Earnings Labs

NextEra Energy, Inc. (NEE)

Q3 2015 Earnings Call· Wed, Oct 28, 2015

$94.12

-2.48%

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

-1.13%

1 Week

+0.27%

1 Month

-2.99%

vs S&P

-2.87%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the NextEra Energy and NextEra Energy Partners 2015 Third Quarter Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, for opening remarks, I would like to turn the call over to Amanda Finnis.

Amanda Finnis - Director-Investor Relations

Management

Thank you, Leo. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the third quarter 2015 combined earnings conference call for NextEra Energy and for NextEra Energy Partners. With me this morning are Jim Robo, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of NextEra Energy; Armando Pimentel, President and Chief Executive Officer of NextEra Energy Resources; and Mark Hickson, Senior Vice President of NextEra Energy, all of whom are also officers of NextEra Energy Partners; as well as Eric Silagy, President and Chief Executive Officer of Florida Power & Light Company; and John Ketchum, Senior Vice President of NextEra Energy. John will provide an overview of our results and then turn the call over to Jim for closing remarks. Our executive team will then be available to answer your questions. We will be making forward-looking statements during this call based on current expectations and assumptions, which are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from our forward-looking statements if any of our key assumptions are incorrect or because of other factors discussed in today's earnings news release, in the comments made during this conference call, in the risk factor section of the accompanying presentation, or in our latest reports and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, each of which can be found on our websites, www.nexteraenergy.com and www.nexteraenergypartners.com. We do not undertake any duty to update any forward-looking statements. Today's presentation also includes references to non-GAAP financial measures. You should refer to the information contained in the slides accompanying today's presentation for definitional information and reconciliations of certain non-GAAP measures to the closest GAAP financial measure. With that, I will turn the call over to John.

John W. Ketchum - Senior Vice President-Finance

Management

Thank you, Amanda, and good morning, everyone. NextEra Energy delivered solid third quarter results driven by new investments at both FPL and Energy Resources. Adjusted earnings per share increased 3%, or $0.05 per share, against the prior-year quarter. Along with our strong performance in the first and second quarters and excellent progress against our objectives for the full year, NextEra Energy is well-positioned to close out 2015 in the upper half of our $5.40 to $5.70 range of adjusted EPS expectations, subject to our usual caveats. At Florida Power & Light, earnings per share increased $0.02 from the prior year comparable quarter. It was a warm summer season with above-normal weather-related usage, increasing both retail base revenues and our reserve amortization balance, while allowing us to continue to earn at the upper end of our approved ROE range. We remain focused on delivering customer value through best-in-class daily operations and execution against our initiatives to drive down costs, reduce fuel expenses, and improve reliability. During the quarter, FPL filed to lower electric rates again by about $2.50 a month on average in 2016, compared with current rates. We are very pleased to be able to deliver award-winning customer service with monthly bills for a typical residential customer lower than $100, and lower than they were a decade ago. We continue to have an outstanding opportunity set ahead of us and all of our major capital projects are on track. At Energy Resources, our results were in line with our financial expectations for the quarter and Energy Resources is well-positioned to attain its full-year expectations. Adjusted EPS at Energy Resources declined by $0.04 against the comparable prior-year quarter. The core Energy Resources story is unchanged as we continue to benefit from growth in our contracted renewables portfolio. In addition, our renewables…

Operator

Operator

We'll take our first question from Dan Eggers. Your line is open. Daniel Eggers - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Hey, good morning, guys. I guess just kind of the first question, Jim, following up on a couple of things you made comments on today – the doubling of development resources into renewables is a lot given where your baseline is already. Are you talking about operating expenses to try and find more projects or are you thinking about the idea of actually doubling the amount of renewables you're doing on an annual basis? James L. Robo - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: So, Dan, we would expect that for an increase in development expenses that we would get a pro-rata increase in the amount of megawatts that we will be able to develop. And so I said, up to double; we're going to be obviously smart and opportunistic about it. I think all of the things that we've said about the renewable markets – the economics are getting better; the Clean Power Plan is coming; there continues to be good federal support and the potential extension of the wind production tax credit. And, frankly, the chaos in the yieldco space creates an opportunity for us, with some of our competitors not being as well-positioned as they were four months ago, for us to be able to continue to gain share in a market – you know, last year, we gained share in the wind business. We were the number one player – we've been the number one player for many, many years, and last year we gained share. And that's – my goal for the team is to continue to build to gain share and to build profitable projects that make sense for our shareholders and for our customers. Daniel Eggers - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): So I guess maybe extending that conversation, when you talk about the targets for NEP's CAFD run rate for next year, does the $150 million dribble equity, is that enough to get you within that band or is there an assumption that NEE is going to put more equity capital into NEP to help get into that guidance range?

