Neoenergia SA

BOVESPA:NEOE3

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q3

[Operator]

Good morning, and welcome to the audio conference regarding Neoenergia's third quarter 2023 results. The presentation will be led by Mr. Eduardo Capelastegui, CEO of the company; and Leonardo Gadelha, CFO of the company.

It shall be noticed that this conference call is being broadcast simultaneously over the Internet via webcast and can be accessed at ri.neoenergia.com where the presentation slides are also available. [Operator Instructions]

This conference call is being delivered in Portuguese and simultaneously translated into English. [Operator Instructions] In addition, this event is being recorded and will be available later on Neoenergia's Investor Relations website.

I'd like to mention that forward-looking statements that may be made during this call regarding Neoenergia's business prospects as well as projections, operating and financial targets are based on the management's expectations and assumptions about the future of the company as well as information that is currently available to Neoenergia. Future considerations are not an assurance of performance. And they involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions as they refer to future events and, therefore, depend on circumstances that may or may not occur. Investors must bear in mind that general conditions, industry conditions and other operating factors may affect the company's future results and may lead to results that differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking conditions.

Now I yield the floor to Mr. Eduardo Capelastegui. Please, Mr. Capelastegui, you can proceed.

[Eduardo Capelastegui Saiz, executive]

Thank you very much, operator. Good morning. I'd like to thank you all for being connected today to our conference call so that we can present our earnings results for the third quarter and throughout 2023 so far. I am Eduardo Capelastegui, and I'm very proud of what we are about to share with you because we've had a quarter with very solid results.

Here, we have Solange Ribeiro, Vice President, Director; Leonardo Gadelha, CFO; Giancarlo Vassao, Executive Director of Operations; Fulvio Machado, Executive Director of Networks; Juliano Pansanato, Executive Director of Asset Control and Planning; and Renato Rocha, IR Director.

I will give a brief presentation going through the main highlights of the period, then Leonardo will present the results in more detail. And we will move on to questions and answers. And as usual, at the end, I will close with my conclusions.

Starting the presentation on Slide 4, we have the highlights for the third quarter. Our performance has been great in concessions, growing 4.7% in comparison to the previous quarter. This increase is explained by higher temperatures and a more dynamic economy.

EBITDA cash flow has grown, yielding results of 4% growth in comparison to 2022. This increase is a reflect of a larger market and tariff revisions and adjustments, better cost discipline and reducing the operating cost of our assets. In the quarter, we've experienced a scenario where building Pernambuco didn't fare so well in comparison to the previous year. And now this year, we are more in line with its current EBITDA.

And as far as asset rotation, this quarter, we've consolidated our physical assets, which allowed us to increase our profits in over BRL 15 million. We've also had the sale of 8 operating assets in transmission.

And now as far as growth goes, I am very pleased to communicate that we've signed new contracts allowing us to increase our participation in distribution. This should also post new opportunities for concessions to multiply this market by 3 in the next few years. And CapEx could generate up to BRL 500 million, whereas this would be shared across the partners. And they will be involved as far as it makes sense for them financially speaking. And we are positive that we could not have had better results.

Also, still talking about growth, we had an increase of BRL 46 million in generation of new operations and because of Vale do Itajaí with BRL 22 million and another operation that amounted to BRL 24 million. In December 2018, we've had environmental licensing impacted by the COVID pandemic. Now throughout the pandemic, we've experienced major delays as far as obtaining permits go, in particular in Vale do Itajaí.

In light of this scenario, this quarter, we've increased our participation with transmission because of these adjustments. We expect some of our permits to be granted by ANEEL in the next few months. And we're talking about an auction process that happened in 2018 and has been delayed because of the environmental licensing process.

Now throughout 2020, 2021, 2022, we've been fulfilling our end of the agreement. Now I should emphasize the success in adjusting the tariffs with the recognition of all the investments we have made and also the Neoenergia Brasília's adjustment with an increase of 7% in its participation.

