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The AES Corporation (AES)

Q2 2016 Earnings Call· Fri, Aug 5, 2016

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning and welcome to the AES Second Quarter 2016 Financial Review Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode [Operator Instructions]. Please note that this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Vice President of Investor Relations, Ahmed Pasha. Please go ahead.

Ahmed Pasha

Analyst

Thank you, William. Good morning and welcome to our AES's second quarter 2016 financial review call. Our press release, presentation and related financial information are available on our website at aes.com. Today, we will be making forward-looking statements during the call. There are many factors that may cause future results to differ materially from these statements. Please refer to our SEC filings for a discussion of these factors. Joining me this morning are Andrés Gluski, our President and Chief Executive Officer; Tom O'Flynn, our Chief Financial Officer; and other senior members of our management team. With that, I will now turn the call over to Andrés. Andrés. Andrés Gluski: Thanks you, Ahmed. Good morning, everyone and thank you for joining our second quarter 2016 financial review call. Today, I will discuss our year-to-date performance, provide an updates on market conditions and our progress on our strategic and financial objectives. Tom will then discuss our second quarter results and capital allocation in more detail. Before turning to results, I would like to highlight the most significant milestones that we achieved so far on our key objectives for 2016. To continue de-risking our portfolio, we announce our close asset sales with proceeds of more than $500 million well above our target range of $200 million to $300 million. We brought online one-third of our capacity under construction, or 2.4 gigawatts on-time and on-budget. We prepaid $300 million in current debt exceeding our full-year target of $200 million, to accelerate our credit improvement. We are on-track to achieve our three-year $150 million cost reduction and revenue enhancement goals. In Bulgaria, we receive payment of all outstanding receivables and continue to collect timely payment of invoices. And we continue to make progress to resolve DP&Ls pending rate case and our encouraged with recent regulatory…

Thomas O'Flynn

Analyst

Thanks Andrés. Good morning, everyone. Today, I'll review our results including adjusted EPS, proportional free cash flow, and adjusted pre-tax contribution or PTC by strategic business unit or SBU, and I'll cover our 2016 capital allocation, as well as our guidance and expectations. Turning to Slide 14, second quarter adjusted EPS of $0.17 was $0.09 lower than 2015. This decline is in line expectations communicated on our last call. Specifically, our second quarter results reflect $0.03 lower contributions from SBU, including anticipated drivers, such as timing of schedule maintenance in ANDES and MCAC. A reduction of $0.03, because last year’s results included the favorable impact of the reversal of a liability at Eletropaulo. And the $0.03 impact from the evaluation in foreign currencies as expected particularly in ANDES in Europe. Before moving on, I want to touch on a couple of large impairment charges we had this quarter that are not included in adjusted EPS. First we impaired 235 million of assets at DPL, primarily at Kelin station, this impairment impacts our quarterly diluted EPS, and was larger driven by the results of the recent PJM capacity auction and our expectation of higher future environmental compliance cost under the EPA Effluent Limitation Guidelines in coal combustion with [indiscernible]. Second as you have seen in our 10-Q, as a results of the sale, we have included Sul in discontinued operation and an imperilment was recognized during the second quarter. The remaining loss on sale will be recorded at the closing of the transaction. After taking into account previously recorded cumulative transaction adjustment. The net impact on as is equity will be a reduction of our 100 million. Given this business is in discontinued operations, these non-cash items do not affect either diluted or adjusted EPS. As a result of placing Sul,…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from Ali Agha with SunTrust. Please go ahead.

Ali Agha

Analyst

Thank you good morning. First question, can give us the sense of what gives you the confidence that the Ohio issue is particularly that's a correlation to the non-by passable are going to be resolved favorably and what are sort of the key milestones we should be looking at to figure out how this is playing out? Thomas O’Flynn: We continue to have normal discussions consistent with the process in Ohio. We are obviously aware of developments with the other major utilities in the phase especially [Indiscernible] and they have got little bit different perspectives, but we think those are both constructive directions. We do continue to think that those strong support in the state for in state generations giving the fall of vertex diligent too far removed. The in state jobs in state revenue from taxes and those kind of things. So we think there is strong support for that and I apologize to say we are encourage by discussions as we said we re-filed our rates for the remainder of 2016 to go basically back to the pre 2014 structure and we think that there is constructive and consistent with the sentiments.