John W. Ketchum - Senior Vice President-Finance

Management

Dan, this is John. We need a minimal amount of equity for NEP next year. Obviously, the ATM dribble program would be a good start to be able to build on an equity position heading into what our growth plans are for next year. But we have a lot of levers around NEP as well. You've seen the guidance, so we have some flexibility around the capital structure. But the ATM program would allow us to get off to a start on what we see as a minimal equity need for NEP next year. Daniel Eggers - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): And you guys feel good about hitting the increased growth rates from last year, even if NEP's at the lower end of their growth range or the equity capital markets are still stayed tight for them? James L. Robo - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: We do. Daniel Eggers - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Okay. Thank you, guys.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is from Stephen Byrd. Your line is open. Stephen Calder Byrd - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Good morning. James L. Robo - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Good morning, Stephen. Stephen Calder Byrd - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: I wanted to at a high level talk about usage of your balance sheet. You've positioned the company with quite strong credit stats and at the high end of the range for many of your ratings targets. When you think about opportunities to deploy that balance sheet at the corporate level, we saw just very recently a big utility buy a small LDC, so there are corporate opportunities versus M&A for assets versus more organic growth, and obviously it sounds like you're very bullish on more organic growth at Resources. But at a high level, when you think about all of the opportunities for deploying your balance sheet, what do you think is likely to create the most economic value for shareholders?

John W. Ketchum - Senior Vice President-Finance

Management

Well, one, there have been a couple of deals that have gone off at pretty high multiples, and leverage has been used to finance those transactions. From our standpoint, having a strong balance sheet is key to reaching our growth objectives and we have no intention of compromising our current credit metrics. That being said, there are opportunities perhaps to optimize our existing balance sheet, and so we always look at particularly projects that may not have debt financing on them and other opportunities within the portfolio where we could optimize our current position without compromising our credit metrics. James L. Robo - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: So Steven, this is Jim, just to add to what John said. I think to use your balance sheet to lever up to acquire assets at massive premiums and transfer much of the value from that leveraging up over to someone else's shareholders, I have a hard time – I scratch my head, honestly, and I have a hard time understanding how that makes sense for the acquirer's shareholders. And so, that's not something that we would be running up and down, jumping up and down, in terms of trying to do something like that. The other thing from an acquisition standpoint, that I would say, just overall from an M&A standpoint, I would say is we have great organic growth prospects. I feel really good about our organic growth prospects. We do not have to do anything other than execute on our organic growth prospects to deliver the expectations that we've laid out to you here, and anything that we would ever do on M&A would have to be accretive to what we're telling you in terms of our expectations going forward. Stephen Calder Byrd - Morgan Stanley & Co.…

Operator

Operator

And we'll take our next question from Julien Dumoulin-Smith. Your line is open.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith - UBS Securities LLC

Management

Hey, good morning. James L. Robo - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Good morning, Julien.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith - UBS Securities LLC

Management

So let me actually start by following up on the last question a little bit. When it comes to CPP, I'd be curious, you have this dynamic around 2020 to 2021 of early action. To what extent is that creating kind of another boom/bust in the cycle? Obviously, you got a PTC extension here, but are folks holding off to get projects qualifying for their early action program? Armando Pimentel, Jr. - President & Chief Executive Officer, NextEra Energy Resources, LLC: Yeah, Julien, it's Armando again. Just to follow up on what I said before, in the near-term here there is obviously some discussion with our customers about the Clean Power Plan, and they're taking advantage because they don't know whether the Clean Power Plan is going to work out, but they see that it's a huge benefit while there is a production tax credit to sign up cheaper wind. The 2017 and 2018 discussions that we've been having on wind – a lot of folks are obviously concerned about whether there's going to a production tax credit or not, but in my view, whether there is a production tax credit or not, the combined 2017 and 2018 years I think will be pretty good for us. If there is no production tax credit, my expectation would be that the amount of wind that you see get built in 2017 would be below what we would otherwise have seen and what we have seen in the last couple of years, but I think that's only a temporary blip before 2018 starts coming back. The economics for wind and, honestly, the economics for solar from the customer standpoint are very attractive today with the PTC and with the ITC for solar. They're very attractive without the 30% ITC when you get out to the 2018, 2019 timeframe, and we believe that for wind, they will be very attractive, even without the PTC by the end of the decade. So customers are aware of that. There is obviously some uncertainty about the Clean Power Plan, but I think that uncertainty is actually playing in our favor. People want to take action early.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith - UBS Securities LLC

Management

Great. Two further quick clarifications. Your credit expectations here for S&P and Moody's, what are your expectations for financing in 2016 here? You obviously are well within the range on both. Just to be very clear about this?

