Earnings Labs

Vistra Corp. (VST)

Q4 2019 Earnings Call· Fri, Feb 28, 2020

$157.06

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to Vistra Energy's Fourth Quarter and Full-Year 2019 Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Molly Sorg, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Molly Sorg

Analyst

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Vistra Energy's investor webcast covering fourth quarter and full-year 2019 results which is being broadcast live, from the Investor Relations section of our website at www.vistraenergy.com. Also available on our website are a copy of today's investor presentation, our 10-Q and the related earnings release. Joining me for today's call are Curt Morgan, President and Chief Executive Officer; and David Campbell, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. We have a few additional senior executives in the room to address questions in the second part of today's call, as necessary. Before we begin our presentation, I encourage all listeners to review the Safe Harbor statements included on Slides 2 and 3 in the investor presentation on our website that explain the risks of forward-looking statements, the limitations of certain industry and market data included in the presentation, and the use of non-GAAP financial measures. Today's discussion will contain forward-looking statements, which are based on assumptions we believe to be reasonable only as of today's date. Such forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or implied. We assume no obligation to update our forward-looking statements. Further, our earnings release, slide presentation, and discussions on this call will include certain non-GAAP financial measures. For such measures, reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are in the earnings release and in the appendix to the investor presentation. I will now turn the call over to Curt Morgan to kick off our discussion.

Curtis Morgan

Analyst

Thank you, Molly, and good morning to everyone on the call. As always, we appreciate your interest in Vistra Energy. We know this is a busy time of the year, so we intend to keep today's remarks concise, focusing on what we believe are the key drivers of Vistra's success, past, present and future. First and foremost, as we will discuss shortly Vistra has a strong track record of execution supporting our conviction that we have the right strategy and business model for long-term success. Second, I believe we have demonstrated that we know how to grow the company and create value for our shareholders. Experience and execution will be essential in the years ahead. And last, our underlying fundamentals remain sound making Vistra well positioned to continue to deliver consistent results. Not only weathering future volatility but also capitalizing on it. I'm going to star on Slide 6, as you can see in the last row of the table, Vistra finished 2019 reporting adjusted EBITDA from its ongoing operations of $3,393 million, results that are above the midpoint of Vistra's recently increased guidance range of $3.32 billion to $3.42 billion. Perhaps more important however is that this is the fourth year in a row that Vistra has delivered financial results above the midpoint of its guidance range For those of you counting, that is all four years Vistra has been a public company, meaning that we have established a consistent track record of delivering on our commitments and not only that, in the same timeframe we have also grown EBITDA by more than 100% and returned nearly $5 billion of capital through our equity and debt holders. All of this against the backdrop of a wide array of commodity prices in prompt and forward periods and changing customer preferences.…

David Campbell

Analyst

Thank you, Curt. Turning now to slide 15, Vistra delivered 2019 adjusted EBITDA from ongoing operations of $3,393 million exceeding the midpoint of our guidance range. As you know, during our third quarter call we increased our 2019 guidance reflecting expected impact of the Crius and Ambit acquisitions. The favorability relative to our provided guidance was driven by higher gross margin from our ERCOT segment compared to planned results. Our adjusted free cash flow before growth from ongoing operations also exceeded expectations, coming in above the high end of our guidance range of $2,437 million. This favorability was due in part to the early receipt of alternative minimum tax credit refund of $93 million which we previously expected in 2020. After excluding the AMT refund, our free cash flow before growth still exceeded the high end of our 2019 guidance range. This outperformance was driven by higher adjusted EBITDA as well as capital expenditure discipline reflecting the impact of our ongoing operations performance improvement efforts. Focusing on the fourth quarter, our 2019 results were $55million higher than the same period of 2018 driven by the additions of Crius and Ambit and higher gross margins in ERCOT generation, partially offset by lower capacity revenue in our PJM and New York, New England generation segments. Before we move on to our final slide this morning, I will note that due to the retirement of four coal plants in our MISO segment in the fourth quarter, we moved the financial results of those plants out of the MISO segment and into the Asset Closure segment. We have similarly recast our 2018 results to account for this shift, which is why you will see that our fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA for 2018 is $1 million higher than what we reported at this time last…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Shahriar Pourreza from Guggenheim Partners. Your line is open.

