EnBW Energie Baden-Württemberg AG (EBK) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the EnBW's Investor and Analyst Conference Call for the 9 Months 2024 Results. I am Sergen, the Chorus Call operator. [Operator Instructions] The conference is being recorded. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Lenka Zikmundova, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Segan. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our conference call on the first 9 months of this year. As usual, I'm joined here by our Deputy CEO and CFO, Thomas Kusterer, who will lead you through the presentation. We will then open up lines for your questions. And with this, over to you, Thomas, for the update of the first 9 months of 2024.

Thank you, Lenka, and a warm welcome to everyone. As always, we appreciate your interest in our company. Today, we are pleased to report a solid financial performance in the first 9 months of 2024. As expected, with the market normalization, declining power prices continue to feed through. But thanks to our robust integrated setup, we were able to deliver a solid result across the group. The adjusted EBITDA at EUR 3.7 billion and adjusted net profit at EUR 1.3 billion, we reiterate our full year EBITDA guidance for 2024 for all segments as well as at group level. We also continue to deliver on our strategy towards the green transition of the energy system. This has been rewarded recently by MSCI, which upgraded our sustainability rating into the ESG leader category, in particular, for our environmental achievements, granting us a EE score. This upgrade reflects our continued successful transformation. Needless to say, we remain dedicated to further strengthening our company's position in terms of sustainability and to further improve in the relevant ESG ratings. In October, we reached an important milestone in diversifying our funding sources and issued 2 green senior bonds with a total volume of AUD 1 billion on the Australian capital market under a new AMTN program. This milestone transaction marks the very first Kangaroo bond issuance of any German utility in the Australian market and provides us access to an attractive market with new investors. The inaugural AUD 1 billion dual tranche already served as a source of funding for 2025. Shortly before the issuance, Moody's affirmed EnBW's Baa1 rating with stable outlook. Turning now to our operation's green growth projects. We currently have around 1.5 gigawatts of renewable energies project under construction. One of them is our [ Lighthouse ] offshore wind farm, He Dreiht with all 64 foundations installed. Moreover, in order to achieve the highest level of noise reduction to protect life below water, a double-wall noise mitigation template has been designed specifically for this project. As you will recall, He Dreiht is scheduled to start operations in late 2025, and the project is fully on track. In September, we have successfully secured 7 solar projects, the German public solar tender. The projects with a total capacity of 184 megawatts were able to secure the revenue stream for around 90 megawatts for 20 years through this tender. Another good news is the recent development of SuedLink, a major electricity transmission project in Germany. Now another section of this key DC power line is under construction in our core region, BadenWurttemberg. And just a few weeks ago, first fire or the so-called hot commissioning of one of our 3 hydrogen-ready power plants started in order to fine-tune and test the new gas-fired turbine. The official commissioning is planned for 2025. With this, let's get back to the financials. As just mentioned, our business continued to deliver in line with our expectations in the first 9 months of 2024 against the backdrop of a more normalized market condition, achieving group adjusted EBITDA of EUR 3.7 billion. Low-risk activities comprising our grids as well as renewable business accounted for EUR 2.6 billion in adjusted EBITDA, corresponding to 71% of total earnings in the first 9 months of this year compared to 57% in the same period of 2023. Let's now take a look at our business segments, starting on Slide 4. The Sustainable Generation Infrastructure, where we achieved an adjusted EBITDA of almost EUR 2 billion. Let's have a closer look at renewables. Adjusted EBITDA amounted to EUR 876 million. The reason for the decrease year-over-year remains the same as in the previous months. It is due to the persistently lower realized electricity prices from -- mainly from pump storage leading to a lower margin. The decline in earnings was expected after exceptionally high-power prices in the previous year and could be offset only to a minor extent by better wind offshore