Moving to Slide 5. Now we will look at the status of our projects. And we should emphasize that in renewables, we have concluded the Chafariz and Oitis projects. And this allows us to focus on the final sprint of delivering the final transmission lots.

Starting with the lots from 2018, December 2018, we are anticipating its conclusion of Itabapoana for the end of this year of 2023, and this represents something around BRL 90 million on a yearly basis. In Guanabara, to the end of this year, we will have a partial delivery that will increase its production and return about BRL 50 million. The other assets with about BRL 100 million will be ready by March 2024.

We are experiencing 61% of maximum allowed annual revenues, and we will have permission to increase our maximum allowed annual revenues. And as I was saying earlier, not having the environmental licensing because of these delays caused us not to be able to build it the way it was auctioned. Therefore, we are working on a solution for this issue. And for Guanabara, we are adding it to our CapEx.

Now still talking about the December 2018 lot, we still have Vale do Itajaí, and we will complete this year with 21% of its delivery. By 2024, we will be able to make progress and deliver it by January 2025. Therefore, we will conclude this year with 50% of the maximum allowed annual revenues obtained from 2018.

And ultimately, I'd like to talk about the progress we've been making with partial deliveries of the maximum allowed annual revenues up to the end of 2023, and the rest of it will come in 2024, according to the plan. Now thinking about the auction from 2021, we are undergoing environmental licensing. It's been granted. We've been making a lot of progress, and we plan on start operating in September 2024.

And about the auction from June last year, 2022, Alto Paranaíba, we obtained the environmental licensing without conditionings. And now we are applying for the state permit and should be able to obtain it early next year, according to our business plan. There are also gains because we have concluded the foundations and started the construction work according to the business plan.

And in conclusion, we have our networks process -- our networks infrastructure, and we plan to conclude 2023 with BRL 740 million in terms of maximum allowed annual revenues already operating. By June next year, we expect to have BRL 1,057 million in maximum allowed annual revenues operating already. And in terms of networks and transmission by the first semester of 2025, we will achieve a total of BRL 6 million in operations.

And now I yield the floor to Leonardo who will provide you with further details on our results. Leonardo?

[Leonardo Gadelha, executive]

Thank you, Eduardo. Good morning, everyone. Once again, we had a quarter with sound operational performance and good results.

I will start analyzing Slide 6, where we see the consolidated result, starting with the evolution of gross cash margin. Without considering the impact of IFRS 15, already mentioned by Eduardo, and also VNR, we've had a growth of 4% compared to the third quarter of 2022. This growth was driven by good demand in the quarter, a larger customer base, tariff revisions and adjustments and compensating for the lower margin in terms of Pernambuco. This quarter, we once again demonstrated good cost discipline with 3% growth in operating expenses compared to the third quarter of 2022, therefore, below inflation in the period.

In Slide 7, we see cash EBITDA has reached BRL 2.6 billion, it's a 4% growth, impacted by higher gross margin and control of expenses. Now in the 9-month period, growth was 6%, reaching a cash EBITDA of BRL 7.6 billion.

Net profit was BRL 1.5 billion, impacted both by the negative effects of IFRS 15 and the positive adjustment of Dardanelos added value. And so the accumulated profit was BRL 3.5 billion, 8% below last year when we had the positive effect of the incorporation of CEB in the order of BRL 700 million.

Now on Slide 8, in the quarter, we achieved a total of BRL 2.2 billion, very in line with the previous quarters. The highlights were BRL 1.2 billion in distribution, BRL 771 million in transmission with the resumption of work and BRL 146 million in renewables with the completion of works on renewable projects such as Oitis.

Now moving to the operational indicators and losses. This quarter, we observed a variation in injected energy, which is information anticipated to the market. This quarter was much stronger than the third quarter of this year. We've had a growth of 4.7% in the injected energy, consolidating the 5 distributors. Therefore, the quarter was very good, and the growth was mainly driven by higher temperatures and economic recovery.

Now in the next slide, Slide 11, we talk about distributed energy. We present the evolution of energy distributed in our 5 distributors. And as anticipated in the market, in the third quarter, we've reached a growth of 3.2%. The total number of customers reached 16.3 million, therefore, an increase of 317,000 customers in 12 months.

