Earnings Labs

New Jersey Resources Corporation (NJR)

Q2 2013 Earnings Call· Thu, May 2, 2013

$55.54

-1.25%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to the New Jersey Resources’ Second Quarter 2013 Results Teleconference. All participants will be in listen-only mode. (Operator Instructions) I’d now like to turn the conference over to Dennis Puma. Please go ahead, sir.

Dennis Puma

Management

Thank you, Marine, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to the New Jersey Resources’ second quarter fiscal 2013 conference call and webcast. I’m joined today by Larry Downes, our Chairman and CEO; Glenn Lockwood, our Chief Financial Officer, as well as other members of our senior management team. As you know, certain items in our news release and in today’s call contain estimates and other forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. We wish to caution readers of our news release and listeners to this call that the assumptions forming the basis for forward-looking statements include many factors that are beyond NJR’s ability to control or estimate precisely, which could cause results to materially differ from the Company’s expectations. A list of these items can be found, but is not limited to, items in the forward-looking statement section of today’s news release filed on Form 8-K, and in our Form 10-Q to be filed on or after May 3, 2013. Both of these items can be found at sec.gov. NJR does not by including this statement assume any obligation to review or revise any particular forward-looking statement referenced herein in light of future results. I would also like to point out that there are slides accompanying today’s discussion, which are available on our website. With that being said, I’d like to turn the call over to our Chairman and CEO, Larry Downes. Larry?

Laurence M. Downes

Management

Thanks, Dennis. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. During my presentation this morning, I’ll be making forward-looking statements. Our actual results will be affected by many factors, including those that are listed on Slide 2. I will share with you that the complete list is included in our 10-K, and I would encourage you to please review them carefully. Also as noted on Slide 3, I’ll be referring to certain non-GAAP measures such as net financial earnings or NFE, as I’m discussing our results. We believe that NFE provides a better measure of our performance. However, it’s a non-GAAP measure, and any of the non-GAAP measures including NFE are not intended in any way to be a substitute for GAAP, and they are discussed more fully in Item 7 of our 10-K, and I would ask you to please review that disclosure as well. So moving to Slide 4, you can see we’ve given an updated earnings guidance for fiscal 2013. As we announced on Tuesday, we increased the lower end of our fiscal 2013 guidance. And now expect our NFE for fiscal 2013 to be in a range of $2.60 to $2.75 per share. That changes you can see from the pie charts reflects better results from NJRES, but I would again emphasize that the vast majority of our earnings will be generated by New Jersey Natural Gas. Slide 5 summarizes the financial results we announced this morning. Our earnings of $1.64 per share for the quarter are $0.01 better above the consensus of $1.63 per share. And as you look at the individual results, you can see that NJNG, NJRES and midstream all had strong results. The results that you see from Clean Energy Ventures reflect lower investment tax credits. Slide 6 tells the…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions) Our first question is Mark Barnett from Morningstar. Please go ahead, sir. Mark Barnett – Morningstar, Inc.: Hey, good morning everyone.

Dennis Puma

Management

Good morning, Mark.

Laurence M. Downes

Management

Good morning, Mark. Mark Barnett – Morningstar, Inc.: A couple of small questions here. When you’re looking at the New Jersey Energy Services, you’ve got expanding business, I see in the Rockies and the Pacific Northwest. I was wondering what you see as the opportunity there and what types of activities you’re moving into in those regions?

Dennis Puma

Management

Steve? I will ask Steve Westhoven to answer that question, Mark.

Stephen D. Westhoven

Analyst

Hey, Mark. We’ve expanded by hiring some additional traders to dive into that region and expand our business. We have had touches into that region, but it was never to the depth that we have wanted, but we see some opportunity in those markets to just expand our touch that we currently have. Mark Barnett – Morningstar, Inc.: Okay. Couple other quick questions if that’s all right. What in particular is driving the revised, I’m sorry if you actually went over this I missed it – but what’s driving the lower expenditure forecast for the Sandy repairs on the CapEx side.

Laurence M. Downes

Management

As we’re able to get into the various areas that were most affected by the storm primarily Barrier Islands and Long Beach Island as well as northern parts of Monmouth County. The level of damage and the amount of investment that we would need to make repairs there was less than we expected. As recall going back to the days after the storm it was, we had a real problem with access, getting to the actual areas, and was only when our team was able to get there and assess what actually the damage had occurred that we were able to get a better estimate, and that’s what you see reflected now. Mark Barnett – Morningstar, Inc.: Okay. And if I may ask one last question here on the Solar cost, slide 19. Obviously a pretty good trajectory there on costs, would it be reasonable to assume that you’d say probably fairly flat from here over the next couple of years. I mean, that’s already a fairly, you guys are definitely outperforming the average of the nation, so?

Dennis Puma

Management

I’ll ask Rick Gardner to answer that question, Mark.

Richard R. Gardner

Analyst

Mark, we’ll turn relatively flat if technology stays the same, but as it spread through the swipe panels maybe the density of the panels, it would reduce labor because you would handle less panels for the same capacity that’s what will drive cost down in the future. Mark Barnett – Morningstar, Inc.: Okay. Thanks guys.

Laurence M. Downes

Management

Thanks Mark.

Dennis Puma

Management

Thanks Mark.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) We do have a question Joanne Fairechio for Energy Research. Please go ahead. Joanne Fairechio – Energy Research: Yes. Good morning, everyone. I was looking at your numbers for your customer growth on page nine 9, and I noticed that you had 20% of your conversions from electricity and that intrigued me. Is that a result of Sandy, are you seeing more homes interested in converting to gas because of what happened last year with the power outages or is there something else there?

Dennis Puma

Management

Joanne, I’m going to ask Tom Massaro to answer that question.

Thomas J. Massaro

Analyst · Sandy, are you seeing more homes interested in converting to gas because of what happened last year with the power outages or is there something else there

Joanne that’s mostly a factor of the price differential between electric and natural gas. So there is – we’ve added about across all different field sources, about 300 customers from the effect that this Superstorm Sandy that occurred at some of the field’s natural gas and that include oil and propane and electric. The majority of the electric conversion is driven from the price differential between the electric and natural gas. Joanne Fairechio – Energy Research: Okay. And customer additions overall, particularly in the new, obviously the new cluster – excuse me, new construction customers, so I assume you are seeing a pick in the economy in the area is that – is that the reason?

Thomas J. Massaro

Analyst · Sandy, are you seeing more homes interested in converting to gas because of what happened last year with the power outages or is there something else there

Mostly the multifamily, that are going up now and especially those in county that’s driving the new construction numbers. Joanne Fairechio – Energy Research: Okay. Okay. Thank you.

Dennis Puma

Management

Thanks, Joanne.

Operator

Operator

Having no further questions. This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Dennis Puma for any closing remarks.

Dennis Puma

Management

Okay. Thank you, Maureen. Thanks, everybody for joining us this morning. As a reminder, recording of the call will be available on our website for replay. We appreciate your interest and investment in New Jersey Resources. We will see most of you in Florida and thank you. Good bye.

Operator

Operator

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