Manawa Energy Limited (MNW) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Well, good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining to those online. I'm pleased to present today Manawa Energy's FY '25 Interim Results. My name is Clayton Delmarter, the Chief Executive Officer for Manawa Energy, and I'm joined by Phil Wiltshire, the Chief Financial Officer for Manawa. We will take you through a presentation. Questions can be submitted online via the Q&A facility, and we will address those at the end of the presentation, and there will also be an opportunity for those that wish to raise their questions verbally, and we will respond to those as required. So, we'll step into the results presentation. I'll kick off initially with a bit of an overview or a discussion of our snapshots for the first half. In a sense, the overview for H1 FY '25 is that it has been in a period of unprecedented market conditions that has caused quite significant stress on our portfolio and clearly flowed through to our results for the first half. This combination of factors across the market conditions, the hydrology and the resultant impacts on our total production over that period, I will take you through in more detail shortly. But what I'll do initially is with the backdrop of what has clearly been a very challenging period, hand over to Phil to take us through the highlights, if you like, of our financial performance over that period, and then we can talk in more detail about the factors that have contributed to that outcome. Thank you, Phil.

Thanks, Clayton, and good morning, everybody. Sorry. Just as Clayton said, it's been an extremely challenging first half, and that is reflected in the financial results that we see here. Our normalized EBITDAF for the first half was $45.7 million, which is down 41% on the prior corresponding period. Our normalized EBITDAF excludes transaction costs relating to the proposed scheme of arrangement where -- and the proposed acquisition of Manawa by Contact Energy, and there were $2.1 million of costs relating to that transaction incurred in the first half. There are 2 key drivers of the lower earnings result. The first is those extremely volatile market conditions, particularly in that period from May to mid-August, and I'll elaborate on those further on a subsequent slide. The second key driver is a bad debt provision that we have taken in relation to the payment default by an electricity retailer where Manawa acted as the wholesale intermediary. And that was previously noted when we updated our earnings guidance on the 8th of August. And I'll provide a little bit more of an update on that again later in the presentation. The after-tax result was a loss of $3.3 million and as well as the factors -- the 2 factors I noted above, that is impacted by a non-cash fair value loss on financial instruments of $23 million. And in the prior period, there was a non-cash gain on the fair value of financial instruments of $26 million. So, that creates quite a big swing in net profit after-tax line compared to the prior period. And given the volatile wholesale market pricing we've seen in recent times, that can have quite a big swing on the fair value of financial instruments. We are in the middle of a significant asset refurbishment program that we have talked about over the last year or so. And that's at our major -- that refurbishment program is going ahead at our major schemes. And the program is generally on track, and there are more details later in the presentation. But that program drives our CapEx number. It was $25.9 million for the first half against the prior year number of $31.5 million. The Board has declared a fully imputed interim dividend of $0.04 per share. This obviously reflects the challenging trading conditions and profitability we've seen in the first half. But it's also -- I should also probably explain the Board also took into account Manawa's dividend policy and the overlay of the scheme of arrangement. And under that scheme, as most people would be aware, the cash consideration component of the purchase price is adjusted for dividends paid by Manawa during this period. Looking at the energy margins and wholesale revenue in a little bit more detail. Manawa's generation volume in the first half was 188 gigawatt hours, or 17% lower than the same period a year ago. We had a period of very low inflows into our hydro catchments, combined with very calm wind conditions for an extended period in that May to sort of mid-August months. This led to some severe fuel shortages and obviously, record wholesale prices. The lack of water and wind meant that at times, Manawa was exposed to these high wholesale prices. It's well documented, but I'll just sort of quote a little -- some of those prices. The July average monthly price at Otahuhu was around about $350 per megawatt, and the August average price at Otahuhu was near $450 per megawatt hour, which are extremely high through that period. During that period, we took a number of actions to mitigate the risks within our portfolio. We'll discuss those more on some later slides. But those actions did include taking some additional hedge cover during that period of elevated pricing. And that hedging has had an effect on our first half margins and will continue to have an effect on our second half energy margins.

