MPC Energy Solutions N.V. (MPCES.OL) Q3 FY2025 Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, and good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to today's webcast for MPC Energy Solutions. In our webcast today, we will review our results for the third quarter of the year 2025. The quarterly report was published this morning, and it's available on our website. Just as a reminder, please note that this webcast is being recorded, and it will be published later together with the transcript and the presentation slides on our website as usual. We are happy to answer your questions after the presentation. So please feel free to type them into the text box, and we will cover them in the Q&A session at the end. Now just as a reminder, we will be making certain forward-looking statements in this call. Please refer to the disclaimer included in the presentation for details on those forward-looking statements. Now let me introduce you to Stefan Meichsner, who will lead you through the presentation today. Stefan, over to you.

Thank you, Heike, and a very good afternoon and sincere welcome to everyone dialed into the call. And in today's webcast, I will address two main subjects. First, a detailed review of our third quarter and the year-to-date results. And afterwards, I will share my thoughts on what our shareholders, you, can expect next with regards to a number of different areas, both operational and strategic. I'd like to begin by saying that overall, 2025 has been good to us so far. If we look back to 2.5 years, MPC Energy Solutions was a very different company, certainly with loftier ambitions, but less focused, less well structured, less well prepared, and that has changed very much, and this is something that we're seeing in the results that we're presenting here today. To borrow, let's say, a proverb from my colleagues on the shipping side, you cannot control the wind, but you can certainly direct the sail. And I believe we have done that successfully. We have been decisive. We have been pragmatic. We've made a lot of adjustments. And now I think we're very much moving in the right direction. With that, let us take a look at the highlights and main events of the third quarter of 2025. First and foremost and most importantly, the key metrics that we're reporting, namely energy output, revenue from projects, operating profit from project is all up significantly year-over-year. And especially our operating margin has substantially improved. And this is both very important and also, I think, quite respectable. We can pair these solid operational results with a much lower overhead cost structure. Our overhead spending year-over-year is down 14%. And if you compare that to 2023, it's even down an astonishing 40%. So we've really looked hard at every single spending item that we have. And I think we've brought down cost to a level that is much more sustainable and helpful to the overall structure of our company. And I'm very happy that my predictions on the subject, which I shared during the last webcast, are now clearly visible, and they also have materialized. Equally important is our free cash position, which is now much higher than it was a few months ago. At the end of Q2, we reported a little over $2 million. We've now improved that free cash position to over $9.5 million. So I think that's very important. This is a result of a combination of factors, most predominantly, of course, our divestment of a project in Colombia, which we executed during the third quarter. But overall, the lower overhead spending, our real carefulness about spending on new developments, the overall lower run rate really come into play here and helps us to maintain a solid cash position also going forward. And lastly, though I will not go into details at this time, we have made and are still making progress on additional divestments. I don't want to jeopardize any ongoing discussions and negotiations here, but we should be able to share some information shortly, meaning in the coming weeks. And I think this is something that you, as shareholders, are very much looking forward to, and that will also impact necessarily our distribution strategy going forward. Unfortunately, not everything was positive. There is a grain of salt that I need to report on. As you know, we anticipated our project in Guatemala to finally start testing since we completed construction already several months ago, but we are still not there yet. The delay that we are experiencing mainly relates to permitting. And it's not just our solar plant that's affected. It also concerns the grid operator who needs to secure certain permits for the substations that we are connected to. So we have taken all reasonable and proper steps to accelerate the process, to conclude the permitting process. But we are, as I said last time, truly at the merit and the mercy of the national and regional authorities. And I can assure you that no one, really, no one is more frustrated about the slow progress that we're seeing. To the extent possible, we will certainly reclaim any commercial impact this delay has on us as a company and on the project. But for the moment, it's really just a waiting game. We have done our homework. Now the national authorities and the partners involved have to do this. So this is where we stand. And as a consequence, and I think this is no surprise, the consequence of a delay is that we are forced to slightly revise our year-end guidance. We are still within the range that we previously shared, but we are now firmly at the lower end of that range when it comes to revenues and to operating EBITDA from our projects. I will share the numbers that we are now looking at in greater detail later. So much for the general overview, I think it's now time that we look into some of the figures in depth. I already said that operationally, our key metrics are all up year-over-year. And you see this here like on white basically. Energy output is up 4% on a like-for-like basis. Revenue is up 7% on a like-for-like basis on top of the, let's say, good technical availability and output of the plant, which we're seeing despite experiencing lower solar irradiation levels across the region. Revenue is up significantly, and we are in part supported here by prevailing high energy prices, in particular, in El Salvador. As a consequence of the higher revenue, but also because our cost optimization measures inside the projects have really -- are really bearing fruit. Operating profit, which we measure as EBITDA, is even up 15% year-over-year, nearly meeting the $7 million, $6.8 million year-to-date at the end of September. And for me, most importantly, it's also reflected in the margin. We are finally at a level with 74% operating margin in our projects that we should be seeing from, let's say, a normal solar PV portfolio. And even though we are still seeing lower margins from Colombia and the project we just sold also contributed a lower margin, we are approaching as a portfolio level the numbers that we want to show. And there's really no reason why we would expect this to go down again, especially since we now sold one of our lower-margin projects in Colombia. This 74%, 75% operating margins from the portfolio should not only stabilize, but it should also be fairly safe to assume that we can maintain it going forward. So across the board here really, improved operational results, something that we can be proud of and something that puts us on a much more stable footing going forward. As I said, we can pair these good operational results with lower overhead expenses, which I will get to in a moment. But just as a quick reminder, what the portfolio looks like, we do have a project in Mexico, which is performing really, really well. Technical availability is high. Costs are down. When we took the project over 3 years ago, the margins were in the low to mid-60s. We're now at 76% operating margin, and that is basically very much a result of the hard work that the team put in to really make sure this is a properly managed solar PV plant and not just an asset that is performing under its potential. It no longer is. It's performing very well. And I'm sure that going forward, we will see good things out of Mexico. Same story as in El Salvador, where the plant is on its way to generate record energy output, record revenue and record operating profits this year. The margin still sits close to 90%, which has been the same in the past. It appears to be very sustainable as long as energy prices in the country remain where they are now, we will see results like this from El Salvador, and this is clearly also one of the driving factors behind the total operating results that we've seen. Also unchanged is the story we see in Colombia. We do have higher security costs. We overall do have higher operating costs, meaning that the margins are fairly low, including the project that we just sold, Planeta Rica, it will no longer contribute to revenues and profits in the future. It's now gone. And we are, as you know, also working on divesting the second project in Colombia. This is weighing down margins a little bit, but since the size of the remaining project in Colombia as part of the overall portfolio is relatively small, it's also not a matter of big concern. It's just something that we have to deal with. And I'm sure when we will be able to announce a signing of a sales agreement, everyone should be happy about that. Which brings me to the overhead expenses. The story here is really good. It took a lot of effort. It took a lot of pain. And of course, not everyone was happy with it because people are directly affected by