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Enel Chile S.A. (ENIC)

Q3 2020 Earnings Call· Sun, Nov 1, 2020

$4.52

+0.44%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Enel Chile 9M 2020 Results Conference Call. My name is Tania and I will be your operator for today. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. 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 in our current expectations, are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those anticipated in forward-looking statements as a result of various factors. These factors are described in Enel Chile's press release reporting in 9M 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 9M 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 those forward-looking statements, which 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 forward-looking statements become inaccurate, except as required by law. I would now like to turn the presentation over to Mrs. Isabela Klemes, Head of Investor Relations of Enel Chile. Please proceed.

Isabela Klemes

Analyst

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Enel Chile's third quarter 2020 results presentation. Thanks to all joining us today. I hope this finds you and your family is doing well and stay healthy. I am Isabela Klemes, Head of Investor Relations. Our presentation and related financial information are available on our website www.enel.cl at the Investor section. A replay of the call will also be available. There will be an opportunity to ask questions after the presentation via phone or via the chat through the link Ask A Question. Joining me today are CEO Paolo Pallotti; and our CFO Giuseppe Turchiarelli. Paolo will open the presentation with the main highlights and will give us an update on the global situation that we are facing. How the company is actively reporting responding to it and we present some updates in the execution of our strategy. Then Giuseppe walk you through our financial results and our operational performance. Let me remind you that media participants are connected only on listen-only mode. As always our IR team will continue to be available to provide you with any detailed information you may need with respect to the included information in this presentation. Thank you all for your presence and let me hand over now to Paolo. Paolo?

Paolo Pallotti

Analyst

Thank you, Isabela. Good morning to you all. Let's start by mentioning the highlight of the period on slide two. Over the third quarter, our market contract continued to be under pressure due to neutral looking downturn. Despite this unprecedented extreme scenario, our operational resilience and continue to support our clientele. All the recognition of our matrix and achieving pricing in developing the new renewable project after industrial calendar. We have recently announced the start of construction of Domeyko, the 204-megawatt solar plant and we are going to disconnect the Bocamina 1 by year end. Within the next days, we will give you more details on the new projects. Aiming at decrease in city contamination and improving this region into cleaner use of energy. We continue to boost the counter communication [ph] and support our key clients on the new and efficient use of electricity. Consequently, during this quarter third, we have developed new alliance in public transportation area and in gas service station companies to enhance the development of our plan on electro-mobility to cover the route from Arica to Punta Arenas with 1200 charges it means a charging point only six kilometers. On that let me mention our initiative on hydrogen. We have recently announced our participation with AME in the prospect partners ENAP, Siemens Energy and Porsche to install a pilot plant for green hydrology production through an electrolyzer fueled by electricity generated by wind. These pilot projects which would be one of the largest of its kind in Latin America will be located in Magallanes Region in the south of the country. Let's move to Page three. We know the situation of COVID-19 is not over yet. Still we would like to give you in a nutshell of how our company performed and is performing during…

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Analyst

Thanks, Paolo. Let me start with a summary of our financial highlights, which we'll go through details in the following slides. Before I start, let me explain which adjustment we made in our figures both for 2019 and 2020. For what concern 2019, we had adjusted EBITDA excluding the PPA in early termination effect and the net impact of impairments of Bocamina 1 impairment. For the 2020 figures, we have adjusted EBITDA and net income by the effect coming from the anticipation of the closing of Bocamina 1 and Bocamina 2, which details are described in the bottom of the slide. Now moving to the slide 20. I will explain with more detail how would have been the performance of our EBITDA and MOT online, excluding the COVID effect. Net of COVID impact, our adjusted EBITDA would have been slightly higher versus last year, reaching $866 million, $58 million higher. The factor associated by $49 million related to the reduction of demand impacting our sales and distribution and generation, net of energy passes in the billion $9 million mainly associated with the higher energy losses, customer care and other OpEx needed to face the contingency and Enel lower activities. Moving down the P&L, we record a negative impact related to bad debt provision of $13 million driven by temporary expansion of the historical collection period. Therefore, net of COVID, our adjusted net income would have reached $377 million. Now let's go to our CapEx on slide 21. In the first quarter 2020, our CapEx reached $264 million mainly due to the increase of the CapEx allocated for our development activities. Therefore, our development CapEx totaled $260 million, 94% out of it assigned to the construction of our new renewable facility. Consequently, our total CapEx for the nine months 2020 amounted…