John W. Ketchum - Senior Vice President-Finance

Management

Yeah, Julien for financing activity in 2016, we continue to evaluate where we are from a CapEx standpoint. We still have another quarter of wind origination to go. We've had strong cash flow growth as well. We've got some other levers within the portfolio that we're looking at, a couple of balance sheet optimization opportunities. Kind of a long way of saying that we're still working on framing up exactly what that's going to look like. But....

Julien Dumoulin-Smith - UBS Securities LLC

Management

Perhaps to be more specific, the projections of 26%, for instance, for SMP, that does not contemplate incremental equity, or just I know it's a moving target given the size of the CapEx budget, but...

John W. Ketchum - Senior Vice President-Finance

Management

Yeah. We don't know yet. There are factors at play, again, having the strong quarter of origination on wind at 725 megawatts, looking to see how we come in on the fourth quarter, looking to see how we finish up from a cash flow perspective, and then looking at 2016, what the CapEx need might be and then looking at the other levers within the existing portfolio and some of the optimization things that are on our list. Obviously, the goal is to keep any equity issuance down as low as possible if we have to do something.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith - UBS Securities LLC

Management

And last quick one. Where do you stand on merchant divestment, specifically Texas. Just curious what your thoughts are broadly about it because you seem to have commodity sensitivity, be it from wind projects or combined cycles in Texas. James L. Robo - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah, so Julien, I'll start out with the general comment that you guys will ho-hum to. But I mean it's true. I mean we look at that portfolio, our entire merchant portfolio every year and try to determine whether it still makes sense for us from a shareholder perspective to retain those merchant assets based on our view, which is not necessarily the market view, based on our view of what we think those markets are. We're going through a process in Texas on Lamar and Forney. I warn folks all the time, we've gone through processes before on our merchant assets. And that doesn't necessarily mean at the end of the day that we divest those assets. We sometimes go through the process and we retain those assets, but we believe that there may be folks that are very interested in those assets; they've been great assets for us. We believe that there might be a shareholder base or other bases out there that believe those assets are worth more to them than they would be to our shareholders. So we're going to take it, look at that very seriously here over the next couple of months. And if we decide that it make sense, then we will likely make the decision to divest. But those should not be the – I know there has been a focus on those assets; those should not be the only assets that investors and analysts believe that we're looking at. I mean, we look at all of our assets every year, and determine whether it makes sense for us to continue to hold them. Those are just, honestly, the ones that are public at this point.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith - UBS Securities LLC

Management

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is from Steve Fleishman. Your line is open.

Steven Isaac Fleishman - Wolfe Research LLC

Management

Yeah. Hi, good morning. Just on the – curious kind of the latest updates on the gas reserve additions in Florida and just with the environment continuing to maybe get more attractive to buy reserves, how you're thinking about that potential? Eric E. Silagy - President & Chief Executive Officer, Florida Power & Light Company: Yeah. Hi Steve, this is Eric Silagy. So we are – you know, with gas prices coming down, we'll see how the market plays out, but we think there's going to be opportunities. We're going to be very judicious in how we approach this and making sure that we're locking in long-term positive deals for customers. So we have a program that's underway right now at – in one play in Oklahoma and that's going well. And we've got origination teams that are talking to multiple counterparties on opportunities. So I think we'll see how everything plays out in the market from a gas perspective, but right now we see this as presenting actually some potential opportunities.

Steven Isaac Fleishman - Wolfe Research LLC

Management

Okay. And then, separate question. Just on NEP, maybe, Jim, is there any way to give some color on your intentions with this buyback in terms of just, you know, is this something where you'd want to be in right now doing; is this something that's kind of there if there's another kind of attack on yieldco, so to speak, or just how should we think about the buyback? James L. Robo - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: So, I think I probably should limit what I said to what I said in my remarks, Steve, but I am certainly not going to lay out prices at which we're buying or the prices at which we're interested in doing the ATM. You know that's – part of the thinking behind this is to give us the flexibility to issue units when we think the price supports new issuance and the buyback gives us the opportunity to show our commitment to the partnership by buying units when we think they're undervalued, and...

