David Crane
Analyst · Ameet Thakkar, Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Thank you, Nahla, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to our year-end 2010 earnings call. Today, with me, and participating in the presentation is Mauricio Gutierrez, the company's Chief Operating Officer; and Chris Schade, the company's Chief Financial Officer. Also with me today and available to answer questions are Jason Few, who runs NRG's retail company, Reliant; and Chris Moser, who runs the commercial operations function for this company. So without further ado, to begin -- so ladies and gentlemen, current and perspective shareholders of NRG, as we speak today, it's now been 32 months since natural gas prices began their relentless fall and the economy at large entered into a great recession, the likes of which, I'm sure none of us wish to experience again in our lifetimes, yet the financial performance of NRG during this period has been superb. And that financial performance has been built on the foundation of an equally exceptional operating performance across all phases of our operations and across all our regions. In 2010, the second full year of the great recession, our financial performance surpassed all previous years of company results, save for fiscal year 2009, which was of course the first year of the great recession, a year in which we performed spectacularly, achieving both record financial performance and the acquisition of Reliant. While I am, for the most part, extremely pleased with both the company's financial and its operating performance during 2010, I am acutely mindful of the fact that NRG shareholders did not see any of the benefits of our exceptional performance and share price appreciation during that year. As a management team, we recognize that we have a long way to go in presenting NRG's present value and future potential to the market. In this presentation and in subsequent presentations that Mauricio, Chris and I will be making during the spring Investor Relations season, we intend to make a concerted effort to explain the NRG value proposition. From the competitive strength of our core businesses, even in a low commodity price environment, to the meaningful and measurable value of our growth opportunities, as well as our effective risk mitigation in areas which we believe to be of concern to the investment community. So starting with 2010, as summarized on Slide 3, the company continued to generate a very high level of EBITDA in excess of $2.5 billion and also throw off a substantial amount of free cash flow. Indeed, in regard to what should perhaps be the most important metric to shareholders, free cash flow yield, our free cash flow yield for 2010 was a robust 29%, making our seven-year average exceed 23%. And in response to some people who said that we should measure free cash flow for these purposes after both maintenance and environmental CapEx, we have done it in that way but before growth CapEx. A substantial amount of that free cash flow yield was redeployed back to stakeholders in the form of debt repayment and through our 2010 share buyback program and also into various growth initiatives, which we'll discuss in a minute. But over $650 million of excess free cash flow was returned as cash into the company's coffers, with the result being that our liquidity position at the end of 2010, $4.3 billion of total liquidity with $3 billion of cash on hand, is stronger than it has ever been. It has always been my position that next to safety, the most important thing that we do as executive management at NRG is capital allocation, and given the amount that we are investing on an annual basis and the record amount that we currently have available either to invest in growth or to return to our equity and debt stakeholders, capital allocation has never been more important than it is now. As such, I'm going to focus the greater part of my remaining remarks on capital, which we expect to invest in our growth initiatives in the months and years to come. Chris will focus a good deal of his comments on capital to be returned to stakeholders. In terms of the allocation of capital to our growth initiatives, it's important to start with the obvious point that we want to invest the company's capital in assets and initiatives that not only are likely to yield a return significantly in excess of our risk-adjusted weighted average cost of capital, but also in businesses and initiatives which advance the company's strategy. As depicted on Slide 4, the company's long-term strategy for some time has been twin-tracked. First, to strengthen and enhance our generation to retail business in our core markets through superior operating performance, continued implementation of our first-lean-enabled, long-term hedging program and pursuit of both select acquisitions and the repowering of our older facilities with advantage locations inside load pockets in our core markets. This comply of our strategy which we have pursued with relentless consistency and a high degree of effectiveness for the past five years was joined a couple years ago with a supplemental strategy that is overtly green and designed to take advantage of the societal trend towards sustainability. This sustainability trend is, in our opinion, about to accelerate as a result of the emergence of various consumer-oriented disruptive technologies, which will make green energy at the consumer level the focal point of sustainability. We made considerable progress on both strategic fronts during 2010, with substantial advances across every facet of our sustainability initiative. From our rollout of our eVgo network in Houston, which is centered around an innovative fueling package in approach to electric vehicle infrastructure that is already being replicated in other locations through the smart meter e-Sense applications now being sold by Reliant in quantity, to