EDP, S.A. (EDP) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I hope that you are all safe as well as your families and friends. Thank you for being with us today in this conference call of EDP's 2020 results. We'll begin with a brief introduction and the main developments of the period by our CEO, Miguel Stilwell de Andrade; then our CFO, Rui Teixeira, will provide us an overview of the year-end results. Finally, we'll then move to the Q&A session, in which we'll be taking your questions, both by phone and via our web page. We anticipate today's calls to be shorter than usual, given that tomorrow, we'll hold our strategic update at 9:00 a.m. Lisbon and London time to present our strategy until 2025, which I also take the opportunity to invite you all to join. Therefore, this call is expected to last no more than 50 minutes. I'll give now the floor to our CEO, Miguel Stilwell de Andrade.

So good afternoon. Welcome to all of you. It's nice to have you back, and thanks for attending this EDP 2020 results conference call. I hope you're all safe and well during these uncertain times. I move on to talk about the 2020 targets and essentially our resilient business model and execution. But before I do that, I'd just like to start this results presentation by acknowledging and thanking our teams at EDP. I'm truly honored by our ability to adapt and work under these current circumstances, delivering results and superior value to all stakeholders. So thanks very much to the teams. I think it's been an incredibly difficult period, but they've been delivering. The last couple of months, in particular, have been marked by a significant volume of transactions, and the teams have delivered flawlessly. I think this collective team effort, combined with our resilient business model, has allowed us to mitigate the negative impact that the pandemic is causing across sectors globally. So as we look into the future, and tomorrow at the strategic update, we'll be providing further insight into what the future looks like for EDP, we will continue to invest in the energy transition. I expect EDP to continue to play a key role in the recovery of the economies where we operate as well as to create much needed employment, not only ensuring a just transition, but also having a positive impact in society and all of our stakeholders. So let's move now to our 2020 results. In spite of this difficult environment, I'm very pleased to say that we've delivered across all 2020 targets, showcasing our resilient business model and strong execution ability. In the fourth quarter of 2020, we managed to reach financial closing in all key pending transactions, and this allows us to start 2021 with a new portfolio with a reinforced low-risk profile and fully aligned with the energy transition. We have also added around 800 megawatts of wind and solar capacity in the fourth quarter, reaching 1.6 gigawatts of renewables additions in 2020. And we've also concluded 2 sizable asset rotation deals in Spain and in the U.S. Also in this last quarter, we saw a recovery in power prices, both in Iberia and Brazil, which had positive impact on our results. Regarding FX, our performance continued to be negatively impacted by the Brazilian real depreciation versus the last year. So overall, in 2020, our recurring EBITDA reached EUR 3.7 billion, in line with our previous guidance. So it increased roughly 3% ex ForEx. Recurring net profit increased by 6% to EUR 900 million, in line with the guidance we provided in the last quarter results. This is supported by EBITDA performance but also by the improvement in the average cost of debt by around 60 basis points, which is being reduced to 3.3%. Our net debt declined 11% to around EUR 12 billion, leading our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio to decrease to 3.2x, in line with our target. I'd like to highlight and stress that the net debt figure and the net debt-to-EBITDA ratio are the lowest reported by EDP in 13 years. Regarding dividends, the Executive Board of Directors will propose to the Annual Shareholders' Meeting taking place in April the distribution of a 2020 dividend of EUR 0.19 per share, which is a dividend floor -- or dividend floor per share and our dividend policy. So globally, we managed not only to deliver growth, but also to improve our portfolio and risk profile. And this is setting the stage to capture opportunities ahead, and we'll talk about that tomorrow. Let's move on to Slide 4. So here, we can see clearly that electricity demand decreased across the markets where we're present in. There's a slight recovery during the second half of the year as the economy started to rebound, in particular, in the fourth quarter in Brazil in our concession areas, with residential demand picking up. In 2020, electricity demand in Portugal decreased 3.3% year-on-year, while in Spain and Brazil, this decline was greater in percentage, closer to 5%. Despite the severe demand shock witnessed across our regions due to the COVID crisis, EDP's recurring EBITDA increased by 3% ex FX, while recurring net profit increased 6% during 2020, which again sheds proof on our resilient business model. This being said, COVID impact [indiscernible] is around EUR 100 million at EBITDA level, mostly concentrated in the second quarter of 2020, with a more limited impact in the third quarter and the fourth quarter. Let's move on to Slide 5 and talk about EBITDA. So as mentioned before, recurring EBITDA declined 2% year-on-year. It's penalized by the Brazilian real depreciation of around 25% in the period. Excluding this impact, EBITDA, excluding FX, increased around 3%. On renewables, recurring EBITDA increased by 2% year-on-year. This is supported by recovery of the hydro resources in Iberia to close to normalized levels when compared to a very dry 2019. Although in '19, we then had a strong fourth quarter. This effect, combined with the good performance of our asset rotation strategy provided gains of -- which provided gains of EUR 434 million in 2020, more than offset the deconsolidation effect of the wind assets sold in the relatively weak wind resources in the period. With regards to networks, EBITDA decreased 