CPFL Energia SA

BOVESPA:CPFE3

Earnings Call Transcript 2021-Q1

[Carlos Cyrino, executive]

[Interpreted] Good morning to everyone. Welcome to the presentation of the results of the first quarter of CPFL Energy. My name is Carlos Cyrino. I'm the Director of Investor Relations of the group. And today, I'm going to conduct all the dynamics of our event. Today, we have Gustavo Estrella, President of CPFL Energia; Mr. Pan, Director Vice President, Finance and Investor Relations and the other executives of the company. I reinforce that due to the pandemic, everyone is still connected from their homes. Therefore, we apologize if there's any failure of connection. And we reinforce that we will be working hard to reestablish communication as soon as possible. All the presentations will be done in Portuguese with simultaneous translation to English. All you have to do is click on the button, interpretation, which is on the bottom part of the screen, If you wish to see the presentation in English, this presentation is on the website, RI of CPFL.

I'd like to mention that after presentation of results, we will start our session of questions and answers. [Operator Instructions]. I remind you that this event is being recorded. I'm now going to give the floor to Gustavo Estrella to start the presentation of results of the first quarter.

[Gustavo Estrella, executive]

Good morning to everyone. Thank you very much for the participation in our call of results in the first quarter 2021. I'm going to move directly to the Slide 4, where we have some highlights. The first one is the growth in load in our concession, we can see this in more detail. I think we have some very positive signs here of recovery in our concession areas. We have closed this time with BRL 1.966 billion. This is a growth of 15.9% in relation to 2020 and a profit of BRL 961 million and a growth of 6.3%. And we have a net debt of BRL 15.1 billion and a leverage 2.03x the net debt EBITDA.

We have investments -- I think this is important to highlight. We have an ambitious plan of investments for the company for 2021. Our expectation is BRL 3.4 billion of investment for 2021 expressive growth, which was already a record in investment last year. So we have BRL 695 million, a growth of 36.3% in relation to 2020. We also had the tariff adjustment for CPFL Paulista of 8.95%, a very similar process to what took place with CPFL Santa Cruz in March. We had here some deferment for the reduction of the impact of tariffs. So we had the postponement of a parcel. This deferment does not mean any loss for the company, and this is just for the cash flow.

Another important data is the sustainability as our practices in our business and also the evolution of our commitments, our public commitments in this area.

Another important event that we've had is the Alesta operation, which is our fintech. And we've been preparing the entry of this Alesta. We've had these operations of the Central Bank, and we started the operations in a pilot model with CPFL Piratininga with the expectation -- a high expectation in relation to potential business for our fintech during the next few years.

Another important number, we reached 10 million clients, and we've noticed that the market continues its organic growth. So we've reached 10 million clients in the month of March 2021.

Well, let's move on to the next slide. Here, we have the composition of tariffs for CPFL Paulista, a long negotiation with the agency, not only CPFL, but all the distributors that have had a tariff adjustment. They've been going through the same discussion. We put the benefit here of all the agents of the sector, from clients, the regulators and also the companies themselves. I think when we think of alternatives to avoid a very high adjustment now during the pandemic, a time where we have pressure of default plants. So I think we've had a lot of success in this negotiation.

What we can see here is that the largest parcel of this tariff deferment comes from effective reductions of costs. So with no impact in the cash flow of the company. So these readjustments of the transmitters, we anticipated this, and the reactive energy already contracted for the next. This is just anticipating what was going to take place with Paulista in 2023, the reversal of the credits, Itaipu credits here also with no economical or financial impact. And we are able to reduce the expenses. So no impact on the cash flow and the deferment of Parcel B, which will be corrected in 2022. So we have this potential adjustment of 16.58% and we go to the final effect to the consumer of 8.95%.

