Earnings Labs

Peabody Energy Corporation (BTU)

Q4 2015 Earnings Call· Thu, Feb 11, 2016

$27.44

+2.01%

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Transcript

Executives

Management

Victor P. Svec - SVP-Global Investor & Corporate Relations Amy B. Schwetz - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Glenn L. Kellow - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Peabody Energy Fourth Quarter Earnings Call. For the conference, all the participant lines will be in a listen-only mode. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. I'll turn the conference over to Mr. Vic Svec, Senior Vice President, Global Investor and Corporate Communications. Victor P. Svec - SVP-Global Investor & Corporate Relations: Good morning, and thanks for taking part in the conference call for BTU. With us today, our President and Chief Executive Officer, Glenn Kellow; and Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Amy Schwetz. We do have some forward-looking statements today and I would remind you that they should be considered, along with the risk factors that we note, at the end of our release, as well as the MD&A section of our filed documents. And we also refer you to peabodyenergy.com for additional information. Also please note that, given ongoing activities regarding our financial objectives, Peabody will not be conducting a Q&A session following our formal remarks. Should you have follow-up questions unrelated to these activities, please contact Peabody Investor Relations at, ir@peabodyenergy.com, following our call. And with that, I'll now turn the call over to Amy.

Amy B. Schwetz - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Thanks, Vic, and good morning, everyone. In 2015, unprecedented commodity and coal market issues heavily weighed on our performance. At the same time, the Peabody team improved safety and substantially lowered costs and capital. We are also pursuing aggressive actions to preserve liquidity and delever our balance sheet. I'll start by discussing the 2015 results, then review our liquidity position, and conclude with an update of our 2016 guidance. Let's begin with a review of the income statement. 2015 revenues of $5.6 billion declined 17%, impacted by lower realized pricing in both the U.S. and Australia as well as an 8% reduction in sales volumes. Adjusted EBITDA totaled $435 million in 2015 compared to $814 million in the prior year. The team was able to claw back some $620 million through lower costs in both the U.S. and Australia. However, that was unable to offset over $450 million in lower pricing and $387 million in additional realized hedge losses. In the fourth quarter, Peabody took a $377 million impairment charge. As you may recall that earlier in the year we took $900 million in charges, bringing the total impairment for the year to $1.28 billion, primarily related to lower coal prices. Specific to the fourth quarter charge, $251 million related to the Australian Metallurgical Mining operations and $126 million related to our reserve position in the Midwest. Interest expense was $533 million in 2015, and includes nearly $68 million of early extinguishment losses from refinancing of our 2016 Senior Notes in the first half of the year. Continuing down the income statement, full-year taxes reflect a benefit of $135 million compared to prior-year expense of $201 million. The $336 million improvement is driven by a $75 million benefit related to asset impairments and a valuation allowance of nearly $285 million…

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude your conference for today. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.