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Enel ChileB
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Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-04-30

Enel Chile SA (ENIC) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Highlights: Strategic Growth Amidst Financial Challenges

GuruFocus.com

This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Release Date: April 29, 2026 For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript. Enel Chile SA (NYSE:ENIC) reported a 16% increase in EBITDA for the first quarter of 2026, driven by improved integrated margin performance. The company started construction on three battery energy storage projects, adding 0.5 gigawatts of capacity, enhancing portfolio flexibility. A new LNG supply agreement with Shell optimizes gas supply and aligns with long-term business vision. Hydrological conditions were favorable, supporting stable operational performance and reducing portfolio risk. The Extraordinary General Meeting approved a capital increase of CLP360 billion, reinforcing financial flexibility. Net income decreased by 7% compared to the first quarter of 2025, due to higher depreciation and lower interest capitalization. Energy purchase costs in the generation segment increased despite stable volumes and lower spot prices. Tariff resettlements for the VAD 2020-2024 process have been postponed until July 2026, creating uncertainty. Energy losses in the distribution segment increased, driven by tariff adjustments and changes in customer behavior. Higher financial expenses were reported, partially due to lower interest capitalization in the generation business. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 6 Warning Signs with ENIC. Is ENIC fairly valued? Test your thesis with our free DCF calculator. Q: Apart from the gas valorization agreement, which is a positive one-off in your results, could you please indicate which of the one-off negatives you have incurred in your first quarter 2026 figures? Basically, I'm interested in knowing the recurring EBITDA booked in the first quarter 2026. A: Simone, CFO: In this quarter, we have more than one non-recurrent effect. The agreement with Shell had a positive impact, but it was partially offset by transmission line issues affecting efficiency, with an impact of around $15 million. Additionally, there was a $60 million adjustment from the previous year, mainly related to ancillary services, impacting by minus $30 million. Normalizing these effects, our results are around $360-$370 million for the quarter. Q: Can you update on the key factors in the ongoing negotiations with the regulator of the distribution regulatory framework? Also, what is the reason...

Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-04-30

Enel Chile Q1 Earnings Call Highlights

MarketBeat

Q1 results: EBITDA rose 16% to $423 million driven by lower natural gas costs and gas-portfolio optimization, while net income fell 7% to $162 million due to higher depreciation and lower capitalization of interest; FFO was $122 million and Q1 investments totaled $111 million (41% to renewables/storage). BESS and gas strategy: Enel Chile began construction of three BESS projects adding about 0.5 GW with COD targeted in 3Q–4Q 2027 and pursues standalone storage only when returns are ≥300 bps above WACC, while signing an LNG deal with Shell and longer-term Argentine gas contracts to optimize surplus gas and align supply with increased battery deployment. Regulation and balance-sheet moves: The VAD 2020–2024 tariff resettlement was postponed to July 2026 (Enel Distribución expects ~$65 million of the sector’s ~ $900M) and the VAD 2024–2028 process targets a 6% real post‑tax WACC, while a planned CLP 360 billion capital increase at Enel Distribución aims to strengthen the subsidiary’s financial position. Interested in Enel Chile S.A.? Here are five stocks we like better. Enel Chile (NYSE:ENIC) executives pointed to stronger first-quarter operating performance, progress on battery storage development, and ongoing regulatory proceedings during the company’s first-quarter 2026 earnings presentation. Management also highlighted a new gas optimization agreement and discussed several non-recurring items that affected reported results. CEO Gianluca Palumbo said hydrological conditions were favorable during the quarter, which he said “helped us reduce portfolio risk and supported a stable operating performance across the business.” → Palantir Is Down 30%: Noise? Or a Signal to Accumulate? Palumbo also said the company, through EGP Chile, started construction of three battery energy storage system (BESS) projects in northern Chile. He said the projects will add “around 0.5 GW of additional capacity” and are intended to strengthen portfolio flexibility and support the commercial strategy. On fuel supply, Palumbo said Enel Generación Chile signed a new LNG supply agreement with Shell. He described the agreement as a way to “better valorize surplus gas volumes already available” and to optimize LNG and Argentine gas supply for the company’s generation business, aligning it with increasing battery deployment. → Corning Beats Q1 Estimates but Drops 9% on Guidance Miss Managem...

TranscriptFY2026 Q12026-04-29

FY2026 Q1 earnings call transcript

Earnings source - 60 paragraphs
Operator

This conference call may make statements that constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements may include Enel Chile S.A. current expectations, intentions, plans, beliefs, and projections. Forward-looking statements are based on management's current assumptions and expectations, do not guarantee future performance, and involve risk and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors. These factors are described in the Enel Chile's press release on its first quarter 2026 results. In the presentation accompanying this conference call, Enel Chile's annual report on Form 20-F on the risk factors. You may access our first quarter 2026 results press release and presentation on our website, www.enel.cl, and our 20-F on the SEC's website, www.sec.gov.

Operator

Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates. Enel Chile undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements or to disclose any development as a result of which these forward-looking statements become inaccurate, except as required by law. I would now like to turn the presentation over to Ms. Isabela Klemes, Head of Investor Relations of Enel Chile. Please proceed.

