipe, the same recipe of success. So we're not going to change -- we're not going to change our priorities because they're the right ones. We're going to continue working on a safe and welcoming environment for people. We're going to continue respecting the communities and respecting the environment because this is how we're going to get the social license to operate and secure it and make sure that we also get the permits that are required in order for us to continue executing our strategic plan. As a public company, I think you will agree with me on that one is sound governance and also a good ethical culture absolutely required. And finally, while 2050 may seem very far away, and I'll let you compete, how older you're going to be in 2050, so although it may feel quite far away, it's already shaping our decisions today because we want to be net 0 by 2050. And this is really a commitment that is very much aligned with the core of who we are in terms of our mission and in terms of our purpose as a company. So we're going to continue executing on our CSR strategy to create value for the company and really supporting the different risks and opportunities that we need to resolve in order to continue growing. And on that note, Patrick, I think you had some closing remarks.

Thank you, Mihaela, and first, the closing remark is to say thank you to the team we present today. It was really interesting, I would say, even for me. So it's great. More seriously also thank you to the team online because you can see part of the things today, but there was a lot of work done by you. So thank you again. That's incredibly important. And thank you to Stefanov, you're not on stage, but you're for the third time, the top gun in your position. So we have to say, yes, great. Thank you. He promised that he will stay for the next 5 years because in mission impossible mission, I don't know the name in English, but there is 8 episodes, so it will stay for the next 5 years. Okay, what are the key takeaways except that of today? It's extensive knowledge of the market. You have seen a part of the team again, but you have seen that we know what we do. And we know why we do the things. That's incredibly important. We have spoken about trust with partners, with community, with investors, with stakeholders. That's in the DNA of the company that we want to be the reference development team. You mentioned that, Adam. And I think it's clear in Nicolas, Marie-Pierre and Julie, that we want in the 4 jurisdiction where we are, be the reference development team and the go to where -- when you have a project to develop, Boralex will come. And that's why it's so important also to be in this right market and not to be too much diversified and not to be in just one market. So I think the balance diversification of Boralex in 4 jurisdiction is incredibly important. Our approach to just did it about CSR is a risk approach. And our approach to supply chain and procurement is also a risk approach. So a disciplined approach that is also in line with what we have done last year in financials and the target that we are showing to you are purely organic target, and we know that what is important is to execute on that and again, be very, very disciplined. The key word for me today is derisking. When I'm looking to this plan compared to what we have done last year, and yes, the environment seems to be more turbulent and it is more turbulent. But come back in 2021, we didn't knew -- we didn't know what will happen for the 4 years, we just went through with the inflation, with the disruption in supply chain, with the war in Ukraine, with the war in Gaza, with all those things. So we were already in 2021 in a turbulent state. What do we say about 2007, 2008, it was also a turbulent time. So we went through that for the last 36 years. So we go now to Q&A session. Thank you again for listening, and thank you to the team again. Thank you.

Thank you, everyone, for your attention. I think we're ready to take questions. For people in the room. Please wait for the mic to reach you, so everyone can hear your questions clearly. So yes, I think there's some there.

It's Nelson Ng from RBC Capital Markets. First question is, what are your initial thoughts on the big beautiful bill? I know there's -- I think as long as you start construction this year, you have until probably 2029 to complete. So I think you can fully tax qualifier projects. But obviously, other participants in the market, maybe like rooftop solar and others are -- they don't have it so well. I think the latest quote I see is [indiscernible] down like 40% and First Solar is down close to 20%. But what are your general thoughts?

Well, essentially, you mentioned it, Nelson, it's -- it's a situation where our main project for the next years are safe harbor and in the right window to be executed without impact. So that's where the money is. That's where the value is. What is important for us is that the situation stabilized when they -- so when we will be at the next RFP of NYSERDA, we will know what are the assumptions. What is really complex is not to know the assumptions. Sometimes it's give us very interesting situation like the [indiscernible] project you visited today. We didn't put the assumption of the ITC, but it was unknown. And when there is this uncertainty, it's more complex. Again, the fundamentals are there. So I presume that the U.S. Senate and Congress will come back with something which will be viable and somewhere the ITC and the tax credit are in the U.S. economy since 1977, a long time ago.

