Earnings Labs

Enel Chile S.A. (ENIC)

Q1 2020 Earnings Call· Tue, May 5, 2020

$4.52

+0.44%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

-0.80%

1 Week

-1.86%

1 Month

+12.23%

vs S&P

+0.65%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Enel Chile 1Q 2020 Results Conference Call. My name is Gigi, and I will be your operator for today. Questions will be taken through the webcast chat. This call is made for investors and financial analysts and the press is not allowed to ask questions. During this conference call, we may make statements that constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements reflect only our current expectations, are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors. These factors are described in the Enel Chile's press release reporting its 1Q 2020 results, the presentation accompanying this conference call and Enel Chile's Annual Report on Form 20-F, including under Risk Factors. You may access our 1Q 2020 results press release and presentation on our website, www.enel.cl and our 20-F on the SEC's website www.sec.gov. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which may speak only as of their date. Enel Chile undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements or to disclose any development as a result of which these forward-looking statements become inaccurate, except as required by law. I would now like to turn the presentation over to Ms. Isabela Klemes, Head of Investor Relations of Enel Chile. Please proceed.

Isabela Klemes

Management

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Enel Chile's first quarter 2020 results presentation. I hope you are all safe in your homes and are following all the required safety measures that with prevailing circumstance request as off. I am Isabela Klemes, Head of Investor Relations. Our presentation will be hosted by Giuseppe Turchiarelli, our CFO. In occasion of these events we have adopt appropriate prevention measures. We are all connected through our homes or individual officers -- office previously sanitized located in our corporate building. The ones that eventually have translated are using a mask when in a common space and also gloves. Giuseppe will open with the main highlights and I will give us -- all an update on the global situation that we are facing. We will then walk you through our financial results and our operation performance. The usual Q&A session will follow. Please note that questions will be received only via chat available in our webcast at www.enel.cl at the Investors section. At any time during our presentation, you can submit your questions. Just select the link at the top of the webcast page, Ask a Question. After this call and Q&A, our IR team will continue to be available to provide with you any detailed information you may need with respect to figures included in this presentation. Thank you all for your presence. And now let me hand over to -- the call to Giuseppe.

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Management

Thank you, Isabela and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Let's start by mentioning the highlights of the period. Today, the world is facing one of the biggest health crisis we remember. Immediately after the first alert of COVID pandemic, we have taken several actions to implement different measures to protect the health of our collaborators and to ensure the continuity of our services. Thanks to our investment in digitalization, we have developed a storage platform that has been able to ensure our business continuity. In the last year, we have been promoting remote work in methodology by adopting new systems and the cloud. Today, we have been able to switch immediately to work remotely, efficiently and effectively. In line with that, today all our generation and network activities are fully operational. We have been taking care of minimize risk in order to protect our people and guaranteeing that our services are fully available. This year we were awarded in the top 10 LatAm and second in Chile in terms of corporate governance among the topic evaluated and in Chile was awarded with the first place in transparency and compliance practices. This confirm our solid commitment with our governance practices and in being a transparent company. Also on January this year, we were included for the first time in the RobecoSAM Yearbook receiving Bronze Class distinction, which also reflects our strong commitment towards a sustainable business model. With reference to 2019, dividend distribution as announced it will not be impacted by one-time effects related to the decarbonization agreement as we have announced an extraordinary dividend amounting to CLP 1.66 per share, charged from the return in net income in order to have a 60% payout on the pro forma net income excluding the onetime decarbonization effect. This is a clear demonstration…

A - Isabela Klemes

Operator

Thank you, Giuseppe. As we have anticipated in this occasion we received questions via chat in our webcast. So I will start with our first question from Mourinho Riccini from Santander. The first question is the following. Could you please give us more details regarding the 38.6 year-over-year retraction in operation cash flow? How much of that was affected by the stabilization mechanism, and how much for lower collections? Is there any other relevant effects impacting the number maybe payments to suppliers it grow 10% year-over-year? The second question from Mourinho is regarding Generation. Are there ways to mitigate the issues that Bocamina one and two were unavailable? What could you do to avoid suffering that kind of impact in the coming periods? Please Giuseppe.