Paolo Pallotti

Analyst

Thank you, Giuseppe. As we saw in the presentation the current situation represents a challenging scenario for the sector and our clients. Despite that, with our growth plan we will consolidate our position as the leading renewable player contributing to the fight against climate change to supporting economic recovery. As you saw today, during our presentation, we continue strongly pushing for our market decarbonization incentivizing the electrification in the country and providing a different solution to our clients. Four of this is based on self awarding our people, business reliability, digitalization and quick reaction to external conditions. This week, I'm pleased to mention that we have been awarded an important recognition from the Leading Trade and Inter-American Development Bank, and in Chile our -- and other four companies in LatAm from different sectors were recognized by its sustainable standards, work on community development, providing affordable electricity to the weakest areas for the country and reacting rapidly to proposed solutions to our clients since the start of social unrest, to respond and anticipate our client needs is the best way to ensure the quality and reliability of our services tied to continuous improvement of our digital platform. Finally, the resilience of our business sustaining strategy is supported by the strength of our balance sheet, and by eventual additional liquidity measures to support eventual headwinds from external environment. Thank you for your attention, and let's now open the Q&A section. I will hand over to Isabela.

Isabela Klemes

Analyst

Thank you for your attention. As we have anticipated we have received questions via phone and chat in the webcast on this occasion. The Q&A section is open. Operator, please you may start.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question is from Sara Piccinini with Mediobanca.

Sara Piccinini

Analyst

Hello. Good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. I have three. The first one is on the slide where you show the working capital of the $160 million. Could you please explain, if this is a figure that has been expanded by the bad debt due to the current situation, and if you see this $160 million to increase through the year-end or can be eventually partly restored? Then the second question is on the guidance. You provided a new guidance during the first half that was at EBITDA $1.2 billion, $1.3 billion. Do you feel comfortable with these numbers or do you see any potential upside or downside? Any color on this? And then the last question is on the renewable projects that you have, you have a very interesting pipeline and obviously you will provide an update with the new business plan but just on these current projects that you announced, could you please explain the strategy behind them? Are these contracted projects with long term prices? Are these integrated with your client portfolio. So you see the pricing risk on these projects to be very limited. So this on the price side and on the CapEx side, how much is the CapEx per megawatt that you are spending for this new project? Many thanks.

Paolo Pallotti

Analyst

Okay. Thank you very much for your question, Sarah. I will take the second and the third questions and I leave Giuseppe for the first one on working capital. Regarding guidance, clearly our review of the numbers of course based on the let's say main events that affected this 2020 is the company. And we think that we can speak to the figures that we released by last July, maybe in the lower end depending on the resolution of the last month and also depending on how the some external effect may evolve in the last two months but we will speak in the numbers that we have announced last July. Regarding renewables and especially the assets of oil price what we are doing is trying to and we are pushing the recognition our generation markets to have more and more renewable assets. This is because of also the conveniency of the asset the generated electricity and also because of the demand that we are receiving from the clients. Now especially large free clients are requesting more and more 12 contracts with the renewable energy. We don't have a single asset linked to single receivable clients. We go through a logical portfolio. We have a portfolio of concert that – which amount is in the range of 34, 35 terawatt three years. And we sell this portfolio of clients optimizing the generation of our fleets. And in some cases buying the stock market where convenient. So we don't see – we don't need and we don't have a single link between one plant and one client. In terms of CapEx, we are using as we mentioned the cutting-edge technology for the solar plant and the large size we combine in our projects. If we look at the cost of investment it is in the range between 0.7%, 0.8% for the solar plant and 0.1, 0.2 million per megawatt for the wind turbine.

Sara Piccinini

Analyst

Sorry, you mean 0.1 – sorry 0.1, 0.2 for…

Paolo Pallotti

Analyst

No 1.1 – between 1.1 and 1.2 for the wind turbine, wind assets and 0.7, 0.8 million per megawatt in the solar plant.

Sara Piccinini

Analyst

Perfect. Many thanks.

Sara Piccinini

Analyst

And Giuseppe for the working capital.

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Analyst

Yes. Total amount the working capital I mean the big impact that we had during these nine months are related to the asset rate, the lower collection in distribution business because of COVID that is amounting in $99 million. And the nice stabilization mechanism that will work $153 million.

Sara Piccinini

Analyst

Sorry. And do you expect this figure to increase or be reabsorbed by the year-end?

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Analyst

For energy stabilization mentioned, I mean we expect that we're going to increase in the following quarter because of the mechanism that it work in between. And for what concern the collection and we believe that absolutely we are able to start taking cutting process we believe to recover in a significant part this amount. Of course, it's difficult to understand how much but I mean the projection is positive.

Sara Piccinini

Analyst

Many thanks.

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Analyst

You’re welcome.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your next question is from Murilo Riccini with Santander.

