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

Over to you.

Thank you very much, Marcel. [Operator Instructions] The conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Marcel Munch. Please go ahead.

Ladies and gentlemen, in a moment, Georg and Thomas will lead you through today's presentation, followed as usual by a Q&A session. And with this, let's kick off. Georg, over to you.

Thank you, Marcel. It's my great pleasure to welcome you all today. I am delighted to touch base with the financial community once again with the presentation of our results and performance in 2024. This past year, along with current developments, has been marked by groundbreaking events on both political and regulatory levels, bringing numerous opportunities as well as challenges. Of particular importance for us is the debate about the transformation, robustness and financing of the energy system, which has evolved significantly. While climate protection remains a crucial focus, the aspects of security of supply and affordability have become even more important. Additionally, there's a growing conviction that the energy transition should be implemented in a more needs-oriented taking action and placing greater emphasis on the market with less bureaucracy, more speed and cost-efficient expansion, whether it's a clean industrial deal from the EU, the German infrastructure plan, potential changes in the German grid regulation or the Power Plant Enabling Act and many more. We are ready to support with our integrated and broadly diversified setup and know-how across the entire value chain of the energy business. Now let me turn to our business with a brief reflection on what we have achieved in 2024. 2024 was a good year for us. As expected, despite market normalization, but thanks to our robust integrated portfolio, we delivered a solid performance, reaching our earnings guidance across all segments. Once more, we have achieved significant milestones and made considerable progress. Before I come to that, I would like to thank all our teams for their outstanding work. Their dedication and commitment have been instrumental in helping us to achieve our goals and even further extend our track record in executing our corporate strategy. We have delivered on our guidance for 2024 as promised with adjusted EBITDA at EUR 4.9 billion, representing more than 70% of low-risk earnings from our grid and renewables business compared to 55% in 2023. In parallel, with substantial investments reaching over EUR 6 billion, we laid the foundation for future earnings growth. In 2024, we primarily invested in grids and renewables. A KPI that demonstrates our speed of transformation is the share of CapEx in accordance with the EU taxonomy. Last year, almost 90% of our CapEx was taxonomy aligned. We also continue to deliver on our strategy and priorities towards the green transition of the energy system. Here, we reached an important milestone. As we speak, we have around 6.6 gigawatts of installed renewables capacity, representing a 59% of our overall generation portfolio. Hence, we have achieved our goal to increase the capacity share of renewables to more than 50% 1 year earlier than originally planned. Finally, we are particularly proud of being promoted to the ESG leader category following the upgrade by MSCI last autumn when we received an AA rating for our environmental achievements. This upgrade reflects our continued successful transformation. Let's explore how well EnBW's integrated portfolio evolved during 2024 with a clear focus on further value creation as well as security of supply. I'm really pleased to highlight that renewables generation contributed in terms of electricity generation 63% in 2024, and our wind and solar pipeline is well filled with more than 25 gigawatts. Last year, we significantly broadened and balanced our portfolio through further project developments and successful participation in predominantly offshore and solar auctions in Germany. On top, we have over 1.5 gigawatts under construction. At the same time, we consistently decarbonize our thermal power generation portfolio. In 2024, we managed to reduce our merchant coal-fired power generation by 500 megawatts. Consequently, coal-based revenues accounted for only 4% and the CO2 intensity fell by another 15%, beating our CO2 intensity target for 2024. But we are not stopping here. We are also strengthening our balanced integrated portfolio, be it the flexible backup capacity with more than 2 gigawatts of gas and battery storage projects under construction to increase the resilience of power generation; or the vital transmission and distribution grid infrastructure with more than 1,200 kilometers of projects in execution, supplemented by numerous grid connections for renewables and more than 100,000 smart meters rolled out in 2024. Last but not least, this is complemented by the constant expansion of our e-mobility network, which has now over 6,000 fast charging points in Germany. We also provide our customers access to more than 800,000 charging points in 17 countries in Europe, rounded off by smart, flexible and holistic offerings to our retail customers. EnBW plays a leading role in all of these areas and takes its role as the leading integrated utility in Germany very seriously. It is precisely this [ broad in ] positioning that makes us successful and resilient, always looking ahead because we have the overall energy system in view and