Good day, and welcome to Genie Energy's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2019 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions]. In its presentation, Genie Energy's management team will discuss financial and operational results for the 3 and 12 month period ended December 31, 2019. Any forward-looking statements made during this conference call either in the prepared remarks or in the Q&A session, whether general or specific in nature, are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those which the Company anticipates. These risks and uncertainties include but are not limited to specific risks and uncertainties discussed in the reports that Genie Energy files periodically with the SEC. Genie Energy assumes no obligation either to update any forward-looking statements that they have made or make or to update the factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those that they forecast. During their remarks, management may make reference to pro forma revenue and income, loss from operations and to adjusted EBITDA, which are non-GAAP measures. Management believes that Genie Energy's pro forma revenue, income, loss from operations and adjusted EBITDA provide useful information to both management and investors. The Genie Energy earnings release, including a reconciliation of the pro forma results to their respective GAAP results and of adjusted EBITDA to net income, is available on the Investor Relations page of the Genie Corporation website at www.genie.com. The earnings release has also been filed on a Form 8-K with the SEC. After today's presentation by Genie Energy's management, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. [Operator Instructions]. Please note, this event is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Michael Stein, Genie Energy's Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead, Mr. Stein.

Thank you, operator. Welcome to Genie Energy's fourth quarter earnings call. Today, we will discuss our operational and financial results for the 3-month and 12-month periods ended December 31, 2019. Avi Goldin, our Chief Financial Officer, will follow my discussion with a deeper dive into the quarter and full year’s financial results. Following Avi's remarks, we will be glad to take your questions. Results for the fourth quarter and the fiscal year 2019 reflected our commitment to grow our retail energy business to further diversify geographically across regulatory jurisdictions and energy markets and to return value to our shareholders. I'm very pleased with the progress we made in each of those three areas and believe we are well positioned for a strong 2020. Those of you that have followed us for a while know that the first three quarters of the year, were very strong from [meter] acquisition perspective. Although the fourth quarter is typically the most challenging from gross meter acquisition standpoint, because of the holidays and weather we ended 2019 at 374,000 RCEs, an increase of 46% compared to a year earlier. That's our highest RCE level ever at year end. Our full year 2019 year growth was even more impressive. At year end, we reached 497,000 meters, our highest level since 2012, and a 54% increase from the level a year earlier. Our growth was balanced across the United States and international markets. We added 56,000 net domestic RCEs and 61,000 overseas in 2019. At December 31, we served 309,000 RCEs here in the U.S. and 65,000 RCEs between the U.K., Finland and Japan. International RCEs comprise 17% of our global customer base at December 31. This robust growth reflects our sustained investment in meter acquisition with an emphasis on new markets and focus on churn reduction.…

Thank you, Michael, and thanks to everyone on the call for joining us this morning. My remarks today cover our financial results for the 3 and 12-month period ended December 31, 2019. Throughout my remarks, I compare the fourth quarter 2019 results to the fourth quarter of 2018 and the full year 2019 results to full year 2018. Regarding our quarterly results, focusing on the year-over-year rather than the sequential comparison removes from consideration the seasonal factors characteristic of our retail energy business. The fourth quarter is a shoulder quarter, with relatively modest levels of per meter consumption falling between the peak cooling season third quarter and the peak heating season in the first quarter. Picking up where Michael left off. Fourth quarter’s financial highlights included a record level of revenue, significant year-over-year revenue and gross profit increases and increased investment in customer acquisition costs, especially in our international markets. Income from operations and adjusted EBITDA improved substantially from the year ago quarter. EPS decreased slightly on an increased provision for income taxes. Our continued performance allowed to the additional fourth quarter buyback that Michael mentioned and enabled us to continue our quarterly preferred and common stock dividend. Consolidated revenue in the fourth quarter increased $19.2 million year-over-year to $82 million, the highest level of revenue we have generated in any fourth quarter in our history. The increase was primarily result of growth in our domestic meter base and a shift to higher consumption meters, as well as the meter growth at Genie Retail International. Full year revenue increased by $35 million to $315.3 million in 2019, reflecting increased revenue at both GRE International and Genie Retail Energy. In the fourth quarter Genie Retail Energy, our domestic energy supply business contributed $74 million of revenue, an increase of $15.2 million…

We will now begin the question and answer session. [Operator Instructions]. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. And our first question will come from Aaron Shafter with Great Mountain Capital.

Hi. Congratulations, gentlemen, on a quarter of good solid customer acquisition and great year of strong customer growth. I'm wondering if -- everyone's talking about Corona virus if you can tell us if there's any impact if any of Corona virus on Genie’s operations and earnings?