I have one more question for Bruno. So on your funding plan, as you highlighted, analysts are looking closely at that. You have about, I think, $5.9 billion of debt financing relative to the $8 billion of CapEx. I don't see a bar for tax credits. Obviously, that's going to be a big part of the funding. Is that included in the debt?

We've included it in the appropriate boxes in part in the debt part is because we are expecting to bridge finance the ITCs.

Sean Steuart from TD Cowen. Thanks, everyone, for the thoughtful presentations. A question on Quebec growth opportunities. Curious on your perspective with change at the top of house there, how you expect that could affect IPPs and Boralex's opportunities to participate in growth going forward in partnership with the utility?

Yes, it's a good question. First, I would like to congratulate Michael Sabia for his promotion. It will be -- with his energy and pace, it will be great, I'm sure, for Canada. So that's the first point. The second point is, I think the plan in Quebec is quite clear, and there is place for everyone. There is a place for many IPPs and there is place for Hydro-Quebec to do large project in partnership with IPP. So I'm thinking that the presentation of Marie-Pierre and in some way, the presentation of Adam in Ontario, shows that it's incredibly important to be like we are linked with First Nations and local communities. And to have this trust. I'm not saying Hydro-Quebec doesn't have it, but I'm saying that it's important sometimes to have a partner who is doing this job. And so I think we have just to see where it goes in terms of management, but I -- the demand is there. The industrial investments are there. And in a situation where the federal government wants to do of Canada super power, it is also with electricity. And so the easiest way to deploy new electricity would be green electricity. So very, very confident.

And just one other question. Bruno, on capital recycling, can you give us a sense of what could be on the table beyond the hydro portfolio? It sounds like maybe you're willing to consider some advanced development projects selling down those stakes. Any perspective beyond the hydro, what might be on the table? And if equity valuations aren't cooperating, is there an ability to flex that if you're not as willing to issue equity a few years down the road?

Yes. I'll answer your -- the last part of your question first, we believe that there's still today a significant gap between private equity, private valuations and public valuations, private being higher. And that -- so that gap still exists and we, in our view, will continue to exist. So just from a -- just making sure that we are able to tap into that market is important from a funding perspective and maximizing shareholder value. The different -- I mean -- importantly for us is really to create value in a segment of our business, whether it be technical technology-driven or regional and to do the capital recycling at the right time once we've created value and derisked that part of the business. A number of the financial investors are looking for derisk cash flows long term. That's what we believe we can bring to them as potential partners. And our approach in general will be to sell down as opposed to selling completely to sell down on specific parts of the business and keep control and keep the operation and the management. So stay tuned for what are the possibilities, but we have -- we're looking in structuring our different assets so that we can do that future partnership. There are existing partnerships. Let's not forget about our existing partnerships with the First Nations, with the municipalities, with the IP, and we're also counting on future partnerships in large projects where other investors could join us at the beginning, like we're doing in Des Neiges project, which is a large project, and we have energy and Hydro-Quebec as partners early on. So there are different types of partnerships, but the important thing is there's value. We have a plan towards some of these specific opportunities, and it's structured that way so that we can do it.

Mark Jarvi from CIBC. Bruno, following up on the asset recycling, are you able to share roughly what you think the spread between selling down and then reinvesting the capital can be done that in terms of -- is it a couple hundred basis points, 300, 400 basis points?

All depends on what we sell down and what we reinvest in, clearly, it's not -- that's clear. Today, we still see 300 to 500 basis points, depending on what we're looking at to sell down and the valuation of our stock price, generally speaking, not looking at some of the parts, but generally speaking, the average valuation of Boralex in the public market.

And just on that -- the debt financing in that Slide 16 is $5.9 billion of new project debt. Is that exclusively tied to new assets? Or are you planning to optimize debt and put some debt on existing assets today to surface value?

