Vector Limited (VCT) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the Vector Limited conference call and webcast to discuss the company's financial and operational results for the half year ended 31st of December 2020. [Operator Instructions] I must advise you that this conference call is being recorded today. I'd now like to hand over to Vector's Chair, Jonathan Mason, who will take you through the call. Please go ahead, Jonathan.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Vector's results briefing for the half year ended 31st December 2020. My name is Jonathan Mason, and I have been Vector's Chair since last September. Joining me on the call today is Group Chief Executive, Simon MacKenzie; and Chief Financial Officer, Jason Hollingworth. A reminder that as in recent briefings, we are not intending to go through a detailed page by page recital of the investor material, rather we want to provide insights into what we see as the key aspects of the results and allow more time for Q&A with you all. I will begin today's presentation with a summary of the dividend for the half year, then hand over to Simon to provide an overview of the key aspects of the results. Jason will then comment a bit more on the numbers before Simon takes us through the performance of each business segment prior to closing with a short statement on Vector's outlook. We will then be happy to take your questions. On to dividends. The Board is determined that the interim dividend for the half year will be $0.0825 per share. The dividend is partially imputed at 10.5% and will be paid to shareholders on the 8th of April 2021. I would also like to mention a few key highlights, some of which Simon and Jason will elaborate on. The Climate Change Commission's draft advice, which was released earlier this month, underlines the Board's confidence in Vector symphony strategy. The commission's focus on the criticality of decarbonizing transport highlights the importance of electricity distribution companies and their role in enabling this transition. For some time, Vector has been investing in innovative technology and solutions to make sure we are ready for the changing demand patterns and increased need for electricity. We are well placed to deliver exactly what the commission is calling for. This part of the report is positive for Vector and, as I said, affirms our strategic direction. With our experience and investments, Vector will be at the center of the efforts to electrify transport and make the New Zealand economy more sustainable. We have an important role to play in New Zealand's economy in the coming decades, particularly given our place in Auckland, the largest and fastest-growing city in the country. As we consider the commission's advice around gas, our focus will be on how we ensure reliable and secure supply for customers until a considered transition plan is in place while balancing customer and shareholder expectations. We are continuing to review the commission's draft advice and will be providing feedback during the consultation period. During the period, we achieved a significant 21% improvement in SAIDI, which is our network reliability score for our electricity network. This great result is primarily due to our Vector teams and field service providers delivering innovative solutions and working extremely hard to improve customer reliability. Gross capital expenditure was up 8.6% to $260.7 million this half year, which reflects ongoing investments in meter deployments in New Zealand and Australia and our efforts to improve the reliability and resilience of our networks. Before I ask Simon to elaborate on these highlights, I'd like to acknowledge that like many other businesses, in this half year, we faced significant disruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I would like to thank the Vector team and our partners who have exhibited resilience and adaptability time and time again. In the context of these conditions, our result today is even more pleasing. I will now hand over to Simon to provide more detail on these highlights and to discuss additional insights into the half year results. Simon?

