Transmissora Aliança de Energia Elétrica S.A. (TAEE11) Q2 FY2025 Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Taesa's Q2 Earnings Release Video Conference. We do have simultaneous translation available those who may need it. [Operator Instructions] We would like to inform you that this video conference is being recorded and will be made available on the company's IR website, where you will also find the earnings release. It is possible to download the presentation in English using the chat icon. [Operator Instructions] Please note that questions can be submitted during the presentation and will be read out live by the IR Officer, Cristiano Grangeiro and the IR specialist, Juliana Castelli and then answered by the Board of Directors during our Q&A session. We emphasize that information contained in this presentation and any statements that may be made during the video conference regarding Taesa's business prospects, projections and operations and financial targets are the beliefs and assumptions of the company's management and on the information currently available. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of performance since they involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions as they refer to future events and therefore, depend on circumstances that may or may not occur. Investors should understand that general economic and market conditions in addition to other operating factors may affect the future performance of Taesa and lead to results that materially differ from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. We invite you to first watch a video about the company, and then we will have Cristiano Grangeiro presenting the results. [Presentation]

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Taesa's Q2 Earnings Release video conference. [Operator Instructions] We hope you enjoy this video conference. Starting with Slide 3, we present an update on the commitments under our sustainability strategic pillar, also highlighting the importance of innovation in our journey. Beginning with racial diversity in leadership positions, we are proud to report that we have already met this year's target since 30% of our leadership roles are occupied by employees who self-identify as black. This is an important step forward in representation and equity, and we remain committed to reaching our goal of 50% by 2030. Moving on to Taesa's Educa project. We have reached over 1,800 participants across all Brazil in different regions like Santa Catarina, Mariana, Paraná and São Paulo. The main purpose of the project is to offer technical and professional knowledge to the communities where we operate, thus strengthening social ties and promoting local development. In terms of female inclusion and professional training, we continue to offer a preparatory course for electricians exclusively for women and free of charge. This continues to generate significant interest with 789 women that have applied so far, reflecting our commitment to fostering and valuing female talent in technical fields. In addition, women currently hold over 29% of our leadership positions, up 3.4% versus that of last year. We remain committed to promoting gender equality and building an increasingly diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace. Moving on to the progress of our projects based on technological innovation. I'm pleased to share that Taesa has been investing in solutions that combine technology, operational efficiency and safety. We have been innovating through the use of drones for inspections on our transmission lines. We are now in advanced testing phase for semi-autonomous flight drones, which leverage computer vision georeferencing and AI to standardize images of towers and their components. This is a landmark in transforming the way we conduct inspections today. In addition to enhancing safety by reducing the risks for those who previously needed to climb towers, this technology also drives operational efficiency. We estimate up to a 20% drop in inspection hours with large-scale adoptions. The test conducted in 2024 and 2025 on the 440 kV AC in summer and 525 kV AC on our power transmission lines were successful, and we continue refining the system to increase its capacity for component identification and analysis. Taesa currently holds over 50 drones, 3 of them are used exclusively for semi-autonomous inspection testing. On the environmental front, I highlight our wildfire monitoring initiative. In July, we installed 3 smoke detection cameras along critical sections of the 500 kV [indiscernible]. These cameras operate in real time, sending automatic alerts to our teams and enabling preventive actions and mobilizing our field brigades. This is a simple yet high-impact measure to protect our environmental assets and ensure operation continuity. Finally, one of the most innovative projects is the application of AI for intelligent monitoring of substations and towers. We know that these failures in transformers and reactors generate significant costs, whether through replacements, emergency maintenance or penalties for unavailability. Our solution aims to anticipate these failures through continuous monitoring of smart sensors. Since June, we have installed 44 noninvasive sensors at the Rio das Eguas substation. The sensors capture vibration, temperature, magnetic field and dissolved gas data, which are analyzed in real time by AI models. The results include early deviation detection, advanced failure prediction and greater accuracy and maintenance planning leading to higher availability and lower operating costs. In addition, since January, we also have installed accelerometers and sensors on 33 towers along the Assis Taesa line, monitoring mechanical stress, structural movements and meteorological variables, which allows for significant strengthening our predictive models. All these advances reflect our commitment to building a fair, more innovative company aligned with best ESG practices. This is just a part of our innovation agenda while respecting our purpose. We will keep advancing on the tech front, keeping in our mind our top priorities, safety, efficiency and sustainability. On Slide 4, we have our key achievements for the first half of 2025. Since December 2024, Taesa has been part of SEP, the special protection system locally designed to detect predetermined conditions as defined by electrical studies and automatically executed operational