our unique approach to CCS/EOR being funded in collaboration with the DOE at our Parish facility in Texas. All of these initiatives are exciting and off to a good start. All will, I am confident, return considerable value to NRG to shareholders in the medium term. You will hear more about these initiatives in the future but not today, because today, consistent with my theme, I want to concentrate my comments on the growth initiatives which are more immediate and which are key priorities for deployment of your investment capital during 2011. This is shown on Slide 6. By way of background, in 2010, we committed substantial growth capital in four general areas: Zero carbon renewables, with an emphasis on solar; new advanced nuclear development; conventional gas-fired acquisitions and repowerings; and green retail acquisitions in the form of Green Mountain Energy. All four are likely to be areas of additional capital expenditure in 2011 but with very different investment profiles from 2010. First, we expect an acceleration and significant expansion in our equity capital invested in high-growth, high-return solar projects. At the greater part of our utility scale, solar portfolio should achieve financial close and enter the construction phase during 2011. Second, investment in conventional generation assets should be relatively flat year-on-year, as spending on GenConn and Cottonwood should give way to spending on El Segundo, but conventional CapEx could increase depending on our development success at Astoria, Saguaro or Encina and also, whether we find any strategic assets that can be acquired at value. Third, capital invested in green retail should drop precipitously as obviously the big expenditure in this area in 2010 with the acquisition of Green Mountain. The amount of capital that we will be investing in and around Green Mountains business in 2011 or to expand into new geographic markets, bigger customers segments and new complimentary green product offerings is fairly minimal. And finally, and similarly and perhaps, contrary to popular investor belief, even if the STP nuclear development project stays on course, the development capital projected to be required of NRG in 2011 will be far less than half of what we invested in 2010 and will be a mere fraction of what we will be investing in solar projects and other capital allocation alternatives. So this is a lot to digest, so let's go through a little bit more slowly, starting on Slide 7 with Green Mountain. Four months ago, we paid $357 million for a business that we expect to contribute $70 million, $80 million of EBITDA in 2011, plus, we expect Green Mountain to continue to deliver on a 20-plus percent compound annual growth rate trajectory that they have delivered for the past decade. But we didn't acquire Green Mountain just to continue with business as usual. We wanted to take advantage, and we wanted them to take advantage of what we believe are very substantial synergies between Green Mountain and NRG. Essentially, we want Green Mountain to accelerate the depth and breadth of their growth in close cooperation with us on the same path that they were following on their own, which means expansion into a high retail price Northeast markets, where they start with a natural green-leaning constituency, also, expansion into the larger Commercial segment of the C&I market than they have previously sought to access. And finally, expansion of their value-added product offerings to include distributed green generation. It's early days yet, but on at least the first two of these, they are already beginning to bear fruit. Green Mountain has established a small but fast-growing footprint in New York Zone J, and in terms of larger C&I customers, they have won landmark business like the Empire State Building. We expect to be reporting on these and many more successes from and with Green Mountain as the year progresses. Turning to conventional generation on Slide 8. 2010 was an uneven year, with the successful acquisition of Cottonwood and the repowering at Devon and Middletown, balanced by the missed opportunities surrounding Dynegy's California asset. Cottonwood and Devon have been smoothly integrated into our South Central and NEPOOL lineups respectively, and we are very pleased with the results today. Looking forward to 2011, we're very focused on the successful repowering of El Segundo, an advantage which we hope to derive from having a modern, fast-start, low-heat rate, combined-cycle plant inside the Los Angeles basin load pocket. Beyond El Segundo, we hope to make progress on similar repowering efforts at Astoria in New York City and Encina in San Diego County. Beyond our own Repowering pipeline, the capital we deploy in the acquisition of conventional power plants, obviously, will depend on market conditions and asset availability in our core regions. While the acquisition market is lumpy, generalities are difficult and predictions are often proved wrong, the optimism I once held at the first half of 2011 would be a buyer's market for CCGTs in the United States has largely dissipated. I see no sign of a flood of assets on the market and the combined cycle of transactions which have been announced recently have been priced at levels significantly above what we could justify to ourselves or explain to our shareholders. With respect to our nuclear project, while important steps forward have occurred in several areas since our last earnings call, very little of it can be seen with the naked eye. As before, really all critical aspects of the STP 3 & 4 project run off of our receipt of an acceptable conditional loan guarantee from the government. Certainly, it is a challenge for us to complete meaningful discussions about PPAs with potential off-takers, while the loan guarantee application remains pending. So our exit ramp analysis, which is set forth on Slide 9, remains largely unchanged from