Thank you, Phil. So as Phil has alluded to, it was in our view and the market is an unprecedented combination of factors that impacted our performance in the first half of the financial year. July and August, as Phil noted, were record prices at Otahuhu, $350 to $450, respectively, across July and August. We saw the highest ever weekly and daily prices observed in the history of the market in that period as well, over $800 a megawatt hour at one point in August. Obviously, the combination of those market factors, which were a result of a number of things, what ultimately was a large fuel scarcity issue in the market. Manawa's hydrology was similar to many others. We saw the lowest ever sort of inflow sequence over the 3-month period of May to July. We're well below the fifth percentile on our inflows. That also coincided, as you might have seen from the previous slide, with a period of calm conditions across the country, which means a lot of the wind generation assets were not performing or producing at the level we would normally anticipate for that time of the year. And of course, as people will be well aware, the well-publicized gas scarcity issues in the market, which resulted in less gas volume at a much higher price. All of that was the core contributor to the market prices that were observed over that period. And as a result, we did draw quite heavily on our storage and national hydro storage fell significantly over that period as well. You can see in the chart on the lower right of the screen there, the deviation from average inflows for Manawa compared to the prior corresponding period essentially mirrors to the downside, if you like, with us being circa 150 gigs down on inflows through to that period in August. Thanks, Phil. Phil alluded earlier to actions Manawa took to mitigate the impact of these conditions. These are all things that you would expect a business like Manawa to do. But I think given the nature of our asset fleet and the number of generators and outages that we are managing is probably quite a lot higher than some other market participants. We do have a bit of flexibility to move shorter duration outages on our smaller assets around a little bit more flexibly, and that was certainly something I think the team did a remarkably good job of over that period. Of course, that period is also typically a quieter period for outages for us, with most of that activity occurring over the summer months. We undertook various trading activities, managing our portfolio and our book length to manage the impact of that extreme pricing. As Phil discussed, some of that included us taking hedges at a period of stress in the market. And therefore, as you would expect it, elevated pricing that has had some impact through the first half and will continue in the second half and is reflected in our forecast and guidance for the balance of the year. Another thing that, obviously, we focused on was the limited storage we do have, the 3 key lakes are shown on the screen there at Waipori, Coleridge and Cobb, were critical to us sort of being able to manage our exposure through this period. You'll note for a lot of the year, this chart goes back to April that those inflows were lacking, and we largely managed to track certainly Coleridge and Cob, call it, sideways rather than drawing them down completely. At a point in time in July when those -- the lack of inflows persisted, we clearly were forced to start pulling on those storages in earnest. And we actually dipped into some operational zones, obviously, all within the permitted ranges under our consent conditions, but they are reserved for particularly unique conditions that are observed in the market or otherwise. And so we were able to utilize some of those ranges a bit more on that basis. We also got a short-term variation to our operating conditions at Waipori, where we have different operating ranges or tranches, if you like, in the lake that have counters on them. And that variation allowed us to better manage that storage and draw on that storage, and also allow us to better manage the recovery of Waipori, which is our key storage lake going into autumn and winter in FY '25. I think the other thing, and again, I'll touch on this in a bit more detail, is that the team did a fabulous job keeping all of our assets running. I think across the portfolio, we've seen the restoration of some plant that had been out of action for a while, including Esk, and a bit more capacity at our Bream Bay diesel peaking assets in Northland. But in addition to that, we had very high reliability and availability across our fleet, which meant when we needed to run, we could, and that was certainly extremely valuable in helping to mitigate any further impact of the market conditions that we observed. The major asset refurbishment program is progressing very well for Manawa. Obviously, we're in a period of elevated capital expenditure, targeting our most strategic and valuable assets across the portfolio. This map is a summary of that, which I won't go through everything in detail here as there's a bit more information on the key highlights, if you like, on the next slide. But you can see that the team has and is undertaking a significant amount of work across our asset fleet, and that has and continues to go very well, which is pleasing. A little bit more detail on some of that. Highbank, which is one of our key strategic assets in the Canterbury region, also linked in with the supply of water to irrigators via our pumping station, has gone underway with a full unit replacement at the end of October. That is an extended outage that will persist for about 18 months. One of the very innovative projects the team came up with that helps us to mitigate the impact of that outage is that the pumping station at Highbank has been modified so that they can also run as generators or turbines, which has given us 6 megawatts of capacity throughout the outage, which goes some way to offsetting the impact of the lost volume during the outage and those replacement works. The chart on the right-hand side, the upper right shows the last 3 years of monthly rolling 12-month lost energy from our portfolio, which is obviously a very pleasing trend. Again, I think reflecting the work the team has done, restoring some of our units to service and ensuring that we've had very high availability and reliability from that portfolio. Dam safety is another area that gets a significant amount of attention from Manawa. We are one of New Zealand's largest dam owners. and have a very robust program of ascertaining and managing our dam safety risks across their portfolio. One key project that has just reached practical completion for the substantive civil works is related to our Arnold project on the West Coast in the South Island. And that work has been successfully completed, which has significantly benefited our overall portfolio dam safety risk profile. Matahina is our single largest asset in the Bay of Plenty. We replaced the first of 2 turbines or runners on that unit that was successfully commissioned earlier in the year. And the chart on the lower right there just shows the improvement, as you would hope from a modern runner and the efficiency gains we get from that. And that particular runner is matched to sort of the more common lower flow profiles we see on that scheme. So, that gives us a considerable uplift in annual energy production from Matahina in the order of 12 gigawatt hours a year. And we're now underway with replacement of the other turbine or runner, and that will be -- is expected to be fully commissioned around midyear in 2025. Bream Bay, as I alluded to earlier, a relatively small asset, but does provide us with some portfolio risk cover, also provide some regional resilience as was observed during an outage earlier in the year in Northland, and we've been able to restore the capacity to circa 8 megawatts following some units that have been offline for a period at that asset. Pleasingly, we've also seen the full restoration of the Esk scheme in Hawke's Bay. We saw significant damage to that infrastructure over the course of Cyclone Gabrielle in early '23. That's taken some time to work through, but we're now back at full capacity. And in fact, the team have been able to improve the efficiency and performance of that asset, with some of the work they've done over that period. And then finally, as noted here, obviously, Manawa has an interest in King Country Energy. The Mangahao scheme, which is the most significant asset in the KCE fleet, also has a significant amount of attention and focus at the moment and some of the work we're doing there will also see an uplift in annual production, as well as an improved dam safety profile in the coming months. We've shown this slide a number of times previously. I think this is just reinforcing the benefits that we'll accrue from the investment in our strategic asset enhancement program. Some of this has also -- has already been captured, of course, in terms of some of the projects I've alluded to, but it's really showing the sort of the look through. We do clearly have some impacts in the nearer term as a result of outages that are associated with these major capital works programs, Highbank being a case in point, but we're looking at a circa 1,950 to 1,980 gigawatt hours from FY '27 through FY '29 as our sort of expected average baseline from the hydro portfolio, which is a circa 80 gigawatt hour uplift from prior years. Thanks, Phil. Talk briefly about some of the activity in the development and reconsenting space. Obviously, again, with Manawa's asset portfolio and the number of assets and schemes we have around the country, we have a fairly regular program ahead of us of reconsenting those assets and that infrastructure. We were successful in getting 4 projects on the schedule for the proposed Fast Track Approvals Bill. We won't see the legislation for that bill until the end of the year. However, we are confident that the one-stop shop that's been proposed through the Fast Track Approvals Bill will be beneficial not only for our reconsenting activities, but also for our new development, noting as we have many times that we remain vigilant and very focused on our stakeholder engagement and ensuring that we do a very robust job in the terms of the preparation of our environmental assessments, but also the engagement that must continue with those key stakeholders. So, Huriwaka and the Kaihiku Wind Farm, which is a 50% joint venture with Pioneer Energy, were both successful in getting on to the schedule as were the reconsenting activities for our Kaimai and Wheao hydroelectric power schemes in the Bay of Plenty. We have some other activities across the fleet, of course, that we've noted that we secured consents for both sites associated with the Argyle Solar Farm in Marlborough, which is a circa 65 to 70-megawatt AC solar project. In addition, the Mangorei and Motukawa schemes in the Taranaki region are in the final stages of consenting, working through conditions with council and other key stakeholders, and we expect to close that out in the not-too-distant future. Thanks, Phil. A brief update on our development pipeline. I think we noted that we tend to generally just focus on projects that we have fully secured land access and are confident about the optionality we have over those projects. I've talked to Argyle and the status of Huriwaka and Kaihiku. Both of those projects are in their final stages of preparation of the consent application. Our environmental assessments are expected to be lodged no later than Q2 calendar year '25. There's a few picks here of some of the work the team has been doing across those sites, installing wind monitoring masts at a couple of our projects, Hapuakohe in the Waikato region and Ototoka in the Whanganui region, and some work that's been going on, on our solar projects. And in addition to the projects we've talked about here, obviously, we have a bigger pipeline where we continue to progress key development works and obviously, continue to look for new prospects or sites that we can add to the pipeline to build that out for the longer term. I'll hand over to Phil now, and he'll take us through the next few slides. Thanks, Phil.