Let's move now on to the next slide. Well, going here to energy sales, growth of 2.6%; and sales, 2.5%. If we look at the right side of the screen, we see this growth per class. And a highlight here in the industrial area, where we have an expressive growth of 7.7%, followed by residential with 4.6% also doing very well, and the commercial class here still suffering the effects of the pandemic and with some recovery. We see that this negative percentage is less than the previous quarters.

I'd also like to highlight the case of the industry. You can see her on the pizza chart on the left slide below, we see here that in general, we have a positive performance in all the main segments of business of our industrial class. So we can see here a general recovery of all business segments. This is very positive. It's an outlier of a specific area, but the industry in general. And I believe this is very important. When we separate here the impacts in the residential class, we see that the effect, temperature, calendar, the distributed energy, we see that the recovery, in fact, of residences is even higher.

And due to macro economy and revenue, et cetera, we have a recovery of 7.8%. So I think these are good messages, good news in relation to the growth of the consumption of energy, very positive, and this is aligned with what we had in the fourth quarter. And of course, it's still a year of a lot of uncertainty, and we hope that we will overcome this pandemic area -- period, and we will have a recovery of the market. So with no doubt, it is a very positive beginning of the year.

Let's move to the next slide. Now let's talk about delinquency. I think this is another focus and attention for the company ever since the beginning. Here, we have good results of delinquency, BRL 0.67 million, BRL 0.1 million better than the first quarter of 2020 and a bit lower than our historic average. I think, again, the market is reacting well, and we're able to deliver good delinquency, a lot of concern for the months here in the second quarter of 2021. We have felt pressure, and we have prepared the company with different actions billing, et cetera, but we see that there isn't a trend of an increase of the delinquent, especially the residential clients, which is pressuring this delinquency.

As I said, it's a year of a lot of uncertainty, a lot of volatility. So we have always to pay attention at such types of movements. And in April, we noticed that there's a trend of increasing the delinquency. So our main tool, we have high levels of here over 200,000 cuts per month. And the expectation is that we'll increase these power cuts so that we can control the trend of the increase of delinquency short term. In terms of losses, these are stable energy losses. These are -- we've had some challenges to control these losses. I think the good news is that it's not increasing. We've had some difficulty in bringing these losses to a stable level. So all the instruments that we have, especially a growth of 6% in terms of -- compared to 2020, we also had a positive effect here with 19%. But this is also -- this is the recovered energy, but this is something that concerns and is object of a lot of tension in the company.

About generation, I think, here, we can see a drop of the PLD in the first quarter of 2020. For sure, the trend is different, especially for the end of the second quarter. And the second quarter of 2020, we've gone through unfavorable times from January to April. It's the fourth worst period in hydrology in the last 91 years. So this starts to pressure the PLD. So we have a perspective of high PLD for the next month.

The GSF, more or less going in the same direction, with this expectation of a drier period, and the expectation is that the GSF has a trend to increase in the next month. We have different scenarios about the flow. Basically, it talks with the rain regime. We've come from a negative number in 2020, a bit better in the south of the country, different to the PCHs, which are basically in the southeast of the country, where we have worst hydrology.

Well, what about wind? This is one of the highlights of -- it's a growth of 68.4% in the wind generation. And here, we have 2 large impacts. The first one of them comes from the availability with a growth of 0.9%. And we've had a trend of increasing the availability ever since last year especially in our wind farms, and this has brought better performance in generation.

We also have a very positive performance in wind. Last year was bad, was a low performance of winds, and we've had an expressive growth. Last year was 58%, and now we have already reached 92%. So this has been the trend beyond the first quarter. This number is very close to P50 million, and it brings a positive perspective for wind generation, not only for the first quarter, but also in general.

Let's move to the next slide. Well, now I'm going to give the floor to Mr. Pan for him to comment the results.

[Yuehui Pan, executive]

Thank you, Gustavo. Good morning to everyone. This slide, the EBITDA in this quarter has been almost BRL 2 billion, an increase of 15.9%. The distribution segment has now had a good result, again, with an increase of 11%. The largest variation was the finance assets of the concession, which had an increase of BRL 130 million due to the high IPCA. In the first quarter last year, the IPCA was 1.62%, and this year was 2.48%. Another important effect was the higher market gain and the tariff, BRL 62 million, mainly due to the increase of tariff that we've had and the readjustments in 2020.