know what needs to be done. Let me demonstrate this through our key projects and activities, which we will continue to push forward intensively in 2025 and beyond. For example, by boosting flexible backup power, which is essential for security of supply. With our 3 fuel switch projects, EnBW is currently one of the few companies building flexible hydrogen-ready gas power plants and by far, the only one realizing such large merchant projects in Germany. Replacing coal-based generation, these new CCGTs with a total capacity of 1.5 gigawatts will help manage supply and demand imbalances and thereby contribute to security of supply in Southwest Germany. One of the 3 plants will be able to make its full contribution already next month as it goes into operation, while the other 2 are under construction. Only recently, operations started at our grid stabilization power plant at the Marbach power plant site. The 300-megawatt gas turbine power plant can deliver power in under 30 minutes upon request from the Transmission System Operator and serves exclusively to ensure continuous grid stability. On the same site in Marbach, we are building a large-scale battery storage facility with 100-megawatt hours capacity, a battery big enough to power a small town for 1 day. Also under construction is an innovative battery storage system with 250 megawatt hours. It is one of the largest in the world. This grid booster will serve as a safety buffer for the transmission grid and will cost more than EUR 200 million. In the event of a fault, the system can act like an airbag providing energy behind the potential grid bottleneck within seconds while simultaneously reducing the feed-in before the bottleneck. This reduces the need for additional lines and interventions in grid operation, thus lowering costs for electricity customers. All in all, almost 2 gigawatts of reliable backup capacity with a 250-megawatt hours grid booster on top that supports or will support the energy system 7/24. We also strengthened our future offshore growth pipeline. EnBW's development portfolio now totals around 7 gigawatts after securing the site of Dreekant, a 1 gigawatt offshore wind project in last year's Germany offshore auction and together with our U.K. offshore projects amounts to 7 gigawatts. We are particularly proud of our He Dreiht project, one of the largest subsidy-free offshore wind farms in Germany. Once it comes into operation as our fifth offshore wind farm by end of 2025, He Dreiht will almost double our installed capacity in offshore wind. More than half of the grid connection capacity is already secured through long-term power supply agreements with a diversified group of high-quality offtakers. Let us take a look at our grid business and the major projects underway that are crucial for ensuring secure and affordable supply. Our subsidiary, TransnetBW, the TSO in Southwest Germany has made good progress on its 2 major electricity transmission projects, SuedLink and Ultranet, both currently under construction. The 700-kilometer underground high-voltage DC transmission line, SuedLink, is one of the largest energy infrastructure projects in Germany and will stretch across the entire country. It will cross multiple federal states and various types of terrain, including highways and water bodies, a fascinating project, which began construction last year and is set to connect South Germany with the windy North by 2028. Ultranet is also making great progress. The south-end most section of the 340-kilometer long TC transmission grid project has been partially completed and the converter station in Philippsburg is already in operation. This converter is a special highlight of last year, not only in relation to our portfolio, but also in relation to the grid expansion in Germany overall. It cost about EUR 700 million to build and is the first power converter of its kind in Germany that can provide active power to the grid for a period of few seconds, the so-called instantaneous reserve. Until now, the generators of large power plants have provided this network forming properties necessary for safe grid operations as these plants are increasingly being replaced by renewables, TransnetBW introduced this new technology. It is super fast and extremely flexible. Another piece of good news is the development of our gas grid. EnBW participates in the construction and expansion of the German hydrogen core network, which is an essential component of the future European hydrogen backbone. Last year, we kicked off construction of a new 250-kilometer pipeline for natural gas and hydrogen called the South German Natural Gas Pipeline, SEL, via our subsidiary, terranets bw. Despite its name, it will be the first hydrogen-ready pipeline in the southwest of Germany with a connection to European transport routes and is expected to start transporting hydrogen in the early 2030s, depending on hydrogen availability. The first section has been in operation since December. In addition, terranets bw and our other gas transmission subsidiary, ONTRAS, are working on Central German network and the North-South transport route, both hydrogen ready to connect production centers and important corridors with the major consumption regions. As you can see, we are rigorously executing our strategy even in this turbulent and somewhat unstable times and are proud of what we have achieved so far. On that very positive note, I'm going to hand over to Thomas.