what we've done. But it was clear that our overhead structure relative to the size of the portfolio was too high, and we took steps to reduce it. And I think what you can see here is really a very impressive downtrend over the years. Looking forward for the next 12 months, I don't think that we will be spending more than, let's say, $2.5 million, peak, over a 12-month period. You compare that to previous periods, it's clearly, a very astonishing cost reduction. At the same time, the question is, can we lower costs further? The answer is nearly always yes. But I think we will then have to look very carefully at the setup MPC Energy Solutions has to maintain because what is left now inside the, let's say, $2.5 million I'm forecasting for the entire next 12 months is payroll. It's the compensation of the Management Board and the Supervisory Board and then the larger structure that we maintain, including all the audit and legal and tax advisory fees that we need to keep this as a publicly listed company. So we've done tremendous progress. Scaling down costs further will require a much more substantial implementation of the structure or a change of the structure that we have established today. And then last but not least, for, let's say, the overall review, what we're seeing is that free cash is up significantly. As I said, lower spending, very carefully, money is going out on development only on a small scale, and we're making divestments. And these divestments increase our free cash. We sold the project in Colombia, Planeta Rica. We also collected additional money, about $1 million from the sale of our CHP plant last year. So overall, this is now going in exactly the right direction. We made good progress divesting projects, increasing free cash. We are also in really advanced stages of announcing additional sizable investments that we're planning. And you pair that with a lower overhead cost, and overall, we have good flexibility, good room to maneuver with the cash position that we're sitting on. And as I've said before, we are planning to return capital to shareholders in the very near future. The details, the timing that we want to communicate here, I ask for a little bit more patience. A proposal has been made, put up in front of the Board. It's being discussed. There are -- there is, let's say, a small preference of making a larger distribution once additional divestments have been made rather than handing out piecemeal amounts. But this discussion is still ongoing, and we will have greater visibility by the end of the year once we also have greater visibility on the Guatemala projects and commitments that might come out of that and also have greater visibility on, as I said, the additional divestments we are currently working on. If we look very briefly at how this translates into the consolidated financial statements, you will see very much the same story. Operating profit is up. The margins are up substantially. So that overall, I think we're looking at profit levels now and profit margin levels that are much more sustainable. We did take an impairment related to our sale of the Colombia project, not because we think that ultimately, we will be able to recover the value, but we have now received an upfront payment, which was quite substantial. It was nearly $7 million. And there are potential earn-out payments over the next 12 months that we might collect additionally. But we have now, let's say, removed the book value of the assets. And anything that comes in, in the future then is recorded as a profit in the next financial year. So this has been, let's say, a concise accounting decision to say we removed the project from our books. But as more money is expected to come in, then we treat this as an upside. And since this is a noncash impairment, I also believe that it's not super relevant or substantial relative to what we've shown as an overall group this year in our operating results. Looking at some of the other key financial metrics. Our total asset base is not changing very much. Guatemala is built, and therefore, the total asset base is what it is. There's no more CapEx going into the project. Other projects are in the operational phase already depreciating. So the total asset base is not moving much. The equity ratio sits firmly at around 37%, which is still compared to our peers, relatively under-levered, but we're fine with that. That's a comfortable position. Free cash, I reported on, was $8.7 million at the end of September. It's $9.6 million now. An additional $5 million is sitting in project entities in part waiting to be distributed to us. We are expecting cash back from some of our projects by year-end, which will then, again, increase the free cash position further. There's, of course, also money still sitting in projects, which is not freely distributable. It's needed to pay back debt or meet other ongoing commitments. So much for, let's say, the Q3 and year-to-date review. Just to sum up, again, good operational results, overhead are down. Free cash is up. We have room to maneuver. And the only downside is really that we still haven't connected or started the testing in Guatemala, but we're working on it, and it's a matter of time and not so much a matter of if it will happen. Which brings me to the big question of what's next, what can you, what can the investment community expect from our company going forward. And I've listed here a number of areas that I would like to address briefly. First is the year-end guidance. I mentioned that because of the delay in Guatemala, we are not factoring in any contribution from the project this year. This, of course, lowers our year-end guidance necessarily because Guatemala was part of that. In part, the lower contribution from Guatemala is compensated by the Colombian assets we still had and have because they were not considered in the original plan for 2025. And as a mixed effect of this, yes, we're lowering our guidance, but we're really lowering it just to the lower end of the previous range. So we now expect revenues to be $12 million at the end of the year, project EBITDA to be $9 million and group EBITDA to be $6 million, all on a proportionate basis. And especially the project EBITDA and group EBITDA would be new records for the company. I already mentioned that the operational start of Guatemala is delayed. Construction is completed. We have secured one of the three permits we need, and we are expecting an additional permit to come out of a regional authority meeting next week or the week after that. The timeline, however, as I said, it depends on other authorities, not on us. We cannot just issue it ourselves. The substations are also affected. The grid operator also needs to secure permits that he does not yet have. We have taken all reasonable measures at the end of the day. But we are, as I said, at the mercy of the national authorities. And I know that any prediction I've made on the subject, that I have received from our team, that I've shared with you consequently has so far always proven to be too optimistic. So what we will do is we will inform you once we actually start the testing. We have received the permits, and everything has been sorted out. But as I also said, it doesn't just depend on us. It also depends on the substations being ready to go. But overall, the project is built. It's in good shape. And once it will become operational, it's the biggest part of our portfolio. So I think it's perfectly okay to be patient and wait for that, even though I know it can be stressful, it certainly is for me. Which brings us to the cash distribution that we're planning to make to shareholders. The free cash position is relatively comfortable. We look at lower overhead spending, other very few commitments that we have to meet. So overall, we have room to maneuver, and we are, therefore, planning to make a cash distribution to our shareholders in the near future. That has already been agreed on Board level. It's now just a question of magnitude and timing, especially with regards to gaining clarity on Guatemala and especially also other divestments that we are working on. So we will communicate our plans in more detail before the year is out. It's now early November. So it's not that many weeks to wait for this. But please allow us to discuss what we want to do and how to best approach this. And then I think everyone should ultimately be happy with the outcome. Good. Heike, this completes my prepared remarks. I'm more than happy to hand the call back over to you for the Q&A, inviting everyone really to ask whatever is on your mind. You know that I will answer any and all questions. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Stefan. Right. As promised, we will now continue with the Q&A session. You still have time to type your questions into the message box on your screen. We will try to cover all the questions today, as Stefan promised. And yes, we received a couple of quite interesting questions. Stefan, some of them have been partially answered by you already. So I will try to maybe group one or two together so you can decide how much more detail you want to provide. So one of the questions, for example, is, in May, you were still confident that Guatemala would be producing electricity in July. Now it's November and only one of three permits has been granted. Why do you have no visibility on the process despite the long lead time? Is there a risk that it will drag on for further quarters? And perhaps grouping with this question came the question, what's the reason for the impairment charge related to Planeta Rica? And maybe you can group them together.

