Earnings Labs

Essential Utilities, Inc. (WTRG)

Q4 2014 Earnings Call· Fri, Feb 27, 2015

$39.43

+0.10%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, and welcome to the Aqua America Incorporated Q4 2014 Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Brian Dingerdissen, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Sir.

Brian Dingerdissen

Management

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for Aqua America's fourth quarter and full-year 2014 earnings conference call. If you did not receive a copy of the press release, you can find it by visiting the Investor Relations section of our website at aquaamerica.com, or by calling Alex Whitelam at (610) 645-1196. There will also be a webcast of this event available on our site. Presenting today is Nick DeBenedictis, Chairman and President of Aqua America; along with David Smeltzer, the Company's Chief Financial Officer. As a reminder, some of the matters discussed during this call may include forward-looking statements that involve risk, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results to be materially different from any future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Please refer to our most recent 10-Q, 10-K and other SEC filings for a description of such risks and uncertainties. During the course of this call, reference may be made to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliation of these non-GAAP to GAAP financial measures are posted in the Investor Relations section of the company's website. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Nick for his formal remarks. After which, we will open up the call for questions. Nick?

Nick DeBenedictis

Management

Thank you, Brian, and thanks, everyone, for being on. Greetings from Philadelphia where our most recent snow squall just flew through and I'll apologize personally for our famous Pennsylvania groundhog’s bad prediction on February 2, but good news is coming tonight. The world renowned Philadelphia Flower Show opens, which is the traditional start of spring here in Philadelphia. So fortunately for the past 23 years, it's always been a little brighter for me at Aqua weather-wise and numbers-wise, and 2014 was no different. So happy to report our update this morning. We ended the quarter and year-end on a strong note. We finalized our portfolio rationalization program with assigned public-private partnership with Fort Wayne, which allowed us to profitably sell our water system and settle all the various litigation, while expanding our waste water system, assuming a portion of Fort Wayne’s wastewater flows and providing for growth into the future in Allen County. That’d be the equivalent of 10,000 dwelling units which compensates for the sale of the water system to the Fort Wayne. We also closed three water system acquisitions in December; two in Ohio, one in North Carolina, bringing to 16 for 2014 where we had predicted we do 15 to 20. And customer growth at 12,000 - little over 12,000 or 1.3%, which is in the high end of our last two, three years. Today's financial update reinforces the consistent and solid results our investors have been used to as the result of our executing on our proven business model over two decades of investing capital in infrastructure, while keeping customer rates reasonable through industry-leading operating efficiency and using those savings to help put more capital in without having to raise rates. Spreading our overhead over a growing customer base through our growth through acquisition program, the…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] We'll go first to Spencer Joyce with Hilliard Lyons.

Jeremy Roane

Analyst

Good morning, and thank you, for taking our questions. This is Jeremy Roane for Spencer Joyce. First question is, with Aqua Resources, what would the revenue in that segment look like in 2014? And also my second question is, was the Marcellus pipeline cash flow positive in 2014?

Nick DeBenedictis

Management

The Aqua Resources, which we actually booked separately because the Aqua Infrastructure, which is the pipeline, it comes in through a JV line on the sheet. That's the difference. You asked about revenues. Revenues in ‘14 were $24 million. We're anticipating revenue growth of 20% plus, so we're looking at $30 million in revenues, with hopefully maintaining or improving the margins that we saw this year. Regarding the cash, although we did lose $0.02 net income in ‘14 with the Aqua Infrastructure Group, the pipeline, because of fewer sales in ‘13, the cash was still positive, and I'm going to say it was about $2 million positive - $1.2 million.

David Smeltzer

Analyst

Aqua’s piece.

Nick DeBenedictis

Management

Yes, okay, Aqua’s piece. Yes, it was - I'm sorry, it's $2.4 million for the whole JV, $1.2 million for us, cash.

Jeremy Roane

Analyst

Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And at this time I'd like to turn the conference back over to Mr. DeBenedictis for any additional or closing remarks.

Nick DeBenedictis

Management

Okay, I just thank everyone, and hopefully we'll be out of this winter soon. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude today's conference. We appreciate everyone’s participation today.