Ali Agha

Analyst

And secondly as insulated to that Tom, so what is on that in to both your 2016, 2017, 2018 and outlook for this non by passable and I’m assuming your attiring that continuing. And what if that doesn’t happened, how should we think about the sensitivities with your earnings, whether it’s for this year or for the growth in 2017, 2018 if that goes away? Thomas O’Flynn: I think what we would say is, I think we have been consistent here, number one our most recent filing would not have material impact, assume we go back to the 2013 rate structure, we would not have material impact on our financials for the reminder of 20`6. Going forward, as we discussions this different approaches here, but we generally baked into our guidance is less than what we are currently getting, which is about a 110 million a year or 9 million a month, but it’s still material amount. We haven’t put a fine point on that but certainly it would be meaningful impact if there are a large fall but at this point we believe we will get something in that range. Andrés Gluski: Remember also Ali, we’ve not taken a dividend out of DPL, for some time and there is no parent free cash flow from DPL at least till 2018 in our forecast.

Ali Agha

Analyst

Okay, understood. Separately Andrés when you look at your portfolio today, can you just highlight for us, what regions or assets in general would you consider to be non-core to this portfolio as you continue going down the road of streamlining your platform? Andrés Gluski: Okay, we have, I think on very well in terms of focusing this company, in terms of getting out of those regions were we didn’t see those markets was so attractive and realizing attractive valuation from those sales. So what we are focused on in terms of growth, it’s going to be those places we can get, long term ideally dollars denominated contracts and were we can bring something besides just money. So these are additions where there are synergies or economics have scale. So we don’t like talking about exactly those places that we are going to get out of until we do it. And you know we have very much stuck to that rule over the years. But I would say those countries, where we don’t see those opportunities. Where we see that, today quite frankly they are either too volatile or we don’t see opportunities for growth. So what I would like to say, we will continue to grow those businesses, especially those that are cash accretive and our real focus is on creating a company where we have a strong sustainable growth in our dividend and that’s what we are focused on. So I’m not going to get into it specifically, but I think if you do it by the process to elimination which is those places where we don’t see growth, where we don’t see long-term contracts and we really don’t have any really sort of particularly advantages position we will get out of. Now we won’t talk about them, until it’s actually done, because obviously those can affect our operations.

Ali Agha

Analyst

Last question, Tom just remind us, why don’t you, you’re not allocated specially cash in terms of your priority of the use of that cash and you just remind us what your priority would be on ranking your priorities? Thomas O’Flynn: Yes, I think will across all the [indiscernible] side I think we will look at incremental growth and I think we have said that we would expect about 300 million to 400 million of contributions into our businesses from core on a normal year. This year we are kind of right in middle of that point. Of course continuing to grow the dividend on a regular basis, we will continue to look to deleverage and may take some of this opportunity to accelerate the deleveraging in our balance sheet. And of course stock repurchases is still something we have authority for, we have done a lot. So as we said, I think our primary focus in terms of cash to shareholders would be by the dividend.

Ali Agha

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Julien Dumoulin Smith with UBS. Please go ahead.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith

Analyst

So, perhaps a few more specific questions on the [Indiscernible] process here just being very clear. How to think about the ESP-1 rate structure for 2013. What I understand it's mostly a regulated structure with fuel pass through how should be think about power prices and just competitive retailers under that rate structure. I know it's a bit detailed, but I'm just to be curious so it is are you still positively exposed to stock prices increasing net-net. I'm just trying to understand how that the supplier recovery gets done and then secondly can you talks you the ESP-3 filing that you have pending are you been to need the re-filing of that or are you been amended to reflect some of the changes that might be necessary out of the Ohio Supreme Court. Thomas O’Flynn: Yes, Julien let me try to tackle that. In terms of number one the market risk and reward that we have is under our restructure and one that we had it or one that we are not going to revert back to is really the gen, is really at our generation that - basis of risking rewards of the market. In terms of structure of going back to, its different kind of financially at the end of day, it's about the same for us, but there was a group of people that have they not chopped then they would go to a defined rate structure. And that kind of slices it up a little bit different way, but the utility is not exposed to that it's a little bit different way to slice up the same amounts. In terms of going forward, we believe that what we had filed earlier in January and February, we can work under that umbrella, if you will. So we don’t need to pull that back and re-file. Remember we had a couple of different alternatives and so we feel that that umbrella gives us the flexibility to shape a solution in different ways.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith

Analyst

Got it and just to be clear. The ESP-1 the 2013 rate structure will remain indefinitely until you got a rate outcome under the ESP-3 structure. So kind of agnostic perhaps too strong award there, but throughout the process whenever you eventually get an outcome in ESP-3 just to be clear. Thomas O’Flynn: Yes, it would remain outstanding until those a supplement for it. And both of them are supportive of our financial structure.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith

Analyst

Go it, excellent. And then jus the quick one and following up on the last question as well. Brazil Eletropaulo, can you comment just on what your thought process is there, obviously there has been some media comments there. How do you think about Brazil both on the [indiscernible] and the Eletropaulo by prospectively in the [indiscernible] region and how would you execute the your going into? Thomas O’Flynn: Okay, first given that Eletropaulo is a publicly listed company, we don’t comment on it. I think what we have said is that, we made a significant strategic move by existing Sul. If you look at today’s market price the equity value we had at Sul is more than [indiscernible] the value that we have in the Eletropaulo, so we have made a significant shift. Second, we have been very disciplined in Brazil, specially at [indiscernible]. We always for many years had this leverage capacity and the ability to buy new assets to grow. But we didn’t really see the valuations. We really didn’t see valuations that we are attracted for us. With the correction in prices in Brazil, we are starting to see opportunity that would make it more attractive to leverage up [indiscernible] and buy something in Brazil. Now what would we buy? Well as we said in the past, we are really looking at our sort of risks, and we wouldn’t want more hydro risk in Brazil, so ideally it would be something like sola or wind or perhaps even thermal that would not be correlated to hydrology in Brazil to make our cash flow from [indiscernible] more steady. So again, Eletropaulo being a publicly listed company, it would be process pertinent to that market, but we are going to comment on it.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith

Analyst

Sorry and then the last quick one, any update on the assets the you impaired in DPL, just curious if that has any reflection on the future viability of them in terms of retirement or whether they clearly [indiscernible]. Thomas O’Flynn: No that was just at Kelin and that was just because it had a higher carrying value it was reflecting the result of the latest capacity auction. Andrés Gluski: They are all cleared Julian, all our [indiscernible] is cleared.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Steven Byrd with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Stephen Byrd

Analyst

Hi good morning. Just wanted to check in with you on the storage business, there is increasingly talk about the business and you all obviously are very early into this business, when you think about growth potentials, we are seeing reports that costs are coming down for the actually equipment. Do you see that there are sort of inflections point at which it does become a fairly large driver of spending or is it a more gradual thing, where there is ultimately a step change, buts it’s rather just a gradual increase as you go down the curve. In other words, do you see relatively significant changes within, a year or two or three in terms of where the cost is going that going to allow the businesses to scale up a lot or do you thinks it’s probably more gradual pace? Andrés Gluski: What we are seeing in the business, is continued reduction in cost. So if we look at the cost of batteries they have come down 80% in the last five year and we are projecting an additional 50% in the next five. So that would driven them down significantly and really this is not technological breakthrough, it is as much as just really massification of the production process. So the more people that bring online giga factories and drive down battery prices, the batter it will be for people such as ourselves. Now, given that how do you see this market, well this market is growing one of the main let's say things that are slowing it down it regulatory, since these batteries operate differently than just regulatory say [peeking] plans where other people providing ancillary services, because for example it goes positive and it goes negative. But having said that we are seeing this market…

Stephen Byrd

Analyst

That's very helpful color, Andrés. And you had mentioned in your prepared remarks about essentially amortizing some of these initial cost. Could you remind us just sort of how rapidly you think you would be able to kind of [indiscernible] through those cost so that we can start to see significant margins on incremental sales. Andrés Gluski: Look it's going to depend on - this is volume. So basically think of startup cost and things like that are fixed cost, the more you have the more quickly we are not really prepared to sort of give guidance on the third-party sale, but I really don’t see this certainly not this year and probably next is not being a meaningful contributor.