All right. So on Guatemala, again, there is no one, absolutely no one who is more frustrated about this than I am. And you're right. Contractually, we said it would be May, then it was pushed to July, then to October. Now we are once again being told, "Oh, by the way, we're not ready yet to issue the permit." We have submitted a lot of documents. We've answered all the questions, and now we have to wait. And what are we waiting for? We are waiting for the Board of national and regional authorities to come together and make a decision, which is just issuing the permit, and there's really no historic basis where this hasn't happened. So that's not really the risk. The question is when will they sit? Normally, they come together every month or every 2 weeks. So sometimes they put stuff on the agenda, sometimes they don't. So I know this is super frustrating. I know I would also love to have greater visibility, but I'm not in charge of the regional and national authorities in Guatemala, neither is any one of our team. And that is the sad truth that we are dependent on third parties to do their jobs, including the grid operator on the substations. And that's what we're waiting for. You asked whether this can drag on for additional quarters. I certainly don't hope so. Because I'm being assured once again that this issue will be resolved shortly. But as I said, our predictions so far have been too optimistic. I think even after nearly 6 years in the region, we're still underestimating sometimes how long things can take, even though we include buffers in our timelines, even though we really are careful about what we communicate. But at the end of the day, I know you want information. I'm trying to share that information. But at this time, I cannot promise you that we will be starting the testing and commissioning by year-end. And that's all I can say at this point. And it's a good operational year regardless, but I would have loved to communicate that Guatemala is finally generating revenue. We have to wait a little bit longer. As to the impairment of Planeta Rica, as I said, the asset had a remaining -- certain remaining value on our asset -- our balance sheet. We removed that value entirely, factoring in also transaction costs related and the money that we received upfront. And now we are waiting for additional earn-out payments over the next 12 months, which will then be recorded as a profit. So we're basically being very careful here. We are preempting expense, if you will, by just impairing the asset, including any transaction costs related to this. And then moving forward, whatever comes in next is just a profit and an increase of the free cash position so that we don't have to bother about making constant assessments of what we think remaining fair value is in this case. We're being careful. I think it's commercial prudence that we're taking. But that is a decision that was made.