Thanks, Jonathan. The first half of the 2021 financial year has been positive despite the uncertain conditions we are operating in due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the new default price path 3 regulatory settings. Vector has continued to perform steadily and to advance our symphony strategy. Throughout the pandemic, we have implemented robust protocols to protect our essential workers and ensure reliability of our services to the community. We are continuing to refine these protocols and are currently talking to the government about access to vaccinations for our central workers. Recent developments in Auckland and Melbourne have further highlighted our need to be vigilant. We've also engaged with Dr. Rod Carr from the Climate Change Commission. And as Jonathan said, we are reviewing in detail the draft advice that was released earlier this month. It's absolutely important to remember that this is draft advice, that there are a number of steps before the government announces any decisions and policy changes later this year. Decarbonization is a key component of our overall symphony strategy through both enabling customers and the development of innovative energy solutions and technologies. The Climate Change Commission's draft advice, particularly around the electrification of transport, aligns with our direction and efforts over the past few years. Our work around our network, our customer EV trial means we are well advanced to manage changing loads and behaviors on top of investments in digital technologies to support these. We have previously built capability, evolved our culture and forged partnerships so we can deliver our strategy. There is a huge opportunity before Vector to enable our customers and to help New Zealand as a whole to transition to a very different future of energy. For Vector staff, our partners here and overseas, that's a really exciting time. But we can't lose sight of affordability and resilience as we transform the energy market. The centrally planned model with remote generation will not serve customers or the environment well, and Vector's view is that locating generation and storage close to where the demand lies will result in much better outcomes for customers not only in terms of affordability, but also resilience and mitigating some of the climate change impacts. Gas, as you all have read, has been highlighted given the draft advice is to stop new connections from 2025 and a transition out for existing connections around 2050. Our view is that the availability of an affordable, reliable alternative that customers want will be the critical driver of the final timing. Dr. Carr has said that barbecue bottles are not included in this transition. We will be making a submission, which will highlight how electricity distribution companies can play a vital role for transforming the energy section plus lay out our views on gas. Now I'd like to move to the results from each of our business units. Firstly, electricity and gas networks. We added 9,804 new electricity and gas connections this half year, which is up 15.5% on the prior year. I think that really underscores the context of the growth in Auckland. We continue to invest at a high level in our network with capital expenditure for the first half at $157.1 million supporting network integrity and Auckland growth. Many others talk in recent times of investment in the electricity sector. But to put in context, our expenditure over the last 5 years in electricity alone has totaled $1.3 billion. Overall, electricity volumes were down 1.6% at 4,324 gigawatt hours with lower business volume due to the COVID-19 lockdowns partially offset by higher residential volumes. We are pleased to report, as Jonathan mentioned, a 21% improvement in the system average interruption duration score, or SAIDI, as it's otherwise known, which is the measure of reliability of our network. The significant improvement was due to a large program of work we ran internally in collaboration with our field service providers and was achieved in spite of the ongoing challenges of weather, Auckland traffic congestion, vegetation and COVID. To metering, this business continued to grow well in both New Zealand and Australia with 52,000 advanced meters deployed in Australia and 18,000 in New Zealand over the period. This brings our total advanced meter fleet to 1.78 million with almost 330,000 of these in Australia. I'd especially like to acknowledge our teams in Victoria and New South Wales, have shown great resilience through the disruption caused by the pandemic over the year. To support this growth, we invested CapEx of $81.8 million, which is 26% more than this period last year. In gas trading, we had a 3% increase, a 9 kg LPG bottle swaps for the half, bringing the total to 375,271. Liquigas had a 2.7 decrease -- 2.7% decrease in tolling volume totaling 55,239 tonnes. E-Co Products Group, trading as HRV, has had a steady start to the year with strong customer interest and positive trading. We did claim a $1.6 million wage subsidy for HRV when it was unable to operate during alert level 4 last year, but this was fully repaid in October 2020. Vector PowerSmart continues to be affected by COVID-19 issues, which are impacting its ability to access work it has contracted in the Pacific Islands. We are working with government agencies and customers to find solutions to recommence projects. In terms of recent highlights, our strategic alliance with Amazon Web Services announced last year has seen the team hit the ground running. We are working closely with AWS in our Auckland offices when lockdowns allow to deliver energy solutions such as the development of a next-generation advanced meter platform to reduce the processing time for meter data as well as provide analytical solutions for retailers and other customers. Another highlight is working with our field service providers to complete an asset management project, which was launched late in 2020. The new software will allow us to automate the way we track, manage our assets, so we can better analyze our maintenance programs with near real-time information. This is already resulting in both cost and resource efficiencies. We continue to invest in cybersecurity, working with our specialist global partners. As cyber threats grow and become more sophisticated, we are starting to provide these services and advice to other businesses, not just in the energy sector. I'd like to now hand over to Jason Hollingworth, our CFO, to go through the numbers.