11% or 3% if we exclude the adverse FX impact, which accounted for most of the decline in Brazil. In local currency, the networks in Brazil showed a 7% EBITDA increase, mostly driven by the positive tariff updates on the back of inflation updates. And this offset the lower volumes of electricity distributed, around minus 5% year-on-year. There was also a strong improvement in EBITDA from transmission, following the full commissioning of one of our lines and the evolution of construction works in the remaining lines. In Iberia, the EBITDA evolution reflects mostly the decline of regulated returns to 4.85% in Portugal and to 6% in Spain. Finally, EBITDA in client solutions and energy management was flat, driven by the good performance of energy management and resilience of the supply business. And this has compensated the weaker thermal production and a negative FX impact. Finally, I'd like to highlight that EBITDA was also positively impacted by the good OpEx performance in the period, with the OpEx decreasing 3% on a like-for-like basis, not only due to the tight cost control, but also the implementation of several initiatives for cost reduction, including the faster acceleration of the digitalization fueled by all the changes associated with this pandemic. So obviously, one of the positive -- few positive side effects of this pandemic. Let's move on to Slide 6. So here, as part of EDP's decarbonization strategy, the year of 2020 was marked by the closure of Sines, which was EDP's largest thermal plant, so around 1.2 gigawatts. After 35 years in operation, we submitted in October 2020 a request for closure also of Soto 3 in 2021. So now both of these power plants basically will be decommissioned and closing. We're also evaluating the development of other projects in the region, following up our commitments towards a just transition. It was also last year that EDP completed disposal of 2 CCGT plants to Total of around 800 megawatts. And this also contributed to reducing the thermal production assets in our portfolio. As a result, the combination of the reduction of thermal production, together with the addition of more renewable resources and the integration of Viesgo's wind farm portfolio, combined 1.6 gigawatts, led to a 74% share of renewables in our electricity generation mix. This compares to 66% in 2019. So in total, we have an additional 2.4 gigawatts of wind and solar projects under construction. So as you might expect, our revenues from coal will now follow a reduction path, representing only 6% of our revenues in 2020, and Sines accounted for 2% of that. So as we keep accelerating EDP's decarbonization path, our specific CO2 emissions fell by 32% this year, so it's a strong downward trend that will be continued also in 2021. If we move to Slide 7. And I think this is an important slide because it shows basically a balance of the 2019-2022 business plan targets. And it shows that although 2020 wasn't a typical year, we managed to achieve and we managed to deliver most of the key targets, if not all of the key targets. We will be talking about revised targets tomorrow at the strategic update, and it will be a moment also of reflection on how we see EDP going forward. But to talk to you a little bit about the targets that we have delivered, we secured 7.7 gigawatts of wind and solar additions in this period, 2019-2022 period, and this exceeded the 7 gigawatts of planned additions that we'd had in our strategic plan. We've managed to ensure attractive returns of above 1.4 IRR over WAC for these projects, which, as you know, was a threshold. These will be commissioned until 2023. And once again, I think it highlights that we are continuing to see strong returns on the projects that we are taking investment decisions on. We have grown our RAB in the distribution business through Viesgo acquisition and also through organic growth in Brazil, namely the transmission lines. We targeted more than EUR 1 billion per year in the asset rotation proceeds, and we've managed to deliver over EUR 2.3 billion between 2019 and 2020, with an average premium per megawatt, which was 50% above our -- the assumption in our plan. And finally, we managed to exceed our EUR 2 billion disposal plan, reaching a total of EUR 2.7 billion of proceeds. This included a successful portfolio reshaping, in which we managed to swap part of our Iberian portfolio of merchant hydro in Portugal as well as our retail activity into [ societies ] in Spain for Viesgo's regulated assets at what we consider very interesting valuations on both sides. And I think this clearly reinforces our low-risk profile aligned with the energy transition. If we move on to the next slide to talk a little bit about some of the other drivers. So our leverage ratio of net debt-to-EBITDA, as I mentioned earlier, came down from 4x to 3.2x, so in line with what was defined in our plan and also in line with our expected financial deleverage. Regarding efficiency and digitalization, we delivered on our target of EUR 50 million of cost savings in 2020, excluding growth, and we're on track to meet the EUR 100 million target by 2022. Finally, our total shareholder return in 2020 was a solid 43%, so 30% above the EURO STOXX Utilities in the period. And we are keeping our predictable dividend policy of EUR 0.19 per share even after the increase in our share capital by 8.5% last August and the capital increase. So let's talk about the future. The future ahead looks very positive. The energy sector, we believe, really needs to be transformed, and there is a reinforced political will in this effort towards decarbonization. This is particularly true across our relevant markets, namely the Green Deal in Europe and also the plans of the new Biden administration in the U.S. We have a renewed management team to deliver on this challenge. And so I strongly believe that EDP is well positioned to deliver on long-term growth and value creation for our stakeholders. We have a unique starting point, and I hope you'll all be able to join us tomorrow for our strategic update, so that we can present our strategy going forward. So I'll now pass to our CFO, Rui Teixeira, for a more detailed analysis. Rui?

