The AES Corporation
Q4 2021 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 25 Feb 2022

[Operator:]

Hello, and welcome to today's AES Corporation Q4 2021 Financial Review. My name is Bailey, and I will be the moderator for today's call. I would now like to pass the conference over to Ahmed Pasha, Global Treasurer and Vice President of Investor Relations. Ahmed, please go ahead.

[Ahmed Pasha:]

Thank you, operator. Good morning, and welcome to our fourth quarter and full year 2021 financial review call. Our press release, presentation and related financial information are available on our website at aes.com. Today, we will be making forward-looking statements during the call. There are many factors that may cause future results to differ materially from these statements, which are discussed in our most recent 10-K and 10-Q filed with the SEC. Reconciliations between GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures can be found on our website along with the presentation. Joining me this morning are Andres Gluski, our President and Chief Executive Officer; Steve Coughlin, our Chief Financial Officer; and other senior members of our management team. With that, I will turn the call over to Andres. Andres?

[Andres Gluski:]

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our fourth quarter and full year 2021 financial review call. Today, I will cover our full year results and discuss our strategy and areas of focus for this year. Before discussing our 2021 results and future plans, I want to state that we do not see any significant impact on our portfolio from the outbreak of hostility in the Ukraine. Nonetheless, our thoughts and prayers go out to the Ukrainian people and government, and we hope for a speedy return to peace. Now turning our focus back to our business. Today marks an important and exciting milestone for AES with the announcement of our intention to fully exit coal by year-end 2025. This accelerated goal is a result of our success in growing our renewables portfolio. And our backlog gives us the confidence to take this step. As a leader in the global energy transition, we are committed to the goals of the Paris Agreement in achieving a net-zero economy. We will work with our stakeholders to ensure a smooth transition while meeting our regulatory obligations. Our exit from coal will be modestly dilutive, but we feel comfortable with our growth trajectory. And accordingly, we are reaffirming our annualized growth target of 7% to 9% in earnings and cash flow through 2025. Now moving on to our 2021 results and accomplishments. First, I am pleased to report our financial results, including adjusted earnings per share of $1.52, which was in line with our expectations. Our 2021 parent free cash flow of $839 million exceeded our expected range of $775 million to $825 million. Second, we signed contracts for 5 gigawatts of new renewable projects, significantly above our target of 3 to 4 gigawatts that we set last year. In fact, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, AES signed more renewable deals with corporate customers in 2021 than anyone else in the world. Included in these deals were two groundbreaking arrangements to provide renewable energy on an hour-by-hour basis, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week signed with Google and Microsoft. Third, Fluence successfully completed their IPO in November and have no foreseeable need for external funding to achieve their strategic and financial objectives. Furthermore, Fluence has made progress towards mitigating the supply chain challenges they have faced, which I shall discuss shortly. Finally, safety is our most important value. I am very proud to report that our safety performance in 2021 was the best in our 40-year history, with no major incidents recorded among roughly 25,000 AES people, contractors and construction workers. Today, I will be discussing two things

[Steve Coughlin:]

Thank you, Andres, and good morning, everyone. Today, I will cover the following key topics

[Andres Gluski:]

Thank you, Steve. As you can see, we're not only delivering on our commitments, but accelerating our transformation. Our near-term actions will enable us to achieve our three goals for creating additional shareholder value

[Operator:]

So our first question today comes from Angie Storozynski from Seaport. Angie, please go ahead. Your line is now open.

[Angie Storozynski:]

So my first question, and I see your disclosures on sensitivities, but I'm just wondering if you could describe the impact of the higher power price environment that we're seeing pretty much everywhere in the world on your both existing assets and growth prospects. I mean any sort of increased economic dispatch and how - and the appeal of renewables and how those are embedded in your '22 guidance and long-term growth.