actions. The company has been designated as the master operator for SAP logic management, responsibility and operational coordination with 15 counterparties plus the ONS. It will help to increase capacity while reducing costs and helping to deliver clean energy. We also have 3 successful debenture issuances, Taesa's 17th and 18th issuances in addition to the first issuance of Aimorés and Paraguaçu. We also had the Lean Construction Workshop that is a methodology to reduce waste and become increasingly productive. We delivered Pitiguari project, and which went online before the regulatory deadline. We published our sustainability report before the shareholders' Annual Meeting to meet the shareholders' request to see the material before the meeting happened. Throughout this year, we have the Connect Project focused on upgrading the SAP 4HANA to modernize our system. We had Taesa Pitch Day to present innovative projects across the company to add value to the business and encourage entrepreneurship. We had 2 important steps of our regulatory process. We had the conclusion of the periodic tariff review, RTP which added BRL 17.6 million on the previous RAP, and we had ANEEL Resolution 3,841 (sic) [ 3,481 ] for the cycle 2025-2026 RAP that will be detailed as follows. As we do every Q2 earnings release on Slide 5, we have the new RAP cycle that will take effect starting next quarter from July 2025 to June 2026. Looking at the operational cycle, the new cycle is up 8.7% versus that of last year, which added BRL 318 million of RAP as of July. Inflation adjustments were 7.03% for contracts indexed to the IGPM and 5.32% for those indexed to the IPCA. As a result, Taesa's operational RAP had a positive impact of BRL 231.7 million due to this indexation adjustments. We also had the entry of Pitiguari and reinforcement of Novatrans and EBT part of TBE, which added BRL 70.5 million in RAP comparing the cycles. In addition, we saw a BRL 5.6 million RAP increase approved by ANEEL due to the supervisory process under the periodic tariff review. It is worth noting that last year, we had a negative impact of BRL 46 million from the RTP in some of our concessions. This is the regulatory process aimed at repositioning RAP to a level consistent with the investments made operating costs, quality standards and other factors. This approved increase is essentially a reversal of certain amounts determined last year during the RTP. Therefore, we will have this increase going forward in addition to a onetime recognition this quarter, which we will further detail. Our total operational RAP is BRL 4 billion in the 2025, 2026 cycle. Regarding new projects, it's worth noting that the projects currently under construction, once completed, will add almost BRL 436 million in RAP. Of this amount, we expect the completion of 3 greenfield projects, Tangará, Saíra and Ananaí and 4 large-scale reinforcements in the cycle together totaling BRL 376 million. Once all our projects are delivered, our total contracted RAP will total BRL 4.4 billion, up like what we had last year. Now we are going to highlight the results. We start with an 8.7% growth in operation or RAP between the 2026 and 2024 cycle, totaling BRL 4 billion. Our recurring regulatory EBITDA totaled BRL 1 billion in the first half of this year, up 2.7% year-on-year, driven by higher revenues and OpEx below inflation. We had a high operational performance with an availability rate of 99.94% and VP of 0.51% in the first half of the year. We had the completion of Pitiguari project about 2 years ahead of the regulatory deadline. Our CapEx grew, totaling BRL 747 million in the year, which is up 105% versus that of last year with early project deliveries and leverage under control. We had an efficient fundraising, both at Taesa's issuances and its subsidiaries, the first issuance of Aimorés and Paraguaçu. Our regulatory net income for Q2 totaled BRL 299.4 million, resuming growth in the year, driven by new revenues, improved variable portion and equity income. Earning distributions announced of BRL 299.4 million, equivalent to 100% of regulatory net income or 56% of IFRS net income in Q2. We will go through the next slides to give you further details. On Slide 7, we highlight the regulatory net income, which directly reflects the company's cash generation. We will delve deeper in the performance over the next slides. Our regulatory net income was up 7.2% quarter-over-quarter, totaling this year, BRL 621.3 million. In the first 6 months of the year, we were up 5.5%, totaling BRL 1.2 billion in the first half of 2025. our total EBITDA was BRL 521 million, up 7.5% and an 84% EBITDA margin above that of the previous period last year. In the first 6 months of the year, our EBITDA margin totaled BRL 1 million, up 7.2% and an 84.6% margin, which is above that of the same period of last year. Our availability rate, like we said, was 99.94%, up 0.66% versus that of last year. Our VP was 0.51% versus our AP in the 6 months period, which is a sizable drop versus that of last year that was up 2% of our RAP, which is about a 75% drop, which shows a good result, a good operational performance. Our regulatory net income totaled BRL 299 million, up 1.8% versus Q2 2024, which shows that we are resuming growth. When we look into the first 6 months, we totaled BRL 487 million up 0.9% versus that of last year. On Slide 8, we see our regulatory net income and everything that affected it. So it was up 0.9%, totaling BRL 487 million. This is especially important because we had a negative performance before. And this positive performance was mainly due to an increase of BRL 17 million in EBITDA due to the new EBITDA growth that is due by the increase in the RAP as a result of recent start-ups and one-off gain from a regulatory inspection process, which we will address later. But this increase was partly offset by the net financial income, cost of debt. We had an increase in depreciation and amortization and we also had an increase due to depreciation and amortization according to some of the assets used in 2024 and this year. And as you can see, our EBITDA totaled BRL 1 million, like we said before and an 84.6% margin, which is quite a positive performance that we will detail later on. As you can see in the chart, our EBITDA was up 7.2%, mainly due to -- we had a transmission revenue that had an increase of BRL 47 million due to an occasional increase of BRL 17.6 million due to the