conditions and higher run-of-river power generation. Adjusted EBITDA in the thermal generation and trading was at EUR 1.1 billion, likewise marked by significantly lower power and commodity prices as well as reduced volatility in operating our gas storage assets. Moreover, to put a figure into context, the third quarter is typically the one with the lowest EBITDA contribution in power generation for the full year. Hence, the result is pretty much in line with our expectations. With respect to our hedge levels, we are fully hedged for this year, more than 90% for 2025, 50% to 80% for '26 and already up to 40% for '27. Moving on to the segment, System Critical Infrastructure comprising our electricity and gas transmission and distribution grids. Adjusted EBITDA of System Critical Infrastructure amounted to EUR 1.8 billion after the first 9 months. This represents an increase of 24% compared to last year, which is attributable to higher income from investments in our grid businesses across the group as well as lower expenses for grid reserve and redispatch. These positive developments were slightly offset by increased personnel expenses in both our transmission and distribution grid businesses. For our third segment, Smart Infrastructure for customers, adjusted EBITDA increased slightly to EUR 233 million. The most relevant development is a reduction of one-off effects. Last year was negatively affected by particular the deconsolidation of our subsidiary, bmp greengas and to a lesser extent, by incidents at our subsidiary for solar home storage, Senec. The first 9 months of this year, higher burdens from restructuring of the product portfolio at Senec, including the battery module replacement and marketing expenses as well as lower sales volumes in our B2B gas business had a counteracting effect. Let's turn to our investments. For the first 9 months of 2024, our capital spending totaled almost EUR 3.9 billion, which is a substantial increase of almost 40% compared to the previous year's figure. Almost 90% of these expenditures were taxonomy aligned and 85% were attributable to growth projects linked to the energy transition, while the rest were investments in retrofitting existing assets. We invested more than 40% of our gross investments in sustainable generation infrastructure, mainly for the development and construction of our offshore activities in Germany and U.K., and our 3 hydrogen-ready gas power plants. Slightly more than 44% of our CapEx went into system critical infrastructure, focusing on the expansion and modernization of our electricity transmission and distribution grids. The remaining investments went into Smart Infrastructure for Customers, mostly related to the further expansion of our e-mobility charging infrastructure. Divestments and co-financing contributions by partners, particularly for our offshore wind farm, He Dreiht and our transmission grid operator, TransnetBW came on par with the previous year's level. The reason for the relatively high divestments in the previous year was the sale of a minority interest in He Dreiht in the third quarter of 2023. And now let's take a brief look at our retained cash flow on Page 8. In the first 9 months, retained cash flow amounted to almost EUR 1.5 billion, which is in line with the development of adjusted EBITDA. Besides that, the decline year-on-year was driven by higher dividends paid as well as noncash items reflected in prior year's adjusted EBITDA. Ladies and gentlemen, as illustrated on Page 9, net debt increased by 14% to EUR 13.3 billion, mainly driven by our significant net cash investments totaling EUR 3.4 billion. Major counterbalancing factors were the green hybrid issuance at the beginning of this year with 50% classified as equity and the reduction in pension provisions by roughly EUR 200 million, resulting from higher discount rates. Please keep in mind that our investments, particularly in the grid are more pronounced towards the end of the year. So a further increase in gross investments in the fourth quarter will be reflected in net debt. On top, the redemption of the green hybrid on November 5 will have a net debt impact of EUR 250 million. As a consequence, we expect net debt to be above the Q3 level by the end of the year and our debt repayment potential to be in line with our guidance of 13% to 16% retained cash flow in relation to net debt. Finally, moving on to the guidance for the fiscal year 2024. As mentioned before, we confirm our full year guidance with a resilient performance during the first 9 months. We feel very comfortable with both the guidance for the segments as well as group level. And with this, I conclude my presentation, and I'm now looking forward to your questions.