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Management

Thank you, Isabela. Okay. So what concerns the FFO? I have to say that the main balances in comparison with 2019 is coming from the EBITDA reduction and the CapEx executed in 2019 that has been paid in 2020. On top of that, I would like to remember that, this year we paid a higher amount in terms of e-buses in comparison with the last year roughly $25 million. I don't have -- we don't see any major impact in comparison with the last year of what's concerned the stabilization mechanism neither for what concerned the collection at least in March 2020. For what concern the Bocamina one and two well as you may know we have -- we had to shut down our Boc plant after the addition person in one of the transmission line that wasn't owned by our company as a part of project. We truly believe that this process has not started considering that we are fully committed. And since 2018 Enel Generacion has been working with 1,370 corona families to apply international standards to the resettlement process already carry out. We have installed criteria of transparency and objectivity based on the audit of standards to end differences between agreements signed at this time. However, in this process some leaders have appeared who only demand monetary compensation in addition to what they are already obtaining. So, this is the situation as of today. Isabela?

Isabela Klemes

Management

Thank you, Giuseppe. We have now our second question coming from Javier Suarez from Mediobanca. He actually has two questions, okay? The first one is, can you help to understand the reasons why FFO has decreased by [Indiscernible] during first quarter? That I think we have already answered. But if you wanted to also give any other information. And the last one from Javier is that, does the company feel the necessity to revise downward its latest guidance? Thank you, Javier. Giuseppe?

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Management

Okay. I believe that for FFO factor I have already answered. Again, the main variances are the EBITDA and the CapEx executed in 2019 which had a rebound in 2020. For what concern the guidance? The truth is that, as of today, we don't see a major impact in terms of COVID. And it's really is hard to believe that we are not able to recover the delta, the situation. So, frankly speaking as of today, I'm not in a position to say whether we're going to have a different guidance. So I won't confirm the guidance.

Isabela Klemes

Management

Okay. Thank you, Giuseppe. Well we have now a question from Rodrigo Mora from Moneda. The first question from Rodrigo is that, about forced disconnection of Bocamina and I understand that was also responded to you -- by you now. And the second question, if you can give more details about the renewables project COD for this year that was included in the business plan from the company that was presented last December, last year? And then we have a third question from Rodrigo. If we can give us more details about the supply contract entered with [Indiscernible], how many gigawatts hour it has? Thank you, Rodrigo for your question. Now Giuseppe, I'll hand it to you.

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Management

Okay. For what concern the CapEx? And despite of the international situation, we can't confirm our arrangement. As a matter of fact we found a way in order to keep on tracking in our construction. So except for a few weeks that can be recovered, I confirm our plan for 2020. Regarding the supply contract that ended in first quarter. Give me a second, I will check it and I will give you. It's around 100 – if I'm not wrong 100 – yes, we are talking about 0.4 terawatt hour, the contract that ended up with the regulator with the dissolution of sales and Enel. This amount of terawatt hour that has been compensated by the new distribution we didn't do contrary with the free market. Isabela?

Isabela Klemes

Management

Okay. Thank you, Giuseppe. We have – let me check here another question now from Arturo Murua from Toesca. Hi, everyone. My question is regarding to announcement indexation purchase with Enel Green Power. If we see the physical sales between both companies it declined almost 20%. However, the total purchase costs remain the same. Thank you. So Giuseppe this is the question. Thank you, Arturo for your questions. And handing now to you Giuseppe.

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Management

So basically.

Isabela Klemes

Management

Yes the question on – repeat again.

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Management

Yes. Okay. Repeat it, please.

Isabela Klemes

Management

Okay. I'll repeat again instead. So this question is regarding Enel Generacion purchase with Enel Green Power the PPAs with both companies. We see the physical sales between both companies decline almost 20%. However, the total purchase cost remains the same in the period with the comparison between the first quarter this year with first quarter last year. So this was the question from Arturo Murua from Toesca Asset Management.

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Management

Right. If you see in the Slide 8 in the presentation where we compare the whole picture of Enel Chile, it is clear that the reduction in the production is coming from ticking out the impact of Tarapaca is coming from the fact that we have a worse performance in hydro, okay? And of course, last year the system margin and cost was pretty high. So it was convenient for the company to produce with its own – our plants. In this year the situation is different at least in the last month and this explain why we increased the – than the past if this was the question.

Isabela Klemes

Management

Yes. And he's also questioning Giuseppe the fact why there is an increase on price on the PPA between wind power, Enel Green Power and also Enel Generacion.

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Management

Between the – I mean all the PPA among Enel Green Power and Enel Generacion are made according to the market price. So I mean it reflects basically the situation that we are in the market.

Isabela Klemes

Management

Okay. Thank you, Giuseppe. And now we have another question from Alex Varschavsky. The first question that Alex has is – thank you, Alex for your question. Are you expecting that the delay in collection bills from distribution segment could be transferred to Transmission and Generation sector? Have you run an analysis for that? And I believe this is the question from Alex regarding the discussions on the most vulnerable clients. And then the second question that we have is that COVID-19 context, we reflect the ramp-up of our growth projects. What are you seeing in that process?