Steven Isaac Fleishman - Wolfe Research LLC

Management

Okay. James L. Robo - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: I think it's as simple as that, honestly.

Steven Isaac Fleishman - Wolfe Research LLC

Management

So it's kind of a buy low, sell high – kind of a new concept. Okay. Makes sense. James L. Robo - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: You said it, not me, Steve.

Steven Isaac Fleishman - Wolfe Research LLC

Management

And then, lastly, just could you maybe give us any color or latest thoughts on the Hawaiian Electric deal? James L. Robo - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Sure. So we continue to work hard to get the final hurdle, which is state regulatory approval in Hawaii. We have recently gotten a couple intervenors to either fall away or announce their support, and I was very pleased that the IBEW announced their support for the transaction last week. And we continue to work it. I think my expectation, based on timing right now, is that we're not going to get any kind of decision from the PSC until next year, and so we're going to continue to work it and continue to talk to the parties to try to get it across the finish line.

Steven Isaac Fleishman - Wolfe Research LLC

Management

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

We'll take our next question from Paul Ridzon. Your line is open.

Paul T. Ridzon - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Management

One of the drivers you discussed on the reduction in years earnings was a drop-off of state tax incentives. How does that unfold over the next several quarters? And was that just a concentration risk of your adding some assets in a particular region?

John W. Ketchum - Senior Vice President-Finance

Management

Yeah. A couple things there, Paul. One was just pushing part of a CITC project out into the next year. And then the second was, when you look back at our Q3 results for 2014, I think we had about 500 megawatts of projects that we had built in Oklahoma. Only had about 100 megawatts this quarter, and so, you know, Oklahoma has that state ITC, so it was really a combination of those two factors.

Paul T. Ridzon - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Management

And then at FP&L, it looks as though we're actually seeing some modest demand destruction. As you think about your rate case, I mean, decoupling – is that on the table? Or maybe an annual look for a true-up, and how are you thinking about that strategically? Eric E. Silagy - President & Chief Executive Officer, Florida Power & Light Company: Yeah, Paul, this is Eric Silagy. No, we're not looking at any decoupling. Again, I think you go look overall at both our performance as well as the fact that the state continues to grow, we feel very good about our prospects going forward.

Paul T. Ridzon - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Management

Is that something you'll try to put into your regulatory strategy? Eric E. Silagy - President & Chief Executive Officer, Florida Power & Light Company: How we look at moving forward – our base – our rates are set on a projection of test year. And so, it will take into account that we have strong customer growth coming in as well as more modest growth from the standpoint of usage or potentially negative usage. So both of those factors get factored into looking at what our revenue requirements are.

Paul T. Ridzon - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Management

And then lastly, there was a large swing at corporate – was that just a timing issue or could you delve a little bit deeper into what drove that?

John W. Ketchum - Senior Vice President-Finance

Management

Yeah. Some of that, as we mentioned in – or I mentioned in the script was the consolidating tax adjustment, and with PMI or the customer supply and trading business having a good year, the apportionment factors that are used by many states are revenue based, and so that can kind of skew results in the more favorable tax jurisdictions, and that's really one of the main drivers there.

Paul T. Ridzon - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Management

So none of these is a marked shift, and look for improvement going forward?

John W. Ketchum - Senior Vice President-Finance

Management

That's something that's really dependent on the business mix and kind of where our revenues are coming from, what states. So it's not something you can necessarily count on quarter to quarter.

Paul T. Ridzon - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Management

Thank you for your help.

Operator

Operator

We'll take our next question from Jonathan Arnold. Your line is open.

Jonathan P. Arnold - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Management

Hey. Good morning, guys.

John W. Ketchum - Senior Vice President-Finance

Management

Good morning, Jonathan.

Jonathan P. Arnold - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Management

Quick one. So, Jim, you mentioned a couple of times, I think you called it chaos in the yieldco space, and I think you stressed that you see that helping you from a competitive positioning standpoint in the development business. My question, I guess is, do you see some M&A opportunities falling out of that situation? Or is that really less your focus here; it's more about winning new projects yourself? James L. Robo - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Well, Jonathan, we have always felt that organic development creates more value than project acquisitions do or, frankly, even overall company acquisitions unless it's a pretty unique situation. So our focus is going to be on organic growth. We have always had project acquisitions as a part of our mix, and we will continue – I do think there will be some opportunities here. I think there's a real question about whether folks are going to realize that when they're selling projects that they're not going to get the same kind of value that they perhaps would have gotten four months ago, and there is also – we're very picky about the quality of the project, when we're looking at it from a project acquisition standpoint. So I would expect there to be more opportunities there than there would have been a few months ago, but, honestly, our focus is really on – and I think the most high-value added opportunity for our shareholders is to be focused on growing our organic capabilities.

