Kirk Oliver
Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is open
Thank you, John, and good morning, everyone. As John mentioned, Q3 was a strong quarter with adjusted earnings coming in at $0.23 per share, $0.16 over last year’s Q3. On this slide, we’ve laid out the adjustments to GAAP earning, which are pretty straightforward. We back out $0.16 for unrealized gains on commodity derivatives and added back $0.02 of after-tax integration expense associated with the Finagaz acquisition and $0.03 for the loss on extinguishment of debt. We experienced a loss on the extinguishment of debt in both quarters, this year for the refinancing at AmeriGas and last year in connection with the financing of the Finagaz acquisition. Although weather doesn't have as much of an impact for us in the spring months of Q3, it was generally colder than last year in all our major segments and it did help with volumes in France, and had a modest impact on throughput at utilities and volumes at AmeriGas. Moving on now to AmeriGas, you can see here that the strong results in increased adjusted EBITDA of $15.7 million, were driven primarily by effective management of unit margins and cost. Total margin increased by $9.3 million and operating expenses decreased by $6.1 million. Adjusted EBITDA for fiscal year ‘16 excludes the impact of cost of $37 million associated with the extinguishment of debt in the quarter. Jerry will go into more detail on AmeriGas operations later on the call. UGI international results are very strong, were driven by three key factors. One, the full quarter of results for Finagaz versus a partial quarter last year; two, a parachute effect on unit margins in both Finagaz and Antargaz, resulting from commodity prices that were significantly lower for the quarter and three higher volumes due to colder weather versus last year. Adjusted income before taxes is up $33.9 million, note that income from the prior quarters adjusted for a $10.3 million charge for the settlement of interest rate derivatives and extinguishment of debt related to the financing of the Finagaz acquisition in May of last year. Total margin is up over $78 million due to the factors I just mentioned. Operating expenses and depreciation are up, driven primarily by the full year of Finagaz operations in the quarter. Turning to slide 11, the Utility is reporting income before taxes of $20.7 million compared to $10.3 million in last year's quarter. Throughput-to-core customers increased by 1.4 BCF, reflecting spring temperatures were 38% colder than last year. Total margin increased by $6.2 million or 7%, reflecting higher margin from core market customers and firm delivery service customers. Costs were down $7.9 million in this quarter, primarily due to lower distribution system and customer account expense. Interest expense was also down for the quarter, as we refinanced current maturities over the past year with short-term debt before terming it out with long-term debt at the end of the quarter. Finally, as John mentioned earlier, we filed a rate case settlement on June 30, with the Pennsylvania PUC for $27 million base rate increase, which if approved will go into effect in mid-October. Midstream and Marketing posted income before taxes of $10.9 million, a decrease of $8.1 million versus the third quarter last year. Total margin decreased by $7.9 million, primarily reflecting lower capacity management margin, which was down $7.4 million versus last year and lower electric generation margin which was down $1.8 million, partially offset by higher natural gas help and retail power margins. All of our businesses are stronger generators of cash flow with access to credit facilities to meet their working capital and liquidity needs. Also on June 30, the Utility drew $100 million on the delay draw private placement we executed back in March. The proceeds of that draw of long-term debt was used to repay borrowing under the Utility’s revolving credit facility in early July. In addition, AmeriGas completed the issuance of $1.35 billion of new bonds on June 27. The proceeds of this offering were used to repurchase $917 million of existing bonds by a tender offer, the balance of the existing debt totaling about $350 million will be redeemed in July and August. The timing differences between these debt issuances and the corresponding debt repayment has resulted in a temporary increase in the level of cash and debt on hand at the end of the quarter. Finally, you may recall that our earnings guidance for the full year is $1.95 to $2.05 per share. We are not adjusting the guidance, but we do expect to come in at or slightly above the high-end of the range. That completes my prepared remarks; I’ll now turn the call over to Jerry for his report on AmeriGas.