periodic tariff review, like we mentioned, the delivery of the improvement of Novatrans and Pitiguari reinforcement. And we had an increase of -- that helped this RAP. It's worth noting that IGPM, which adjusts 2/3 of our RAP was negative for the same cycle. The variable portion was positively impacted mainly due to greater impact events in Sant’Ana and Janaúba over the first 6 months of last year. Then we had a positive variation of about BRL 20 million. In the OpEx line, we see an improvement of BRL 5.7 million, mainly due to nonrecurrent expenses due to third-party costs and also OpEx. If we exclude these nonrecurring events, our adjusted OpEx was up 3.8% below inflation of 5.4% in the period, which shows our efficiency gains and our commitment. Our adjusted EBITDA, which is a pro forma view, excluding nonrecurring events previously mentioned and detailed in the earnings release, totaled BRL 1 billion, up 2.7% versus last year and a margin of 84.3% that is in line with what we had last year. On Slide 10, we have our IFRS net income. It's important to say that this is accounting based and therefore, does not directly reflect Taesa's cash generation. This accounting concept behind this figure is the concession contract asset following CPC 47 accounting practices. IFRS net income was up 12.5%, totaling BRL 875 million in the period. Some of the effects previously explained in the regulatory results also impacted IFRS net income, such as variations in the VP and the results of the tariff review. In addition, we have some large effects like a BRL 97.6 million increase in the margin of construction due to the advancements and investments of projects Tangará, reinforcement of Novatrans and the second part of -- the second phase of Saíra, BRL 89 million increase due to monetary revenue due to IPCA and IGPM. And these effects were partly offset by greater financial expenses totaling BRL 66 million and an increase in tax expenses and social contributions that totaled BRL 20 million. Those were partly offset by different effects. On Slide 11, we will see the progress of our projects under construction. It is worth noting that we had here the energization of the 2 last stages of Pitiguari. Pitiguari is a really, really successful project. It's important to say that we've delivered 2 Novatrans reinforcements, and we have delivered before the ANEEL deadline with a total authorized RAP of BRL 39 million. And, Juruá, which we won last year and that includes the substation facilities in the central area of São Paulo already has suppliers selected and the basic design is expected to be submitted by midyear now. Tangará is advancing well, particularly at the substations with the synchronous compensator expected to arrive soon. For Saíra, work at the substations continues to progress, including the HVDC equipment that has been cleared in Sweden for shipment to Brazil. We expect to conclude Saíra and Tangará in roughly 2 years ahead of the ANEEL deadline. For Ananaí, we mitigated the challenge caused by delays in obtaining the environmental license to IBAMA, starting stronger works on Ponta Grossa. We still have some important deliveries for this year. When we look at the CapEx of this year, we invested about BRL 700 million, indicating an acceleration compared to Q1. We will continue to accelerate investments over the next months to reach the expected BRL 1.6 billion to BRL 1.8 billion for the 4 projects and remaining reinforcements this year. The expected CapEx curve for the coming years remain unchanged. for 2026 between BRL 400 million and BRL 600 million and for 2027 between BRL 100 million and BRL 200 million. It's important to say that it's just our best current estimate, and it's subject to change in the future due to potential adjustments in the future. On Slide 12, we have the current debt situation of the company. In July, we have concluded the debenture issuance of Taesa. We had the deadlines of 7 years and 10 years. And both these issuances are indexed according to the IPCA. And considering the macro scenario, we decided to follow with a swap ensuring an even more competitive rate. Basically, in other words, we're able to finish the operation with NTNB minus 57 bps and NTNB with minus 44 bps, a swap DI of minus 0.73% and the swap DI of 0.79%. Although this issuance may not reflect the results so far, it was quite important. And it's really a green emission that was really important. In addition, we had the first issuance of Paraguaçu’ and Aimorés with 2 series each and similar deadlines, 5 and 7 years and similar pricing, although the total amount would change for each of them. The rates were quite efficient, DI plus 0.5% for 5 years and DI plus 0.59% for 7 years, which shows once again our ability to access money marks efficiently and different from our competitors. We will now talk about the current debt situation of the company. On the left, we show the recent history of net debt and leverage calculated as net debt over regulatory EBITDA on a proportional consolidation basis. At the end of Q2 2025, Taesa's total net debt was BRL 11.7 billion, considering all our equity stakes and leverage remained at 4.1x in line with the previous quarter. The average real cost of debt stands at 5.52% and an average maturity of 4.7 years. Our cash position closed the first half of the year at BRL 1.6 billion, and the debt index mix is 60% IPCA linked, 37% CDI linked and 3% IGPM linked, reflecting quite a shift compared to Q1. It's important to remember that when we have the IPCA according to what happens in the market is going to burden our financial expenses, and we've seen different options. And the company's corporate rating on a national scale monitored by Moody's and Fitch is the highest recognized level, AAA. On Slide 14, before we wrap it up, we announced yesterday our dividend distribution based on the quarter's regulatory results. The Board of Directors approved a total distribution of BRL 299 million in interest on equity and interim dividends with a base date of August 18, 2025. This amount corresponds to BRL 0.87 per unit. And when combined with other distributions announced in 2025, we have declared BRL 2.96 per unit or BRL 1 million. It's important to say that we will have a payment date in November 2025, and we have a dividend base that will be approved by the shareholders' meeting in April. Now we are going to share a video for you before we start our Q&A session. [Presentation]

