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Empresa Distribuidora y Comercializadora Norte Sociedad Anónima (EDN)

Q3 2022 Earnings Call· Sun, Nov 13, 2022

$24.89

-1.31%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining. At this time, we would like to welcome everyone to Edenor's Third Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. We would like to inform you that this event is being recorded. After the company's remarks are completed, there will be a question-and-answer section through the webcast chat. Before proceeding, let me mention that forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs and assumptions of Edenor's management and on information currently available to the company. They involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions because they relate to future events and, therefore, depend on circumstances that may or may not occur in the future. Investors should understand that general economic conditions, industry conditions and other operating factors could also affect the future results of Edenor, and could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. Now I'll turn the conference over to Mr. German Ranftl, CFO of Edenor. Thank you.

German Ranftl

Analyst

Good morning or good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining. Welcome to Edenor earnings webcast for the third quarter 2022. As you know, you can always call any member of our team for more details on the results of the period already doubts you may have. First, we will focus on the highlights. Edenor continues to guarantee the electric distribution services to all its 3.2 million customers, which represents a population of approximately 11 million people. Our mission is to provide a social responsible electricity distribution service, leading the energy transition that contributes to improve people's quality of life, business and community development as well as to our employees, bondholders and shareholders. We are committed to our community, which is why we have adopted the best environmental, social and governance practices. Revenues from sales were 11% lower than in the third quarter of 2021 in real terms, mainly due to the effect of the lack of adjustment -- of the lack of VAD adjustment. The part of the bill that represents the income of the distributors since 2019, there have been just 2 small tariff increases in March 2021, 21%; and in May 2022, 8% against an inflation of 222% over the same period. Revenues from sales decrease was partially offset by an increase in volume of levels of energy sold. Despite the lack of VAD adjustment, Edenor was able to maintain its quality of services for all its clients. The key indicators, SAIDI and SAIFI, represents the duration and frequency of energy cuts for the last 3 months, showing an improvement of 19% and 13% compared to the same period of last year. Both indicators show the best historical record. On October 2025 -- on October 25, 2022, Edenor completed its cancellation and voluntary exchange of the financial…

Operator

Operator

We have one question from Christian. Good morning, I'm from Balanz. Thank you for the earnings material and congratulations on maintaining service quality indicators at good levels despite the lack of adequate tariff support. I have 3 questions. According to the 2023 budget law being discussed in the senate, an integral -- the entity should perform the internal tariff review from power distributors no later than 90 days following the budget approval. Two sub questions here. First, does this mean that the internal tariff review should be launched or that the new distribution tariff should be already calculated and implemented? Second, how do you expect the study revision to work should it be a wrap-based methodology similar to the 2017 ones with a new asset base, a new regulatory WACC, new volume trend and so forth? Or would it be something simpler and more Adhoc? My second question.

German Ranftl

Analyst

Wait. Let's answer that.

Operator

Operator

Okay. Sorry, it's too large.

German Ranftl

Analyst

For the first question, we don't have an answer yet. We have to wait until the senator approves the budget of 2023. And then we will start discussing how we will do the process of this short process of rate in 90 days be implemented. We don't have all the indications and the methodology and mechanisms in which we will -- how we will make this process being able to discuss with the regulatory entity. That's for the first.

Operator

Operator

Okay. The second one. My second question is related to the agreement with CAMMESA regarding the regularization of the USD 1 million commercial debt. Could you give us a bit more specifics on the calendar of potential payments and the possibilities of seeing dedicated tariff hikes to take care of this debt? This is the second question.

German Ranftl

Analyst

For the second question, what we can say is that in this article of the law also specifies that it's going to be a 6 month of grace period and 96 months of payment installments to regularize the debt of CAMMESA. So we have to wait until that it's approved to discuss further discussions with CAMMESA under the point.

Operator

Operator

And the last one is when do you think that the tariff segmentation and the elimination of the sunset of the energy component for the more wealthy consumers could be effectively implemented in household bills, December, January?

German Ranftl

Analyst

This is already implemented. So for -- and all this segmentation doesn't have any effect in the value-added distribution of Edenor. It's just a pass-through mechanisms of reducing subsidies for the government, but doesn't affect the value-added distribution of Edenor.

Operator

Operator

Are there any other questions?

German Ranftl

Analyst

Thank you for joining this conference. Have a nice day. Thank you, everybody.

Operator

Operator

Bye. Thank you.