We can increase, and we're looking at opportunities, as I mentioned, I think, on the refinancing side in some of our assets. So that could be incremental, that could be seeking more flexibility on the financing side. We have quite a bit of project finance, as you know, 89% long term, fairly structured and some cash flow that has dropped in our structures. So we want to make sure that we optimize the debt as well as the new debt on the new assets. So we'll continue to simplify and potentially increase a little bit on the debt side, but not overall increase of debt, but the reallocation of debt. I mean we have project debt and we have corporate debt. So that's also an area we're looking at to rebalance.

Just to be clear, so that $5.9 million is largely on new asset growth?

Yes.

Last question for me is just on the gap to get to the 7 gigawatts...

And just the $5 billion is on new assets yielded before 2030 and the $0.9 million is for the after.

Got it. And just on the gap to get to the 7 gigawatts, you've shown the bridge to 5-plus. If you had to think of the markets your highest confidence level to source that incremental 2 gigawatts, how would you rank them?

Well, essentially, we have 8 gigawatt portfolio of projects. We have projects in the U.K. that are not in this 7 gigawatt -- in this 5 gigawatts, sorry, that we will bid in the next round. We have -- we have certainly project in France. We have a potential project in Ontario also in battery storage, probably. So I am reasonably confident that we can reach that. And that's the reason why we are presenting this to you today. We are not giving the names because sometimes it's competitively sensitive. But -- or all the time, it is competitively sensitive, but it's -- we are confident that we can reach this.

Baltej Sidhu from National Bank. So I just want to touch on capital recycling as we mentioned, the spread in public and private valuations and your ability to historically monetize at accretive levels. But then now the focus is on organic growth, which we appreciate. So could you just contextualize how we should think about on a holistic basis organic growth, M&A and asset recycling? Would that look more of a split of 80-20 geared towards organic growth? Or how should we think about that?

As we -- I mean, we wanted to make sure that we presented organic growth mainly today because I think that's presenting on the strength of what we have done in the past and our teams as they presented today. And we are able to demonstrate that we're going to have a growth of -- a quite interesting growth just with the organic part. Having said that, M&A remains on our plan in terms of opportunities, but we believe that we'll keep the flexibility to, as discussed, either increase our presence in the U.K., increase our presence in the U.S. as we find those opportunities on the development side and where we can create additional values on operating assets. But that's over and above the numbers that we've presented today. Having said that, we have teams that are always scouting the market in -- on the M&A front, specifically in the regions that we are in today. And asset recycling for us is also -- I mean you can see that as M&A as well because it's finding the right buyers, finding the right partners at the right valuation at the right time when there is the trigger that we feel we've created enough value. So that's also buying and selling in the right market.

Great. And then just on the return profile when you're targeting assets, the 10% to 12% levered IRR, that would be independent of debt refinancing, capital recycling and all those other initiatives?

Yes, the 10% to 12% is a base case long-term model of our existing -- of our projects without refinancing without selling down. It's a good question. It's a good point.

Nick Boychuk from Cormark Securities. Coming back to the 10% to 12% project-level IRR that you're expecting, curious also with the U.S. IRA, if that were to be canceled, and you had to say in New York State procure first solar panels and domestic content, would a project like that still meet your 10% to 12% threshold? And how would you compare that to something like a wind project, for example, in Quebec or Scotland?

Yes. Thank you, Nick. Essentially, the -- as Bruno mentioned, and it's important because many investors when they're speaking about 10% to 12% are also speaking about more merchants than what we are doing. We're contracted. Second point, no refi, no repowering. That's very important. To your question specifically, the project which are contracted today with NYSERDA are safe harbor. So I do not expect -- never know, but I do not expect the full repealing of the IRA tomorrow, which canceled everything because this will be so disruptive. For the next project, it would be really a question of will NYSERDA be ready to pay the right price because everyone will be on the same level playing field to bid and we will be in this position. What we're doing is developing large size project with community support, access to the grid and good resource. And then we're working on procurement. We're working on financing to optimize everything and to beat the others. But if the competition changed, it would change for all players. And that's the reason why we think New York will continue to be an interesting market. And if you look to the price I don't think they are public yet, but the price we obtained in this contract and the price that the market obtained in the last contract, there is a huge gap. And that is accepted by the offtaker.