Well, good morning, everyone. It's always a pleasure to have this opportunity to discuss with you and share with you our earnings results. We have over 400 participants with us. Before we start our Q&A, I'm going to introduce the officers with me. We have Rinaldo Pecchio, our CEO. We have Catia Pereira, our IR Chief Investment Officer. We have Luis Alves, our Technical Chief Officer; and Jell Andrade, our Chief Implementation Officer in addition to Juliana. I'll start with a question by Mario. Some of them are quite similar. So I'll start with Mario, the sell-side analyst. And one is, are you going to participate of the next public sale auction? And what should we expect for next quarters? Well, I will let Mauricio answer the first question, and then we can talk about dividends later.

Thank you, Cristiano. Good morning, everyone. Thank you so much here. I'd like to thank for joining us, all our investors here. Thank you for your question. Yes, we do believe that we are going to participate, and we're going to bid. We do believe that Taesa can continue growing. I think that if we look to the historical data, we've been growing through the transmission auctions and also the reinforcement and improvements. So yes, we are starting and preparing ourselves to bid on this next auction. It's important to say the specific conditions, for example, the technical and economic conditions have not been released yet. So we are waiting for that to be published when we have the publication of the tender. But we have a bit more time to do the due diligence of the projects. We do a thorough due diligence to try to identify projects with an adequate risk profile according to our risk appetite for considering projects that we can work with and prepare good business plans to act. Our idea is really to properly manage risks when we participate of auctions and also to really work within our financial capacity.