Hi, Aaron. Thanks, thanks for the -- for calling in and thanks for the question. We have not yet seen any material impact from the Corona virus on our activities so far this year 2020. Obviously, that that could change, we have included a few business related risks, due to Corona virus in our 10-K. And one of them would be potentially seeing a slowdown in door-to-door sales. Other than that, I can't think of anything. But, like I said, to-date, we haven't seen a slowdown in sales.

Okay. And the Corona virus has caused a lot of fear in the market to sell-off in the stock in general. I attribute at least the sell-off in Genie to that type of fear. You mentioned, talked about the stock buyback program. I'm wondering if you can tell us anything about future stock buybacks, if any, you have planned and how you see the decline in stock is an opportunity to purchase shares back cheaply?

So, we do have the authority from the Board to continue our buyback program. And we'll continue to assess as things go on in the market. We did buyback a lot in the year of 2019. And one of the goal of 2020 is to build back our cash hoard -- put it on the upward trajectory again. So I would say there's always a possibility that we're doing buybacks. But today as of this time, we are not doing one right now.

Right. And finally, I'm wondering if you can share anything -- tell us anything more about affect the press release really doesn't say much except it's expected the first half of 2020. On the last call, you would explain that the drill that was being used by Atid had been -- had some problem in that is why the program really couldn't begin to the testing program. I'm wondering if you can tell us anything more?

Yes. So that's true. The drill was experiencing some delays in the well test was pushed off as a result. But, we do still believe that we're going to get the well test done before the first half ends, meaning in the second quarter.

And you can't be -- give us any more than just that or is there any -- you want to be cautious?

Yes, I'm hesitant too just because we've experienced all these delays. We were hoping to get this done a long time ago.

Great.

And so, a number of factors -- permitting, scheduling with some of the people who use the land during the -- throughout the year, namely the army, and the rig – the rig having some, -- some trouble. I'm just hesitant to put anything definitive, but we really do believe that it's -- that we should get it done in the second quarter.

Okay, that’s all my questions.

[Operator Instructions]. And our next question comes from Mike Heim with Noble Financial.

Michael, you made some comments about how the churn rate was perhaps a little abnormally large this time. And I didn't quite catch the reasoning behind that. Could you repeat that?

Yes, so, I think I was -- I think I mentioned that last year it was abnormally high, last year was abnormally high because of a regulatory requirement to drop some customers.

Okay.

Sorry, not as that wasn't a regulatory requirement. We – that churn was abnormally high last year because, we had an aggregation deal. An aggregation deal is when an entire municipality opt-in to take service from us. And it's a fixed time period that we serve them for. And when that time period ends, they all drop at once. So when you normalize for them meaning when you exclude them, our churn rate in the fourth quarter of 2018. And our churn rate in the fourth quarter of 2019 was just about even.

Okay. And then there was a small impairment of goodwill, not a big number, but can you explain what that was?

Sure. So, that was within the -- within Prism Solar from the acquisition, as Michael referenced the business while is something that we're excited about, hasn’t been performing as expected and we're working on some future planning that required a small goodwill impairment.

Yes, as long as we're talking about Prism, you mentioned streamlining operations. Can you expand upon what that exactly means?

Sure, we've -- we essentially just tried to cut some expenses, we parted ways with the CEO and trying to bring in a different vision for the business. So on a go forward basis, the expenses should be lower and hopefully we'll focus on the bread and butter of sales.

Okay, and then finally, just wanted -- kind of gauge your comfort level and the losses at the JV it's certainly understandable as you expand in the new areas, but, how do you see those turning to gain, is it a question of one-time cost as you enter new areas or brand recognition to be established per year? Or is it more a case that you expect them to be slow gradual gains towards profitability?

So the international businesses, I guess I'll speak to them as a unit, not just the JV if that's okay. The international businesses generated on a pro forma basis meaning when you -- if you were to consolidate Orbit in the U.K. business into Genie International, the business did just north of $47 billion of revenue, basically, more or less from a standstill at the beginning of 2019. So we're pretty excited about the potential and the rapid growth that we've been able to achieve there. In our business, the retail supply business, acquiring customers is expensive. And you need a critical mass of customers in each jurisdiction to help to offset not just the G&A costs, but the additional acquisition costs you do as you try to grow the business. So, of the three, of the three international projects that we have, they're all different -- they're all at different, they're kind of operating at different paces. I would say the U.K. business and the Scandinavian business have some critical mass that will help them to achieve profitability a little bit faster. We are hoping that that in the U.K., we turn the corner towards profitability, towards the end of the year. We expect the Scandinavian market to be profitable this year. And Japan, we expect to continue investing.

Okay, that's helpful. Thank you for your answers.

Sure.

This concludes our question and answer session and conference call. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.