[Andres Gluski:]

Angie, thank you. Basically, as you know, we're highly contracted. But what we're seeing in terms of higher prices for oil-based generation in many of our markets that favors us because we're much more hydro renewables and even coal. In places like where we have a big plant in Europe and Bulgaria, our plant is now very much cheaper than the other generations in the country. So we're seeing improved prospects for a lot of our generation because we are not a big generator using international price gas. Most of our gas units are running on Henry Hub or almost all. So we're basically competing against those very high prices. So even though we're highly contracted, there's always some margin, so that's positive. It's also positive on the renewable front and on the innovative front because I think people are seeing that renewables in an environment where gas prices can be more volatile is favorable. So in the net-net, overall, it's positive for us in the short run and certainly even more so in the long run because, as I said, we're highly contracted.

[Angie Storozynski:]

Okay. Just one follow-up. How about the LNG business? Is there any near-term or longer-term impact?

[Andres Gluski:]

Well, we're contracted now in Panama and the Dominican Republic. Basically, it had Henry Hub, Henry Hub plus, of course. So it's favorable to us in that prospect. Now when those contracts burn off in a couple of years, then we have to see when the recontracting levels will be. And hopefully, there will be more supply of gas at that point in time.

[Angie Storozynski:]

Okay. And just one other question. So you show the impact - the drag on earnings from asset sales. If you could comment a little bit, does that include any of those accelerated coal plant shutdowns or sales? Again, I'm just trying to reconcile the earnings impact with the transactions already announced.

[Andres Gluski:]

Go, Steve.

[Steve Coughlin:]

Yes. Angie, this is Steve. So yes, I mean, we are - consistent with the announcement to exit coal, we are increasing our total asset sale plan to $1 billion and then have increased the sales target this year to $500 million to $700 million. So yes, it does reflect in part the announcement that we made today. We had prior announcements in the past about Vietnam and Jordan. So that's a portion of it. But the additional portion reflects the updated strategy to accelerate our exit.

[Andres Gluski:]

Just to be clear, it's fully reflected. So some of it has been included in the past. It reflects 100% of the additional.

[Angie Storozynski:]

Okay. And my last question on Ohio, a delay in resolution of your rate case. Is there - I mean, is there something that we should be concerned about? Or is this just that the process takes longer?

[Ahmed Pasha:]

Sure. Angie, this is Ahmed. I think no, I don't think there's - it's a process because previously, we were hoping to settle. And now we are going through - because we could not reach this settlement, although the staff had recommended a reasonable increase in response to our request. And one of the intervenors OCC subsequently argued that the rate freeze should remain intact. And now we are going through the litigation process. But we think our request is fair. And is driven by the costs which are out of our control. And frankly, primarily to deliver the more reliable and economic power to our customers. So we think we will get through this by mid this year with the approval from the commission. So net-net, our rates are the lowest in the state and will remain lowest with this requested increase. So we feel pretty good that commission will approve our request by mid- to late '22.

[Andres Gluski:]

So in summary, it's just a timing issue.

[Ahmed Pasha:]

Yes.

[Steve Coughlin:]

Yes. It's the timing. And in fact, the PUCO staff did support an increase as part of the process already.

[Ahmed Pasha:]

Yes, they did recommend.

[Operator:]

The next question today comes from Rich Sunderland from JPMorgan. Rich, please go ahead. Your line is now open.

[RichSunderland:]

Maybe starting on 2022 guidance. Could you walk from the outlook a year ago at the Investor Day to now in terms of AES Next, the rate case and other factors separate from the equity units issue you called out in terms of changes from the 7% to 9% growth rate versus the growth embedded in the current guidance?

[Steve Coughlin:]

Yes. Sure. This is Steve. So really, the two primary drivers - well, a couple. So our growth is faster. So we've accelerated our renewables growth. Now that's been offset by the additional share count, of course, which we talked about last year. Now again, we took advantage of the value opportunity with Andes. So we've largely offset the share price - share count dilution with our acquisition of the additional shares in Andes. So really, what's been changed on a net basis is more on the asset sale program, which we just talked about and how we are accelerating our decarbonization and our exit of coal. And then the other real driver is the - is what we also just talked about, which is the DPL rates, which we previously assumed would be in effect early this year and now are assuming late this year. So those are really the two primary drivers. And then there is an uptick in the tax rate from the past. At this point, we're guiding to 26% to 28% on the tax rate. So that's a piece of the story as well.