We also had a gain of BRL 7 million referring to the BRR of CPFL Santa Cruz. In CPFL Santa Cruz, we decided to revert the gain in relation to the PIS/Cofins over the ICMS tax. This reversion was carried out due to the positioning of the technical area of NL on the theme of a public hearing, which is ongoing, about the credits, which should be total. But it's important to highlight that the agency director is still going to decide about this topic, and the company is still continuing with the understanding that the reimbursement to the consumers is limited to a time frame of 10 years. In the pension plan, we've had an increase of BRL 11 million. The PMSO and other effects on the EBITDA all totaled 12 million. In generation, EBITDA was of BRL 650 million, an increase of 21.4%. The main effect was a higher energy generation in our wind farms with which Gustavo has just mentioned, with BRL 117 million.

Another positive effect was the update of the contract prices to BRL 62 million. On the other hand, we had some negative impacts in the period. The seasonality of the PCH contracts, negative BRL 34 million due to a lower allocation of energy. This should be compensated in the next quarters, a high of UBP due to a higher IGPMM, BRL 10 million; GSF, BRL 7 million. Depreciation tax change in Epasa assets to adequate to the end of the contract, BRL 6 million, among other effects.

The segment of trading service and others had an increase of BRL 41 million. Trading improved its results in BRL 17 million due to higher prices.

In the Service segment, more than 17 million CPFL services and CPL efficiency once more are highlights.

Now the next slide, we show the performance of the net profit, which was BRL 961 million during the period, an increase of BRL 6.3 million in relation to the last year. In the financial results, we had a decrease of BRL 242 million due to the gain of MTM, which we had in the first quarter of last year.

On the other hand, we had a gain of BRL 40 million, with increase in fines due to payment delays of energy bills due to the higher IGP-M. And the expenses with the net debt had a reduction of BRL 15 million, which are explained by the decrease of the SELIC. And by the cost reduction -- the average cost reduction of the debt. The depreciation varied in BRL 33 million and the taxes had a positive impact of BRL 26 million.

Let's move to the next slide. Now we're on Slide 11, where we have the debts of the company. The first chart, the net debt is a total of BRL 15.1 billion; EBITDA 7.4 billion, and the leverage measured by the net debt over EBITDA was of 2.03x.

On the debt profile, on the chart beside, we have the cost of the debt, real and nominal, an increase in the first quarter is due mainly to the IP variation during the period. But the real cost is negative, helped by the interest rate, SELIC in its historical minimum and by inflation, which is over 4%. And the composition of the gross debt, we see that a higher exposure is indexed to the CDI with 75%. The cash at the end of the first quarter was close to BRL 4.6 billion, with a coverage rate of 0.76x the short-term amortizations. The average period of amortization is 2.44 years.

Now let's move on to the Slide #12. Here, we have the CapEx. During this period, we carried out an investment of BRL 695 million. Gustavo has already mentioned this amount, an increase of 36.3% in relation to the same period last year.

In the vision per segment, we had in distribution, a total invested of BRL 597 million, destined to modernization and maintenance. For generation and transmission, we've had BRL 44 million to continue the Gameleira and Cherobim project, and BRL 38 million for the Maracanau, Sul I and Sul II projects -- transmission projects. And for the Trading & Services segment, we destined BRL 16 million. So that's what I had to say. Thank you very much.

And now I give back the floor to Mr. Gustavo Estrella.

[Gustavo Estrella, executive]

Thank you, Mr. Pan. Well, to -- I want to go a little bit more into detail about the sustainability and what we've been doing. So I think the first initiative that we have here is that we're increasing the renovated number of units. This is totally linked to ESG. This is part of our fourth commitment for the sustainability plan, almost 10,000 units only in just the first quarter. This activity has brought large relevance for our business of distribution, renovating our transformers about the reverse chain, which is part of our sustainability is that we started this in the South. We had already this activity in the state of São Paulo. So the idea is to expand these activities.