Sorry to confirm that the gap is to your favor? So presumably, the IRR on that project would have been higher than a prior bid?

The answer is yes. But the gap is also covering some costs which are higher because of domestic content and other things. So -- but the answer is yes. You remember the target of Boralex in the past was 8% to 10%. Now it's 10% to 12%. So this is covered by that, and we take into account also the increased cost of the debt in this project.

Understood. And coming, I guess, to the competitive nature of that process, are you seeing any more opportunity for some of these corporate PPAs or any other corporate structures that would maybe backfill that? Like if nicer to, let's say, wasn't willing to pay up in order to make this economic, would you have the same opportunities for corporate PPA in North America as you're seeing in Western Europe?

In the state of New York, I don't think we have great experience today of corporate PPA. This is not a corporate PPA market specifically because NYSERDA is there. Should that change -- there may be a change. That's what happened in France. When the price was going down on the RFP and then there was an interest on our side to go for corporate PPA, the Ukraine crisis, the Ukraine war -- it all of us in Europe, and then the off-takers say, okay, there is also an interest for us to buy from these people. And then that's why we signed with all the people we signed the last year. So -- but I think the important point is we are agile in Europe and in North America to pivot if this is changing. The team who is working on the Ontario trading for the battery storage is also working to optimize some of the small assets that we have in hydro in New York to change the contract to optimize them, are working on assets in Texas and New Mexico to optimize them. So the team are looking and screening everything all the time to optimize everything we can.

It's Ben Pham, BMO Capital Markets. Maybe the first question, on your financial targets, you had 3 in the last plan, you have 5 now. Can you rank order the priorities or importance of what's most important to you? I mean I can guess what it is, but from your perspective just a thought process? And then maybe just a follow-up to that, is there any projects hypothetically M&A organic that you're faced with a situation where there's maybe not a proportionate benefit in all those financial metrics? And how do you weigh and balance that potential outcome?

I'll start with the first question. I'll probably ask you to restate the second one. So in terms of our targets, they're all important, I think, from a perspective from -- certainly from my perspective and from the company's perspective, we've often said that we're focused on the growth of AFFO cash flows and to, I guess, to the general demand, we have decided to give a target on AFFO per share, which we've always been focused on. Let's state that. It's clear. I mean, significant part of the compensation of the -- all the employees in the company is based on the growth of the AFFO per share beating the best year always. So AFFO per share is certainly one that is quite important, but the growth of EBITDA, doubling the capacity -- I mean the teams -- I think it's demonstrated that we start from a team on the ground or teams on the ground that are developing megawatts, profitable megawatts and that work hard to get those to operating and then to make sure that these are driving good cash flows, long-term contracted, visible that's the model of Boralex. And then optimizing around that when we said base case return and then adding returns over that, we have different options to do that. We've demonstrated these different options over the last few years and we'll continue to do so.

Maybe to reframe the second question, maybe an example where you have an M&A transaction and for some reason, it's meaningfully beneficial to EBITDA. But the free cash flow impact is not as exciting maybe in the next 3 years, but it looks exciting 4 and 5. It sounds like your leading principle there is it's free cash flow. It's going to drive that. Like you look at EBITDA growth, but that's not going to -- you would pass on potential transaction.

It needs to be accretive on a per share basis over a fairly short period of time, yes.

And maybe my second one on maybe the pipeline, 8 gigawatts -- and I'm just working backwards here when you think about projects being constructed, it's probably what, a 2-year window or so to build wind or solar, is that right? [indiscernible] 2030, you probably started construction 2028. So when do you actually need to get these projects through development for you to hit that time line? Because I know 5 years is quite a ways away, right? But got to work backwards, right, to hit the 2030 target.

So you're right. It's -- we have essentially 3 years, specifically and even in when it depends where you are because in France, in Scotland, we have been able to build in less than 2 years in Canada, forget about it. So definitely, we need to be -- to have this project quickly. In battery storage could be less than 2 years. But the point is -- the question of Robin today speaking about transformers, circuit breakers and all those things. So there is always a critical -- so -- yes, 2027, 2028 will be the last time to say, okay, we are in line for this target organically. We should have started the project.