Stephen Byrd

Analyst

Thank you. I'm sorry? Andrés Gluski: And the finally this is not in our guidance for that reason, but this could become quite interesting outside that time horizon.

Stephen Byrd

Analyst

That's great. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is from Lasan Johong from Auvila Research Consulting. Please go ahead.

Lasan Johong

Analyst

Good morning thank you. Tom, I have a quick question on the 15% rate of return should we expect the hurdle rate to go up as interest rates go up and your cost of capital go up with it? Thomas O’Flynn: Yes, I think the short answer is generally interest rates are being coming down and our cost of capital I think has been coming down so I think that's a good number certainly on the projects we are doing. To the extent that I think Andrés mentioned much of our focus will be on long-term U.S. contracted business some of that may warrant some compression of that modestly, but I don’t think we see them going up.

Lasan Johong

Analyst

My point eventually the interest rate are going to go up at some point, right whether it’s a year or two years from now. When that happens, are we going to see is that 15% hurdle rate go up? Thomas O’Flynn: Yes the one thing I would say is we certainly look at our cost of capital IRRs on a real time basis, real time for global interest rates, local interest rates, local risk. So certainly if there is a meaningful change in macro conditions, be it interest rate risk or other things inflation what have you. We would certainly factor that into that into our capital allocation framework. Andrés Gluski: Lasan I think, one way to look at this is, we want to earn a 200 basis points plus over our sort of weighted cost capital on this projects. So it’s going to depend on their locations. So for example, you are really, we will have a lower ROI for those projects that are rate based on our regular utilities Than we do on some of the other projects which are one different locations. But the one thing we are moving towards, I would say, de-risking the company. And so that I think it’s an important component and I so it’s dollar denominate long term contract, in the good zip code and that’s a great country. Those will have a lower return than some of the other locations. But I do think that when you look at our projects, what is important is there is a lot of synergies between them. So if we look at for example the Panama project, it will have significant synergies if we increase the amount of tolling we do from that facility, you know our power plant will take roughly about 30% of the capacity to tank in the terminal. So we are really looking for a third-party sales, like we do in the Dominican Republic. So once you have the two hubs operating the return from the project will not only be from the project itself, will also be from the existing businesses. So that’s how we are looking at it. and just to say, so I don’t think that if interest rates go up, it depends, how much they go up, but we are also shifting our business to less risky businesses and the returns of the project is also returns to the bits to existing businesses, which perhaps were not included in that ROE.

Lasan Johong

Analyst

No let me flip the question around. How much more businesses you usually get if you drop the hurdle rate to 12% or 10% even? Thomas O’Flynn: I think if we drop the hurdle rate, again we don’t have a universal hurdle rate. The lower the cost of [Technical Difficulty] projects in some other markets [Technical Difficulty] we don’t use the universal hurdle rate.

Lasan Johong

Analyst

Okay. Thank you very much for your help.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is from Brian Russo with Ladenburg Thalmann. Please go ahead.

Brian Russo

Analyst

Hi good morning. Just curious are there any issues or risk to the Sul approval process, I believe that these acquires, shareholder approval, just may be some comment on the milestones there to get approved? Thomas O’Flynn: Yes the milestone and they have a shareholders’ approval. We believe that they are very confident of getting it. Then there would be an approval of [indiscernible] which is the regulator. And that’s why we are targeting this close for the fourth quarter of this year, but given all that’s happening in Brazil, we don’t expect any issue. And furthermore, it’s a acquisition that makes a lot of sense, which is consolidating the distribution company into state of real grounded to Sul. So there is lot of logic, a lot of cost savings from bringing these together. So we think the fundamentals for the transaction for the acquirer are very strong.

Brian Russo

Analyst

Okay, thanks. And then just on the TPO, Ohio process. I'm just curious what was the thought process to file to revert back to the pre 2014 rate structure. I mean did you have discussions with staff or what made you choose that route versus any of the other alternatives. Thomas O’Flynn: Yes, I mean we did have some consultation, I better not go into the specifics, but following the Supreme Court we wanted to look for something that had the same provision of stability and supporting the overall financial viability of the company, but staying away from let's say the specifics of the Supreme Court. But also appreciating that there was strong motivation for the reason that I mentioned earlier to keep the utility stable and keep our generation viable.