And we now began with huge expectations. We have all over 6 tons being recycled and in a reverse chain, and the idea is to do the same thing. And for all the benefits of environment, we also have generation of new jobs in the company with these activities. So once more, there are 15 commitments. What we have here are very clear plans for each one of the terms that are linked to our business. These are some examples of the fifth and the sixth -- fourth and fifth commitment of the sustainability plan with these refurbishments, reverse chain, and this is part of our core business here in CPFL. So I believe that these were the main information. And now we are open for questions and answers.

[Carlos Cyrino, executive]

Thank you, Gustavo. Thank you, Pan, for your presentation. So we'll now open the questions and answers. [Operator Instructions].

Well, we have here some questions. The first question is from Rafael Nagano from Credit Suisse.

[Rafael Nagano, analyst]

I would like to know about capital allocation and the leveraging of the company. I'd like to see how are you looking at the return comparison as these transmission projects. And which one of them are more competitive right now? And besides transmission, other activities of the group, what are the expectations? And what would be the steps for this negotiation to have results.

[Gustavo Estrella, executive]

Thank you for your question. Well, allocation of capital, what we've seen here -- what we've seen is a series of opportunities in transmission. And as you said, we have the perspective we had with the tenders. And I think these expectations are lower than last year, but some assets will be on the market. So that's what we've been seeing. And I think in both cases, what we observe is high competition. A lot of people, a lot of competition, a lot of players wanting to invest in transmission, whether it be through bidding processes, but this is being pressuring. We're living through an interest rate scenario with low interest rates. And in general, we have this perspective of low interest rates, which will probably last for another year or 2. And this ends up by reflecting investments.

It's important to remember that we're talking about assets with maturation of long-term, concessions of 20, 30 years. And this scenario that we expect of real interest rates in Brazil can only -- can -- have to look at this perspective at an even longer term than this. So this has brought us a challenge of growth with this perspective of low interest rates. And also, the market -- low market return for this type of asset, we continue. Of course, the environment, short term, also affects our perspective of return, but it is important to keep up the methodology that long-term investments should be evaluated long term. So that's what we've been doing. And we have -- we see a lot of competition in this modality of investment.

Now we don't have any signaling or any news from what we've been saying to the market. I think these decisions of the shareholders. And what we always say is that if we have any movement, any new movement, all the procedures and practices will be according to the norms and the regulations of CVM of the market. And the respect that CPFL has always had for the market, this respect will be maintained. So this is a process that has been happening in the same basis. So a follow-on, but you also had this so we're going to follow all the government's rules, transparency, fairness with the market so that we can have this operation. It will not be different. But once more, I don't have any signaling that this operation will be happening at all. If we have any news, we will communicate.

[Carlos Cyrino, executive]

Let's move to the second, Marcelo Sa from Itau.

[Marcelo Sá, analyst]

I have 2 questions. I think the first one would be for you to comment about the implications of the SCF decision -- the court decision of the exclusion of the calculus base of the PIS/Cofins. From what we've understood, in the case of distributors in general, that we follow everyone went to court way back. So if you went to court before 2017, you'd have access to this credit and the credit that you recognize -- that you're going to recognize will be guaranteed with this decision of the high courts.

And another point, which I think was important in this decision is how to quantify this credit. I think this is a discussion about the value effectively paid and what was determined, which is over the [ status ]. So in this magnitude, I think that you -- I would like you to compare the numbers that you've put in the gains. Is this made based on the value effectively paid? Just for us to have an idea of the dimension of what could change with this high court decision.