Shahriar Pourreza

Analyst

Hey, good morning, guys. You just raised your dividend by 8%, you're delevering is on pace, could you just get a directionally talk about the scale of the next buyback with another $2.3 billion, $2.4 billion of free cash flow that's kind of at your disposal in 2021? I guess I'm trying to get a sense on what you mean by significant annual return of capital to shareholders. An exact timing when you're going to initiate, not announce, the new program with 21 story being sort of going to IG ratings. I mean, can you start incremental buybacks this year versus the current 322 that remains under the old program?

David Campbell

Analyst

Thanks Shahriar. So look, I think to be very clear about this, in 2020 we are focused on paying down our debt and getting debt to our leverage targets. And look, I think a time like this frankly, essentially for me reconfirms that where we're headed whether our leverage is the right thing. When you get into situations, like what's going on with the pandemic, and it seems to be growing, I think financial strength is going to be proved out to be very key. And so, while we would like to buy our shares back, I mean, let's just be honest, we know that we're trading now, 20 and plus some change. It's a very attractive buy. We're also File 7 Higher gross margins in ERCOT generation partially offset by lower capacity revenue in our PJM in New York, New England generation segments. Before we move on to our final slide this morning, I will note that due to the retirement of four coal plants in our MISO segment in the fourth quarter, we moved the financial results of those plants out of the MISO segment and into the Asset Closure segment. We have similarly recast our 2018 results to account for this shift, which is why you will see that our fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA for 2018 is 1 million higher than what we reported at this time last year. Slide 16 provides a summary of capital allocation. As of February 24, we have executed $1.418 billion or $1.75 billion share repurchase program, leaving approximately $332 million of capital remaining for future share repurchase. You'll recognize that this is virtually the same amount of capital we had available into our share repurchase program as of our November earnings call. During the 2019 calendar year, we returned a total…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Shahriar Pourreza from Guggenheim Partners. Your line is open.

Shahriar Pourreza

Analyst

Hey, good morning, guys. You just raised your dividend by 8% you're delevering is on pace, could just get a directly talk about the scale of the next buyback with another 2.3 billion, 2.4 billion of free cash flow that's kind of at your disposal in 2021. I guess I'm trying to get a sense on what you mean by significant annual return to capital shareholders. An exact timing when you're going to initiate not announced the new program with 21 story being sort of going to IG ratings. I mean, can you start incremental buybacks this year versus the current 322 that remains under the old program?

Curtis Morgan

Analyst

Thanks Shahriar. So look, I think to be very clear about this in 2020, we are focused on paying down our debt and getting debt to our leverage targets. And look, I think a time like this frankly, essentially for me reconfirms that where we're headed whether our leverage is the right thing. When you get into situations, like what's going on with the pandemic, and it seems to be growing. I think financial strength is going to be proved out to be very key. And so, while we would like to buy our shares back I mean, let's just be honest. We know that we're trading now, 20 and plus some change. It's a very attracted buy. We're also equally committed to get our leverage to where we said we were going to do it and we're committed to do it in 2020. So beyond that we've said later this year we will give a little more clarity about what we're going to do in 2021 and beyond. But I think we've given a little bit of a view of that, by saying we think we can invest in our business about a quarter what we believe on an ongoing basis will be about $2 billion plus of free cash flow. So I mean, the math just tells you that that's $1.5 billion that we can return to shareholders. I think the real question is going to be for our company is how do we do that. And I think that's a mix of recurring dividend and whether we side with the Board to change the yield that we're paying on the dividends that will definitely be on the table. And then, clearly if we're trading below value and our thought of what fundamental values this company, then the remainder that will go to buy back shares. I mean, it's not rocket science, and I'm not, speaking out of turn, it's just that's the way we think about it. And so – I think that's the – the next couple of years that's what it looks like. But we need to get the debt down to where we want it to be and we're committed to do it in 2020. We pushed it out once before, and we're not going to do it again. I think this is the right thing and I think to strengthen the company from a financial standpoint, it's the right thing to do. I’d also think it's very – and David alluded to this in his comments that we believe that ultimately, getting the debt down to where we want it to be will also be very accretive to the equity. So that's what we're doing in 2020 and 2021 and beyond. We have a substantial amount of capital return and it will be a mix of a recurring dividend and probably share repurchases.