Thank you, Miguel, and good afternoon to all of you attending this call today. It is with great pleasure that I will further deep dive on EDP's financial performance for the year of 2020. So starting on EBITDA, a recurring EBITDA, very flat, a combination of higher capital gains on asset rotation that offset weak wind resources and deconsolidation effect. So starting with wind and solar, despite the COVID pandemic, in 2020, we added 1.6 gigas of capacity in 9 different countries. This is almost a double of the capacity added in 2019. So the recurring EBITDA was broadly stable at EUR 1.65 billion in 2020. This is mainly due to impacts from, mixed, 3 different drivers: one, the 1% decline in the average installed capacity following the deconsolidation of the wind farms that were part of the 2 asset rotations, one closed in Europe in July, 51% of 1 giga and another one in Brazil in February 2020 for 100% of 137 megawatts; secondly, the 5% reduction in electricity production, penalized by lower-than-expected wind resources; and three, the higher asset rotation gains of EUR 434 million in 2020, which includes EUR 207 million from the establishment of the offshore joint venture Ocean Wind with Engie. So if we move on to the next slide. The hydro recurring EBITDA was up by 5%. This, of course, is driven by a strong recovery of the hydro resources in Iberia while -- although penalized by the Brazilian real devaluation. So in hydro, recurring EBITDA was up by 5% year-on-year to EUR 671 million. In Iberia, this EBITDA increased 17%, supported by a recovery in hydro resources just to -- 3% below historical average in Portugal versus 2019, which, as you remind, was a very dry year. This explains the 33% increase of hydro production. The decline of average selling price was mitigated by our hedging strategy, which allowed to show a decline of average selling prices of just 8% year-on-year versus a 21% decrease, excluding hedging. In Brazil, the hydro generation performance was impacted by the particularly weak hydro year due to an unfavorable energy context in the first part of the year, with the very low PLD spot prices not fully compensated by some recovery in the last quarter. If you can move to the next page and moving into networks EBITDA, these are down 11%, mostly driven by the real devaluation, although there was -- it was a strong performance in local currency. But as you can see, in electricity networks, recurring EBITDA amounted to EUR 891 million. This is down EUR 115 million year-on-year. This is largely reflecting the 25% depreciation of the Brazilian real against the euro. If we were to exclude ForEx, our recurring EBITDA would have decreased by 2%. In Brazil, the recurring EBITDA in local currency went up by 7%. This is backed on the 60% increase of transmission EBITDA following the full commission of lot 11 and the positive evolution of construction works in the remaining 5 lines. Regarding distribution in Brazil, recurring EBITDA in local currency fell by 3%, driven by the 4.6% decline in distributed electricity and by some material positive impacts from tariff revisions in 2020 -- sorry, in 2029 (sic) [ 2019 ], which were partly compensated by the 2020 annual tariff updates. Coming to Europe, in Spain, recurring EBITDA amounted to EUR 136 million, a decline that reflects the new and latest regulatory framework that is approved through 2025 and some positive adjustments from previous years that were positively impacting our 2019 results. In Portugal, recurring EBITDA decreased to EUR 485 million in 2020. That's a 6% decrease year-on-year, penalized by the lower rate of return on the RAB, although there was a good performance on cost control with the recurring OpEx in Iberia decreasing by 1.6% year-on-year. So quite a strong focus on efficiency. If we move to client solution, we will see that was -- our EBITDA was pretty flat, of course, benefiting from successful hedging strategies that we implement in overall as a group, and this one applicable in Iberia. So our EBITDA from client solutions and energy management was at the -- ended the year with EUR 480 million. In Iberia, the good result in energy management compensated the 18% decline in thermal production, largely explained by the 41% reduction in coal. So the EBITDA from the supply side rose 7% year-on-year, fully supported by the recovery of demand in the second half after a very harsh second quarter, particularly in the B2B segment, but also the resilient demand in the B2C segment. Also, this business platform has experienced an increased penetration rate of new services, which support positively the results. In Brazil, EBITDA from supply and energy management was positively impacted by the mark-to-market of long-term contracts, and this helped to offset the decline in volumes and prices in the supply market. And in thermal operations, EBITDA benefited from the annual inflation update to our PPA contracted revenues. So now moving into our efficiency metrics in the