Understood. Now there's a question that ties into the same topic, a question regarding Guatemala. The authorities seem to have been highly unpredictable in terms of permitting time, which has obviously caused lost income. Do you expect to receive a compensation for this later on?

We will certainly take any steps at our -- or methods -- tools at our disposal to reclaim any of the lost income. We need to also factor in that once the operation starts, the PPA tenure starts. So at the moment, we have to carry some additional monthly expenses, which are not neglectable. But at the end of the day, we're not losing absolute value in terms of income. We're losing relative value, present value -- net present value of income. And we will try to reclaim that. The question then becomes who's responsible for this? And of course, the different parties involved, ourselves, the grid operator, our offtaker, the authorities, everyone has his or her own view. And at one point, we will come together and discuss how best to allocate the extra costs. We will do our best to reclaim part of it. First and foremost, top priority is to move that back to later because now we just need to solve the issue. And once the plant is operational, everyone is happy, including the authorities, including the grid operator and us. And once that is resolved, we will think about how we can best make sure that we are fairly compensated for the waiting time. So we're certainly not forgetting about this, but I think the priority is very clear. Let's get the plant up and running, let's get the substations up and running, and everything else will follow.

Sure. Now there's a lot of interest, obviously, in the Planeta Rica project. So another question that ties into this. Could you please clarify in what sense the $1.4 million impairment for Planeta Rica is voluntary given that both the sale price and the book value should be determined at the time of the transaction?

Yes. And this is exactly what we did at the time we calculated with different exchange rates when that was determined. So there is a currency effect that we're seeing. And in the book value that we maintained in line with what we discussed with our auditor at the time, we also consider part of the earn-out payments that we're expecting. And I just decided to remove these remaining potential payments now because I think this financial year where it's perfectly fine to do so, also looking ahead of what I expect to happen in the remaining few weeks. And therefore, that's the voluntary decision. At the end of the day, additional money will come in, and then we will record that. And we don't have to record it against then the future impairment expense, but rather something that we can take as an upside. So I don't see what else I can say about this.

