Good day, and welcome to the AES Corporation First Quarter 2020 Financial Review Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]. I would now like to turn the conference over to Ahmed Pasha, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to our first quarter 2020 financial review call. Our press release, presentation and 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, which are discussed in our most recent 10-K and 10-Q filed with the SEC. Reconciliations between GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures can be found on our website along with the presentation. Joining me this morning are Andres Gluski, our President and Chief Executive Officer; Gustavo Pimenta, our Chief Financial Officer; and other senior members of our management team. With that, I will turn the call over to Andres. Andres? Andrés Gluski: Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our first quarter financial review call. Today, I will discuss the current state of our business and our strategic goals going forward. We are well positioned to withstand the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and are seeing the benefits of our multiyear effort to enhance the resilience of our business. The vast majority of our earnings come from long-term contracted generation, which provides significant protection from the downturn in electricity demand and prices. Furthermore, our liquidity position is strong. We have no major near-term debt amortizations, and we continue to improve our investment-grade metrics. Our construction projects are progressing on schedule without any supply chain disruptions, and we are on track to grow our renewables backlog and achieve our environmental goals. The net effect of this is that despite seeing double-digit reductions in demand in some of our markets, we are lowering our earnings guidance for the year by only 5% to a range of $1.32 to $1.42. We are reaffirming our expectations for 2020 parent…

Thank you, Andres. Today, I will cover our financial results, credit profile and capital allocation. I will conclude by addressing the impact of COVID-19 on our guidance for this year and expectations through 2022. In the first quarter, we made good progress on our key financial metrics. As shown on Slide 14, adjusted EPS was $0.29 versus $0.28 in Q1 2019, in line with our expectations. We benefited from higher contributions from the MCAC SBU, largely due to improved availability and hydrology in Panama as well as lower effective tax rate. These positive drivers were partially offset by the reversion to prior rates at DPL in Ohio and mild weather at our regulated utilities in the U.S. Turning to Slide 15. Adjusted pretax contribution, or PTC, was $250 million for the quarter, a decrease of $22 million versus the first quarter of 2019. I'll cover our results in more detail over the next four slides, beginning on Slide 16. In the U.S. and Utilities SBU, lower PTC reflects the reversion to ESP 1 rates at DPL as well as mild weather at both DPL and IPL. These impacts were partially offset by contributions from new renewable projects. At our South America SBU, higher PTC was largely driven by lower interest expense and realized FX gains in Chile, partially offset by a planned major outage at our hydro plant in Colombia as part of a larger project to extend its useful life. Higher PTC at our MCAC SBU reflects the return to operations at our Sanginel hydro plant in Panama, following an extended major outage in 2019, as well as improved availability at our Colon plant. We also benefited from improved hydrology in Panama following a very dry year in 2019. Finally, in Eurasia. Lower results primarily reflect the sale of…

[Operator Instructions]. And our first question will come from Ryan Greenwald with Bank of America.

So maybe if we can just start with asset sales. It looks like Jordan through late last month. So if you kind of just talk about your commitment there and you're confidence to get out of the sales on those in here? Andrés Gluski: Yes. Look, our asset sales continue to progress. In the specific case of Jordan, I don't think is as binary as you described. So we remain confident of closing a number of sales this year, and there's continued interest in those assets, and we're making progress. I would add that we're really not depending this year for any asset sales to fund our growth. So we remain confident. We think that we'll close a number of sales. There's interest. And of course, we don't talk about them until they're actually completed.

Got it. Fair enough. And then I appreciate all the commentary around demand trends and sensitivities. But could you just allude a little more to any latitude you might have under a more severe protracted scenario? I know you kind of alluded to $50 million in additional savings already? Andrés Gluski: Yes. So first, I want to be clear that we're trying to be as transparent as possible. So as Gustavo described, what we're seeing is, quite frankly, continued reduction in demand, lower demand for the remainder of the year. So most severe in the second quarter. And then you have a single-digit -- high single-digit decline in the third quarter and lower single-digit decline in the fourth, and only recovering in the first quarter of next year. So that's our assumption. So that really would is consistent with a U-shaped recovery or even a double U-shaped recovery. If things are more severe, we are in a resilient case. And of course, we have more latitude on different levers that we can pull. I would add that because what we did very early on was increase our liquidity, we have about $0.02 of having that additional liquidity on hand. But I think that was the right thing to do given that there was a lot of uncertainty. So we have a very good track record of cost controls and reductions. And I think that, again, we will react given to how we see the situation evolving. Now we did mention $0.05 this year, mostly from our digital initiatives. And I think that we have learned how to work remotely. And there are more digital tools that we can implement, and we expect to -- that these savings will continue into next year. So we have some continued additional upside because that's really not in next year's numbers.