operating costs. Our OpEx, down 3% on a like-for-like basis, that's excluding growth in 2020. In Iberia, OpEx fell by 1%, in line with the decline of average headcount. Brazilian OpEx decreased by 2%, excluding growth, and that's in local currency, in a period in which the local inflation rate was at 4.5%. And finally, the 1% increase of adjusted core OpEx per megawatt as in EDPR was driven by the growth of the renewables development activity. So quite a strong focus on ensuring efficiency. So if we move now to the financials. Interest-related costs, down by 16%. And this is supported by a 60 basis point decline in the average cost of debt to 3.3%. And as you can see in the table on the right-hand side, the yields in newly issued bonds this year are clearly below the rate in maturing debt, so definitely improving the overall cost of debt. Also, I think it's worth highlighting that EDP has more than EUR 5 billion placed in sustainable financing, which has also benefit from a growing investor appetite, capturing this very competitive cost of funding. So I'd like now to move to the next slide and just to talk a little bit about the debt. As mentioned by Miguel in the beginning of the presentation, we delivered on our deleverage commitment, reducing our ratio net debt-to-EBITDA to 3.2x, a very sound leverage for our rating targets. Recurring organic cash flow increased 27% year-on-year to EUR 1.8 billion, driven by the normalization of hydro resources, also, of course, by the higher asset rotation gains and lower interest charges. Net expansion investments rose by 33% due to the step-up in expansion activity to EUR 1.5 billion, of which 88% was allocated to renewable projects under construction or development. This amount was particularly -- I mean, it's particularly relevant and was partly compensated by the strong execution of the portfolio reshaping. In December 2020, we completed the EUR 2.7 billion disposal of merchant assets. That includes 6 hydro plant in Portugal and a portfolio of 2 CCGTs and the B2C platform in Spain and, on the other hand, the acquisition of Viesgo ago in Spain for total net impact of EUR 2.1 billion. That was partly funded by the EUR 1 billion equity rights issue that was executed last August. So our core expansion activity mainly included build-out activity. This is justifying the EUR 3.2 billion expansion investment, an increase by 58%. While proceeds from asset rotation went up to EUR 1.7 billion in the period to help and fuel this growth. And as you know, it's a very -- it's an integral part of our growth pattern. So finally, the EUR 0.6 billion positive ForEx impact following the devaluation of the Brazilian real and the U.S. dollar versus euro also contributed to the 11% decline in net debt to EUR 12.2 billion, with the net debt ratio improving to the 3.2x, as I've mentioned before. So if we move to the net profit. Net profit went up by 6%. This is driven by, of course, the operational results but also by lower financial cost and the decline of noncontrolling interests. So I think this also reflects, as I mentioned before, the very good result in our energy management business in Iberia; of course, the recovery of the hydro resources; strong performance overall on the financial results; and definitely continuing to benefit from the low interest rate environment. So these positives more than offset the negative performance of our share in EDP Brasil net profit from the currency depreciation, with an overall noncontrolling interest down by 7% to EUR 346 million in 2020. Net negative nonrecurring items impacting the net profit decreased from EUR 342 million in 2019 to EUR 101 million, leading to a 2020 reported net profit of EUR 801 million. Among the several nonrecurring effects in 2020, I would like to highlight the costs related to the closure of Sines coal power plant; the provision on the alleged overcompensation regarding the CMEC plants participation in the ancillary services market during 2009, 2013; the cost of the extraordinary energy tax in Portugal; impairment losses related to thermal power plant in Portugal and Spain; curtailment costs due to early retirements; cutting gains from disposals of convention generation and supply operations in spend in Portugal; and gains resulting from the final terms of the regulatory dispute over the GSF cost in Brazil. So as mentioned before, I think that it's important to highlight that even though it was a very tough economic context due to the COVID pandemic, we are very pleased with EDP's performance in 2020, which confirms its distinctive and resilient business profile. With this being said, I take the opportunity to thank you all for your time today. We will now open the call for questions. But I would also like to remind, as Miguel mentioned before, that tomorrow, we'll be presenting our strategic update with an overview of our future business strategy, with which we hope that you can all attend. So thank you very much, and we can move to Q&A.