Catia, if you can talk about dividend distribution.

Well, thank you so much. Good morning, everyone. It is a great pleasure to be here. When we talk about dividends, I think the company has changed sizably the way it paid and distributed dividends in 2024. So it's based on the regulatory net income. We continue doing that this year. If we look into the Q2 regulatory earnings, we have -- we are talking about 50% of our IFRS net income and 100% of the regulatory net income. It really is in line with our cash generation capacity. So we changed this rule in 2024 to allow us to be in a very comfortable situation to be on this 100% rate versus regulatory net income.

Our next question is from Paolo Bazan, investor. I will ask Pecchio to answer. He asks about the RAP there of concessions that are close to an end and how we are equalizing that within our pipeline.

Thank you, Paulo. I do believe that the company has geared efforts into improving efficiency, which is also a way for us to really deal with the conclusion or the end of some concessions. Once I have greater cash generation, I can invest more. So this is really what we've been doing, and we are quite pleased with the results that we've produced. With regards to what's to come, we have always talked about the current -- that situation of the company that we are probably now in the highest ratio, and we will see an expected deleveraging over the next months. And this will allow for a greater investment capacity to really cover this revenue gap we may have in the future once concessions come to an end. Is it going to be enough to bridge all this gap? It will depend on market opportunities, on our financial strength to be part of new investments. Mauricio has just mentioned our intention to be in new auctions that can provide the company with what it needs, sustainable growth always. And whenever we see that's a good opportunity, then we are going to consider projects that can add value to our business. So it has to do with our strategy to continue growing the business, but there are also regulatory requirements that we need to understand if there will be a rebinding or if there's a possibility to renew some of the contracts, but we are going to be on top of that, always having the best interest of the company at first. Of course, we will always have the intention to continue growing the company, but we also need to think about efficiency so that we can have the financial capacity to participate in auctions in the short term. They are a great alternative to provide growth when we think about the potential reduction we will have as of 2030, reduction in ad revenue.

We have Wanderley Pardo, and he talks about the ESG policies we have in place. And if we -- what we are prioritizing, ESG policies or our financial and economic results? So Pecchio, I would ask you this question.

Thank you so much, Wanderley. Well, to be honest, our role is to add value to shareholders, create value for the company. We need to continue generating cash and be increasingly efficient since we get to a better place in operational terms. And this is key for us to continue focusing on different things or ESG agenda per se. We've been really strict to follow all the paths that we have signed in terms of diversity and environment, and we are really reaching the targets that make sense. The percentage of women in leadership positions, having quite a diverse team, so that's something that we have been considering, and this has not been downplayed by the financial results. I think we have been able to find a good balance while also having in place good governance practices. ESG for us is not something that is just a buzzword. We see that as a great possibility for the company to become a better company, a better workplace, whether we are generating jobs, whether we are investing in new projects and providing a better quality of life. So we've been really walking the talk when we talk about ESG. It's not about doing one thing and not doing the other. I think we've been able to do both grow while respecting the ESG agenda.