Shahriar Pourreza

Analyst

Got it, got it and that's because they are obviously looking at inorganic opportunities, the thresholds aren't there yet, okay. Let me just ask you Curt one more question is, there's obviously been a lot of headlines about strategic opportunities, including privatization, which we get given these obviously very high or irrationally high free cash flow yields. What's your sort of updated thoughts there? What's your trigger point? Are you sort of patient right now? Do you want to see what happens with your free cash flow yield once you go to IG before making this decision I guess, what's, yours and the Board's level of patience on these valuation models?

Curtis Morgan

Analyst

Yes, so very good question Shahriar. Thanks for asking that. So look, I think we are patient. We believe that getting our debt down to the 2.5 times net debt to EBITDA range this year is very important. And then I think also giving clarity to that long-term capital allocation plan, putting another year behind us and showing that we can meet or exceed our expectations, I think is also helpful. That's helpful to the agencies as well. I think one of the things they'd like to see is whether we can withstand the business cycles, including things like what's going on with coronavirus right now, which I think in 2020 we're going to have a very good year despite what could be, symptoms of a recession off of that, off the coronavirus. So I think we're very strong company, I think we’ll show that in 2020, but I think it's very important, for us to do that. Now, in terms of the direct question about, strategic options, I think we'll be patient through 2020 and into 2021 to see that play out. But I can also assure you that, the Board continually thinks about what's the best way to unlock value. You know that I spent a lot of time in private equity. And for me, the only difference between being a public company and a private company, is that every day I wake up I get a scorecard. I get my report card, it's in the form of our stock price. And from a private equity standpoint, they market on a quarterly basis, but I can assure you that most of those companies are marking their quarterly mark of their value based on what the public markets are creating at. And frankly at the end of the day, you unlock value the same way in both private and public market settings. You either do it over the long run or you do it at particularly with the private equity firms, you look for an exit, and the exit is limited. You know this right now, there's many private equity firms that would love to exit their generation, but there is no exit for them. And if they try to exit into the public markets, they have too much leverage and they don't have an integrated business model, which is what it takes to compete in the public markets. So, we think we can unlock this value in a public market setting it just may take a longer period of time. And we've got to be patient to do that, but I don't see that if there some silver bullet by becoming a private company that all of a sudden there's going to be this huge value uplift, because you've monetized the value of a company the same way whether you're public or private.

Shahriar Pourreza

Analyst

Got it, that's helpful and I completely agree with your exit strategies are the hindrance. Thanks so much, guys, I appreciate it.

Curtis Morgan

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Steve Fleishman from Wolfe Research. Your line is open.

Steven Fleishman

Analyst

Thanks. Good morning.

Curtis Morgan

Analyst

Hey Steve.

Steven Fleishman

Analyst

Hey, so just maybe just curious, Curt if you can give us a little color on, as you mentioned feel good on Texas market, I assume mainly Texas market fundamentals. So could you just give - a little bit of an update on just overall the U.S. supply/demand impact of solar adds that you're seeing and things like that?