Thanks, Clayton. In early September, Manawa entered into a scheme of arrangement with Contact Energy, whereby Contact Energy will acquire all of the Manawa shares through a scheme of arrangement process. The details on this slide have previously been published both at the time the scheme of arrangement was entered into and subsequently at our Annual Shareholder Meeting. But just to reiterate a few of the key points in relation to the scheme. The scheme valued Manawa at $5.95 per share, and that comprises $1.16 per Manawa Energy share of cash and $0.5719 Contact Energy shares for every 1 Manawa share. That cash component is adjusted for any dividends that Manawa declare prior to the completion of the scheme. And as you would expect, the scheme arrangement is subject to a number of approvals, including the New Zealand Commerce Commission clearance. The clearance application was filed on the 27th of September, and the Commerce Commission has subsequently issued their statement of preliminary issues on the 23rd of October. But as we have noted here, the timing remains very much contingent on the various approvals. And our best estimate remains that a completion date in the first half of calendar 2025. In the meantime, it's critical that we are operating the business on a business-as-usual basis and continuing -- we're continuing to focus on a number of the things we've talked about today, the major asset refurbishment program with a lot of activity planned for the summer on that program and also progressing the development projects through the various consenting stages as we noted on the previous slide. And finally, just with a view to FY '25 guidance, we are today reaffirming our normalized EBITDAF guidance for FY '25 to be in the range of $95 million to $115 million. That is based on sort of the following sort of key assumption: hydro generation volumes of 1,750 gigawatt hours; current ASX forward pricing is being reflective of actual prices that we see in the second half of the year; normal hydrology and average wind offtake volumes; no material adverse events; no material change to the bad debt provision. And we just continue to sort of provide an update on our development OpEx, which we are expecting for this year to be $6.5 million of OpEx in that new development area. The capital expenditure guidance remains in the range of $40 million to $50 million, excluding capitalized interest. And finally, we noted in our 8th of August market update that an electricity retailer had defaulted on its payment obligations to Manawa. And as a result, Manawa has made a bad debt provision as a result of that default. Manawa acted effectively acted as a wholesale intermediary to that retailer. On the 8th of August, the same day as we announced our update to the market, we terminated the supply and services agreement with that retailer. And since that termination, we have received some cash, and we continue to work with that party to recover as much of the outstanding debt as possible. And I think that wraps up the formal presentation, and we can move to any questions that anyone might have either in the chat or if people want to give us those questions verbally.

