Neoenergia S.A. (NEOE3) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, and welcome to the conference referring to Q3 results for 2022 at Neoenergia. This presentation will be led by Eduardo Capelastegui, the company's CEO; and Mr. Leonardo Gadelha, the company's CFO. I'd like to remind you that this conference is being simultaneously transmitted through a webcast, which can be accessed through ri.neoenergia.com, where we also have the slide presentation available. [Operator Instructions] This conference is being conducted in Portuguese and there is simultaneous interpretation in English. [Operator Instructions] This event is also being recorded, and the recording will be available at the Investor Relations website, by Neoenergia. We would like to clarify that any statements that might be made during this conference call regarding Neoenergia's business prospects, projections, operating and financial goals constitute beliefs and assumptions of the company's management, and they are also based on information currently available by Neoenergia. Forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of performance as they involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. They refer to future events and therefore, depend on circumstances that may or may not occur. Investors should understand that general conditions, industry conditions and other operating factors may affect the company's future results and may lead to results that materially differ from those expressed in these forward-looking statements. I would now like to give the floor to Mr. Eduardo Capelastegui. Mr. Capelastegui, you may continue.

Thank you very much, operator. Good morning. I would like to thank everyone for being connected today with us, this conference call for presenting Q3 results and also for year-to-date results of 2022. My name is Eduardo Capelastegui. I'm Neoenergia's CEO. And once again, we are very proud of the results we're going to share with you. I have with me Solange Ribeiro, VP Director of Regulation IR and Sustainability; Mr. Leonardo Gadelha, who's the company's CFO; Juliano Pansanato, Executive Director of Planning and Control; Fulvio Machado, Networks Executive Director; and IR Director, Renato Rocha. My presentation will be brief with the main highlights, and then Leonardo will give more details about the results. After that, we're going to have a Q&A session. And finally, I will come back for the concluding remarks. Moving to Slide 4. We have the highlights for Q3 this year. Our cash EBITDA without noncash impacts coming from BNR and IFRS 15 and the GSF agreements from Q3 '21. The cash EBITDA had a growth of 28%, it reflects the success of the recent tariff reviews in our different businesses, also the performance at Termopernambuco as well as the advancement in construction projects, both in transmission and renewables. Net income in Q3 reached BRL 1.5 billion, 17% higher than Q3 2021. This is the result of our execution capacity and also the advancement of our transmission, wind and solar projects. It's also the result of investing in distributors. We have a CapEx of BRL 2.6 billion in Q3 2022. On October 3, we were very successful at the OPA by the remaining shares and the conversion of Neoenergia Pernambuco. We've had an addition of 88.2% of the free float, which allows us to do the squeeze out that is about to be approved in the shareholders assembly that will take place on October 28. Neoenergia now holds 98.78% of Neoenergia Pernambuco's capital, and we hope to reach 100% after the squeeze out. The operation is about simplifying the company's structure. It was executed with a buying ratio of 1.2 EV per RAB. We've also finished Q3 '22 with 3.13x the ratio of net debt/EBITDA is a fully controlled leveraging level aligned with Q4 '21. Finally, in this quarter, we've had BRL 678 million, referring to tax coming from the premium in acquiring Neoenergia Brasilia. This will allow us to reduce the quote of the distributor below 20%. This is aligned with what was foreseen in our business plan. All these highlights show once again the sound and sustainable results we've had in Q3 '22, and which we are also delivering throughout 2022. Moving to Slide 5 now. Let's see our expansion projects. Talking about transmission, we keep on advancing in all fronts. In the December 2018 thoughts, we are looking at the first deliveries for late 2022, plus as well as the lot that we won in December 2019. Regarding the lots from December 2020, we have 100% of materials and services already hired. And the expectation is reaching all licenses by November this year. As for the lot from 2020 -- December 2021 we obtained a waiver from the environmental licensing. Once again, this reinforces the very low risk that we see in the execution of this project. Regarding the lots from the June 2022 auction, as for Lot 2, the largest one, we already have 89% of the CapEx. This includes hedge both for currency and for commodities. This reduces a lot the risk of frustration regarding the CapEx savings. It is important to highlight that, together with the government of [indiscernible] and negotiations with them, we've included in lot 2, a list of priority projects for this state. So this puts us in a very positive position regarding licensing. As for renewables, we have excellent news as well. The Oitis complex has already 259 megawatts under operation both in test and commercially. This shows the success of the execution of this project, which will reach 566 megawatts. And it will be delivered in the next few months. This will provide the return that was defined in the business plan. Our first photovoltaic complex at Luzia also has more than half of its capacity under operation. We've reached 124 megawatts power. And just like Oitis, this will be delivered in the next few months. In Luzia, I want to highlight the right of association with the wind complex of Chafariz. This right was obtained recently and increases by more than 100 points the return of this project. It will generate considerable reduction in the TUSD, the rate for transmission. So it will surpass the returns foreseen in our business plan. Finally, on Slide 6 -- on Slide 7, my apologies. I would like to share the excellent performance at Neoenergia Brasilia. From all perspectives, the turnaround at Neoenergia Brasilia is a success, and it allows us to move ahead of our business plan. In terms of losses, Q3 '22 is the seventh consecutive quarter with reduction in losses. We are now at 12.18%, moving towards being according to regulation. As for collection, results are also exciting. One year ago, we had a performance of 96%, whereas now we are at 97% and 98%, almost aligned with all the 4 distributors. This is all the result of the incorporation of intelligence and discipline in our actions of cutting and collection. As for OpEx, we're clearly at a different level of expenses. We've accelerated to frame ourselves in the regulatory OpEx. This is the result of our severe culture and of our constant search to reach efficiencies at Neoenergia. As for DEC and FEC coming from changes in the management of our investments, we've surpassed the regulatory standards at DEC, FEC by 5.38x, and we are close to getting the same at DEC with 7.91 hours. This is already a performance below the DSC (sic) [ DEC ] required by this concession, which is of 8.45 hours. I will now give the floor to our CFO, Leonardo Gadelha, and he will give more results about Q3 2022. Leonardo, please.