Now talking about losses on Slide 12. We've had once again a good quarter with a reasonable loss rate. We have 4 distributors comprised by this after Coelba's review in April. And I'd like you to bear in mind, we've had high temperatures, but all our losses have been well controlled, in particular in terms of Pernambuco. And still, we are very close to the regulatory losses.

Now on Slide 13, when it comes to default, we've made a lot of progress in collection throughout the 5 distributors. PECLD, which got an increase in the first quarter, has returned to normal levels before the pandemic, our normal levels as indicated in the last quarter. So our PECLD -- the consolidated PECLD is up to BRL 17 million, and this is a good result from all the work we've been doing towards default and collection.

Now on Slide 14, DEC and FEC quality. Both indicators have featured good performance, perfectly within the regulatory limits. Now moving to the results as far as networks go, on Slide 15, we observed a 10% evolution in gross margin, cash, which was driven by a better market, revisions in tariffs and a larger customer base. OpEx in this quarter has featured an increase of only 2%, below inflation and absorbing a larger number of customers.

On the next slide, now I'm talking about cash EBITDA networks without the VNR effects. We have seen a growth of 13% in this quarter. And this -- and I'd like you to bear in mind, this is a year of tariff revisions. And we've reached an EBITDA of BRL 1.2 billion in this quarter with very good margins and well-controlled expenses. And the third quarter, we've had losses because of the IFRS 15 that has been explained by Eduardo already.

Now moving to Slide 18, talking about renewables and liberalized assets, we would like to provide you with a summary of the results. In the third quarter, renewables EBITDA, excluding the positive effect of the Dardanelos added value, reached BRL 363 million, therefore, a growth of 4% compared to the third quarter of 2022. And this is due -- mostly due to the operations of Oitis and Luzia projects compensated for the lower wind power in the period. Therefore, we've had a growth of 4%.

Now to the liberalized segment, we've reached an EBITDA in the third quarter of BRL 164 million, therefore, a drop in comparison to the third quarter of 2022. This variation is explained by lower costs last year due to the occasional non-supply of gas in that quarter. This value is in line with the first quarters of this year. It represents a strong result for Termopernambuco. Furthermore, our trading company, NC, presented an EBITDA of BRL 10 million in comparison to BRL 11 million in the third quarter of 2022.

Now moving to Slide 20 and capital structure. We have concluded the third quarter with a net debt of BRL 38.4 billion, which is very much in line with the second quarter. And our debt-EBITDA ratio decreased to 3.11x, mainly explained by better EBITDA. It's a significant reduction. And the structure of our debt continues to give us a lot of comfort as it is well distributed over the next few years, as you can see, reaching an average term greater than 5 years. At the bottom of the slide, you can see it. And we continue to have a very diversified debt in terms of sources and indexers and competitive costs.

Furthermore, this quarter, we had, as expected, the inflow of cash from the sale of a transmission stake to GIC in the amount of BRL 1.1 billion, which leveraged this quarter. And over the 9 months of 2023, we have already spent BRL 9 million in new funding, thus addressing the entire plan for 2023, and now we are focusing on 2024 already.

Having said this, I would like to give the floor back to the operator who will open the session for questions and answers.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Guilherme Lima from Santander.

[Guilherme Lima, analyst]

I would like to talk about losses and default. Thinking about the high temperature scenario, we have noticed an increased losses throughout the distributors in comparison to the second quarter of 2023 and also a reduction of PECLD at several companies. So I wonder what to expect in terms of losses and PECLD for the next few months if this increased volume in concessions actually turns into reality, if this could actually cause the bills to increase?

And also the adhesion to the Desenrola governmental program for people in debt. And now in Neoenergia and Brasília, we've seen an impact of contracts in the third quarter. And I wonder, for how long will we see that impact with these contracts and if there is anything being done in order to reduce that? These are my questions.