Thank you very much, Georg, and good afternoon to all of you. I'm happy to share with you the details of our 2024 financial performance and our outlook for 2025. Last year was a good year. We fully delivered on our guidance. Georg just gave you the numbers. Adjusted EBITDA for the group reached EUR 4.9 billion, in line with our guidance. At the same time, we invested more than EUR 6 billion, thereby laying the foundation for further earnings growth in the mid and long term. EnBW was also very active and extremely successful as an issuer on the capital markets last year. We placed bonds totaling around EUR 4 billion, of which almost EUR 3.3 billion were in green format. Around half of the bonds issued in 2024, approximately EUR 2 billion, was already earmarked to prefinance our investments in 2025. We've also updated our green financing framework, which now includes new project categories such as hydropower and electricity transmission grids and successfully diversify our investor base beyond Europe with the very first Kangaroo bond issuance by any German utility in the Australian market. [ Target valuations ], Moody's and S&P affirmed EnBW's credit ratings, both with stable outlook, highlighting our strong balance sheet supported by our integrated setup. I'm also pleased with the development of our debt repayment potential achieved at the top end of our target range for 2024. Let's now move to the details of our financial performance. As just mentioned, our business delivered fully in line with our expectations against the backdrop of normalized market conditions, achieving group adjusted EBITDA of EUR 4.9 billion, which is in the middle of our guidance range of EUR 4.6 billion to EUR 5.2 billion. All our business segments performed within our guidance range, with the System Critical Infrastructure segment delivering a remarkable result at the very top of the guidance. A very important metrics for us is the earnings contribution by regulated or quasi-regulated low-risk activities. These comprise our grid as well as renewables business and accounted for almost EUR 3.5 billion in adjusted EBITDA, corresponding to 71% of operating earnings in 2024 compared to 55% in 2023. Let's now take a look at our business segments, starting on Slide 12, which is Sustainable Generation Infrastructure, where we achieved an adjusted EBITDA of EUR 2.6 billion. Starting with Renewables, adjusted EBITDA amounted to EUR 1.2 billion. The year-over-year decrease is due to the lower realized electricity prices, mainly from pump storage leading to lower margins. The decline in earnings was expected after exceptionally high power prices in the previous year and could only be offset to a minor extent by higher run-of-river power generation. Adjusted EBITDA in Thermal Generation and Trading was at EUR 1.4 billion, also marked by significantly lower power and commodity prices, reduced volatility and less favorable gas market conditions. With a brief look at our thermal power generation for the next 3 years, and their respective hedge levels, we are almost fully hedged for this year, 50% to 80% for 2026 and already 20% to 50% for 2027. This is consistent with our well-established and proven hedging policy. Moving on to the segment System Critical Infrastructure, which comprises our electricity and gas transmission and distribution grids. Adjusted EBITDA of System Critical Infrastructure reached more than EUR 2.2 billion for the full year, corresponding to an increase of 27%. The significant year-on-year growth can be attributed to higher income from investments in grid expansion and reinforcement as well as lower expenses for grid reserve and redispatch. This strong performance was partly offset by increased personnel expenses in both our transmission and distribution grid businesses and higher costs for operation and maintenance. Our third segment, Smart Infrastructure for Customers achieved adjusted EBITDA of EUR 324 million, which was meaningfully higher than last year, mainly due to the absence of negative effects from the deconsolidation of our subsidiary, bmp greengas, in 2023. Particularly noteworthy is the development of our e-mobility business, which reached EBITDA breakeven in 2024, combined with high utilization and rapid expansion of our e-mobility infrastructure to more than 6,000 fast charging points. Moving on to the earnings drivers down to adjusted net profit. Adjusted net profit amounted to EUR 1.5 billion, roughly EUR 1.3 billion lower than in 2023, which is in line with the development of our adjusted EBITDA. Besides that, the year-on-year decline was driven by higher profitability attributable to noncontrolling interests, which almost doubled as a result of the sale of minority stake in our TSO, TransnetBW, towards the end of 2023. Based on the good earnings and our positive outlook, we propose to raise the dividend and are targeting a payment of EUR 1.60 per share for the fiscal year 2024. If approved by the AGM in May, this would mark an increase of 7% compared to the prior year and corresponds to a still moderate payout ratio of 29%. While in the long term, we continue to aim for a payment ratio between 40% and 60% of adjusted group net profit. The moderate payout ratio for 2024 strengthens our balance sheet and