Thank you, Pecchio. We have now Jumar Alves, and he asks if the company does not win any of the auctions, are we going to invest in improvements in reinforcements. Mauricio, you could answer.

Thank you, Jumar, for your question. We are preparing now to participate of this auction that should happen still over the next month of this year. But we've also been mapping out the other auctions. There are at least 2 transmission lines auctions expected for 2026. In the energy industry, we consider a long-term planning that allows for us to identify potential projects in the future. So we have a broader view when it comes to opportunities. Like I said, we've also been focusing our investments in reinforcement and improvements since they allow for a better service provision. They allow for higher reliability when we talk about energy supply. And these are great investments with additional returns. When we think about the 2 potential growth avenues, these are quite interesting for us.

Pecchio, we have Ivan Mendes that asks about the possibility of the company to migrate to the Novo Mercado that we call your new market. Do you consider doing that?

Well, this is something that I will answer now considering the corporate structures of the company. I would say that today, we do not have any plans for this migration at the moment. We've been quite successful assessing the capital markets, the debt markets with our governance structure. So only if we consider something quite different from a corporate structure standpoint would really allow us to consider this migration. But we don't have any discussion or plan with our major shareholders in place regarding this migration. We've been quite successful while following our current plans.

We have Mataos Rollin, an investor. And I think you could answer Mauricio. So the investor congratulates the company and asks what happens to the assets that are already built if you do not renew the concession? Do you get any damages for that?

This is actually quite an excellent question. we need to really pay attention to the criteria to be followed at the end of our concession. Today, based on our view and on the contracts, how they were outlined, yes, we could get indemnification regarding some of the amounts. It depends really when. But at first, we would have a compensation probably. I think that we are legally protected to really ensure some financial compensation. It's not that we will not have any RAP. I'm entitled to a financial compensation. So maybe we can get in further details with our IR team to see when these rules are in force and when they are applied and when they are not. But we've been even announcing what we expect in terms of compensation at the end of our concessions that total about BRL 3 million.

Great. Great answer. We've probably answered all the questions here. Before concluding the call, I'm going to turn over to Pecchio for his final remarks.

Well, first of all, I'd like to thank any and all of our employees that did a great job for us to produce amazing results. In this quarter, we grew our RAP through our macroeconomic indexes. We had new projects, and we have a promising outlook for the next regulatory cycle, considering our macroeconomic situation and of the deliveries of new projects. We are also able to confirm our focus in increasing efficiency, controlling costs below inflation, which helps to improve our margin in addition to great cash generation, which allows for stability when we talk about dividends. I think Catia talked about what we can expect in terms of dividends. When we have good cash generation alongside new successful projects and 100% of dividend paid, this is something that we've been doing, and I'm really close to the minimum according to the legal requirements in place. Catia explained and Cristiano explained that we are in about 56% considering the IFRS net income. What we have been doing in terms of efficiency is really to be as innovative as possible. We also talked about another pillar to grow that is to focus on reinforcements and improvements. We have been doing that, and we also see that as a growth avenue. Of course, this will not potentially fully compensate the future drop in our RAP revenue we will have ahead, but we see that as a great opportunity as a new source of revenue. The net income for the period really confirms our efficiency and our financial capacity to continue distributing dividends. But of course, if you consider the level of interest rate, we are talking about a high level. We wanted even to produce better results if we had lower financial expenses. But that happened, interest rates increased. And what we are going to do now is to really focus on operational performance to produce increasing results and higher variable portions also. If we can improve our operational performance, it gives us a good position to really continue growing. We will continue being an efficient company, quite innovative for our line of business. In addition to that, we will have our Investors Day. We'll let you know when that will happen, but I would invite any and all of you to also be there to learn a bit more about our business strategy. It is a great opportunity for us to share the outlook that we have. We are quite optimistic when we talk about our industry. We see great growth opportunities, and we are gearing efforts to continue growing and creating value to our shareholders. Thank you again for joining our company and just be stay tuned with our communication channels. We are at your disposal for whatever questions you may have and to help you and further assist you. Thank you so much.