Thank you, Eduardo, and good morning, everyone. Well, as Eduardo mentioned, another quarter with quite consistent results. So moving to Slide 8 now. We see an evolution of our margins. It's important to highlight that in this quarter, we had a specific impact, which was a deflation of 1.32%. It led the VNR. So the updating of the asset of this concession, this was negative. Therefore, this had a reduction for this quarter. Taking away the impact of VNR and IFRS 15 of transmission and also of the GSF agreement, the consolidated gross margin of this quarter grew by 27%. This is the result of the impact of the readjustments since/V there were better results in renewables. We also have the Oitis and Chafariz complex and also in Liberalized, we had good results in Termopernambuco. In this quarter, we still present good performance in operational expenses. There is a growth of 11% versus Q2 '21. This absorbs the pressure of inflation. There was an increase in the number of customers, and we have more projects in transmissions and renewables. They represent about 2% of this increase. So this increase throughout the period without the impact of the projects was about 9%, very aligned to the period's inflation rates. In Slide 9. Here, we have our EBITDA. Just like margins, this suffered the negative impact of the update of the VNR. So the cash EBITDA without noncash items, such as VNR, had a difference of 28% versus last year. It reached BRL 2.52 billion this quarter. So this is quite a strong growth, just like we've had in the last quarters. This quarter as well a net income of BRL 1.49 million. This is a growth of 17% when compared to Q3 '21. I want to highlight, as already Eduardo said, that this quarter, we had BRL 678 million coming from the incorporation of Bahia PCH by Neoenergia Brasilia, which offsets the pressure in the financial results line due to the increase in interest rates. On Slide 10 now. As to CapEx, this quarter, we've had a total of BRL 2.55 billion in CapEx. The highlights here are BRL 1.5 billion in distribution, BRL 618 million in transmission works, BRL 354 million in renewables, highlighting here the Oitis and Luzia projects. These are projects that began operation this quarter. In 9 months, we've reached BRL 7.1 billion. It shows that we are aligned with our CapEx plan for the year, which is of about BRL 10 billion. This is the year of greatest CapEx foreseen in our business plan, which confirms our execution capacity. On Slide 12, we will talk about networks now. Here, we see a variation in injected energy. This is an information that we already shared with the market. There was a decrease of 2.3% in the 5 distributors as we mentioned in a notice to the market. This quarter, once again, we felt the impact of lower temperature, higher rainfall levels. And also a final rally we've seen from clients that are migrating to distributed generation or GD in Portuguese. Both Neoenergia Coelba, Cosern and Elektro, they will have tariff revisions in 2023, which is positive because it will define the new market, and it will contemplate this loss for distributed generation. On Slide 13, speaking of distributed energy, again, we've already talked to the market about this, the evolution of energy in our 5 distributors, this quarter showed a reduction of 1.2%. The total number of consumers has reached 15.9 million. So that's an increase of almost 300,000 clients in a period of 12 months. On Slide 14, we speak of losses. Once again, we've had a good performance this quarter, with a decrease in all distributors, except for Elektro, but Elektro is quite well fitting the regulatory limits. Brasilia, as Eduardo said, with a better performance than the plan, moving us closer and closer to regulatory limits before the date foreseen. Now talking about delinquency levels on Slide 15. We see the performance of the 5 distributors. In Q3, we've capped delinquency levels quite under control, just like in last quarters, our PECLD is aligned with the pre-COVID standards. It