Engie Brasil Energia S.A. (EGIE3) Q4 FY2025 Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, and welcome to the ENGIE Brasil Energia's Fourth Quarter '25 and Year 2025 Earnings Results Video Conference. I am Adriana Wagner, Investor Relations Analyst of ENGIE Brasil, and I would like to make the announcement. [Operator Instructions] It is worth remembering that this video conference is being recorded. We have made available at our website, www.engie.com.brinvestors. The results presentation and earnings release besides the complete financial statements and other documents filed at the CBM where analysis of financial statements, operational results, ESG indicators and other relevant information is included. Before proceeding, I would like to clarify that all statements that may be made during this video conference regarding the business outlook of the company should be treated as forecast depending on the country's macroeconomic conditions, the performance and regulation of the electric sector. They are, therefore, due to changes. We remind journalists who wish to post questions that they can send them to the company's press office to present the performance of ENGIE Energia. For the fourth quarter, we have with us today, Pierre Leblanc, the IR, Guilherme Ferrari, Director of Renewable Energy; and Leonardo Depine, the Investor Relations for the company. I turn the floor over to Mr. Pierre Leblanc.

Thank you very much, Adriana. I am going to speak to you, address you in Portuguese. And well, of course, please excuse my accent. Thank you so much for your participation. We're going to present to you the results for the fourth quarter 2025. For the last quarter, well, we had a very intense quarter with several achievements that extend to the coming year. We concluded Serra do Assuruá and Assú Sol photovoltaic that are fully operational. In Asa Branca complex, we are 100% in commercial operation since February '26. And we have been growing with financial discipline, operational excellence, always seeking to face the regulatory challenges and of course, working with the opportunities the market offers. We have a document of related parties that has just been implemented to document full transparency in our processes for the market in general and for all analysts. We have significant regulatory advances when it comes to UVP. And these will bring significant results for 2026. I would now like to turn the floor over to Mr. Depine.

Well, thank you very much, Pierre. I would like to go on to the financial highlights. Our EBITDA for the fourth quarter with a slight drop vis-a-vis last year, impacted by several effects, mainly a delay in the BAMA licensing. And when we look at 2024 compared to 2025, an increase of 4% in adjusted EBITDA. Well, last year, we had the capital coming from the sale of TAG, not repeated this year. Adjusted net income with a drop that was expected because of our leverage, 15% year-on-year. Also in adjusted EBITDA, once again due to the sale of TAG and event specific for 2024. Let's go on to the ESG KPIs. Emission intensity, we continue with levels way below the references and of course, always seeking reduction. In health and safety, we are within the ranges set forth, which already are quite challenging. We continue to increase our percentage of women in the workforce, especially in the fourth quarter, there was a slight reduction. We had new assets where the population is mainly made in Assuruá. Now in terms of investments in innovation -- we were able to increase this vis-a-vis last year where our level was quite high. And in social responsibility as most of the investments are incentivized, the incentivized resources this year were much lower. Last year, we had an extraordinary revenue due to the sale of TAG, but we reached 100% of our target, a reason of pride. Engaged people, somewhat lower figure once again, due to that drop in investments. We continue. I will give the floor to Guilherme Ferrari to speak about operating highlights.