Thanks, Simon. Just moving on to Slide 4. In the past year, Vector delivered a solid financial performance, recording adjusted EBITDA of $273.8 million, up $9.3 million or 3.5% on the same period last year. Revenue decreased 7.4% to $647.7 million largely due to the DPP3 electricity reset, lower pass-through revenue, the sale of the Kapuni Gas interest to Todd and the impacts of COVID-19. This was partially offset by an increase in metering revenue and higher capital contributions. Capital expenditure in the first 6 months was $260.7 million, up $20.7 million or 8.6% on the prior period. This reflects our continued investment in infrastructure to support network integrity, Auckland growth, increasing deployments of advanced meters, commencement of the 4G modem upgrades across New Zealand's advanced meter base and increasing stock levels to counteract risks associated with global production shortages linked to COVID-19. Group net profit after tax was $102.1 million, which was $21.6 million or 26.8% higher than the prior year. This is largely due to increased earnings, higher capital contributions, a deferred tax credit adjustment and lower interest costs partly offset by higher depreciation and amortization. Operating cash flow was 6.8% higher at $271.3 million. This increase was largely due to a number of factors, including higher capital contributions, higher receipts associated with loss rental rebates and also reflecting that the prior year included a distribution of these rebates to customers. Now looking at our segment earnings on Slide 5 starting with Regulated Networks. Earnings of our Regulated Networks were up $6.7 million to $195.9 million, with the increase largely due to the retention of loss rental rebates. As indicated at our full year results and in our annual report, loss rental rebates were retained to help limit Auckland electricity customer price increases and compensate for volume reductions as a result of COVID-19. Gas trading earnings were down $6.2 million to $14.6 million. But after adjusting for the sale of the Kapuni Gas Treatment plant and associated assets, the result was largely flat year-on-year with lower natural gas volumes and margins offset by improved performance from the OnGas LPG business. The Kapuni transaction now appears in the interest line as interest income on the sale consideration. Adjusted EBITDA for Vector's metering segment was up $7 million to $83.1 million as a result of continued growth in advanced meter deployments in both New Zealand and Australia. To Slide 6. In the first half of FY '21, gross CapEx was up 8.6% to $260.7 million. The high level of CapEx continues to be driven by investment in the Regulated Networks and meter deployments in New Zealand and Australia. Capital contributions were up 14% to $51 million. Regulated CapEx continues to be at historically high levels due to investment to improve the reliability and resilience of our networks as well as higher growth CapEx reflecting the continued growth in connections and infrastructure projects. In addition, given the risk associated with supply shortages due to COVID-19, we've also taken the opportunity to increase the level of metering stock. I'd like to now hand back to you, Simon.