Brian Russo

Analyst

Got it. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes is from Brian Chin with Bank of America ML. Please go ahead.

Brian Chin

Analyst

Hi good morning. I have got a question on the effluent requirement and the coal combustion residual requirements. How much extra CapEx is that going to necessitate? Thomas O’Flynn: Yes, we haven’t disclose that specifically. I believe DPL has the three-year forward CapEx table that is in their K. We are still reviewing it, but we did have some preliminary number let's say that were baked into our impairment analysis and it was really the combination of those numbers. They really be out - I believe it’s a 20 to 21 times zone as well as we did have to take note of the recent capacity auction that was down much from 160 to about 100 and that we think a 100s low, we did have to factor that most recent data point into our long-term forecast.

Brian Chin

Analyst

Okay, so just to be clear that CapEx spending would be done in 2021 or there is a deadline for the plants to meet the requirements by 2021?

Ahmed Pasha

Analyst

Brain this is Ahmed. This is [Indiscernible] 2022 and as Tom mentioned I mean we did have a number in our forecast, but based on the revised forecast the projections are slightly higher, but real impact for this impairment is the capacity prices, which came in lower than what we were expecting. So that was the bigger driver than the CapEx.

Brian Chin

Analyst

Got you. And then just going back to your prepared comments on Sul. You mentioned that you had re-classed Sul into discontinued operation and there was a $0.02 sort of swing on year-to-date to adjusted EPS. I'm just assuming that you haven’t change guidance, because $0.02 is relatively minor or immaterial versus the guidance range is that right? Thomas O’Flynn: That's fair and to be honest when we talked last time we did say - when we had a slower first quarter we did say there were some things that we are working on and this is at least one of the thing in the bucket.

Brian Chin

Analyst

Got you. Great, thank you very much that’s all I got.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is from Charles Fishman with Morningstar. Please go ahead.

Charles Fishman

Analyst

Thank you. Andrés [indiscernible] discuss the slide. Slide 12, on the third bar. In the 8% to 10% new construction that I get and you have laid that out very well. The 5% from existing business, I wonder if Andrés you or Tom could may be give a little more color on that. is that like just a full-year of IPL for instance, improving Brazil or what plays into the 5% over the two years? Andrés Gluski: That is our cost savings and revenue enhancement initiative, which is well under way. We have a three year $150 million cost saving new enhancement initiatives in three chunks of 50-50 and 50. This is an annual run rate, prior to this in the previous four years we did a $200 million cost savings and revenue initiative. So we have a lot of experience at this. Perhaps Bernerd our Chief Operating Office can make a few comments on what that consist of.

Bernerd Da Santos

Analyst

Yes thanks Andrés, I think we are very pleased that we are on-track with the $50 million that was what we commit for the first year in 2016 and we also have a - we thought the initiative that we have underway well tracking on into [indiscernible] and the $250 million for 2017 and 2018. And just as to reminder a those are the initiatives that we were disclosing our synergies and economics has scales that is one with the pocket that we are working in sourcing. And the service centers that we have in lower cost location and what they can [indiscernible] between the labor cost that we have and deficiencies of standardization that we have in those places and the standardization [indiscernible] improvement that we are doing in our fleet. [indiscernible] sharing or replication of the lead practice of our thermal plants. A best performance thermal plants across the rest of the fleet. So with that, we actually have identified largely he $150 million that need to be delivered and we are very confident to deliver those.

Charles Fishman

Analyst

Okay so lot of 5% is these cost savings, pretty well, we can count on that sound pretty - you can bank that. That’s good. Okay, that was all I had. Thank you very much. Andrés Gluski: Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

This concludes our question and answer session. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Ahmed Pasha for any closing remarks.

Ahmed Pasha

Analyst

Thank you everybody for joining us in today’s call. As always the IR team will be available to answer any question you may have. Thank you and have a nice day.

Operator

Operator

The conference has now concluded. Thank you attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.