Thank you. Good morning to all of you. And we would like to speak a bit about our assets here. In the year 2025, you see a significant improvement in the uptime of our hydropower plants. We have 96.2% standing as a reference for the year in wind and photovoltaic assets, a recovery in photovoltaic, a significant recovery. We worked with an enhancement plan in some of the assets we had acquired as well as in wind assets. In wind assets, we enhanced the performance of the Santo Agostinho project that faced some technological problems. The situation is still not ideal, but we're seeking to enhance the performance. As Pierre mentioned, what was important was the coming into operation of Serra do Assuruá with very good performance in their equipment. So, in uptime, we have complied with our target -- and well, of course, there's the impact of curtailment that hampers some of our plants, and we're attempting to minimize this as best we can. Now let's speak about curtailment. In fact, the curtailment is that greater of renewable and intermittent energy. We are working on our results for the fourth quarter. Now vis-a-vis last year, there has been a significant growth compared with 2024. Now what we are harping on significantly is a massive entrance of distributed generation. Now this displaces nonconventional renewable energy. And so far, we have not found a solution for this. We're seeking a regulatory solution to decrease distributed generation to reduce the impact on intermittent sources. A very relevant point I would like to mention here is the solidity of our portfolio. When we compare our total generation with the impact of curtailment, it drops to 6%, thanks to our high trick resources. This means that we have greater resiliency compared to the impact of curtailment. A few remarks regarding generation per se. We see generation with an increase in the last quarter. Now compared to the last year, there was a reduction of practically 11% once again, because of the hydrology, a worse hydrology, this means a worse generation. But I do highlight that with the entrance of Assú Sol and Assuruá in renewable energy, nonconventional renewable energy, we had an increase in the year 2025 vis-a-vis 2024. Now these are the highlights when it comes to generation throughout the year 2025. Now in energy sales, we continue on with our gradual sale of energy, our commercial capacity. Of course, we have hedge preservation for fluctuations. But at the same time, we also have room to be able to capture higher prices through time. Evidently, we have a profile that is reduced through our contracting. If we analyze this beginning in 2031, we have a significant drop of 900 mega in our commercial capacity. And we're not considering this in the management of our portfolio. The concession of Salto Santiago that matures in 2031 will, of course, have an impact, and it's important that we are able to renew this concession. As mentioned, we have a drop in profile of de-contracted energy throughout the years '27, '28, '29. We have more contracted energy. And along those lines, we're seeking opportunities for better energy prices. Another highlight, of course, refers to expansion. As Pierre has already mentioned in the 2 projects, Serra do Assuruá and Assú Sol, Serra do Assuruá wind complex. This complex is in full operation with 188 turbines working very well. And the uptime of the machine is doing very well. This was an investment where our indices of health and security were extremely good. We had the delivery before anticipated in our forecast as well as the investments. We were able to see a reduction in our investment vis-a-vis our original business plan. Let's go on to the photovoltaic project, Assú Sol. Now the message once again is very similar, 100% in commercial operation beginning in February 13, 2026. The plan had been set forth last year. This is a project that we delivered before the official term with a reduction of the budget that had been foreseen, and the performance has been very good compared to the tracker system inverters. Everything is highly adherent to what we had foreseen. In the next slide, a point that was mentioned by Pierre at the beginning, Graúna. Last year, Graúna had an improvement in performance. Some investments were carried out to improve the uptime of the turbines. And of course, this means a greater generation for the year 2025. This is a well-contracted asset until the year 2034, 100% contracted and a part in the free contracting market that is with the BNDES. It's a highly interesting asset, and this has been mentioned in other meetings or calls that we have had and announced at the end of last year. We are now in a process of analyzing the transfer of the state to ENGIE Brasil Energia from ENGIE Brasil -- we created that committee of related parties. I represent this. We also have Manuel Lopez and Karen that are independent advisers. And we're working on this process once again to offer enormous transparency to everything that we will be presenting our negotiations, ensuring that we maintain that transparency since the beginning and that the minority shareholders can participate in this process. This should take place during the coming months, and we believe that very soon, we will inform the market about future steps and recommendations that we expect from this committee of related parties. We return the floor