I'm Vimal from ACS Group. I had a couple of questions. First one on the $5 billion debt issuance. Do you have a FX mix in mind for that?

Not from the top of my head, but it's really based on -- if you look at where the projects are, refinance in local currency for these projects. So I just don't have it from the top of my head.

The second one is on the IRR target, 10% to 12%. Is that based on the current rate environment? And could there be potential upside if you go to a more normalized rate environment in a couple of years?

It is based on the current rate environment. We've -- we usually use long-term forward curves on -- but we're not planning -- we haven't planned a reduction in interest rates or anything to modify or impact those numbers. So yes, there could be a different direction depending on rate movements. But we I think, as Patrick mentioned, our agility, we've been able to adjust from a lower rate environment to a higher rate environment. We adjust our pricing. And importantly, we don't get -- we don't spend a lot of money before we are -- we have fixed our cost, and we are able to match with our pricing in our contracts.

Sorry, this is Stephane. Just want to come back to Ben's point. Just want to highlight the discipline in AFFO per share for acquisitions. This is really, really important to us. So I know sometimes when we say we do acquisitions, people get a bit worried in the you will issue shares. So I don't know whether this be accretive or not. But we have and we looked at a lot of opportunities in the past 5 years. And purposely did not go ahead. And we're short of our 2025 target. So it shows really great discipline. And I think you should expect that also going forward, we're not chasing megawatt we're not chasing at any price to do a transaction. We'll do it if it makes sense for the company and if it's accretive. I just wanted to highlight that.

Any other questions from the room?

Are there any impacts that are expected from like the new Rule 899 in the U.S. with regards to subsidiaries and how they pay back dividends to Canada?

At the moment, we don't expect significant impacts from that. That's our assumption today.

Mark Jarvi from CIBC. A couple of other questions. Just the last plan, diversification was a big talking word, don't seem to see that today. Is it with the view that you've diversified enough that you're happy with the technology opportunities and markets, and it's less of a focus and it's just about finding the best risk-adjusted returns and what's in front of you today?

I think it's still a driver, but I'm clear we will -- we are planning to stay in the same jurisdiction. If you go back in 2021, we had 50% of a portfolio of development in the U.K., not a complete team, not an asset in operation and not the development that we have today. And in the U.S., we were looking to quickly deployment in solar, specifically, there was bumps in the road, but diversification is still an important point. But I'm not saying that I target to be completely balanced between wind and solar. And there are many reasons. There is more value in wind profile for the grid -- the solar profile, which is producing during the day by definition is interesting. But if you look to advanced markets like California or Spain, there's more cannibalization of price. So this is a market where it becomes important, interesting to do storage. So the balance of wind and the opportunity that we have in Canada and wind, I'm very happy with that in the U.K., it's the same and a little bit less solar than expected in the previous plan for 2030. That's perfect and probably more storage because in 2021, when we issued the plan, we were seeing, okay, we will have storage, we were not thinking to have storage by the end of this year with these long-term contracts. So potentially some systems are evolving quicker than expected, but we have been able to catch these opportunities.

And the other item would be talk about agility and being nimble as an organization. It's obviously increasing focus around scale, particularly you think about procurement. So the trade-off there for Boralex right now, what has become more challenging from a scale perspective? And what solutions are you using right now to combat that?

Yes. It's essentially all the centralization of and the work together of the team with procurement is incredibly important. I'm used to say that suppliers they like also agility of their customers. And they like to -- not agility to do small project, but the agility to negotiate contract where the risk management of the contract are interesting for both party and creating value. I think we have -- this is a signature of Boralex for years. So we'll continue to do that. You have seen today again that the company is not relying, I remember, I'd say, 10 years ago, the company was relying on probably 4, 5 person specifically involved in everything. It's not the case today. So we have a great bench of talent in our organization. We have reviewed the organization many times and will continue. That's also an important point when you're growing up. And yes, that's the way we're doing.

Anyone else have a question? No. Stephane, any questions from online?

Other question? No question from the virtual. We're so efficient, we finished 30 minutes earlier. So.

Okay. Great. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Thank you.