[Eduardo Capelastegui Saiz, executive]

Sure, Guilherme. Thank you very much for your questions. Starting with [ incurred ] losses, as Leonardo demonstrated, we've had some losses in this quarter, although we should -- we are all well within the regulatory limit. But basically, the explanation for this is due to a few reasons. First, there is an increase in temperature, 5 Celsius degrees above average, which, on the one hand, is great because it increases demand, but it has happened by the end of September. So we have an impact, which should be compensated by October and in the next few months.

And we have -- our losses are somewhat superior to industrial losses, but we believe this is very punctual because of the increased temperatures. And we estimate that by the fourth quarter, we will go back to the previous levels as usual. So we're looking at a specific scenario, a temporary one.

Now we've seen more regular levels in distribution. And we understand we have been experiencing increase in revenues due to collection. And we are starting to notice, to feel that improvement across the distributors. And the program is just starting. It has started well for us. We've managed to negotiate virtually all the projects, all the distributors. And now we have to confirm these deals with the contracts for the consumers. And we expect to resume collection, which should be up to BRL 70 million or BRL 80 million as expectation.

But we started on the right foot. And we have to wait for October, November to see how the client -- the customers will confirm the negotiations to start paying off their debt. But we are looking at it with positive eyes because for us, this is great because it increases our cash flow, and it's also great because it increases purchase power and consumption power. And this is always great for us.

Now speaking of Brasília, the impact is still ongoing. And I've mentioned this earlier, but I should insist, it's a surprise. When we acquired Brasília, we understood what the prospects were. And the fact is there is a -- the market is growing in line with how much we are growing, but its increase hasn't been as great as we would have thought in the past. Now the impact of BRL 50 million is distributed across the quarters, but we expect about BRL 50 million over the year. And this tends to fade away eventually. So we are moving past this worst moment, so to speak.

And other than that, as you know, Brasília is very well fit. It's the best performing in terms of losses and OpEx. So we are very satisfied with its performance, and we hope we will go back to life as usual, business as usual once we get through. So we are very happy with how we are working with these assets. And now we will start to realize and to really turn into reality what we had anticipated.

[Operator]

Next question comes from Daniel Travitzky from Safra Bank.

[Daniel Travitzky, analyst]

I would actually like to better understand the CapEx overrun, the effect of IFRS 15. It has become clear to me that you don't have the cash effect from this point. But I'd like to understand if this effect will have an impact on cash flow over the next quarters over time. That's my first question.

My second question is I really like to better understand the reason why there's been this delay in environmental licensing and this causing CapEx overrun to try to avoid that risk with other projects further down the road.

[Eduardo Capelastegui Saiz, executive]

Sure, Daniel. Thank you for your question. I think I've covered some of this during my speech, but let's talk about it in detail, shall we? The cash flow effect will take place in the next quarters of 2023 and 2024. We should emphasize that our estimated CapEx volume for next year is still estimated at between BRL 9 million and BRL 10 million. And there is no impact on this because Neoenergia Coelba, Elektro, they have just had the tariff revision.

So what we are doing now is calibrating the CapEx curves across the distributors considering less CapEx in the first -- beginning of the cycle and more CapEx at the end of the cycle. This allows us to make up for the difference in CapEx for transmission where it will actually happen over this curve. And we will keep CapEx up to BRL 9 million for 2024.

2025, we will probably not have any residual CapEx. Maybe for Vale do Itajaí, we expect to have BRL 6 million. And with that, we should stabilize the debt because the cash flow less CapEx will give us some stability, and we will be able to pay off our debt. 2025 is an important milestone for this inflection point, which is what we're keeping an eye on, but I'd like to confirm that this will happen.

Now there -- as far as the environmental licensing, IBAMA, the authority, has been shut down for almost a year. So it's a very -- it's a force majeure event and this is off the curve. We try to anticipate as much as we could, but there is a delay that we cannot avoid. And this has affected the 2018 projects and CapEx because we've had a year with very high inflation.