[Gustavo Estrella, executive]

Well, this decision, I think, is aligned with our expectation. It's basically what we imagine. So as you've said, the most important aspect is a definition of how to calculate the process that still haven't been decided, and how to calculate the ICMS credit. So this is the value that is on the invoices and not effectively paid. So it's important to take into consideration some processes already have crystallized decision in these different processes, so it won't change. But this will guide the next processes, and they will quickly converge to a final decision. So the way that we calculated this, this was calculated exactly as we imagine.

And the next ones is you will be converging towards a decision of the high courts where you have these values. So in these processes that you've already -- that have already been calculated. This credit was calculated based on the value effectively paid. You wouldn't have additional recognition of credit. It would be the value that was already determined and nothing would change. What's being discussed is what was not yet judged, and this then would be done based on the value of the invoice and not on the value effectively paid.

Yes, the -- so there wouldn't be any change, but this process has changed. So it has to be calculated according to what they've -- and the next ones will be done according to this criteria. So my question is that some people say that this total value would be BRL 250 billion, And in this study, the value effectively paid and not the value determined on the invoice. But if it's not going to change, perhaps the increase on the fiscal side ends up by being lower than what people think because of what is going to happen in the future. Yes, you can't change, what has already been ended and been crystallized. You're talking about the whole country. But in any case, what was -- this is what was decided yesterday by the Supreme Court.

[Marcelo Sá, analyst]

Do you have any estimate of how much this could impact the actions, ongoing actions that you have that haven't been concluded? Does this increase 10%, 20%? Is there any estimate made by the company?

[Gustavo Estrella, executive]

No, we don't have a clear vision. We don't have a clear vision. It will be calculated according. Now we have a more precise understanding coming from the high courts. But It would be a higher value depending on this. So it would be higher than the value effectively paid, then the value would be a bit lower.

[Marcelo Sá, analyst]

Okay. That makes it clear. Estrella, I think my last question is about the privatization process o Electrobras. So this was published. And after there was a report that was circulated. And in this report, it mentions the possibility of ANEEL. When you have a large market share of the free market. It could be obliged to participate in a regular bidding process. I don't know how you see this. Is it just something that concerns the sector? If you think this is something that will be modified, how is the sector articulating itself to avoid this becomes a large regulatory risk in the future?

[Ricardo Motoyama, executive]

I'm Ricardo Motoyama. Thank you for your question. We have followed the issue of the privatization of Electrobras. We believe it makes sense for the country. And we have been looking at the concentration of generation in the hands of one only player, one sole player. They have a large parcel of the country's generation. So this is something that we've been looking at with care to see what the impact of this concentration is, for sure, in relation to the topic that you're talking about. We have to look at this very carefully. So this is not a regulatory risk, as you mentioned. But it is a point that we've been following very carefully a long time.

[Operator]

We're now going to move on to the next question we have from William from the Santander Bank.

[Andre Sampaio, analyst]

It's Andre -- sorry, I came -- I'm on Zoom with another name. I'm going to ask 2 questions, which are very much connected with the topics of Sa. These are 2 questions I have. The first question is It would be in relation to the PIS/Cofins taxes. I'd like to know what is your expectation and how the process can evolve, the legal process due to this law that they're working on to revert this 100% to consumers. This has already advanced in the government?

And the second question I have is about the privatization of Electrobras. It's another interesting point, which is the Proinfa for renovation contract. We'd like to hear If you have any vision about this possibility, how you see this. Would this be compulsory And how much we could be talking about in relation to potential? Basically, that's my question.

[Gustavo Estrella, executive]

About the PIS/Cofins, the -- we understand that the values over 10 years will not be given back to the consumers. So CPFL has -- would have a right to this amount. And now it's not a law, it's an interpretation that all this amount would be transferred to the tariffs. It seems to me, as from a public hearing, the decision taken by ANEEL, the natural consequences that there will be a dispute about this, and it could even go to court. So basically, we will -- we could differ from this idea and there would be some legal actions. So we think that these amounts, obviously, should be for the distributors. That's how we understand it. If there's any dispute, this is obviously something that can happen. I hope I answered your question.