Got it. And then just lastly, the interest capitalization that you guys did at Alto Maipo, is that included in adjusted EPS? Andrés Gluski: It is. It is included in the adjusted EPS.

And what was kind of the thinking there? Andrés Gluski: No, that's just an adjustment based on the history of the project. We've adjusted this year as the team refined the calculation. So it impacted Q1 this year.

Out next question will come from Charles Fishman of Morningstar.

Andres, you mentioned a 10% reduction in demand in April at the U.S. utilities, was that weather normalized? Andrés Gluski: Yes, that's weather normalized.

Okay. And then earlier this week or it might have been late last week, there was an article in The Wall Street Journal about the impact of the pandemic in Brazil. And it was -- looked pretty severe. Are you noticing -- obviously, you got boots on the ground in there. Are you noticing anything? Is there any color you can add? You've got a significant interest in Tiete? You've got other solar projects in Brazil and maybe just expand that to Argentina as well. Andrés Gluski: Sure. So let's take maybe sort of the Latin American region. So first, the reaction there will be different, perhaps by country, but it's also somewhat different than the developed countries. So there's a number of things. First, in general, they were quite quick lock down. Brazil was an exception to that and Mexico. But in most countries, the lockdown was quite severe and quite early. Second, they will be lifting these restrictions. But in general, the pandemic has been less severe in those countries than it has in the developed world. What we do know about the pandemic is that the, quite frankly, biggest drivers are age. And the second is obesity rates. So when you think of age, a lot of these countries have an average age of 30, which is very different from an average age of almost 50 in some of the developed countries. So the pandemic will have a different effect there. So I'd say the main difference is how much fiscal stimulus can they apply to react to that. So what we're seeing is -- again, it varies by country, but some of the smaller countries have had pretty aggressive fiscal stimulus. And they have gone out and basically assured the liquidity in countries like Panama, for…

Okay. Andres, that's very helpful. Just 1 final question on DP&L. The $300 million incremental investment over the next couple of years. Is that dependent on the resolution of the earnings test or any other regulatory things you need to put in place before you make that investment announcement? Andrés Gluski: So the first 150 -- the answer is no for the C test because we feel pretty good about it. Our average ROE filed is below 10% and our recommended threshold is around 16%. So we feel good about that one. But we are discussing an acceleration of our smart grid plan. Remember, we had filed for a smart grid plan 2 years ago, and we are now resuming that conversation. So we're expecting to have the approval to fund the second $150 million, and that's going to come as we get more clarity around this market approval.

[Operator Instructions]. And our next Richard Rosen with Columbia [ph].

Yes. How is it that, that expectations for new renewable signings should be thought of and financing thereof? Should there be more issues in getting financing going forward? Andrés Gluski: Let me see if I understood the question. In terms of how we are proceeding with our renewables as we were before. We are getting project financing. We are seeing perhaps some areas be stronger than other areas. As I said, smaller projects in the states, we see demand particularly strong. At this point, about -- if you look at our renewables about 1 quarter is related to energy storage, and we see demand there very strong. So I guess the question is, we basically see demand for like energy storage projects and renewables, especially for utilities is very strong. We have the green blend and extend angle in Latin America, and that remains strong for large, especially mining offtakers.

Your goal has been, what, 2 to 3 gigawatts a year. Is that still a reasonable expectation? Andrés Gluski: Yes, absolutely. And if you look at our run rate for the first trimester, it was 700 megawatts. So that's, quite frankly, almost on the button of what we were doing last year.

Well, the world changed between Q1 and Q2, which is why -- but you're keeping that expectation. That's really fantastic. Okay. That's it. And stay safe.

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Ahmed Pasha for any closing remarks. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, everybody, for joining us on today's call. As always, the IR team will be available to answer any follow-up questions you may have. Thank you, and stay safe. Bye-bye. The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.