[RichSunderland:]

Understood. So then just kind of walking forward in terms of regaining the 7% to 9% trajectory in the second half of the plan, I guess you called out the rate cases and timing factor. Could you just speak a little bit more to how you see the growth coming to kind of regain the 7% to 9% earnings trajectory?

[Andres Gluski:]

Sure. This is Andres. I'll give a sort of high level. Look, we have a backlog of 9.2 gigawatts of projects. This year, we'll be commissioning 2.3 gigawatts. So obviously, in a steady state, these two have to be about equal. And so what you're going to have is a real pickup in commissionings '23, '24 going forward. So we feel very confident about that because those are already signed projects. We already have the sites, and it's a question of executing on building them. The other one is that we expect AES Next, as Steve mentioned, is going to be neutral to positive by 2024. So that's a driver as well. So the drivers are our growth, which is part of our backlog, what we're talking about. And then we're also talking about the other things you mentioned, DPL rate case in IPL. Again, when we build all the wind and rate base that as well, you have the smart grid and DPL. So our growth projections are based on things that we have in the bag.

[RichSunderland:]

Understood. And just one more for me. The unannounced asset sales, the incremental portion versus the prior plan, is that solely related to the coal exit? Or is there anything else you're looking at maybe LNG or elsewhere?

[Andres Gluski:]

Look, we tend not to talk about exact assets that we're going to sell. As you know, we've been always turning capital. We've made a major transformation of our portfolio. I can think back, we peaked at probably 22,000 megawatts of coal. We're down to 7. We have basically sales for three of those, so we're down to 4. So yes, part of it is selling those coal assets, but also the continual churn that we have. So it might include other assets. We don't like to comment on them. But we will be hitting our 50% U.S., 50% renewables on an accelerated basis. And those sales help us achieve those goals.

[Operator:]

The next question today comes from Insoo Kim from Goldman Sachs. Insoo, please go ahead. Your line is now open.

[Insoo Kim:]

My first question, going back to that 9.2 gigawatts of backlog, it seems unchanged from the amount you've set out in the third quarter earnings. Just wondering if there's any read-through in the current inflationary environment, at least just for this year with any resistance or unwillingness for additional contracts to be signed for now.

[Andres Gluski:]

That's a good question. No, we're not seeing that at all. We're seeing strong demand. I mean, of course, if the backlog remains constant. Yes, we commissioned quite a lot of projects between the third quarter and now. So already this year, we have 600 megawatts of new PPAs signed in the - under AES Clean Energy. We're seeing strong demand, especially for our tailored projects. So no, I don't think there's - what we're seeing in the market is, again, especially for differentiated products, there's a lot of demand. It's a matter of being able to have all the projects, let's say, in pipeline to be able to meet that demand, meet the structured product that they want. I would say that, yes, PPA prices are going up to reflect the increase in prices. But as you know, we've handled the supply constraints. First, I would say the importing of solar panels from China, PV panels from China, that we were able to first move out of China. And then second, we're diversifying the source of our polysilicon away from China as well. And so we're not seeing that as a constraint. As we said, we have an inventory, everything that we need to fulfill certainly this year's construction and also already assigned a lot of the backlog. So we feel we're in a good position.

[Steve Coughlin:]

I would just also add on the number specifically. So as you've said, as Andres alluded to, there are subtractions coming from that backlog. So as we're completing construction, completing acquisitions, so it's about 1.5 gigawatts that we actually pulled out of the backlog because of completion. So net, there's significant additions going into.