Thanks, Jason. In our regulated business, adjusted EBITDA for the 6 months to 31 December 2020 was up $6.7 million or 3.5% to $195.9 million against the prior 6-month period. The increase in adjusted EBITDA was assisted by the retention of loss rental rebates. Under the current regulatory -- price path regulatory settings, any decrease or increase in electricity revenue relative to our maximum allowable revenue targets set by the commission can be adjusted up or down through electricity prices as of 1st of April 2022. As advised in 2020, given the impact of COVID-19 and the lower use of electricity in Auckland, we have changed our approach of distributing loss rental rebates and now are using these to help limit any future price increases that may occur. This is to smooth the impact of future price increases for customers by using these rebates effectively as a shock absorber under the new revenue cap regime, which we are required to meet by the Commerce Commission. The impact of indirect cost savings and rebates achieved in order to counteract the impacts of COVID-19 were partially offset by lower electricity revenue due to the DPP3 reset, which came into effect from 1 April 2020, which saw prices reduce by 6.9%. We have previously flagged the impacts of the inflation assumptions used by the Commerce Commission that we and other regulated companies are facing. This issue has been further exacerbated by the setting under DPP3 and, of course, the historically low inflation environment we're currently experiencing. Our ongoing concern is that this is not a sustainable outcome for regulated businesses, meaning that our ability to invest for the long-term interest of consumers and earn an appropriate return is seriously limited. As always, our objective is to work alongside the Commerce Commission to try and resolve these issues. Moving to gas trading. In March 2020, we finalized the sale of the Kapuni Gas Treatment plant and associated assets to Todd Energy. So the comparative FY '20 results include the earnings from these assets. If we exclude the impact of the Kapuni assets from the comparative year's results, then adjusted EBITDA is down 1.4% at $14.6 million due largely to lower natural gas volumes and margins but partially offset by improved performance from the OnGas LPG business. The OnGas LPG business continued to strengthen during the first half of this year. Bottle Swap 9 kg volumes were up 3% to 375,271 bottles from 364,304 a year earlier. LPG sales were mixed with cylinder volumes higher but bulk sales lower driven by COVID-19 demand. Overall, LPG sales were down 1.5% at 23,764 tonnes. Liquigas LPG total volumes were down 2.7% to 55,239 tonnes from 56,761 tonnes a year earlier. Natural gas sales volumes were down 2.9 petajoules to 5 petajoules from 7.9 petajoules in the prior period mainly due to the loss of a major customer from January 2020. Moving to metering. In the 6 months to 31 December 2020, we installed almost 18,000 additional advanced meters in New Zealand and more than 52,000 additional advanced meters in Australia. Our advanced metering base grew 8.5% to $1.78 million from $1.64 million the year before. We have now deployed over 330,000 advanced meters in Australia and are averaging over 10,000 meter installations per month. We remain on target to install between 120,000 and 130,000 meters in FY '21. In the past year, we announced a significant upgrade program to replace all existing 2G modems with future-proof technology which will support 4G and 5G technology as it becomes available. Once complete, this investment will clear the way for continued meter connectivity and enable ongoing product innovation opportunities decades into the future. So now to outlook. Our COVID strategy is serving us well during what has been a very unpredictable time. However, we are confident that we are moving in the right direction and that the company is well placed to address any challenges. The release of the Climate Change Commission's draft advice highlights the need for the energy industry to transform. With EDBs playing a key role and using new technology, demand side optimization and smart investment, we can enable the urgent need for decarbonization in the sector and, in particular, transport. For several years, in line with our strategy, we have been leading the adoption and thinking around new technologies. This has led us to develop strategic partnerships with world-class technology companies to enable our network to effectively manage a world where EVs, batteries, solar, peer-to-peer trading, a raft of other new technologies are not only demanded by customers but necessary if New Zealand is to meet its carbon reductions. This is about creating smart infrastructure that puts customers at the heart of the energy system, moving us away from the centralized, linear model we've had to date to one that will enable a different sort of energy future. As I mentioned earlier, we are specifically focused on affordability and supply resilience given the impacts of climate change and the need to decarbonize. The draft advice outlines how critical it is for distribution companies to be equipped, resourced and incentivized to innovate and support the adoption in their networks of new technology and business models to encourage electrification, in particular for increasing numbers of electric vehicles. We also support the recommendation of establishing a Ministry of Energy to lead a coordinated approach for positive customer outcomes. So over the past few years, Vector has invested in a number of initiatives, including an EV trial across Auckland to understand consumer behavior and the impact on our network. This is revealing a lot of really interesting and important data for our network and also consumers. We've worked with EECA to electrify Waiheke, which aims to be the first fully electric island. We've launched and managed an EV charging network in Auckland. We've deployed large-scale batteries as well as small-scale batteries and have significant experience and understanding of the dynamics of batteries. In addition to this, we've also built multiple solar farms as well as battery and solar solutions across the Pacific. So as Auckland continues to grow and we're investing in order to maintain network integrity and support that growth, we're anticipating around 15,000 new electricity connections in the full 2021 financial year. We also expect strong full year result in our metering business as our advanced metering deployment continues to track well, including in Australia. Based on this half year result, we expect the FY '21 adjusted EBITDA to be increased to the range of $500 million to $520 million up from previous guidance of $480 million to $500 million. That's provided there are no further impacts of COVID-19 on economic activity and consumers. So in closing, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank our Vector people, both here in New Zealand and Australia, our suppliers and key partners who have demonstrated resilience and adaptability in this constantly evolving and challenging time. Many of our colleagues and people, both in the field and in the business, are essential service providers who deserve significant praise for adapting to these challenging times and serving the communities and the business. So we thank you for your efforts and continued support as we strive towards our vision of a new energy future. I'd like to hand back to Jonathan now.

Thanks, Simon. Simon, Jason and I are now happy to take questions on to Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Andrew Harvey-Green from Forsyth Barr.

A very strong result, which is great. A couple of questions from me. First one is just around the CCC report. And I'm just interested, I guess, in sort of your initial thoughts, I mean, obviously, particularly around the proposal to ban new gas and LPG connections from 2025 and then the failing out thereafter. At this point in time, obviously, that's a net negative to your -- or sorry, negative to your gas distribution business. But long term, they will be offset by higher electricity consumption. Do you see it as sort of a net positive, neutral or net negative at the point in time that, that policy was enacted?

Yes, Andrew. Well, look, I mean, obviously, at this point in time, it's just draft, and there's a lot of work to be done. I guess from our perspective, we see that there needs to be a conversation, obviously, with the commission, the government and other parties to ensure that the transition for consumers is managed and is appropriate, that the impact on consumers that have residential gas appliance is also recognized, whilst also appreciating that the gas networks have been signaled as wanting to be left available for other sources, whether that's blended gas, such as biogas and hydrogen or other services. So to be honest, I think it's a little bit early to take a strong view either way. Obviously, you're correct in the sense that if there is a -- some form of transition, which obviously there is proposed and will likely be, whether it's gas onto electricity, then that will be an uplift in our electricity network. I guess the issue with that is, of course, comes back down to that we do need to ensure that the regulatory settings are incentivized, that transition, and also make it attractive to invest for that growth, which would be significant. So basically, at this stage, we are kind of looking at it as there's still a lot of analysis and discussions to be had before we actually ascertain exactly how that pathway would be conducted in its interest of consumers and the government that we will work closely together to satisfy the needs of all parties involved.