Isabela Klemes

[Foreign language] Good morning, and welcome to Enel Chile's 2026 first quarter results presentation. We greatly appreciate you taking the time to join us today. My name is Isabela Klemes. I'm the Head of Investor Relations. Joining me this morning are our CEO, Gianluca Palumbo, and our CFO, Simone Conticelli. Our presentation and related financial information are available on our website, www.enel.cl, in the investor section, as well as through our investors app. In addition, a replay of the call will soon be available. At the end of presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions via webcast chat through the Ask a Question link. Media participants are connected in listening mode. Gianluca will kick off the presentation by covering key highlights of the period, our portfolio management actions, and providing updates on the regulatory context.

Isabela Klemes

Following that, Simone will offer an overview of our business economic and financial performance. Thank you all for your attention, and now let me hand over the call to Gianluca.

Gianluca Palumbo

Thank you, Isabela. Good morning, and thank you for your participation. Let's start the presentation with our main highlights of the period. Let's begin with portfolio management. During the quarter, hydrological conditions were favorable, which helped us reduce portfolio risk and supported a stable operating performance across the business. We will come back to this point in more detail later on. At the same time, through EGP Chile, we started the construction of three battery energy storage projects in the northern part of the country. These BESS projects will add around 0.5 GW of additional capacity and will play a key role in strengthening the flexibility of our portfolio while supporting our commercial strategy. In addition, Enel Generación Chile signed a new LNG supply agreement with Shell.

Gianluca Palumbo

This agreement allows us to better valorize surplus gas volumes already available and to optimize LNG and Argentine gas supply for our generation business. Importantly, this initiative is fully aligned with our long-term business vision for Chile. This is particularly relevant in the context of the growing deployment of Battery Energy Storage Systems, which are essential to ensure a more flexible and efficient portfolio. Let's now move to the country and regulatory context. Starting with the VAD 2020, 2024 process, tariff resettlements have been postponed until July 2026. At this stage, the regulator is working on alternative solutions to fund this payment with the objective of avoiding any impact on regulated customers' tariffs. Turning to the VAD 2024 to 2028 process. During the quarter, the regulator published the preliminary technical report, volume 2, in January 2026.

Gianluca Palumbo

Over the next few months, we are awaiting the publication of the final report. Let's now turn to business profitability. The first quarter of 2026 delivered consistent financial results. EBITDA showed a solid improvement compared to previous years, plus 16% during the period. The extraordinary general meeting approved a capital increase of CLP 360 billion at Enel Distribución Chile, reinforcing the company's balance sheet and overall financial flexibility. In addition, the annual general meeting approved the final dividend, fully in line with our commitment to shareholder returns and value creation. In the next slides, we will go deeper into each of these areas and provide further details on the key drivers behind these results. Let's move to slide 4 to talk about hydrology and the progress of our battery energy storage project. Let me begin with our hydro generation.

Gianluca Palumbo

Hydro generation during the quarter remained broadly in line with last year's levels, as shown on the left-hand side of the slide. For 2026, we are forecasting hydro generation at 10.7 TWh. This assumption is based on a conservative view on hydrology, fully consistent with the average evolution observed over the last 13 years that allows us to confirm our 2026 guidance. This is the case, even though the probability of an El Niño event has increased in recent weeks, with potential impacts mainly expected in the second half of the year. This level of performance is supported by our well-diversified hydro portfolio, together with continuous operational optimization. Moving now to gas activities. On gas sourcing, we have signed contracts with Argentine gas suppliers with a longer tenure compared to previous years.

Gianluca Palumbo

These contracts secure firm volumes at more competitive prices, providing stable supply until April 2027. In parallel, in the context of high gas prices and the more flexible demand outlook for our thermal fleets, we concluded a negotiation related to our long-term LNG agreement. This approach is well aligned with our view of a gradual ramp-up of battery storage in the coming years, supported by a solid and reliable gas supply from Argentina. Finally, let me focus on battery storage. We continue to strengthen our generation portfolio through the development of battery energy storage systems. These investments will increase the flexibility of our portfolio and support the long-term resilience of our generation mix. In addition, they will continue to optimize our sourcing strategy.

Gianluca Palumbo

In this context, approximately 450 MW of new battery capacity are currently under development and will gradually start operations from 12/12/2027 ahead, in line with our planned investment schedule. Now let's move to slide 5, where we will review our generation portfolio and the energy balance. Let me start with our generation portfolio. We entered 2026 with a solid and well-diversified portfolio. In fact, our total net installed capacity stands at 8.9 GW, of which 78% comes from renewable energy sources and BESS. Therefore, this structure enhances flexibility and supports a balanced and resilient energy mix. Moving now to our energy balance. During the first quarter of 2026, net production remained stable compared to the same period last year. This performance reflects the flexibility of our generation portfolio.