[Insoo Kim:]

Okay. That's both good color there. And maybe, Andres, just a broader question for you. I think three key points that you guys made on this call, the accelerated collection plan, the U.S. earnings being 50% earlier and then the IG plan. Those are all definitely good strategies. But I guess when we think about the investor base and how over the past few years the structure of growing EPS and having consistent dividend, all of that to mirror kind of a utility-like structure, I think it served you well as you've consistently executed at least over the past few years. Just wondering that when you think about strategy and the cost benefit of the actions you're taking on the asset sales and whatnot, maybe having a near-term dilutive impact, I just wonder - just wondering your strategy on that going forward and whether that's worth taking the hit now versus kind of trying to make a more consistent or a predictable growth profile.

[Andres Gluski:]

Well, that's a great question. Look, we are laser-focused on delivering on our commitments. So we haven't changed our growth profile. Maybe to some extent, a little bit back-end loaded because of the dilution that we're putting in for earlier sales. However, I think this strategy has served us well. We've gone from a 2,200 megawatts of coal to completely exit by the end of 2025. And we think that's what a lot of new investors will like. So we think we'll have the triple investment-grade. We have a growing dividend. We are continually derisking as we get out. We are more concentrated in the U.S. and more concentrated on renewables. So we think this will be a company that will attract new additional shareholders and continue to serve our existing shareholders as well.

[Operator:]

Our next question today comes from Julien Dumoulin-Smith from Bank of America. Julien, please go ahead. Your line is now open.

[Julien Dumoulin-Smith:]

Excellent. Perfect. So just a couple of follow-up items here, if I can. So when you talk about asset sales, but more specifically driving to a neutral to positive outcome for AES Next, I mean, how does one do that? Are further divestments and sell-downs of your stakes part of how you manage those earnings? Or is this really about managing it organically to make sure that whether it's Fluence or other pieces of the business, they ultimately all cohesively drive an inflection in earnings contribution here in that '24 time frame? I just want to clarify that.

[Andres Gluski:]

Yes. No, that is organic. We expect the business to turn around. A lot of what have occurred this year is onetime related to COVID, both on the supply chain. And that, of course, includes shipping as well. So we expect the business to turn around. As they said on their call, they expect to be at a gross margin run rate by the fourth quarter. And so we will hold them accountable for that and - through the board, and we continue to innovate together. So both the big companies are Fluence and Uplight, and we expect them both to execute on their plans, and that is inorganic. Again, what we're mentioning is that we always have many levers to pull. So what we're saying is by 2024, this will be positive or - neutral at worst and hopefully positive.

[Steve Coughlin:]

Yes. And I would just add, Julien, if you think about the state of these businesses, they're investing in their product development and in their market expansion, the Digital IQ for Fluence, for example. So you'd expect them to be bottom line losses at this point of their life cycle. And as Andres said, they have a plan to get back to the gross margin targets by the fourth quarter. And then with the added volume, as that grows and the top line has been very successful, as the volume and the margin grows, then the bottom line of that business will overcome its R&D and G&A costs and get to a positive place.

[Julien Dumoulin-Smith:]

Got it. And if I can come back to one of the underlying points. Obviously, you have a long-term earnings trajectory and growth in '22 is a little bit slower than that trajectory would otherwise indicate. So If you will, there's got to be a pickup at some point here. You've talked about some of the timing-related issues specifically in '22. How do you think about that sort of inflection in that catch-up period? Is there a bigger step-up in, say, '23 or '24? Just curious about the sort of the profile against that average CAGR number you threw out there?

[Andres Gluski:]

Of course, we can't guide to '23, '24 specifically. But obviously, if you look at the number of PPAs we have signed, which will come online in '23, '24, that's the big driver behind that. If you also look at the rate cases we have in the utilities in the U.S., that's a big driver of that as well. So that's a pickup. I mean, realize that for '22, we're also making up for the change in how it is accounting, the accounting issue that we had for the share count. So actually, we are more than delivering on what we had set out, say, two years ago. So we're making up a $0.09 hit for this year based solely on how you account for the number of shares.

[Steve Coughlin:]

Yes. And I think in addition to that, the opportunity to take advantage of the value in AES Andes and increasing the shares, that was significantly earnings and cash accretive immediately and will continue to be. So that's a big help to us, too.