Thank you, Rui. We can start now with the questions from the phone, please.

[Operator Instructions]. Our first question comes from Sara Piccinini from Mediobanca.

I have 2. The one -- and the first one is very specific, and I hope to explain me well, is actually regarding the CapEx figure in your results report on Page 5. I see that the expansion CapEx related to networks is actually negative, is down minus 50% -- sorry, minus 50% year-on-year, yes. So I was wondering, can you explain this figure, why there is a decrease? And if this CapEx is allocated to EDPR level, and that explains the increase in the financial investments at EDPR level. So if you can help me to understand the figure. And the second one is related to Brazil. In Brazil, we have -- at EDP Brasil, we have seen a one-off positive related to the risk negotiation of the Brazil hydro geological risk. So can you say if this one-off impact will also have an impact on the EBITDA for 2021 going forward regarding the hydro in Brazil?

Okay. Maybe I can -- so just a quick comment on the Brazilian and this exposure to the -- I presume that you are referring to the GSF, right, and the fact that it will come as an extension of the concessions? So here, just to provide...

Yes.

Yes, okay. So I mean, the approval process is ongoing. I mean, I think it's well on track. This will result in some compensation in the form of a concession extension. In the case of [indiscernible], this is about 41 months. But -- so what we booked in 2020 was BRL 389 million as a one-off gain on accounting. So that's approximately EUR 66 million impact at EBITDA and the EUR 33 million net impact in net profit. So I mean, I can share with you some more light, but we book this as a one-off gain on the accounts. I'm sorry. And then regarding the first question, could you please repeat the first question because I couldn't really follow?

Yes. Sure, sure. Sorry. It's on the investments that you show in Page 5 of the results report. So the consolidated CapEx is a EUR 2.9 billion. And that is -- includes a reduction in the CapEx for networks. So I was just questioning what that's related for.

Sara, regarding the financial investments, essentially, this increase is related with our investment in Ocean Winds, okay? So we are transferring our assets to Ocean Winds, the JV with Engie in terms of offshore, and this is the most of the increase of financial investment. Regarding networks, the decline is also obviously related with Brazilian real impact. As you know, most significant increase of our CapEx in [ net cost ] is in Brazil, and we have a 25% devaluation of the currency. I think if -- I don't know if we have some more questions on the phone. If not, we can go for the questions on the web. And so the first question that we have is from the analyst Mammadov from Bloomberg. Can you please comment on the recent Spanish renewable auction, low prices and the U.K. seabed lease tender? What does this mean for the returns from renewables going forward?

Okay. So thank you, Mammadov. First, I think in relation to the Spanish renewable auction, we've defended -- we've always been defending that we like when they are these type of auctions for PPAs are, in this case, long-term contracted with the system. And so we prefer that type of system certainly to investment in merchant. So we're quite comfortable, and we like the fact that the Spanish government has moved to this type of auction system. In terms of the actual results, I think they're in line with expectations. I mean, obviously, the cost of solar has been coming down significantly over time. We are looking at levelized cost of energy for solar in the 20s. So -- well, as you know, we won around 140 megawatts in that process and meeting the returns that we were looking for. And we were sort of in the middle of the pack of -- and as you know, there were 3 gigawatts which were auctioned at that point. So we're sort of quite comfortable with the results of that. If you compare that, for example, with the solar auction in Portugal, where you had results in teens or prices that were much lower than that, in one case, I think, even EUR 11, but many others that were sort of EUR 15 or so, I think the Spanish auction had slightly higher prices. And so we think those are more compatible with the sustainable long-term remuneration that we're looking for. I would differentiate then between onshore wind, solar and offshore. And obviously, we can get more into this tomorrow because we're doing the strategy update, so I don't want to preempt too much. But clearly, in offshore and in round 4, I wouldn't necessarily extrapolate. I wouldn't at all extrapolate to other parts of the renewable value chain and technologies. So I think that is a one-off. And it's certainly -- obviously, it's very low returns that we saw there. But as I said, it is an auction for seabed, and we saw basically the oil and gas coming in. We aren't seeing them coming in, for example, in onshore or solar. And so this is something, as I say, we can get into in more detail tomorrow. But yes, I mean, I think one of the advantages that we have is having this global footprint, which means that when we think that things are -- or we're not getting the returns that we like, we are able to invest in other geographies and in other technologies to get that -- those returns.

Okay. We have also a question from Javier Garrido from JPMorgan. What -- regarding the increase in terms of net financial interest in the fourth quarter to EUR 143 million versus EUR 119 million in the third quarter.