Earnings Labs

New Jersey Resources Corporation (NJR)

Q4 2014 Earnings Call· Tue, Nov 25, 2014

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Transcript

Dennis Puma

Management

Thank you, Jamie, and good morning everybody. Welcome to New Jersey Resources' fiscal 2014 year-end conference call and webcast. I'm joined here today by Larry Downes, our Chairman and CEO; Glenn Lockwood, our Chief Financial Officer, as well as other members of the senior management team. As you know, certain statements 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 the forward-looking statements section of today's news release filed on Form 8-K, and on our Form 10-K to be filed later today. 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 events. I'd also like to point out that there are slides accompanying today's discussions which are available on our website and were also filed on our Form 8-K this morning. With that said, I'd like to turn the call over to our Chairman and CEO, Larry Downes. Larry?

Larry Downes

Chairman

Thanks, Dennis. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. For those of you who follow our company or seen this morning's press release, you know that fiscal 2014 was a very strong year for New Jersey Resources, and I think you also know that our results have allowed us to increase both our long-term earnings and dividend growth outlook. During my presentation this morning I'll be discussing our future and making forward-looking statements. Our actual results are going to be affected by many different factors including those that are listed on slide one. The complete list is included on our 10-K and I would ask you to please take the time to review that carefully. Also as we've noted on slide two, I'll be referring to certain non-GAAP measures such as net financial earnings, I will also refer to that as NFE, as I discuss our results. We believe that NFE provides a better measure of our financial performance. However, NFE is not intended to be a substitute for GAAP or non-GAAP measures that are discussed more fully in Item 7 of our 10-K and I'd ask you to please take the time to review that disclosure carefully as well. On slide 3 you can see that fiscal 2014 was an outstanding year for New Jersey Resources. This morning we reported record net financial earnings of $4.20 per share which exceeded expectations and was driven by the excellent results from NJR Energy Services as well as solid performance from both New Jersey Natural Gas and NJR Clean Energy ventures. This performance allowed us to increase our dividend by 7.1% in September to an annual rate of $1.80 per share. We have now raised our dividend 21 times in the last 19 years. Total shareholder return for the fiscal…

Glenn Lockwood

Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Larry, and good morning, everyone. I'll take a few minutes to review the results for each of our business segments. The increase in utility firm gross margin that we show on slide 15 for both the fourth fiscal quarter and the year is due primarily to the impact of our infrastructure investments, better earning and immediate return, SAVEGREEN, customer growth and incentive programs. NJNGE's NFE for the year were $74.2 million compared with $73.8 million in fiscal 2013 and was driven by that growth in utility gross margin. For the three months NJNG reported a net financial loss of $5.4 million compared with a net financial loss of $3 million last year. The weaker fourth quarter results were due primarily to higher discretionary expenses including the impact of a voluntary early retirement program. We added 7,599 new customers to our system in fiscal '14, about 2% more than last year. As Larry said, approximately 51% converging from other fuels, primarily fuel oil. Our BGSS incentive programs had a very strong year this year adding $0.22 per share to earnings which equates to about 130 basis points of return on equity at NJNG. As we turn to slide 16, you can see the effect that our customer growth and regulatory initiatives will have on NJNG’s gross margin over the next three years. Customer growth will remain the largest component. However we will also receive important contributions from SAVEGREEN, the NGV Advantage and our BGSS incentive programs. You will also notice a contribution from Myrtle beginning in fiscal 2015. In late 2013 we received an approval from the BPU to serve this generating facility located in Sayreville, New Jersey. Red Oak will become our largest single customer and is expected to contribute over $2 million annually to the company's gross margin.…

Larry Downes

Chairman

Thanks Glenn. I would like to conclude with slide 21 which we introduced at our investor conference in October. It summarizes our key initiatives over the next four fiscal years. When you look at these initiatives you will see that they will drive our strategy of delivering 5% to 9% net financial earnings growth and 6% to 8% dividend growth annually. So when you look at the chart, you can see that our growth plan is based upon strong customer growth infrastructure investments and regulatory initiatives from NJNG, taking advantage of expected demand growth and volatility at NJR Energy Services while providing producer and asset management services, gradually diversifying our renewable portfolio that will provide steady income streams and executing on a mid-stream strategy including PennEast. So I think as you can see, our fundamentals remain strong and position us well for future growth. So as I close and before we open up for questioning, I also want to say thank you to our more than 980 employees for the continued hard work and dedication. Without their efforts we could not have achieved the excellent results we are sharing with you this morning. And I just want to tell you again, our employees are the foundation of our company and I am grateful for what they do everyday. So with that we would be happy to take your questions and comments.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Michael Gaugler from Brean Capital. Please go head with your question.

Michael Gaugler

Analyst · Brean Capital. Please go head with your question

Morning everyone.

Larry Downes

Chairman

Hi Mike.

Glenn Lockwood

Chief Financial Officer

Hello Mike.