[Julien Dumoulin-Smith:]

In fact, if I may, and again, I know you don't want to provide longer-term guidance, but given what you just said a moment ago and you offset some of the '22 impacts that are somewhat technical here. I mean to what extent could we expect an extension or acceleration, if you will, implicitly, given what your success is on renewables, the ability to drive that cash up against your 7% to 9% in the later years? And what that means for sort of an exit rate trajectory subsequent to - in '25 and beyond? Do you get what I'm saying? If the plan is that sort of way what does that mean about the longer term?

[Andres Gluski:]

Well, again, we're very optimistic about the longer term. We feel we're in the right place in the market. We have differentiated products. We have - are growing very fast in renewables. We're in the right markets. And we have upside potential from projects like in green hydrogen. We have a number of projects that we're progressing there. I think something that will give us additional juice is the pass of the climate plus plan, which will clarify what are the various subsidies or, if you want, tax percentages, tax - ITC, PTC, et cetera. So once that's clarified, that could give us upside. And then also, as Steve mentioned in his speech, a greater use of our facilities in Southern California, longer - and extension of it, which looks technically possible. So there certainly are upsides from that. What we're doing is saying, based on the situation that we're in today, this is our plan.

[Ahmed Pasha:]

The only thing I would - Julien, I would add, this is Ahmed, is that back in March last year at our Investor Day, we had already assumed significant dilution because we said our goal is to go below 10% coal by '25. So our growth rate already had embedded at that time decent dilution. We showed that roughly $0.30 at that time. So I think now we are saying we are down to 0. So I think we - and the factors that we've discussed today, the positive things that go in our favor, like increased share in AES Andes, accelerated growth in renewables, things like that will help us offset that. So we don't expect any hockey stick, if you wish, type profile if that's - that was your question.

[Steve Coughlin:]

And the share count change was baked in, Julien, to '24 and '25. So that's relative to the near-term guidance that's having a disproportionate effect on '22 and '23. But as of '24, those shares were assumed to be converted anyway, so they're already baked in.

[Julien Dumoulin-Smith:]

Right. Clearly. But again, you give me no reason to be less confident here.

[Operator:]

The next question today comes from Durgesh Chopra from Evercore ISI. Durgesh, please go ahead. Your line is now open.

[Durgesh Chopra:]

I want to go back to the renewal backlog. And I think Steve, you said, I mean, the projects that were completed and taken out and then a few new adds. But there's a fair bit of gas in that 9.2 gigawatt number. Can you elaborate what - those are gas-fired plants? Or those are LNG projects? What does that comprise of?

[Steve Coughlin:]

Yes. So we do have - so we have the project that we acquired in Panama in those numbers, the Gatun project is included. Otherwise, it's renewables.

[Andres Gluski:]

And just to state, we own 25% of the gas project in Panama. So actually, we own higher percentages of the renewables.

[Steve Coughlin:]

Yes. Yes, the whole amount is reflected here. But yes, from an economic standpoint, we have more of the renewables.

[Durgesh Chopra:]

Okay. And maybe I could just follow up with Ahmed on that. Okay. And then just can you talk about sort of how should we think about the financial impacts if any of the community energy acquisition, I mean, in terms of financing costs and things like that on 2022 guidance and future earnings projections?

[Andres Gluski:]

Yes. The community - look, we've grown our AES Clean Energy very quickly. We've merged our sPower with Distributed Energy. And then we've also acquired Community Energy. Now Community Energy comes with a pipeline of 10 gigawatts and 70 seasoned professionals. So it was very important at this time of rapid growth to have, first, the people, and second, the pipeline. So that's going to help our growth. Now in terms of their projects, when those will be offered to our customers and come online, they didn't - no backlog is coming from Community Energy. But certainly, we think that we can get better financing terms and better costs for equipment and improve execution. So that's upside from that. So I don't know if that answers your question. But basically, they're now part of that unit. And what they've done is help us accelerate that growth.