implies that a larger share of profit is available to finance our future investments. Turning to our investments in 2024. our capital spending exceeded more than EUR 6 billion. This marks a 27% increase over the previous year and the highest annual investment spending in EnBW's history. Almost 90% of these capital expenditures were taxonomy aligned and 85% were attributable to growth projects linked to the transformation of the energy infrastructure, while the rest were investments in retrofitting existing assets. We invested EUR 2.2 billion or 35% of our gross investments in Sustainable Generation Infrastructure, mainly for the development and construction of our offshore activities in Germany and the U.K. and 3 hydrogen-ready gas power plants. More than half of our CapEx went into System Critical Infrastructure focusing on the expansion and modernization of our electricity transmission and distribution grids. The start of construction of the DC line SuedLink, the converter in Philippsburg for Ultranet and the grid booster in particular, played a key role for our 2024 grid investments. The remaining investments went into Smart Infrastructure for Customers, mostly related to the one-off capital effects related to bmp greengas and 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, were significantly lower than in previous year. The reason for the relatively high divestment in 2023 was the sale of a minority interest in He Dreiht in the third quarter of 2023 and in TransnetBW in the fourth quarter of 2023, along with the associated capital inflows. Now let's take a brief look at our retained cash flow on Slide 16. Our retained cash flow amounted to almost EUR 2.3 billion at the end of the year and pretty much reflects the development of adjusted EBITDA. It echoes the lower level of earnings. Additionally, the year-on-year decline was driven by higher dividends paid and noncash items reflected in prior year's adjusted EBITDA. Ladies and gentlemen, as illustrated on Slide 17, net debt increased by EUR 2.5 billion to more than EUR 14 billion, mainly driven by our significant net cash investments totaling EUR 5.2 billion. The increase in debt was particularly strong in Q4 as investments in the grid are typically more pronounced towards the end of the year. Major counterbalancing drivers were the retained cash flow and the reorganization of pension provisions for the grid business, during which we transferred about EUR 800 million in assets as part of the funding for a new contractual trust arrangement. This translates into a debt repayment potential of 16%, achieving the top end of our target range of 13% to 16% for 2024. For 2025, we assume that the debt repayment potential will be between 15% and 18% cash flow in relation to net debt despite our ambitious investment program. And that brings me to our outlook for 2025. In 2024, EnBW delivered a solid and steady financial performance, and that is exactly what we will deliver again in 2025. Let's have a look at our business segments. In Renewables, as part of Sustainable Generation Infrastructure, we will benefit from new capacity additions in wind and solar, particularly from our offshore wind farm, He Dreiht. However, only particularly as He Dreiht will not go online until the end of this year. We also assume normalized wind and hydro conditions, partly offset by lower prices. Thermal Generation and Trading is expected to continue with a solid performance in line with the normalized price levels on the energy markets. The new build hydrogen-ready gas power plant in Stuttgart-Münster and the grid stabilization plant in Marbach will contribute to 2025 earnings. Looking at System Critical Infrastructure, earnings will increase year-on-year, particularly on the back of our substantial investments in both transmission and distribution grids and the associated assets. In the segment Smart Infrastructure for Customers, operating earnings are expected to stay flat as a result of strong competition in the commodity business for electricity and gas. However, the segment will benefit from the further ramp-up of our e-mobility business. All in all, adjusted EBITDA at the group level is expected to amount to between EUR 4.8 billion and EUR 5.3 billion for 2025. Ladies and gentlemen, let me conclude. To actively shape the energy infrastructure for the future, we will maintain high investment levels, leading to attractive long-term earnings growth. The share of low-risk earnings will remain high given our ongoing investments into grids and renewables. As you know, we aim to invest at least EUR 40 billion between 2023 and 2030. Ladies and gentlemen, these are significant investment ambitions, and we are very prudent about how we will finance these investments. As part of these considerations, we have discussed a capital increase with our shareholders over the past few months. While capital measures are subject to a resolution in our general meeting and thus, a decision on a capital increase is still pending. We have earned a lot of trust, and our largest shareholders have publicly stated their intention to support. With that in mind, we are very positive when we look at the opportunities that the year 2025 will bring for all of us at EnBW. And now let me hand back to Marcel.