Thanks, Phil.

Shall I take? There's a question from Grant Swanepoel in the chat. Is the bad debt provision still circa $17 million? And what is the half yearly split? Does the cash inflow reduce the provision? As I said before, we have received some cash that has improved our positions from where we were when we made the announcement on the 8th of August. Obviously, that is very commercially sensitive as to -- because we continue to be in negotiations and we continue to work with the other party. So, we're not in a position right now to provide any more details on the quantums involved. I think the next question is from Vignesh.

Clayton and Phil, can you hear me?

Yes. All good.

Great. Just a couple of questions. Firstly, just keen to hear how trading has been over October and early November? Obviously, sort of the reason being the guidance range is fairly wide, around about 20% and midpoint kind of implies 30% half-on-half growth. Like keen to hear what things in your control sort of swing the full-year result either towards the top end or the bottom end?

Yes. I mean, conditions have been markedly different to the prior months. I mean, obviously, what we saw from mid-August was there was the Methanex gas deal that started blowing again. The inflows ramped up significantly. The snowpacks increased significantly, not that has an immediate impact, of course, but it impacts people's view on future risk and inflows in the future. And we saw a very, very material softening in market prices. So, I think the challenge for us has been at a period of extreme stress in the market, very much at the bottom of the tank, the bottom of the bath tub, if you like, on our storage, literally nothing left. We were into minimum operating range at Cobb and to very really used range at Coleridge and nearly at the bottom of the barrel at Waipori, right? So clearly, it was prudent for us to be thinking about our portfolio risk, and we've indicated we did do some hedging. As you would expect that it's elevated pricing that is going to weigh on us for a few months in H2 as well in tandem with the fact that we have seen very softening prices. Now, somewhat offsetting that for us is the fact that it's clearly good for us and good for the country going into next winter to see a significant recovery in key storages across not only our portfolio but nationally. So, that gives us some options for the balance of the year in terms of how we think about production volume, obviously, we being very mindful and prudent about our position going into next winter. But I think it's fair to say that conditions have been very soft, right? We've seen intraday pricing anywhere in simple terms between 0 and $150, but very volatile, very impacted by is there wind or not. When there's wind, prices are extremely soft given the amount of storage that's been available, right? So, I think the overall message here is that if you go back to our market update and downward revision earlier in the year, we have seen some improvement in the Prime provision. As Phil indicated, we don't think it's appropriate for us to provide too many details around that now given we're still working through what is clearly a very sensitive commercial matter with the other party. We have seen a significant recovery in storage. The downside on that, I think, is generally significant softening in market prices, which goes through to how our hedges settle, not only the Mercury hedge, but obviously also the acquired generation, which is largely the wind volume. And we have some impact from the hedging cover that we took earlier in the period as well.