Thank you, Thomas. And now ladies and gentlemen, we will start with the Q&A session. Operator, Sergen, please begin.

[Operator Instructions] We have the first question coming from the line of Alessandra Mac Donald from BlackRock.

I have 3 questions, if I may. The first one is on the impact of the election. So I was just wondering the EUR 3 billion of capital increase that should be forthcoming in 2025. Is this funding that comes from the federal level or at the state level? I'm just trying to understand if there is any risk that the funds will not be forthcoming. Then the second question is the reduction in margins from pumped storage. I just wanted to have a little bit more color, if you can just explain a bit more what happened there? And then on the retail side, so the reduction in volume -- so there was a reduction in volumes of energy sold, if I understand correctly. So I'm just trying to understand the growth going forward, is it like -- it's driven by what? Is it an increasing margins that you expect or the growth was the effect of the absence of negative one-offs? And that's it for me.

Alessandra, thanks actually for participating and asking your questions. To your first question regarding impact of elections, it doesn't have any direct impact on the capital increase. As you are aware, our shareholder base is the State of BadenWurttemberg, not a federal -- not on federal level and municipalities here in BadenWurttemberg. So that's -- we do not have any impact relating to the, let's say, difficult situation we are currently having on a federal level. Your second question, and correct me if I didn't fully grasp that was around pump storage. Was that right? And your question why the earnings went down, was that right? Alessandra.

Yes. Yes.

And that's basically due to the fact that we have seen a significant reduction in volatility, especially when you look at the peak and off-peak spreads. So that's in normalizing markets with lower volatility, that's what you would normally expect. Yes. And your third question, you might be -- might help me on your third question, please, again.

On the volumes of energy sold, so I'm just trying to understand the drivers for the energy supply. So I understand you had some negative last year. So now you don't have those negatives, so there is a growth. But because the volumes of energy sold are down, do I have to expect marginality going up going forward or not? So -- or this -- the growth is going to be entirely driven by the absence of negative one-offs?

Yes, exactly. I mean the growth going forward is driven by the absence of negative one-offs. Last year, they were mainly due to our subsidiary, bmp greengas. This year, we did have some one-offs relating to Senec. So that's the one-offs you would not expect to see in the next years to come. And the fact actually that we reduced our volumes in the B2B gas business was due to the fact that we felt that the margins we can achieve there did not fit the overall risk profile. But that's to a lesser extent. It's more the one-off effects you were just alluding to. Going forward, we do not -- we do expect an increase in our sales in our customer segment.

And so you said you expect an increase, or you don't expect an increase?

I do. We do.

I do, okay. Okay.

The next question comes from the line of Andrew Moulder from CreditSights.

Alessandra, she got in before me there. Actually, can I just follow-up on one of her questions because she asked about the capital increase. I wasn't 100% convinced that, that is definitely something that's going to go ahead. I mean I thought you were sort of discussing it and looking at alternatives and various options. But from your answer, I take it now that there is definitely a EUR 3 billion capital increase that's going to happen, I guess, next year. Is that true?

It's not definite. However, there's a high likelihood actually that we are going to see this capital increase next year. We are currently in close contacts with both our main shareholders, the State of BadenWurttemberg and the municipalities. And from today's perspective, there's a high likelihood that we are going to go down the road next year.

Okay. Okay. Can I ask you just a couple of more questions? Just a couple on renewables really. On sort of PPAs for renewables, on the Fortum conference call, they talked about pay-as-produced PPAs and that actually the demand for those was going down and people weren't prepared to enter into them. And I just wonder if that's the same thing that you're seeing. And if you can't enter into sort of pay-as-produced PPAs, what are you doing to reduce the risks on your side with the sort of renewable fluctuations in terms of output? And my second question to do with renewables. I've seen a few reports that BP is planning to sort of scale down its offshore renewables business. And obviously, you have a couple of lease areas you've won in the U.K. and in joint ventures with BP. And I just wondered, what is the thinking around those? I mean, if BP was to scale down their positions there, would you have preemptive rights on those? Would you still progress with them? Because I think they were quite expensive at the time. Could you perhaps just comment a little bit about those joint ventures that you have?

Andrew, absolutely. Let me get started with your second question regarding the BP joint venture. We are in close contact with BP, and we do not see any impact of their intention to scale down their overall renewables business because it's not on the level of our JV. If they were to do something that's at least my understanding, it's on a more broader or global level and not on a JV level. So what we are hearing from them in our JV, we are progressing well with the project, and we do not see any kind of impact on operational level or talking to senior management at BP. So there's no impact for this project whatsoever. Regarding Fortum, not sure about exactly which markets they were actually referring to. We do not see that here in the German market, at least. We also offer PPAs pay-as-produced, and we do still see significant demand here. So not in our German market, at least not. That's not what we are seeing currently.