In light of all this, we are already negotiating with ANEEL, the energy authority, because this impact, we have no control whatsoever on it. And ANEEL had -- has some initiatives to help the distributors and to bring balance to the economy because for us, it is clear that this impact is completely out of our hands. There is an impact, and we are confident that we will be able to refer to this scenario and maybe -- and all of this will be recognized by ANEEL, the energy authority.

And as I've mentioned earlier, this impact is on 2018 lot, especially Vale do Itajaí because it's a more complex project, it's a bigger project. So it doesn't happen -- it wouldn't flow as the other licensing processes. And now we expect to have all the permits by the end of 2024, the third quarter of 2024. So we are -- our minds are at ease with this.

Another positive aspect is our partnership with GIC, and we have virtually sold our capacity. And now we are expecting a nonbinding offer for Guanabara for the end of this year. And these are new contracts we're signing with them. And then we will make a proposal, but obviously, the agreement -- the ongoing agreements consider the scenario for the 2018 auction. So we understand we are going to have positive results.

And this is a brief summary, but our minds are at ease because these events are under our control. We are negotiating with ANEEL, the energy authority, making a lot of progress. And of course, we still have some ground ahead of us, but we understand this is being well conducted, and we will resume profitability as planned in the past.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, we are now closing the question-and-answer session. I would now like to give the floor to Mr. Eduardo Capelastegui for his final remarks. The floor is yours, sir.

[Eduardo Capelastegui Saiz, executive]

Once again, thank you, operator, and I'd like you to -- I'd like to emphasize our commitment with Neoenergia. First place, we are continuing to deliver increasing and consistent results. We've overcome BRL 600 million in cash EBITDA, and our EBITDA -- our cash flow has grown up to more than 100%. And we've been making our deliveries in very challenging macroeconomic scenarios with the pandemic and reduced growth of the economy.

We remain focused on operational excellency that represents us, that describes us. And we've been spending out as operators in the energy market. And we've received awards where Neoenergia Elektro and another one of the -- our group had been considered the best energy companies in Brazil as distributors in several regions of the country as well.

And as far as our projects go, such as Chafariz, Oitis and Santa Luzia were all delivered within the plan. And now we are 100% focused on the conclusion of transmission projects, and this should happen up to the first quarter of 2025. Our asset rotation plan, which you will remember I announced in the second quarter of 2022, has been generating a lot of value to our shareholders, diversifying our assets and making our balance more sound. And this has allowed us to consolidate our assets such as Dardanelos and increase our profitability and increasing our cash flow also. And this crystallizes our partnerships, and we are moving to selling lots for 2018, which will start operating soon.

Now as far as the future growth goes, in June this year, at the stock exchange market, we left -- assured that our actions are in line with what the market expects, and this has been recognized by the market. And I'd like to emphasize, we will be part of the December 2023 auction, which is focused on the U lot of DC, and we don't have synergies there. So this is not strategic for Neoenergia.

So I'd like to reiterate that our focus now is continuing the transmission project and concluding them and increasing our margins. And we have perspectives for future growth. We are very happy with the Comerc partnership, whose reputation is impeccable, and they will allow us to gain speed in the distribution market.

What I'd like to insist, we will always keep the discipline of capital allocation demonstrated in [ June ]. And as far as opportunities go, we are having a great one to participate in processes of energy efficiency that are initiatives by our customers. This is not something familiar to customers, but we are positioning Neoenergia as a company that provides solutions in energy.

And I'd also like to emphasize, we are very careful with the financial health of this group, which is reflected in a very adequate capital structure resorting to several sources of funding, guaranteeing the execution of our work. At Neoenergia, we have been delivering with quality and financial discipline.

Last but not least, to our shareholders, I'd like to tell you we have the right team, the best professionals who are very committed to delivering the results expected. And as usual, I'd like to conclude by thanking all the collaborators from Neoenergia who have been fulfilling their role, overcoming challenges and delivering results and creating a lot of value.

Thank you very much. Have an excellent day.

[Operator]

Neoenergia's conference call is now closed. We appreciate your participation. Have a great day, and thank you for using Chorus Call.

[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]