Jonathan P. Arnold - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Management

It sounds like priorities are organic, then possibly projects and last on the list sort of whole portfolio company type things? James L. Robo - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: I think that's a fair prioritization, Jon.

Jonathan P. Arnold - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Management

Okay. Thank you. And then just one other thing on Canadian Wind; anything to report on the recent Ontario RFP? And if you – what are your – line of sight on some success there, and when would we hear about it in the backlog? Armando Pimentel, Jr. - President & Chief Executive Officer, NextEra Energy Resources, LLC: Jonathan, it's Armando. I think the first – realistically, the first that we would hear about it would be very late this year. I – and that's the very earliest. My expectations are actually that we would hear some time first quarter of next year. We feel good about the bids that we put in. I always want to put things in context, though, right, I mean Canada or Ontario was looking for, roughly, I think it's 500 megawatts or 600 megawatts in total of renewables, right. So I mean we wouldn't think that it – nobody should think it's a 5,000-megawatt bid or something. I mean it's still reasonable; it's still chunky, but it was 500 megawatts. We have several projects that we think are very competitive in the process the way it's laid out. And so we're hopeful that we're going to get some of that 500 megawatts or 600 megawatts.

Jonathan P. Arnold - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Management

Okay. Thank you, Armando.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is from Michael Lapides. Your line is open. Michael J. Lapides - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Hey Jim, coming back to M&A a little bit, but maybe a different angle. How are you looking at – you've grown your midstream business, meaning you've got Mountain Valley and Sabal Trail in the development process. You did the NET Midstream deal down at NEP. How has the share price reaction in the midstream market and valuations for privately held midstream assets – how has that impacted the opportunity set that may be available for either NEE or NEP to add via M&A more midstream, and how do you think about how you would structure that, whether you would want it up at the NEE level or down at the NEP level? James L. Robo - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: So, Michael I think, when I think about what we're doing in the pipeline space, it's really focused on very long-term contracted pipeline assets. And things that we think look a lot like our renewable business in terms of the quality of the counterparty, the consistency of the cash flows, and the ability for us to deploy our development expertise against those things. And so we have no interest in adding any midstream assets that would have any kind of commodity risk to the portfolio. We would be focused, again, first and foremost on organic development of long-term contracted pipeline opportunities, and that's really what the team is focused on. I think the NET deal was a very unique deal in that it was a very long-term contracted set of assets. There are very few of those, really, out in the marketplace. If there was one that will become available, we would look at it. And I think, honestly, it would depend on the capital markets and where we think the most efficient financing would be, where we would put it, whether we would put it at NEE or NEP, but just again, our focus there in the pipeline space is first and foremost on organic development. Michael J. Lapides - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Got it. Thanks, Jim. Much appreciated.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is with Brian Chin. Your line is open.

Brian J. Chin - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Management

Hi, good morning.

John W. Ketchum - Senior Vice President-Finance

Management

Good morning, Brian.

Brian J. Chin - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Management

I think when you guys talked about others using the balance sheets and levering up to buy other companies and then you put that in the context of buying shares of NEP and continuing to execute on your wind resources, and your regulated opportunities, I mean you guys have made a pretty strong and consistent statement about where you think your capital deployment ought to be. I guess within that context, what I'm curious about is how close are you with regards to looking at NEP versus, say, NextEra shares as a good place to deploy capital and execute on buybacks. Can you give us a little bit of color of how you frame it and are the two relatively close in your opinion? I mean, obviously, you think NEP is the more interesting place at the moment. But can you give us a sense of how you frame that discussion and under what conditions you might consider deploying capital towards NEE buybacks as opposed to NEP? James L. Robo - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Well I said this last month, I think, Brian that I – relative to NEE, I think NEP is extremely undervalued right now. So...

Brian J. Chin - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Management

Any... James L. Robo - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: I think our announcements today are pretty consistent with that.

Brian J. Chin - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Management

And I agree. But just any sense of color as to how you frame it, Jim, that would be great? James L. Robo - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: We look at a variety of metrics and kind of the classic metrics. And we think about it in terms of – fundamentally in terms of future cash flows.

Brian J. Chin - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Management

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

This does conclude today's NextEra Energy and NextEra Energy Partners 2015 third quarter earnings conference call. You may all now disconnect your lines. Thank you, and everyone have a great day.