Curtis Morgan

Analyst

Yes, so just you know that Steve that we do our own point of view, when it comes to reserve margin. We have – I don’t know if this is well known, but we have a very good development team. And one of the best ways to get intelligence on what's going on in terms of development in any market is to have a team that's actually out there and doing it. And so, we have a pretty good sense of things. Plus we know historically, in particular in Texas, kind of what the build out rate has been, from the CDR to what actually gets built, which has been a little bit below 50%. And what happened in the CDR this time, which I think most people know what that is, right. It's not, I wouldn't take that to the bank, anybody that invest on, by looking at the CDR is foolish. I mean at the end of the day, it doesn't have an economic overlay to it. And so, what happened though, is everything that was supposed to get built that didn't get built 2020 got pushed into 2021and that's kind of what happened and so it just keeps rolling out. So the CDR actually shows a big uptick in building and we think there's probably a little bit less than 50% of that, that's actually on the ground getting built for 2020. What that results in is a very manageable reserve margin going into, from 2020 into 2021, which in our view, if you look at low growth, and that's the big key really in Texas. But we've got some people who think it's going to be 3%, some people – around more like us about 2%. Either way, that new build is barely going to cover…

Steven Fleishman

Analyst

Okay, and then I guess separately, just want to get more color how the Crius and Ambit deals are going in terms of just meeting the performers you had and overall dynamics in ERCOT retail market - market share things like that?

Curtis Morgan

Analyst

Sure, Steve, you know Jim Burke he is here. I was going to have Jim address that for you please.

Jim Burke

Analyst

Certainly, good morning Steve. Yes we obviously started to integrate Crius ahead of Ambit. I think both integrations are going really well. We have $45 million to $50 million of synergy opportunities with those two. Some of that is technology driven. So it's a multiyear process, but from a hedging and supply standpoint or customer behavior standpoint, and the initial cost synergies achieved those were on track. We’ll continue to build synergies over the next two to three year timeframe. But we like how those two books are operating at this point and I think we feel really good about the multiples with which we acquired them and the long-term value for this generation to retail match, particularly in ERCOT.

Steven Fleishman

Analyst

Okay, thanks that’s it from me.

Curtis Morgan

Analyst

Thanks Steve.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Julien Dumoulin-Smith from Bank of America. Your line is open.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith

Analyst

Hey, good morning, Jim. Can you hear me?

Jim Burke

Analyst

You're a little fade, but we can hear you. Okay, Julien, how you doing?

Julien Dumoulin-Smith

Analyst

Good excellent, thank you very much. I’m quite well, Happy Friday. Perhaps just to come back to your commentary about the cash flow this year and the taxes, can you talk about some of the strategies to minimize taxes, not just this year, but especially on an ongoing basis. I mean, this has been something you've been successful at in the past. You made an allusion to it, if I heard you right on the call, what kinds of strategies, what kind of opportunity exists there – well I'll ask it open ended?

Curtis Morgan

Analyst

Okay I’ll take a shot and then David, I'd like you to comment too, but you’re just talking about like federal taxes right, I mean Julien that's what you're talking about.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith

Analyst

You made some comments about AMT earlier as well.

Curtis Morgan

Analyst

Okay so.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith

Analyst

An improvement to the overall FCF [ph] this year?

Curtis Morgan

Analyst

Sure that AMT refund really came from the Dynegy acquisition. We're all too happy to have it, but that was really where that came from, that opportunity. But just to remind everybody, we haven't been and we are not a taxpayer, I think through 2023 roughly. And, and then after that, we always are looking, we have very good tax group and we're always looking for opportunities to minimize our taxes. But we are not a tax payer and have not been paying on the TRA and won't be until we project probably out into 2024. And then, we will obviously we'll have plenty of time to try to see what tax strategies we might be able to deploy to minimize that. But, we at least on the forecast right now, it looks like we'd be a tax payer again in 2024. And so, we've really had, there's a couple of things happened, one the NOLs that we received, and there were some, what I'll call esoteric, sort of integration between new tax law and old tax law. We had a window of opportunity that happened and then closed right after closed the Dynegy deal, but since we closed before that, we were avail to the opportunity to be able to use 100% of the Dynegy's roughly $4 billion plus dollars of NOLs which as we've said many times has an NPV of about $900 million. So that has been a big contributor to us not paying taxes. David, do you have anything to add?