Thank you, Thomas and Georg. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll now start our Q&A session. Sergen, please kick off.

[Operator Instructions] And we have the first question coming from the line of Andrew Moulder from CreditSights.

Can you hear me?

Now we can hear you.

Can you see me as well?

We can hear and see you, Andrew.

Okay. Perhaps just one general question for you, Georg. I mean it's been a year now since you've been the CEO of EnBW, and it's very normal for new CEOs to do full sort of strategic reviews, but that's not really something you've done. So I just wonder, given your year looking back at EnBW, do you think there is a need for a strategic review? Or are you perfectly happy with the strategy that the company has? That's my first question. I just have a couple more, if I could, please. I'd also like a bit more clarity on this [ EUR 500 billion ] infrastructure funds that the German government is talking about. I mean, again, at the beginning, Georg, you said that there's still a lot of uncertainty and you're waiting for clarity on the framework. But what kind of things are you expecting? I've heard about the 20 gigawatts of new CCGT capacity about potentially keeping bills down for customers. How are you expecting those sort of things to impact EnBW and the utility sector generally? And perhaps one sort of general question, which you may not want to answer, I guess. I've seen a few headlines on Bloomberg talking about the ending of the war in Ukraine and how some commentators are saying that this means Germany might take Russian gas again. You were intimately involved with the Russian gas situation with VNG. So I mean, what's your view on that? Do you think Germany will ever take Russian gas again? And clearly, it might also play into the idea of reducing electricity prices, which might be something that the government would want. So I just wonder if you'd be prepared, what was your view on that? I'll stop there.