reached a provision of BRL 127 million this quarter. This is aligned with Q2, and it shows the success of our initiatives of cut and collection and also of all means of payments made available to our clients. This has led to high collection levels for all distributors. Speaking on quality, DEC/FEC. On Slide 16, we show that our quality indicators, both for DEC and FEC distributors they have good performance in spite of the rains that we've had this quarter. We have been suffering with rains in previous quarters. And I wanted to mention that we are already aligned to regulatory limits and all of them in spite of a couple of variations this quarter, except for Neoenergia Brasilia. As we said, this is very close to be fitting the DEC or hours limit in our concession contract. Speaking now of network results on Slide 17. We see an evolution of 22% in the cash margin for Q3. That's BRL 2.83 billion, which is caused by the readjustments and the revision of Parcel B. Networks OpEx in this quarter grew by 15%, and it's 12% year-to-date. Again, if we look at the impact of the transmission projects, they represent 2% of this increase. On Slide 18, we see the network EBITDA. The cash EBITDA for Networks grew by 23% this quarter, and it reached BRL 1.91 billion. That's the result of tariff readjustments and also of the operations of projects of transmission such as Dorados, Santa Luzia and Jalapão. The net income of this business of networks reached BRL 1.18 billion this quarter. That's a growth of 14% compared to Q3 '21. This had an impact of the incorporation, as I mentioned, for the consolidated figures. On Slide 20, we cover results for Renewables and Liberalized energy. A very strong performance on both ends. In Q3, the Renewables EBITDA reached BRL 350 million. That is a growth of 27% versus Q3 '21, excluding the impacts of the GSF agreement. So the EBITDA on the left-hand side of the slide, we see hydro and wind. Well, hydro EBITDA is flat this quarter. And as for wind, the EBITDA grew by 42%, reaching BRL 265 million this quarter. This is the result of the operations at the complexes of Chafariz, Oitis, and also Luzia this quarter. On the right-hand side of the slide, we see the Liberalized area it reached an EBITDA of BRL 329 million in Q3. That's an increase of 59% versus Q3 '21. We've had a very strong quarter and results for Termopernambuco, the EBITDA is BRL 318 million. It did not operate, and it benefited of the purchase at a low PLD. Also NC had an EBITDA of BRL 11 million, contributing to this result for Liberalized energy. Let's speak about the capital structure on Slide 22. We finished Q3 with a net debt of BRL 34.9 billion, a slight increase versus Q2, basically due to the CapEx of our plan. The net debt-to-EBITDA ratio is 3.13x, a little bit above Q2, but aligned with previous quarters. This increase for this quarter was mainly caused by the negative inflation that I mentioned before, it hurts the VNR specifically for this quarter, actually. So that has an impact in our EBITDA and in our leveraging levels. Still on Slide 22. This year, we still expect leveraging at the levels of 3x the ratio due to the execution of CapEx, this is still below foreseen in the original plan. The structure of our debt makes us very comfortable it's quite well distributed for the next few years, reaching an average maturity of over 5 years. We've disbursed up to today, more than BRL 11 billion in new funding. And as I mentioned last quarter, we have addressed all the funding needs with the market as for 2022. So we only have the disbursement of lines -- of credit lines that have been hired with development banks. Our debt is quite diverse when it comes to sources and indexes. It just shows our execution capacity. This is, again, as I said before, the year of highest CapEx in our business plan. Well, having said now, I give the floor back to the operator, let's move to the Q&A session.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Mr. Andre Sampaio from Santander.