[Andre Sampaio, analyst]

Yes. Gustavo, I'd like to follow up here in relation to this question. My question is if the Congress approves the law that says the consumer -- can the company continue disputing this fact or not?

[Gustavo Estrella, executive]

Well, a law that says that you're going to transfer this to the consumer, this would be from now on not a retroactive law. So if there's ANEEL decision, then the legal dispute will be different. It doesn't seem reasonable that a law goes back to a right -- a legal right that is -- already exists in the past. So it's already an old rule. So the reason that we understand that we have the right to this is prior to this. So to make a new law to transfer this and remove the right that we have, I think this would be something questionable. So if it's this way, for sure, the -- I think we could question even a law because it's a right that already exists.

[Andre Luiz Gomes da Silva, executive]

This Andre Gomes from regulatory, just adding to Gustavo [indiscernible]. I think he's also talking about the Senate law, which is establishing social reduction utilizing this PIS/Cofins decision, perhaps he's referring to this. Would it be this?

[Andre Sampaio, analyst]

There's a law, it's a recent law that passed in the Congress. I can't remember. Yes, it's still ongoing, but I can't remember the number of the law.

[Andre Luiz Gomes da Silva, executive]

Well, it ends up by referring to the ANEEL discussion, and it establishes return in 5 years. So there would be this return of the PIS/Cofins tax in 5 years. And in the article, it establishes that the executive power will determine the value associated to the resources that this law project, which is 10,848. So I think it still has to be evaluated. It will still go to the chamber. But I think that these values would be regulated by the executive power. So I think there is still a discussion about what the executive power is going to define.

So I think it's still ANEEL's responsibility to discuss if it's 100% or not. I think there will still be a discussion on this. I also believe that we still have to evaluate. Things are moving fast, but it goes back to the ANEEL issues and resources and readjustments when you analyze the reasons of the project laws. So we have to look at this carefully, but we will have to evaluate and check.

[Gustavo Estrella, executive]

Andre, thank you for your question. About the Proinfa that you mentioned, There is this point in the preliminary report that was published this morning about the privatization of Electrobras. It is a point that, for sure, we're going to study. It's not a simple topic. We have to remember that Proinfa has different types of sources, PCH, wind and an, extensive contract, the performance of this type of project. So we're paying attention to this, but it will be a discussion that will be carried out with technical aspects taken into consideration. I think that's what I had to say about it.

[Carlos Cyrino, executive]

Thank you, Andre, for the question. Well, we don't have any more questions. So we're going to end this question-and-answer session, if there's any other question, the Investor Relations group that is available to clarify this later. I'm going to give the floor back to Gustavo Estrella for his final considerations.

[Gustavo Estrella, executive]

Thank you, Cyrino. Well, thank you very much for your participation. I believe that we end the first quarter in a very positive way, with expectation and hope of a recovery of our economy of the market and that we are able to overcome this pandemic so that everything can go back to normal. I think it's a positive beginning of the year, which shows the market and the industry ready to produce again. And there's this involvement of stock composition, and we see this in a very positive light. So there's a perspective of recovery.

I think it's still early to celebrate. It's a challenging year. The same as 2020, we've been trying to preserve the maximum we can. Our operations with a focus, always concerned with the health and the safety of our collaborators and our business. I think the indicators of the investment gives us the directions of the perspective and the way that we're handling our business goes long term. It's a crisis that has to be dealt with, but looking to the future and looking long term. So I believe that we've started well, but we have to be very attentive to any movements in the sector to the economy during the next month. So once more, I thank you, all, for your participation, and I wish you a wonderful day.

[Carlos Cyrino, executive]

We're now ending the presentation of results of the first quarter of 2021. Once more, thank you, all, for your participation, wishing you an excellent afternoon, a good weekend, take care, keep safe and see you next time. Thank you very much, everyone.

[Portions of this transcript that are marked [Interpreted] were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]