Jeff Eckel
Analyst · Oppenheimer & Company. Please go ahead
Thank you, Chad; and good afternoon everyone. Today we are announcing another strong quarter with 33% year-on-year growth in core earnings of $0.40 per share and a 29% year-on-year increase in core net investment income for the first half of 2022 to $49 million total. Declaration of a dividend of $0.34 per share and please note that from this call forward earnings and dividend announcements will be combined. We announced after the quarter-end another partnership with NG where we will invest approximately $540 million over the next few quarters. I will speak more on this partnership in a bit, but does certainly contribute to our confidence that we will once again exceed our annual target of investing $1 billion in climate change solutions. All of this despite COVID-19 disruptions. And finally, we're announcing that we've launched multiple Diversity Equity Inclusion and Justice initiatives which we'll shorthand as diversity for the purposes of this call and including a multi-year plan for diversity impact. We understand that even as we continue to make progress in our mission to invest in climate change solutions our nation is hurting. A deadly pandemic continues to threaten the health and safety of an increasing number of American families and has left millions jobless and many more far less financially secure. In our long and painful fight against systemic racism and inequality has rightfully taken on renewed urgency in the aftermath of recent injustices. At Hannon Armstrong our intense focus on the environmental aspects of ESG is at the core of our mission and value proposition, but the multiple crises affecting our nation have given even more urgency to expanding our focus on a durable social fabric the S in ESG. This includes efforts toward a healthy, diverse, engaged and fairly compensated staff as well as proactive support and engagement with our local community. These were material factors in our financial success before this crisis and will become even more so in the future. Turning to slide four. I want to share some thoughts on the continued resilience of our business. We've always said that we tend to perform well in periods of economic volatility and this quarter is another example of that. I think it is important to reiterate factors that enable the Hannon Armstrong business to prosper in this unprecedented environment. First, all of our investments save the obligor money. This is a profoundly important credit positive distinction that is often overlooked in more normal times. Second, our clients the leading energy and infrastructure companies in the world are large responsible corporate citizens who will survive and even prosper when we exit from the pandemic. Finally, the investment pipeline which drives our growth remains intact not only because these investments save people money and are sponsored by high-quality clients but because the underlying theme of investing in climate change solutions is proving a durable asset class. And one that we believe will come out of this crisis even stronger. For example, there is little doubt that distributed solar plus storage or enhanced HVAC solutions will be perceived as more valuable during and after this pandemic for reasons related to energy security and health. All of these things add up to a business model that has substantial protection from the general economy as we have shown in this process. Turning to Slide 5. We provide an update on our 12-month pipeline, which remains greater than $2.5 billion even after adjusting for the execution of the NG investment, which to be clear occurred in Q3. The behind the meter portion of our pipeline remains robust and is weighted towards energy efficiency opportunities. However, the BT and pipeline also includes a healthy balance of residential C&I and community solar projects many with storage attached. Turning to slide 6. We highlight our July partnership with NG. We've committed to invest approximately $540 million of equity with a preference on cash flows in a portfolio of 13 wind and solar projects, totaling 2.3 gigawatts. The portfolio has a weighted average contract life of 13 years with large investment-grade corporate and utility counterparties including Amazon, Ingersoll Rand, Microsoft, Target, Walmart and Xcel Energy. Located across five states, the portfolio is 75% onshore wind and 25% utility-scale solar. The portfolio enjoys an expected carbon count of more than 2.0, which indicates our capital is being deployed relatively efficiently to reduce carbon. With this into context, our equity investment will avoid an estimated $1.1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in the first full year of operations or approximately 150,000 railcars filled with coal over the life of the assets. Partnership grows and diversifies our balance sheet portfolio, provides operating leverage for continued earnings growth and provides additional programmatic opportunities with this large ambitious partner focused on the North American market. On slide 7, we provide a comparison of our balance sheet portfolio as of the end of the second quarter with and without the NG investment as if all of the funding occurred on June 30. We're doing this as it means to show the impacts of the NG partnership. On a pro forma basis with the investment, our balance sheet portfolio expands almost 25%, $2.6 billion with an increase in the average life of our assets by four years. All other metrics such as portfolio yield, number of investments and the average investment size are substantively unchanged. As the pie chart on the right also makes clear, the investment further diversifies our portfolio. We had another price slice utility-scale solar equity in the grid-connected market and this combined with an increase in onshore wind reduces our concentration in any one market. Now I'll turn it over to Jeff to detail our financial performance.