David Campbell

Analyst

I’ll add – just to reemphasize Curt’s point, this is David, that we, our tax group is very active managing this other than property taxes and some state franchise taxes we do not pay. And we do not have federal income tax liability or cash payments in 2019. And we don't expect to be a cash taxpayer for the next few years. And we're going to keep manage – actually managing that, keep that trajectory going as long as we can, very important to us. And as we noted, we received an AMT payment of $93 million in the fourth quarter. We also received another $35 million in the first quarter this year related to as Curt described some AMT claims from the Dynegy situation. But we’ll continue to very actively manage down our cash taxes.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith

Analyst

Awesome, excellent guys. And then looking at the slides here on the hedging front, 2021 versus 2020, just as you provide the sort of initial look here, the expected output is backward dated. I assume that's just tied to the forwards here, but just want to understand if there's anything changing in how you view things?

David Campbell

Analyst

You have it just right, Julien. These were based on forwards, if we were to shows, you know our proprietary point of view, you'd see very similar volumes to what you have in 2020. And so, I think what the big key will be is just what ultimately plays out in the market. But we feel pretty confident that our point of view, which has played out over the last four years will play out again for 2021. And of course, then we'd have the same level of production volumes that we've had from 2020 to 2021.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith

Analyst

Excellent, all righty, I'll pass it off. Thank you very much, guys.

Curtis Morgan

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Michael Weinstein from Credit Suisse. Your line is open.

Michael Weinstein

Analyst

Hi, guys. Along those same lines about production volumes, on Page 25, the hedge portfolio and portfolio sensitivities, it looks like generation, total generation output is declining especially in ERCOT and a little bit in PJM from 2020 to 2021. And I'm wondering how I can, how do you square that with the comment on Slide 10 that says that the EBITDA for 2021 will be, at or above 2020?

David Campbell

Analyst

Yes so, Michael it’s a good question. And I tried to address it there with Julien, but I'll try it again, I obviously didn't do a very good job of it. If you were to take a - strictly mark the curve off the curves, you'd get what we're showing on Page, what is it Page?

Michael Weinstein

Analyst

25.

David Campbell

Analyst

So, on a pure marked basis, because of the backwardation and the curve, and I think you know this, but what this is showing is our delta position, which effectively means, what is in the money at a particular curve. And so, and then what's the production resulting production from our power plants. And what we based the comment on Page 10 is our point of view, which - if we were to put the two curves out.

Michael Weinstein

Analyst

Now I get it.

David Campbell

Analyst

2020/2021 point of view versus 2021 market, you would see and we've said this, we think there is a decoupling between where the curves are and where our point of view has been. We've also said that we've been saying this now for about four years where, and we've been accurate on this where the market has actually as we rolled into the prop year. For example going from 2020 to 2021 we've seen those curves pop up, as the market understands that the market remains tight, and that the supply/demand fundamentals are strong, which we expect to happen given our intelligence of what new build is going to look like and our understanding, of what load growth looks like. So again, that's the Page 10 comment is based on our view of the world, and Page 25 is based on a strict mark of the curves.

Michael Weinstein

Analyst

I get it, I get it, so over the course of the year, we'd expect this page to change with those numbers coming up?

David Campbell

Analyst

Yes that’s correct.

Michael Weinstein

Analyst

As it catches up with the point of view, right? And then also nothing is...

Curtis Morgan

Analyst

Hey Michael, can I mention one of the things really important?

Michael Weinstein

Analyst

Okay yes.

Curtis Morgan

Analyst

So as the forward curves, because they're going to be volatile, and there'll be periods of time where the price will pop up. And that's what, this is what we try to tell people, that's when we will hedge. And so, whether the market settles there or not, we are able to capture that value by hedging at the high points of where the curve is. And so, that's another key piece of how we create value in this company.