Sure. Now there's a more specific question. What is the timeline for recovery of Guatemala and VAT?

Yes, that's a good question. Thank you for this. So the VAT that we have as a receivable on our balance sheet, which is around $4 million, can be reclaimed once operations start. And then it depends, of course, on the level of revenue. We believe it will take 18 to 24 months following the operational start to recover the full amount, more towards, let's say, the first 18 months. So it will be relatively quickly once we start operation. And there's also precedents in Guatemala and in these projects that this will materialize. So here, it's also, again, a matter of timing rather than a question of whether it will happen.

Okay. Then moving on the more general questions. Group EBITDA after overhead is up $3.7 million after -- at $3.7 million after 9 months, but operating cash flow minus $3.4 million. Why this big difference?

Well, we referenced this in our report, the Q3 report that we published, under IFRS, certain cash flows, like the VAT charge that we're taking in Guatemala or also interest paid on bank debt in the projects, is recorded as an operational cash flow. And that's why you still see a discrepancy because especially the financial expense is recorded below EBITDA naturally in the income statement, but it's factored into the operating cash flow. And there, you have a discrepancy. If you take these out, then you will actually see that operating cash flow is much closer to the actual operating profit that we're reporting. But the rules under IFRS stipulate that we have to allocate it to operating cash flow, and that's where the difference is coming from mainly.

Thank you. Another financial question. Cash flow from financing activities is $7.2 million after 9 months. Is this from proceeds? From project finance loans? If so, for which projects, and why were these expanded?

I don't understand what expanded means, but this is mainly related -- it's a net result of the additional money we called from the loan for Guatemala. There's a $34 million total loan, and there's roughly $9.1 million we only called this year. So this is the increase that you're seeing, the positive impact. And then this is netted by loan repayments we've made for other projects. So this is how the total number is put together. So it's cash in from the bank in Guatemala to spend on the project, and then it's repayment of loans in El Salvador and Mexico.

All right. Now a more general question. How long from start of test to being operational is actually normal in the business?

Well, for Guatemala, we have a 2-week testing schedule. During this testing, by the way, we are still energized, and energy is actually generated, and we can sell that energy to the market. So the start of testing is actually also when we will start generating revenues. So we allocate a 2-week period for the total testing schedule because we have some experience now, let's say, it's 3. But during this time, we will also be -- already be generating revenues and profits. And then after the testing and commissioning is complete, to get the official COD certificate, is another 2 to 3 weeks. So I would say from the start of testing to, also, legally speaking, being fully operational, is a 4- to 6-week period.

All right. Thank you. Now the next question, will you -- do you expect to have a positive operational cash flow in 2026 even without the Guatemala project?

Let's see. If everything else remains equal, meaning we also don't divest any other projects, which I think is unlikely, but let's just assume that is the case, then I would say we should have an operating cash flow that is indeed positive. Without Guatemala and let's say, lowering our overhead costs even further, breaking even on a net income level will be a challenge. Guatemala is the project that will move us across every reasonable threshold and turn us into a profitable company immediately. Without it, operating profit, I think, yes, operating cash flow, I also think, yes, because we've done the homework to achieve it. Net income will be a challenge.

Okay. The next question on the list is, do you need a clearer time line on the Guatemala project before you can decide on the size of a distribution? Or is it more realization of further divestments that holds you back?

I think that the main question is, do we want to make several smaller distributions or a larger one? And for that question, additional divestments are more relevant. At the same time, we need to be cautious because as long as Guatemala is not operational, there are ongoing costs. And at one point, the cash reserves of the project are no longer there. So we would have to fund it with additional capital, which is not the plan at the moment. We don't foresee it at the moment. But again, if the timeline is uncertain, we don't know. At the same time, the magnitude of these, potentially, additional investments won't be very high. So to answer your question, I would say it's visibility on further divestments over the next few weeks, which is much more relevant because that will translate into the question, smaller distribution now, larger one next year or just a larger one all at once at the right time.

All right. Now looking at the time, I think this brought us to the last question we can cover today. So if there are no more immediate questions coming up, this will conclude the Q&A session and also the webcast for today. Now of course, if there are any further questions that come up or questions that we have not covered today, please feel free to send them to us via e-mail at [email protected]. Now thank you, everyone, for joining us today. Have a great rest of the day.

Thank you all.