to the transmission project under implementation Asa Branca with 1/3 of the operation, the other 2/3 are in the final stage of installation. Now for 2026 and until the first half of '27, we will have all of the other segments coming into operation. In the case of Graúna that began 1 year later, we have 5% in commercial operation is a brownfield segment between Minas Gerais and Espirito Santo and speeding up the pace this year and the coming year, those segments in red in Santa Catarina and Paraná part between Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais, all proceeding as expected for Graúna. This will represent the great CapEx for '26, '27. Here, we have a summary of our expansion -- and in the pipeline are usual projects, the wind and solar projects that are awaiting the proper market situations to be developed. No commitments so far. Now we'll now go on to the financial performance. Beginning to the right, we show you our diversification in the pie at the bottom. We have 1/3 or 1/4 pieces 25% from transmission of energy and gas transportation, the other 4 coming from generation, mainly hydroelectric, but also wind and solar. To the left, because of accounting reasons are ROI and ROIC with a slight drop through time. The CapEx has been updated, and the revenues are not fully performance as Chari and Arul, these figures should be more stable beginning in 2026, perhaps with additional growth. Now if we look at net operating revenue change. We had a significant moment in our revenue last year, 15%, BRL 5 million coming from price and sales volume because of the new assets, a drop of BRL 200 million due to a specific event in '24 indemnities in Santo Agostinho, an increase in our trading activity and of course, an increase in our transmission activity. Now we're speaking of what is reported in IFRS, almost BRL 1 billion refers to the construction of Asa Branca, well, 14.6% increase, as you are aware we'll go to TAG that had profit of almost BRL 4 billion last year and BRL 687 million, which is our stake, 17% vis-a-vis 2024, it is somewhat lower. It was BRL 714 million in 2024 because of specific financial events and accounting restatement. Now the performance of this asset continues to be very good, generating an excellent contribution for the company. EBITDA change the reported EBITDA, the graphs at the end, a drop of 12.5% because of the nonrecurrent entrance of the sale of TAG. When we look at adjusted EBITDA, an increase of 3.7% and adjusted EBITDA, excluding the IFRS effects, a cash EBITDA, which is what the market looks at. And once again, we can show the growth because of a combination of price and volume, our operational performance indemnization of Santo Agostinho has been removed BRL 250 new costs and expenses because of the commercial entry of new assets, transmission with a reduction -- well, an increase year after year of BRL 65 million and a slight decrease in equity income. Now the result is 2.9% increase year-on-year. Let's look at our net income change. First of all, an adjustment for the sale of TAG, and we look at the center, a drop of 15%. Here, you can see more clearly that, that drop is due to financial results. At present, it is better leverage. The assets are already operational. All of this goes through results. Depreciation also goes through results, BRL 320 million for depreciation and amortization, a new expense of almost BRL 1 billion because of these new assets that once again are not generating their full EBITDA potential that they will do through time. This led to that drop of 15%. Our leverage or balance debt, we ended 2025 very close to what we had in September of net debt, 29.3%. We then went to 29.6% with a slight reduction in cash. So, our net debt went to BRL 3.3 billion, a marginal increase, BRL 2.3 billion to BRL 3.3 billion because of the investment cycles that we have carried out. We should now reach that new level, a new plateau with something closer to 3%, 3.5%. This is the debt profile. We have a good debt lengthening through time with no pressure on cash. So, we are readjusting and contracting the debt. The maturity is 2048, a great deal of tranquility because of this 58% IPCA, 36% CDI and 6% CLP. Now the next slide showing all the efforts we have made since 2022, especially in 2024, '25, where between the 2 years, we had BRL 16 million in CapEx. Now presently, we are concentrating on Graúna and Asa Branca. This is where our efforts are committed. We have a marginal CapEx for expansion and modernization of Jaguara and the normal maintenance CapEx, which means that our CapEx levels will be somewhat calmer going forward. We still have a leverage above 3. Therefore, we maintain our dividend payout at 55% and dividend yield on standing at 4.2%, somewhat below last year, but maintaining our policy of 55% payout. Well, this is the presentation. I would like to return the floor to Adriana, and we will go on to question-and-answer session.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Daniel Travitzky, Safra analyst. He says, I would like to know your outlook on the ANEEL resolution on the anticipation of concessions of public good. What do you think of this proposal? Does it make sense to adhere to the terms? And if you do this, when do you think the process will be concluded? How is this part of your capital allocation and leverage processes in the company?