Michael Weinstein

Analyst

Well that makes sense, that's the value of having a point of view, I guess.

Curtis Morgan

Analyst

Yes.

Michael Weinstein

Analyst

Also the natural gas position, I guess is this a normal thing just in the early part of the year to see a very big short position out in the 2021 timeframe for ERCOT or does that represent something?

Curtis Morgan

Analyst

[Indiscernible] once a year, you're pointing out the short position that we have on natural gas in 2021, but it's pretty natural and we think about hedging our natural gas equivalent position. So we went into in looking at our forward position, we went in with a point of view that we wanted to hedge more of our gas position relative to our power position. So that's why you see the big, relatively sizable short position on natural gas. So we're fully hedged for relative natural gas of 2020 in our view we’re about 85% hedged in our natural gas position for 2021. And that's just a view on how we like to – we want to put that hedge on and we're pleased that we did. So that just reflects the desire to hedge the natural gas equivalent position, and we can do that separately in ERCOT relative to the underlying heat rate or power position.

David Campbell

Analyst

And all I add Michael. So we're various gas and that we have been various gas that’s proven out to be right. And we hedge that and then we continue to be bullish the heat rate and that's how power trades, that's where the liquidity is in ERCOT. That's not true with all the markets, but in ERCOT power sort of trades, gas and heat rate. And so, we are less hedged on the heat rate as you could tell, and we are more hedged on gas. And that is because we had a pretty strong conviction around just some bearishness around gas and frankly, it's sort of proven out to be the case.

Michael Weinstein

Analyst

Right hey, just a follow-up on Steve's question about retail. And I think I've asked you this before, but has there been any consideration towards going into residential solar or some of the higher growth sectors of the retail energy complex? I mean, the residential solar players are looking at growth rates anywhere from 15% to like 60% year-over-year. It's really pretty impressive and their stories get a lot of traction. I'm just wondering if that's something you might consider just from a strategy point of view?

Curtis Morgan

Analyst

We have studied that. I mean, there is growth rates, and then there is making money. And so, we want to put our money where the best returns are, and we just haven't found them in that part, but we have our eyes on that. I don't think we felt like we wanted to be an early mover on that, that we felt like if we wanted to get into it, we could probably buy our way into it at some point in time. But we have looked at that, we’ve looked at some other things as well like behind the meter type investments. And we just can't quite get to the hurdle rates and get comfortable with the acquisition, but it is something we take a look at, and it's a good point on - from your standpoint, that there are a lot of growth rates and we do expect, for example in California, we expect obviously that to be a burgeoning part of the business, it's right now it's kind of dispersed in a number of different players. And no one really has a particular business model that seems to work. There are some good companies out there that are performing, but we just haven't found that it meets the hurdle rate that we have. Jim, do you have a comment?

Jim Burke

Analyst

Yes Curt, I would just add, Michael, this is Jim Burke. From a customer interest standpoint, we do need a lot of their need, particularly in ERCOT with some of our designs or products that we did off of our Upton 2 solar farm. And those products don't require an install on the roof and you can still obviously get the solar energy. When you look at rooftop in most markets it’s a savings play and in Texas, there's not full net metering. So the savings opportunities are not as attractive to put the rooftop solar on the house. And then when we've looked at these business models, we have partnered with, so we will sell those systems through partners. But we've seen companies commit to a fixed capacity of sales and installation resources, and then that becomes its own cash burn that you have to be able to keep up with through the install base. So as Curt noted, we know what the customer interest is. We participate in that sale, but we have not put the fixed cost structure in place to execute against it. And we will continue to monitor that. And if that becomes a bigger play for us, we will obviously be in front of it because we've got the customer insights to do so.

Michael Weinstein

Analyst

Great understood. Thank you very much.

Curtis Morgan

Analyst

Thanks a lot.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Jonathan Arnold from Vertical Research. Your line is open.

Jonathan Arnold

Analyst

Good morning, guys and thanks for taking my question.