Okay. Yes. And the second part I had relates to that, which, I think you touched on in the answer there, Simon was -- I'd just be interested to get, I guess, a bit of an understanding about the infrastructure requirements from the electricity side of things if we did see all of the current gas load switch from, I guess, to electricity around LPG, I guess.

Yes, sure. Andrew, I mean, again, obviously, depends on the rate of speed of any transition. I guess the way we look at it is that a conversion of, let's say, residential in particular, if people were migrating their appliances off, it's not a one-for-one conversion because we also see some of the new technologies such as induction cooktops, which actually create a significant demand. So even a relatively modest induction cooktop could have a peak demand of around 7 kilowatts, which is pretty significant when you think the average after diversity maximum demand of a residential house is about 2.5 kilowatts. And then we also look at, on top of that, the impact of electric vehicle charges. So if someone's got gas, they also had to put -- decided to put an electric vehicle charger, which, again, conservatively could be 7 kilowatts, actually starts lifting up the demand of the network. This all plays into exactly why we've been so focused on our symphony strategy, which is recognizing that we have to have control solutions. We have to have technology that as much as possible can ensure that, that load is optimized, for want of a better word, whilst still delivering the customers, the service requirements and looking at how the peaks can be smoothed and how the consumption can be better utilized across our distribution network. Otherwise, in an uncontrolled world, you get quite significant local clustering effects potentially of network constraints and upgrades that could be both costly and that goes to the affordability challenge. So it really does underscore the requirements and why we've spent a lot of time in establishing these significant global alliances with the likes of AWS and mPrest and other technology providers globally, underpinned by cyber solutions to meet those challenges. If you just look at residential gas across the network and you convert it all that across, it's quite a significant uplift in demand. But it's -- of course, it's not specifically right. It's not evenly spread across Auckland. It's spread over different parts of Auckland where customers are connected to gas.

Yes. Okay. Next question I just had was around loss rental rebates and probably sort of missed the magnitude of the impact that was going to have this half. Just want to clarify my understanding, I guess, to make sure -- and there's a smoothing process that's going on here. You are still intending to return those loss rental rebates to the customers but in different periods as opposed to new periods that, I guess, the rebates were coming in. Is that sort of the right way to be thinking about it, just to enable that smoothing?

You're right to be thinking about it enabling smoothing. The degree to which we basically return them, as we said, is kind of using them as a mechanism to smooth as well as limit any price shocks. Obviously, moving from a price path to a revenue path means we have a maximum allowable revenue, which we're allowed to collect. And so what we've done is rather than if we have had -- for example, our revenue forecast based on a volume was -- came out that we collected less revenue because volume was down. Then rather than basically putting the prices up, we've actually utilized the loss rental rebates to smooth those out. So on an ongoing basis, as the revenue path plays out, if we're under them, we'll use some loss rental rebates. But if we are on target, then loss rental rebates would also be looked to be returned to consumers. So it's just really what the situation is on a 6-monthly or a yearly basis about how do we utilize them to limit any price impacts to customers.

Okay. Because I noticed, I think it's about $5.5 million provision for rebates in the 6 months or presumably in the 12-month period going forward to be returned, if that's correct. Is it?

We haven't used at 31 December, so that's left on the balance sheet, which is potentially available to be distributed to customers unless we use them to offset future volume variances, which Simon just talked about. So again, that was the balance that was left at 31 December.

Okay. Great. And last question from me was just to get a bit of a sense from your perspective at least, I mean, where was the, I guess, the unexpected upside that led you to increase the guidance upgrade of $20 million?

I think it would be fair to say that we looked at the economic performance across Auckland and probably seeing better activity than we'd expected volumes on the network slightly better than what we were expecting as well as we weren't too sure about how the metering business was going to roll out, particularly over in Australia. So in particular, those areas have led us to more confidence to put the range up.

Our next telephone question comes from Stephen Hudson from Macquarie Securities.