So is it fair to say where you sit in that $95 to $115, it kind of comes down to the fourth quarter probably?

Yes. That's probably a good way to think about it, Vignesh. I think, as I say, we have some options having replenished our storages. Clearly, if you look at the ASX, prices have softened or reduced considerably, particularly through to January, and they're a bit stronger in February and March. So, obviously, we will have a look at that period and our overall portfolio position at that time, market prices, et cetera. But I think we have some ability to have more of an influence in that final quarter for the financial year. That is correct.

That's very clear. And secondly, just on the dividend, obviously, a 50% cut today. How should investors think about the second half? Is it sort of a similar style to the first half, or maybe the second half of last year is probably a better reflection?

Yes. I mean, look, again, as Phil covered it well, I think, is that we've had a very challenging first half. The full-year result is clearly not where we want it to be, right, for the factors we've outlined. The directors have obviously considered the overlay of the scheme, shareholder expectations, et cetera. I think at this stage, it's too early to say how that will land. Over the next few months, there will be more of a view potentially around completion of the scheme. But I think let's see how we trade out the rest of the year, and the Board will make a call on that in due course.

Grant, you've got a follow-on question on the -- in terms of the bad debt provision there. Maybe I'll just quickly address that one. The question is, is it split between halves? I think if I understand what you mean there, is the impact on earnings split between the 2 halves? The answer to that is, yes, we have fully provisioned in this result for what we think the final net result will be. And absent any unforeseen changes to that position, then it wouldn't have any impact on the second half. But it is still work in progress. We are still working with the other party and that we can't give absolute -- any absolutes on that front.

Andrew?

A couple of follow-up questions really for me. Just first of all, on the dividend, I guess, given the scheme that's there and in many ways, if the deal goes through, it doesn't really matter what the dividend is because it just gets adjusted. But if for whatever reason the deal does not go through, can we expect, I guess, some sort of catch-up in the second half in the dividend there? Would that be a reasonable assumption to work with?

Look, the reality is, Andrew, it's difficult to answer that question. I think there was a few -- it depends, right? In terms of, as you say, the scheme is clearly a fairly significant overlay and factor for consideration by the Board. But I think we just have to see where we land and what factors and outcomes are more or less known at that time. Should we get through the full year? The scheme hasn't completed. For whatever reason, delayed, not happening, whatever the outcome might be, right? So, I think it's probably not prudent for us to speculate at that at the moment. But obviously, we have a dividend policy. The Board is aware of expectations from shareholders in that regard. But again, clearly, there will be an impact on the total full-year dividend given our forecast for full-year outcomes.

Yes. Okay. And second question I just had, I guess, was a bit of a follow-up on the provision. Are you able to give us any indication of when you might have, I guess, more certainty around where that lands and when you'll be able to disclose to the market, I guess, the sort of the final wash-up?

Sort of -- look, it's a bit of a complex scenario, right? I think the dramatic sort of shift in market conditions has also had an impact on how we approach and work with the other party on the outcomes here. So, we realistically expect that it will be a few more months for us to work through this. Obviously, it's important for us to get the best possible outcome for Manawa and shareholders of what has been a very poor outcome overall given what eventuated. So, I think we're not quite there yet, but I expect it would not be until the new year at the earliest.

Okay. And then just to confirm for net debt provision has gone through the other operating expenses line. That's the reason for the big increase there.

Yes, that's correct, Andrew.

Any other questions? Give it a few more seconds. Looks like that's all. Okay. Well, thank you, everyone, for your attendance today. Appreciate that, and we'll look forward to seeing you all again soon. Thank you.