Curtis Morgan

Analyst

Hey Jonathan.

Jonathan Arnold

Analyst

Hi, I just kept, Curt can I ask you to give us a little update on your views on - fundamentals updates on PJM and maybe policy as well as New England. I see you have a slide on FCA-14 and maybe you could just kind of speak to that a little bit?

Curtis Morgan

Analyst

Yes, so I assume, you're talking specifically PJM, about the PJM capacity order now that had recently come out. Is that correct, Jonathan?

Jonathan Arnold

Analyst

Yes I mean, unless you feel there is other things you want to touch, but that would be top of my list.

Curtis Morgan

Analyst

Okay yes so, I mean that's probably the biggest thing I mean, I know we have fast start that we're waiting on that had a technical kind of glitch to it that I think will get resolved. And then the ORDC that’s pending up and we’re at FERC that we think those two things will be I'd say, modestly helpful on the energy side. But if you put those aside, I mean, the elephant in the room is what's going to happen given the PJM order from FERC. As we know, many, many people are asking for rehearing. Recently, I think people got a little bit confused by an order tolling for FERC to give – tolling that the rehearing decision, which effectively means that they're going to continue consider whether they're going to rehear anything, they probably will rehear some things. But that final decision has not been there. I think the next big milestone frankly, is the compliance filing that's coming out, from PJM. Our own take on this has been, and continues to be. And I think it's even further reinforced by some of the analysis that a lot of people were putting out, including the IMM and our own analysis. That when you look at the net ACR, which is the net go forward cost for many of the different assets, such as renewable, such as nuclear, that it is unlikely to have much of an impact on the capacity clears and it's not, this big windfall that I think states we're worried about and some of the generators we're celebrating. We think there's a really a modest impact. And what's probably bigger is how much new bill do you get in any given year? And how much retirement do you get in any given year.…

Jonathan Arnold

Analyst

Great, thanks for the fulsome answer, Curt. And then just one quick housekeeping thing that probable maybe more for David on the CapEx side. The growth, I think you just reshuffled things a little bit, but can you just confirm that?

David Campbell

Analyst

Yes, thank you, Jonathan for raising that so you’re referring to Slide 22.

Jonathan Arnold

Analyst

Yes.

David Campbell

Analyst

Included in prior versions of this chart we had not shown what we described as growth CapEx, we only included a portion of it. So for example, the Moss Landing battery, so the way we've recast this page is to include all of our capital expenditures, including the growth capital expenditure. So for example, we've shown the row of growth CapEx $104 million in 2019 and $315 million in 2020. The significant majority of which is relates to our Moss Landing development, the battery development in California. So we just wanted to give folks a complete picture of CapEx because there was some confusion on that part of presentation, so it's an attempt to add to clarity.

Jonathan Arnold

Analyst

Okay, so it's not that you've added things, it’s that you've just shown things [indiscernible]?

David Campbell

Analyst

Yes.

Jonathan Arnold

Analyst

The ones in [indiscernible] particular.

David Campbell

Analyst

Yes these were things that you could piece together previously, but you had to piece together in different places, but we've not added CapEx, we've just tried to show a holistic picture on this page in particular.

Jonathan Arnold

Analyst

Perfect, thank you very much.

David Campbell

Analyst

Yes if you look back from a year ago, our capital expenditures in 2019 were about $30 million lower than what we showed about a year ago. So the team showed good discipline on how they approached it and relative the last quarter for example, all in CapEx for 2020 is unchanged from what we showed.

Jonathan Arnold

Analyst

Perfect, thank so much.

Operator

Operator

There are no further questions at this time. I'll turn the call back over to Mr. Curt Morgan. Please go ahead, sir.

Curtis Morgan

Analyst

Okay, yes thanks, everybody for taking the time this morning. As I stated earlier, and as we always say, we really do appreciate your interest in Vistra and we look forward to continuing the conversation about our company. Have a great day and a great weekend.

Operator

Operator

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