Murilo Riccini

Analyst

Hi, good morning, guys. Hi, Paolo, Giuseppe and Isabela, thanks for the call. This is Murilo Riccini from Santander. I have a couple of questions if I may. First of all, talking about the portability bill that is being discussed in the lower house. In this case this deal is approved in 2021 or 2022? How are you seeing the migration movement going forward? And what levels of demand do you expect for your regulated PPAs in the coming years? Which kind of mechanism could be implemented in order to ensure the financial balance of the current regulated contracts? And if you see major impacts on your regulated PPAs. The second one is regarding gas activities. Could you provide more color on the gas sales? And how do you expect this activity to perform going forward please? And the last one is regarding CapEx. How do you expect to end the year compared to the [Indiscernible] released last year. This is all. Thank you.

Paolo Pallotti

Analyst

Thank you for your question. I will answer to the first and third and leave Giuseppe for the second one. Regarding possibility, it's a good question. Maybe it's too early to be let's say in record mentioned because what we see today is a general proposal for opening of the market, whose let's say process should be quite large because for the time being, at Congress they are discussing the possibility of going through this law. So we expect that if we such a decision will be taken it will take some time for the discussion at the Congress level then for the approval of the government and then for the definition of the decrees for the over in the market. So, we see for the time being the information that has been provided to the sector a quite lengthy process that should land between 2022 and 2023. At the same time, also the -- let's say the rules of the openings are not clear yet because there is a main object of [Indiscernible] of the market to have a full opening of the market, but still there is an option of going through geographical area starting from the most effective from the let's say pollution or from certain let's say condition -- leading condition of the country. And so, this is quite honest, it's difficult to let's say to the rate in terms of impact. What we see is that, we can say is that the opening of the market is a natural evolution of the sector. So we expect that it will take place. The important element here is to implement it properly and in a timely manner. I mean rather than going through opening full for geographical areas, we see more in the way a transitional period…

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Analyst

Yes. Let me say that the margin that we got last year was rising to the margin that was possible because of the price in the international market in this year. The market is completely different with the decrease of the price of commodity. Of course, we don't have such opportunity. So for this year, we don't see possibility to add such a margin next year of course and different story. It depends on the market.

Murilo Riccini

Analyst

Great. Thanks. And a follow-up question if I may. Are you still negotiating the monetization of both receivables, the one that is being accumulated in the generation unit and also the other one regarding distribution unit?

Paolo Pallotti

Analyst

Well, what concerns and the receivable coming from the stabilization of methane price methane, yes, we are negotiating with some banks together with the ABID and we believe that we're able to close the deal by the end of the year. And, basically, since story for what constant distribution, we're going to see how, we're going to handle in the following month. Both factoring will be done at the beginning of December in the first half of December let me say. And, yes, we are going to do it.

Murilo Riccini

Analyst

Thank you, Giuseppe.

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Analyst

You’re welcome.

Operator

Operator

At this time, there are no further questions via the telephone. I would like to turn the call back over to Isabela Klemes.

Isabela Klemes

Analyst

Thank you. So we have here on the chat, we have some questions. So the first one is coming from Andrew McCarthy from Credicorp. He asking, how high was your dividend payout on 2020 net income, during were you just paying a provisional dividend in January as you did last year. Paolo or Giuseppe?

Paolo Pallotti

Analyst

Yes. Regarding the dividend policy, we think to -- clearly, this year is based on capability of the company to generate cash. And we think the same approach that we had last year can be applied. Last year, as well, we had an impact in terms of accounting and let's say the nominal level of net income, but we decide to distribute dividends on a pro forma basis – there on a pro forma net income basis. So we think that we will apply the same approach and we will decide during the next months. And, consequently, we will distribute the provision on January based on the approach.

Isabela Klemes

Analyst

Perfect. Thank you, Paolo. So we have a second question coming from Andrés Castro also from Credicorp. He’s asking, could you share details about the reason what explained the drop in generation by source, hydro, thermal and conventional or renewables, should we expect the same for next quarters?

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Analyst

Okay. Let me say that considering the current condition, we expect the hydro generation around the second semester, same thing, in the range of 5.8, 6 terawatt hour approximately. And we expect the probability of exceedance of 70% for the melting season between October and December. So in the year 2020 will be the total amount of hydro production will be exceeding to 2019. Usually, the part two is always the best one due to the melting season.

Isabela Klemes

Analyst

Perfect. Thank you, Giuseppe. So we have another question also from [Indiscernible] on the OpEx of this year. If you can give more details about increasing on other fixed operation cost items in the current statement. Should we expect to be a new level for coming quarters or is that only a one timer?

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Analyst

Well, let me say that, basically, one-timer, but of course you have to consider that we are increasing part of our capacity. But as of today, we believe that in the third quarter will be again the regular level. Yes.

Isabela Klemes

Analyst

Okay. Thank you, Giuseppe. So let me check if we have any more questions here on the webcast. So we don't have any other questions now. So I would like to thank you all for your presence today. And let me say that our team, Investor Relations team will be available for any other further questions you may have, okay? Thank you. Have a nice day.

Operator

Operator

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