And in any of the other sort of offshore markets, I mean, in the Netherlands or [indiscernible] you doing PPAs there?

We do not have any kind of exposure there. We only have exposure here in the German market, offshore and onshore. And in the future at some point in time in the U.K. But for the time being, it's just here in Germany. And to a certain extent, actually in France, but we do not see it in France either.

Okay. Good. And maybe just one more question. Alessandra asked about the retail business. Could you perhaps just go into your sort of outlook for the retail business going forward a little bit? Because I mean, it kind of strikes me that with the electrification that we're seeing in Europe that I would have thought retail businesses would be sort of growth businesses. I mean, do you see that as a major growth business going forward? I mean maybe not next year, but sort of in 5 years' time, as I say, with the electrification that we're seeing because of the energy transition.

I think I have to give you 2 answers to that. I mean, the B2B retail business, you might see a switch actually from the pure commodity business to a more complex business, which might be favorable for us going forward, indeed. And secondly, when we look at our specific business, customer-facing business, we also look at the e-mobility charging infrastructure business. And in this area, we are seeing significant growth over the next -- for the next years to come. So it's both stable to increasing B2C commodity business and then increasing earnings in our charging infrastructure business. Does that answer your question?

Yes, that does. That's great.

[Operator Instructions] We have a follow-up question coming from the line of Alessandra Mac Donald from BlackRock.

Just 2 questions, if I may. So just wondering the personnel cost, I think you mentioned that the increase, this was -- was that because of you hired new personnel or it's because of inflation? And then can you just remind me in your working capital, the changes related to derivatives, how do they work?

Alessandra, regarding the personnel expenses, it's both. Its tariff increase on the one hand, actually. And on the other hand, it's also driven by an increase in personnel. I mean, given the fact that we are investing heavily, we also need to increase our personnel. So it's both. It's additional expenses due to tariff increases and additional personnel. The working capital question, Alessandra, sorry, we do have a bad line here. I didn't fully understand your second question regarding the working capital.

No worries. No worries. Sorry for that. Just I was looking at the working capital reported. And I think I don't have the slides in front of me, but you had a relatively large absorption due to the derivatives, if I remember correctly. And I was just wondering if you could remind me how those work. So when do you see an absorption and when then it's reversed?

Okay. I mean the derivatives relates to our trading business, and it very much depends on the valuation of these derivatives, and that actually very much depends on the wholesale market prices. And so we cannot give any kind of prediction actually for year-end, how this is going to evolve. So that's one of the fluctuations we do have in our -- on our balance sheet and which is not in our hands. But to be clear, that all net is out when upon deliveries. So it's just a valuation impact and that does not have any kind of economic -- there's no kind of economic value or risk behind it. Does it kind of answer your question?

Yes. Yes. Yes.

We have a follow-up question coming from the line of Andrew Moulder from CreditSights.

Yes. Just one quick question, which is you talked about testing the hydrogen-ready power plant. And I just wonder what fuel you're testing it with. And if you are testing it with a blend of hydrogen, what sort of results are you getting? I mean, in terms of efficiency, in terms of emissions. How is that working?

No, actually, what we currently do, I mean, they are hydrogen-ready. That means we can switch to hydrogen. But for the time being, it's natural gas actually they're operated with. So it's nothing to do with any kind of mixture with hydrogen. It's pure natural gas actually.

Okay. How is that testing a hydrogen-ready plant then really? It's not in...

Hydrogen-ready, it doesn't mean anything else that -- if you want to, you can switch to hydrogen. That means you have to make some adjustments to the plant, but everything is set up that we are able to accommodate hydrogen in the future. But that's not something that's needed for the commissioning as of today. So that's something that needs to be done in the future.

[Operator Instructions] There are no more questions at this time. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Lenka Zikmundova for any closing remarks.

Thank you. And once again, thank you, Thomas. And to all of you for joining this call. Thanks for listening. Thanks for the questions. And in case you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to our Investor Relations team. All the best, and have a great rest of the day.

Bye.

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