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Management

Okay. So what concern the collection of our distribution company? And in general, their distribution, we don't expect any, how can I say, rebound on the transmission and production costs -- on transition and production company. We believe that, we are working actually together also with the BID, Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo, in altogether, the sector -- the distribution sector, in order to develop a way, in order to reduce as much as possible -- the possible impact of the collection on the distribution company and avoiding any kind of break in the payment chain along the sector. So, we do not expect any rebound on the transmission and production company. For what concern the CapEx impact of COVID in our project. As already said, is it true that part of our equipment is coming from China, but we have -- we had already checked the regular supply of the our -- the equipment as a matter of fact, they are already coming. So we don't see any kind of impact on that. And this is the reason because we assume a respect of the project construction timing, at the end of this year.

Isabela Klemes

Management

Okay. Thank you, Giuseppe. And that question was from [indiscernible] CrediCorp and now, yeah, the question from Alex Varschavsky. I hope, I have said correctly your surname, Alex. So could you please provide some color regarding your LNG obligations? And the impact then could have in a scenario of lower international gas prices and higher availability of the Argentinian gas. So this is the question from Alex. So Giuseppe, I'm going to hand it to you.

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Management

Yeah. As we mentioned last year, during the investor presentation, we are basically -- we have basically two kinds of sources. In terms of gas supply, one is, of course, the Argentinian gas, and the other one is the contract -- that LNG contract. The LNG contract is a contract that, guarantee us any possible interruption of Argentinian gas. So basically, we have long-term contract that gives us the right guarantee of the supply. The contract provides a special amount of gas that has to be we buy every year. We have some condition among them, in order to organize them, to align the buy of the contract, according to our needs. So the contract is basically very positive for us, in terms of flexibility. Is it clear that, the international price in the market will have an impact of what concerned this content for two reasons? First, because, of course, as we did the last year, and as we did in the past, in general, sometimes we use this contract in order to make margin in trading it. So in other words, we buy from the contract and we sell on the market. This year we don't have this kind of opportunity. But it doesn't mean that, we are not -- we are going to be affected, in the important way. This is basically the main impact because the Argentinian gas probably follows different kind of chain. So basically, again, we buy from Argentina where we need to use it in case it's cheaper than LNG. Otherwise we need to utilize that in our contract.

Isabela Klemes

Management

Okay. Thank you, Giuseppe. And now we are going to go to a question from Enrico Bartoli from MainFirst.

Enrico Bartoli

Analyst

So the first question is, do you see any risk of increasing bad debt due to COVID emergency? Are there any discussions with the regulator on how in case to manage and recover unpaid bills, okay? And the second question is the COVID emergency is affecting in a way -- in any way the construction schedule for new renewable capacity?

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Management

Okay. It is clear that the COVID emergency in some way could affect the bad debt provision. In March, we didn't see it. We are also -- we are also pushing a lot our digital channel in order to reduce it at the minimal level possible in the bill. Again, as of today the impact is coming more from the tail of social unrest that we faced in October last year more than on the COVID. The COVID impact as of today at least in March we don't see any kind of impact. For what concern the second question, we don't have a specific discussion on the unpaid bill with the regulator. What we have as I said before is -- of course, what we have is the discussion with BID in order to find a way -- in order to cover the possible delay in the payment, so in possible delay with the collection that of course will take care about also start compartment of the unpaid. Clear that we are again in contact with the regulators to understand how to face this situation.

Isabela Klemes

Management

Okay. Thank you Giuseppe. And now we have another question from Rodrigo Mora.

Rodrigo Mora

Analyst

And the question is related to Los Cóndores project. So Giuseppe, just to the -- let me just rephrase here the question. To defend the needs that we are facing will somehow affect this COD that we are expecting for the Los Cóndores project. If you can give a color on this.

Isabela Klemes

Management

Thank you, Rodrigo, for questions. Giuseppe?

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Management

Yes. For what concern on Los Cóndores, as we mentioned before, we are reviewing all our projects to be in line with the new safety standard. And is the kind of stuff that we used to do pretty often of course to review and to understand how the project is going. So, as soon as we have the next review we're going to communicate in case we signed a different in comparison with our declaration in the past.

Isabela Klemes

Management

Okay. Giuseppe, thank you. I think we have answered and follow the questions. So I would like then to -- as we do not have any more questions then I conclude the results conference call. And let me reminding you all that ones are connecting that our team Investor Relations is available for any doubts that you may have. And thanks for your attention and stay safe. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Management

Bye-bye.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.