I will begin to answer, if Pierre and Guilherme wish to add. Well, some events are made public, others are well known. Others, we cannot comment on. They depend on internal approval. We have been following up on this process. It's MP304, 303. This week, finally, it was approved by ANEEL. We have to wait 120 days for the process to be concluded. In the first 60 days, the companies will have a period to adhere 30 days for signature and another 30 days for payment. And this process will be concluded at the end of June of this year. We have 4 plants with a higher volume of [indiscernible]. So we're carrying out this work in-house for assessment. And in the coming weeks, you will have news on whether we will add here or not. And this will depend on statutory approval, of course. Any comments, Guilherme or Pierre?

No, I have no comments.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question is from Victor, a sell-side analyst from Itaú. Can you give us more details on the energy balance of the company for 2026? Does the company believe that it has sufficient power to comply with the contract signed because of the high curtailment and HSF expected for the year?

I can get this one. As we showed you in the graph, there is reserve energy that we always preserve once again to cover GSF as well as curtailment. Presently, we are in a very adequate position with very limited, almost no exposure. And in 2026, our portfolio management is quite adequate. And when we analyze the budget for the coming year, of course, we see which will be the GSF and curtailment that are foreseen, and we include this in our portfolio management evidently.

Simply to add, Guilherme, last year, during Investor Day, we showed our project of curtailment for 2026 going forward. We are ready for higher levels of curtailment vis-a-vis the market consensus. So, we do have a very good energy balance to get through this year.

Thank you. We continue with the questions, one from Mr. Oliveira sell-side analyst from BBI. He would like to understand the conditions to return to 100% payout. For 3 consecutive years, the payout has been 55%. Is one of the conditions the leverage level and at which level would you return?

I can give some color on that. So right, we -- our dividend today is around 50%, 55%. For the time being, the point is that we foresee in '26, '27, '28, '29, potential great investment in Brazil, and we need to keep our flexibility in our balance sheet to realize this kind of investment. So, we prefer to keep some room in our balance sheet and in order to meet, of course, our Candance and to have the possibility and ability to invest for growth for the next decade. We are here for a long time. ENGIE is in Brazil for a long time again, and we will focus more on investment growth today. So that's why we keep today the 5% dividend distribution, which is not -- which is good already. And we don't foresee to increase at least for '26, but it's a Board decision. It's not my decision. And of course, the percentage of -- but let's see. So, we are always an open discussion.

Thank you, Pierre. We have a complement from Victor from Itaú BBA, a new question, which is the curtailment and GSF level that you consider in the energy balance?

Well, this is not guidance that we offer openly. We don't believe in levels that are very different vis-a-vis 2024. In Investor Day last year, we posted this -- the curtailment level is between 20%, 25% depending on the source, the thermal levels and variations impacting this, but we don't imagine low levels of curtailment for this year. And for GSF, there should be great variations compared to last year.

[Operator Instructions] I have received a question from Julian. Well, we have diversified the matrix. We have made great investments in the last few years. He deems that this was a good strategy. He's asking where we would like to invest in coming years with growth in mind. Guilherme, if you could refer to this.

I think this is a very valid point. It's not my area at present, but speaking of transmission, we have been quite active in the transmission market. There's another one at the end of the year. This is what we're looking at because of diversification of our portfolio. Now when it comes to renewable energy, in the last few years, we have made some M&A movements. We have acquired solar plants last year, 2 plants, hydropower and others. So, we're very attentive to growth. Our growth is limited with intermittent renewable energy because of the supply and because of curtailment. So, in the short and middle term, we don't foresee opportunities for new projects for wind and solar projects. But of course, we can grow in the field of batteries. We have done this already and the capacity make that will happen last year in our Jaguara plant, we can also participate. So, our growth at present is in transmission. These are the 2 opportunities that we have to participate in these auctions, M&A if the opportunity comes about, of course. And finally, greenfield. And once again, this is not something we foresee for the coming year. No opportunities that will come about for development and construction of new parks.

Very well. Thank you very much, Guilherme. Well, we would like to conclude our Q&A session, and I will return the floor to the speakers for final remarks.

Thank you all very much. Thank you, Guilherme and Pierre, for your participation, and we hope to see you in the first quarter 2026. Thank you. We would like to thank all of you for your attendance. We thank our director, Leonardo Depine. Have a very good afternoon.

Thank you. Have a good afternoon.