Michael Gaugler

Analyst · Brean Capital. Please go head with your question

Just taking a look at your stats and the slides on the PennEast project, certainly looks fully subscribed. Wondering if you can share any thoughts on the partnership consideration of upsizing the pipe at this point?

Glenn Lockwood

Chief Financial Officer

Mike, this is Glenn. The current expectation is for a 36-inch pipe which originally was 30 and as you mentioned because it is storm subscription, we are currently looking at a 36-inch pipe.

Michael Gaugler

Analyst · Brean Capital. Please go head with your question

Is that why you think that's probably the final size?

Glenn Lockwood

Chief Financial Officer

Yes.

Michael Gaugler

Analyst · Brean Capital. Please go head with your question

Okay. That's all I had.

Glenn Lockwood

Chief Financial Officer

Great.

Michael Gaugler

Analyst · Brean Capital. Please go head with your question

Thank you guys.

Larry Downes

Chairman

Thanks Mike.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Our next question comes from Mark Barnett from Morningstar. Please go ahead with your question.

Mark Barnett

Analyst · Morningstar. Please go ahead with your question

Hey, good morning guys. I just had a jump on from a sales call. So pardon me if you addressed this. I am looking at your CapEx slide here on slide 8, and it's a project we have talked about a lot, it's one of the more sizable utility projects, the Southern Reliability. Just if you can give me an update on where you stand with the final planning for that and is the root kind of finalized and should we take this timeframe as pretty solid at this point?

Larry Downes

Chairman

We have Craig Lynch, who is our Senior VP of Operations - Energy Delivery. So Craig will answer that.

Craig Lynch

Analyst · Morningstar. Please go ahead with your question

Yeah, we've developed a couple routes that we are evaluating right now. We do have a primary route that we like. So we are still in the early stages of betting that. But we are at a point right now that we have a route that we like.

Mark Barnett

Analyst · Morningstar. Please go ahead with your question

Okay. So you think that in general, we are probably, based on those -- the different bucket of things are probably pretty firm on the CapEx spend?

Craig Lynch

Analyst · Morningstar. Please go ahead with your question

Yes.

Larry Downes

Chairman

Absolutely.

Craig Lynch

Analyst · Morningstar. Please go ahead with your question

Yeah, absolutely.

Mark Barnett

Analyst · Morningstar. Please go ahead with your question

Okay, great. And could you just remind me on the timing of the next rate case in terms of "like a quarterly" kind of estimate here? I know we've talked about this in the past but it's been a rushed morning, so…

Larry Downes

Chairman

Okay. It will be filed in November of 2015 next year.

Mark Barnett

Analyst · Morningstar. Please go ahead with your question

Okay. And one last thing. Thanks for breaking out in your earnings. I think this is the first time you have quantified the full amount here of the ITC impact for the full year. Any particular reason you've decided to move towards doing that? And I know you have commented on moving away from that in the future. Do you think we are going to see a meaningful tick-down from that impact in 2015?

Larry Downes

Chairman

Mark, we talked at length at the Investor Conference that we are actually building out our approved grid-connected projects and commercial projects. So there'll actually be a strong 2015. But after that we are projecting a pretty dramatic decrease beyond 2015 into 2016 and '17. And breaking out the ITC, I think it might have been on the slide, but we've always done it in the SEC documents. So that's just being a little bit more transparent for you -- for the analysts.

Mark Barnett

Analyst · Morningstar. Please go ahead with your question

Yeah, I guess I meant just putting it a little bit more front and center-end. But thanks for the clarification guys. I appreciate it.

Larry Downes

Chairman

Welcome.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) And we have a follow-up question from Michael Gaugler from Brean Capital.

Michael Gaugler

Analyst · Brean Capital

Hey, good morning again.

Larry Downes

Chairman

Okay, Mike.

Michael Gaugler

Analyst · Brean Capital

Taking a look at your CapEx slide, your solar investments drop off materially with the ITC reduction which is understandable out in 2017. But given the increase in the SREC pricing, I am wondering is there a price point on SRECs where you can reconsider solar CapEx with an upward bias.

Glenn Lockwood

Chief Financial Officer

Well Mike, one of the realities is that the -- there is a limit on grid-connected projects that can built in a state and part of that reduction in 2017 is just dealing with that elimination of any more grid connected projects which as you know are the larger projects. We actually assume that our residential program, for example, will be economic especially with the strong SREC prices we are seeing and the current expectation is to continue the residential solar program.

Michael Gaugler

Analyst · Brean Capital

Got it. Thanks.

Glenn Lockwood

Chief Financial Officer

You are welcome.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) And, sir, at this time I am showing no additional questions.

Dennis Puma

Management

All right. Thank you Jamie and thanks everybody for joining us this morning. As a reminder a recording of this call's available for replay on our website. Again, we thank you for interest and investment in New Jersey Resources and we wish you all a safe and healthy holiday season. Thank you. Good Bye.