I have a question about your asset sales process, both for hydro, Termopernambuco, and maybe selling shares and distributors. Do you have any timing comments? Do you think of having binding or nonbinding offers? Can you please comment on these processes?

Hello, Andre. Good morning, and thank you for your question. Well, as you know, we are in a process of assessing our assets and looking at opportunities, basically focusing on different lines. One of them is nonstrategic assets for Neoenergia. So we have Belo Monte, as you know, and some other assets that either because we don't control them or because the return is low or it makes more sense for other agents to be there. The other line we are looking at is the growth line. And in it, we are looking for investors, who want to join us in this growth journey. Both operations are out in the market moving forward very well. We have parties interested in all of them. We still don't have any binding offer and as I mentioned before, we expect that little by little, all of them will become concrete throughout the next few months. We want by the end of the first semester of to have dealt with it. We have interested parties, and this makes sense to Neoenergia. We had to price these then it has to make sense for everyone, of course. We believe that this is an interesting business. It has just started. But yes, we are participating in the process of building this regulation. And parallel to that, with our internals, we are working with them so that the pipeline becomes more mature. So yes, we are favorable to the regulation that was announced, but we believe it still needs to be further developed, and we are an active participant in this process.

Our next question comes from Carolina Carneiro from Credit Suisse.

I have 2 questions. The first one is about the BRL 678 million book that came from the incorporation of Bahia CCH (sic) [ Bahia PCH ] by Neoenergia Brasilia. I would like to understand if this is a premium that you will be able to amortize. I remember you mentioned this before when you acquire this. I just want to understand if this is a stand-alone move if you are booking this now or if you're going to do anything later on? The second question comes back to this point of the portfolio recycling strategy, I would like to understand specifically for transmission. Are you looking for a financial partner because you don't want conflicts with the asset? Or could the company also associated with other companies from the energy sector looking at these transmission assets? And also, if you could tell us a little bit about the timing you were looking at? I know you probably cannot make any promises, but just to give us an idea, is this is a short-term process or can it still take a while?

Hello, Carolina. As to your first question, regarding the premium incorporation, well, this is essentially -- well, when we acquired Brasilia in 2021, we acquired it at a premium, just like we did with other distributors. And now we have the approval of the National Energy Association or ANEEL to incorporate this premium into Brasilia. So we will start -- now the depreciation or the amortization of this premium that was included. It's BRL 30 million per year, which means a reduction of taxes due. So that means 34%. It depends on the year, but it will reach 20%, 21%. We already have this in Pernambuco and other distributors. And we did this way in the past. At Elektro, we've done this as well. So yes, we feel very comfortable and the National Energy Agency has agreed on that. So now what we have to do is to amortize yearly this amount, this premium that was incorporated into the Brasilia balance. This will generate a deductible that will be reduced throughout the lifetime of this concession. From an accounting perspective, this is a benefit that we see right now. In cash, we have to pay BRL 30 million less year after year. So that will happen throughout 20 years. As to your second question, Carolina. It's just a financial partner. We are not thinking of having an industrial partner for that. Because the idea is not to sell the asset, is to bring a financial investor that prices the assets correctly, so that the market sees this price, but also to reinforce our balance structure and to help us grow. This partner that would join -- for those that are under operation, there would also be a commitment to come in as future lots also come into operation. It's a long-term partnership. Right now, we have 8 or 9 lines under operation. So there would be immediate cash, of course, but this is a process that would happen through time. The management of the operation of these lines would fall under Neoenergia. That doesn't change. Well, and there are lots that are built and funded. So these are assets that for a financial partner will be interesting. We have many parties interested. We signed NDAs for this operation. As for timing, our goal is the first semester of 2023. We would like to have this finalized between March and June next year. If everything goes well, we could have this by March or maybe a little bit later. But this is first semester of 2023. It's a complex operation. So a realistic time line is the first semester of '23 in our opinion.

Next question comes from Daniel Travitzky from Banco Safra.

Can you please comment a little bit about the transmission or the transmission auctions that will take place next year. How are you thinking about the capital allocation strategy when it comes to debt? What funding sources would you access? And what are the lots you are interested in when we think of high tension lines? And we have also lower tension lines. If you could comment on both, please?