the previous quarter. Likewise, our viewpoint with respect to NRG's continued participation in the project remains at the most challenging of these hurdles, which is the long-term off-take requirement, effectively needs to be addressed no later than the third quarter of 2011 before the project enters the substantial pre-construction phase. As such, we reiterate the view which is clearly articulated in both our 10-K and in today's earnings release, that NRG will be in a position by late this summer to make a final decision on our continued financial participation in this project. At that point, the market should have substantially greater clarity about the prospects for this project and NRG's role in it. While we understand that there is skepticism amongst some investors that the project can go forward in the current low gas price environment, we nonetheless, believe it might be helpful to you for us to outline as shown on Slide 10 the future capital commitment of NRG in respect to this project, should it stay on track, with NRG continuing to support it financially. The overall message is that due to a combination of first, the very substantial sum that NRG has previously committed to the project development, particularly during the first half of 2010 after the settlement with CPS. Second, taking into account our expectation of an optimal hold amount in the project for NRG of approximately 40%, which is down from the 67% that we will own if and when TEPCO invests in a project post-loan guarantee award. And third, due to the value ascribed to NRG for its contribution of the site, NRG's cash commitment to the project going forward is less than what otherwise would be suggested by our projected ownership level. In summary, should the project proceed to financial closing, the total cash commitment for NRG at our 40% hold level should be something just short of $800 million in aggregate, including cash invested to date. Beyond that, we are likely to have an LC commitment to a standby equity crossover line facility that will be fixed. And while that number has not yet been finally fixed, you should be thinking in the range of a few hundred million dollars maximum. In exchange for this size investment in STP 3 & 4, we expect cash flow from dividends and tax benefits in the range of $500 million a year for the first several years of operations. Obviously, this is a very attractive return but one which we believe is well just justified given the extraordinary challenges of the undertaking. Now pulling it back from where we hope the project will be in 2016 or 2017 to where we are here in the first quarter of 2011, you should be focused on what happens after announcements of acceptance of the loan guarantee. As the loan guarantee acceptance naturally will trigger certain funding obligations from our partners, NRG's share of cash development spent for the remainder of the development phase should approximate $50 million for all of 2011 and half that for 2012. While our perspective 2011, 2012 development standard is perhaps substantially less than many in the market were anticipating, it remains a lot of money to us, and we're taking very seriously our commitment to retain our financial discipline around this project and prevent exposure of our balance sheet beyond the specific commitments that I've outlined in this presentation. Now turning to Slide 11, last but certainly not least, there is the solar pipeline. I've said many times, and I'll repeat here, that in my 20 years in this business, I had never seen investment opportunities in this sector that offer more attractive combination of high returns, low construction risks, long-term PPAs and repeatable business opportunities than the utility-sized solar projects that we currently have in our advanced development portfolio. As such, we intend to do as much of this business as we can get our hands on, with the result being that by the end of this year, we may well have a total initial equity investment in our solar portfolio that exceeds the total amount that we may ever invest in STP 3 & 4 at very attractive near-term returns. The limiting item for us in terms of these solar investments is our ability on our own to make optimal use of the considerable tax benefits which will be generated by these projects. This is a topic that Chris Schade will discuss in a few minutes. What I will end by saying is that this extraordinary pipeline of utility-sized solar projects, which our colleagues at NRG Solar have managed to develop or acquire, provides us with a truly unique opportunity to develop over the next few years a solar portfolio of true scale and significant benefit, even in the context of the larger portfolio of NRG. Ultimately, however, we fully recognize that the current generation of utility-sized solar and wind projects in the United States is largely enabled by favorable government policies and financial assistance. It seems likely that much of that special assistance is going to be phased out over the next few years, leaving renewable technologies to fend for themselves in the open market. We do not believe that this will be the end of the flourishing market for solar generation. We do believe it will lead to a stronger and more accelerated transition from an industry that is currently biased towards utility-sized solar plants to one that's focused more on distributed and even residential solar solutions on rooftops and in parking lots. We are already planning for this transition now within NRG, so that any potential decline in either the availability of utility-sized solar projects or in the attractiveness of the returns being realized on these projects, will be exceeded in aggregate by the increase in the business we are doing on smaller distributed and residential solar projects through our Green Mountain and even our Reliant retail sales channel. With that, I'll turn it over to Mauricio.