Yes. Thank you very much for the questions. And I start with the same priority that you gave to the questions. First, a strategy review. For sure, we have done a strategy review. We have not done it publicly, but if you may recall the circumstances with the last CEO change, there were some strategic reasons behind this. And the result of this strategy review is that the robustness that the company has throughout its integrated positioning, participating at every step of the value chain of the energy business is the correct strategy for EnBW. And this applies for both, let me put it in a technical way, the electrons and the molecules of the energy transition. This is the one thing concerning the strategy. The other concerns the performance of EnBW. We are currently not only an operator of power plants, renewables, grids, but we are a big investment machine. We will be this until the year 2035, approximately. And being an investment machine means that we need to be excellent in execution to deliver on time, on budget and with the requested and the specified quality. And this is also something that we have taken measures as a team within the Board to ensure that this is the case for EnBW. I hope this covers your first question. And if there's no further need to further elaborate, I will move to the second one, [ EUR 500 million ] for infrastructure. And for sure, we see a necessity to spend an amount of money in what we call energy transition and way forward of the energy transition. But I cannot tell you if this money is part of the [ EUR 500 million -- billion ] infrastructure fund or if it is money that was already put aside for the energy transition. The main urgent issue is the redevelopment of the dispatchable capacity. And this has been a plan also of the previous government. I remind us that in the previous legislation period, we had already the law concept for additional gas-fired -- hydrogen-ready gas-fired power plants. And this was embedded in a framework of auctions that needed to be done in order to build these power plants. We have also been in discussion with the previous government or with the current government that is still in office for a capacity market in Germany. And this is also something where we believe that there is a necessity to continue on this plan. Therefore, I'm not sure about what is -- what exactly is intended with the [ EUR 500 million ] infrastructure fund. I think there are also other infrastructures that are affected by this fund, and we are going to have detailed discussions with the government when we see some clarity in their negotiations that they currently have. You have also combined your question with the aspect of keeping the bills low. And there, we see a twofold activity in this section. The one thing that's keeping the electricity price for customers, industrial customers and household customers low, and this is an activity that the government is undertaking. As far as we know, they discuss currently about a reduction of the tax on electricity to the minimum allowable by the European Commission. And they also discuss about a stretching of the network grid fees that the customers are paying. We do not expect this to affect the business of EnBW. This is our expectation on these developments. But we also see that there is a possibility also to reduce the cost for the energy transition. This is something where we encourage ourselves to make proposals to politics, to the government about how to do this. And there are some things that I have already said in the past year, especially the technical concepts of doing the extension of the grids, of the transmission grids and of the distribution grids, also the combined expansion of renewables and grids. And there are also some things that we have not announced yet, and we intend to announce next week in a press conference about the correct path, for example, for offshore wind, what should be the correct target to have by the year 2045. And also the amount of electrolyzers that we are going to use, the amount of batteries and so on. I think for us, this is the more substantial discussion how to reduce the initial cost of the energy transition. And the other discussion about the price is very welcome, but we see this as a task for the government, for the politicians to make their proposals. Then the question that I'm not supposed to answer about Russian gas. The honest answer is that I do not know how the developments are going to be in the future. Therefore, I concentrate on the facts that we had in the past. We started the year 2022 with an import share of Russian gas in Germany of approximately 55%, and we ended the year 2022 with a share of 0%. We have managed to make this transition, and we have managed not to endanger the security of supply for the German economy and for the German consumers. At a high cost, you may say, and this is correct. But I think this makes us more resilient looking into the future about the role that Russian gas is going to play for Europe in general. But saying something beyond this, I think it would be speculation. Let's see what is going to happen on the negotiation table, how peace is going to be reestablished in Ukraine. And I think as a result of these discussions, there will be certainly a thought or a decision about the Russian gas. This will be, I expect, a political decision at European level and then the utilities and EnBW will follow.

Okay. Could I just follow up on one point you made there. You talked about reducing cost of the energy transition. And I think one of the things that's been talked about in that area is overgrounding cables for the transmission networks rather than undergrounding. And I remember that there was a lot of discussion with SuedLink a few years ago about increased cost because of doing that. And I just wonder, is it possible now that SuedLink, although it is technically, I suppose, 100% underground, would actually be overgrounded instead in some areas and that could reduce the costs?

No. No, this is not the case. Our proposal refers also to future projects. SuedLink and Ultranet are not the last projects, the last connections between Northern Germany and Southern Germany. At least 3 according to today's plan are supposed to follow. And for this, we propose that it will be an overground cable and not an underground cable. The progress of the project SuedLink and Ultranet does not allow to change now, it would be a massive hit in the project. But if you change the concept for the future projects, then according to our calculation, and this is very -- these are very similar numbers to what the regulatory authority also admits would be in an order of magnitude of EUR 30 billion. I think this is worth discussing. This is not peanuts, and this is about projects that are not yet technically designed.

And the German people and the areas that the cable is passing over would be happy with this? I mean that was one of the problems with SuedLink is local opposition. I mean...

Yes, you're absolutely right. But what we are doing is actually buying acceptance by socializing the cost to every customer in Germany. And this can be continued like this, or this can be changed. For us, it is a good thing to make this change to go back to overground. And this is not -- this does not exclude every underground solution. I mean in urban areas and in areas where it is technically suitable to do so, we should still design with underground. But in areas where you have done it also in the past, big open distances, we do not see also any technical advantage of having underground cables.

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

Yes. Thank you, Sergen. Yes, with that, we already come to a close. Once again, thank you very much, Georg and Thomas, for walking us through the presentation and for everyone online joining today's call. As always, if you've got any more questions afterwards, please don't hesitate to reach out to our IR team for more details or in-depth discussions. All the best, and have a good rest of the day. Thank you. Bye-bye.