[Operator:]

The next question today comes from Stephen Byrd from Morgan Stanley. Stephen, please go ahead. Your line is now open.

[Stephen Byrd:]

I wanted to first just talk about Chile and just wondered if you could expand a bit on the dialogue you've had with the Chilean government in terms of helping the nation to decarbonize and pursuing green ammonia and just a little bit more color on the nature of that dialogue.

[Andres Gluski:]

Sure. Well, let's see, we know the new President, Boric, through the Council of Americas. We know about him. I would say that it's very much aligned with our plans because he wants to continue to decarbonize the mining sector. That would fit in well with our project to supply the mining sector with hydrogen fuel for their large machinery. Also, it fits in very well with our planned shutdowns of our coal plants and the replacement for - with our pipeline of renewables. So I think we're very much aligned with that plan. And I think he wants to increase and accelerate the carbon tax. So we don't see - our contracts have pass-throughs for the higher carbon tax in most cases. And our renewables would benefit from it. So we felt there was a tremendous opportunity at AES Andes. And we're rolling a lot of new technology out in Chile in terms of batteries, in terms of the MAVERICK product for 5B. We have, we believe, the most efficient solar farm in the world. It's close to 38% in Chile. So we have a lot of good things happening in Chile, which weren't reflected in the market price. And in terms of the government, our plans are very much aligned with what they want to achieve.

[Stephen Byrd:]

Very good. And then just another topic I've been getting some questions on is just El Salvador and the state of the economy. I guess I've been seeing that there's been fairly good economic growth in El Salvador. It's an important country for you. There is some concern though about the linkage with Bitcoin and just sort of the overall sort of growth and stability potential there. Wonder if you could just expand a little bit on what you're seeing in El Salvador and sort of the outlook there for your business there.

[Andres Gluski:]

Look, our business in El Salvador has been very stable. The dollar is the currency of the country. So Bitcoin is not going to replace it. And certainly, with the volatility that Bitcoin has, it's not feasible. They did do one financing in Bitcoin that I'm aware of. So I don't see a change there. The biggest export of El Salvador is people, especially if you live in the D.C. area. So it's remittances that drive the economy. So a big factor there is that the U.S. economy is doing well. So I'd say the thing to watch in El Salvador is we always have to be on top of collections. And those are doing very well. So I know there's some noise, there's some political noise, and there have been some announcements like Bitcoin. But we don't see anything that would substantially affect our business.

[Operator:]

The next question today comes from Gregg Orrill from UBS. Gregg, please go ahead. Your line is now open.

[Gregg Orrill:]

I'm sorry if you covered this, but what was the last 10% on - that relates to the exit of coal by '25? What steps would get you there?

[Steve Coughlin:]

Yes. So that was our previously stated goal. So we're just above 20%, around 20% this year. And so our previously stated goal was to get below 10% by 2025. And that is through a combination of asset sales, retirements, fuel conversion. So what we've talked about today is really just a full exit by the end of 2025. So that's really the difference there.

[Gregg Orrill:]

Can you be any more specific plant-wise?

[Andres Gluski:]

Gregg, what I'd put it this way is, again, in the big - if you look over time, I mean, we've gone from 22 to 7. We've already signed about - of that 7, about half of it is already basically sold. And we have to just close the sales. So you're left with a number of plants. And there's a combination of replacements, let's say, for renewables. There's fuel conversions where we can start running those plants on gas. And those few cases where we - that does not work, then there's obviously the possibility of asset sales. So just like we've been doing, we're just accelerating that and saying, look, rather than have 10% linger on for a couple of years, let's just go ahead and bite the bullet and say we're out of coal by end of '25.

[Operator:]

There are no additional questions registered at this time. So I'll hand the call back to Ahmed Pasha for closing remarks. Ahmed, please go ahead.

[Ahmed Pasha:]

Thanks, everyone, for joining us on today's call. As always, the IR team will be available to answer any questions you may have. Thank you, and have a great day.

[Operator:]

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect your lines.