Gianluca Palumbo

Higher contributions from wind, solar, and efficient natural gas combined cycles more than compensated for the slightly lower hydro generation. Physical energy sales amounted to 7.5 TWh, fully in line with the level recorded in the first quarter of last year. This confirms the stability of our commercial positioning, supported by our diversified sourcing mix. Energy purchases during the quarter, we maintained a similar purchasing mix compared to last year. This included 1.3 TWh of net spot market purchases and 0.8 TWh sourced from third parties. Now I would like to take a moment to share with you some key topics related to the distribution business, which we will cover on the next slide. Let me start with the tariff review shown on the left-hand side of the slide. We are in the 2024 to 2028 distribution tariff review process.

Gianluca Palumbo

In January of this year, the regulator released the second version of the technical report. The remaining technical steps are expected to lead a final tariff determination in the second half of 2026. Overall, the review is progressing in line with the regulatory timetable. Turning now to the VAD 2020-2024. The settlement of the outstanding debt with distribution companies, which was originally scheduled to begin earlier, has been postponed to July 2026. For Enel Distribución, the amount to be received is around $65 million, while at the distribution sector level, the total amount involved is approximately $900 million. We remain confident that the process will progress toward the prompt resolution, considering its relevance for the sector and the need for orderly completion.

Gianluca Palumbo

Turning to distribution reform, we continue to see constructive and positive engagement from stakeholders, together with the growing and broad consensus on the need to further evolve and modernize the distribution framework in Chile. This is particularly important in the context of electrification and considering the long-term nature of distribution investments. Finally, a few words on grids and execution. We continue to reinforce specific parts of the network, while at the same time expanding digitalization and remote control solutions across the network. These actions allow us to restore service faster, improving customer experience, and strengthen the flexibility and resilience of our networks. Overall, execution and distribution remains solid, with a clear and continued focus on service quality. With that, I will now hand over the presentation to Simone.

Simone Conticelli

Many thanks, Gianluca, and good morning, everyone. I will begin my presentation with an overview of our key results for the period. As shown on the slide, during the first quarter of 2026, EBITDA reached $423 million, with a 16% increase compared to the same period of last year. The improvement was mainly driven by a better integrated margin performance. First quarter net income amounted to $162 million, representing a 7% decrease compared to the result of first quarter 2025, mainly due to higher depreciation following the commissioning of the new renewable plants and lower capitalization of interest. Finally, first quarter FFO reached $122 million, representing a 12% increase compared to the same period last year.

Simone Conticelli

The improvement is due to a combination of several factors, which will be commented on the following slides. Now let's move to the next slide to talk about the investment made during the quarter. First quarter investment amounting to $111 million were mainly allocated to the development of BESS project, increasing the value of our power plant fleet, and the reinforcement of our distribution network. Let's review the allocation in more detail. 41% or $46 million were invested in renewable and storage. 31% or $34 million supported thermal power projects. 20% or $31 million was directed toward grids investments. In the renewable segment, we have focused our effort on the development of BESS project, as announced in our strategic plan, on the enhancement of hydro capacity performance, and on the improvement of fleet availability.

Simone Conticelli

In the thermal segment, the priority has been the maintenance and performance enhancement of the power plant fleet. Finally, regarding grids, the focus remain on the resilience program to strengthen the distribution network and ensure service continuity under adverse weather condition. Passing to the nature of investment, first, asset management CapEx totaled $58 million, accounting for 52% of the total CapEx. The main activities have been the maintenance of Atacama, Quintero, and San Isidro CCGT, the maintenance of renewable fleet aimed at ensuring plant availability, and some activities for the corrective maintenance and digitalization of grids. Second, development CapEx amounted to $40 million, mainly invested in batteries development, which represented 75% of total, and digital meters and grids remote control equipment. Finally, customer CapEx totaled $13 million, mainly invested in low and medium voltage connection project and initiative to support load increase.

Simone Conticelli

Let's now go on to the next slide, which provide a closer look at the EBITDA performance. In the first quarter of 2026, our EBITDA reached $423 million. The increase of $58 million compared to the same period of 2025 is mainly explained by the following factors. Starting with the integrated business, we recorded an increase of $67 million, mainly due to, first, lower natural gas costs that reduce the variable production cost of our thermal power plants and the spot energy purchase costs. Second, the positive impact of the optimization of gas sourcing, which allowed us to improve LNG and Argentine gas supply for our thermal fleet, extracting value from our gas contracts portfolio, as previously commented by Gianluca.

Simone Conticelli

These positive impacts were partially offset by the termination of certain high-priced regulated contracts and higher provision related to energy and transmission charges adjustments booked in 2025. Going to grids, we recorded a decrease of 18%, mainly due to the positive impact of issuance provision on 2025 and the impact of the higher O&M expenses associated with the anticipation of the 2026 winter plant activities, partially offset by a higher contribution from complementary distribution activities, mainly related to the new customer connections. Now let's move to the next slide to review the net income evolution. Net income amounted to $162 million in the first quarter of 2026.

Simone Conticelli

The difference compared to the first quarter 2025 is mainly due to the $58 million improvement in EBITDA, thanks to the more efficient sourcing, partially offset by higher depreciation and amortization, mainly related to the commissioning of new renewable capacity in the generation business and higher financial expenses, partially due to lower interest capitalization in the generation business. Now, passing to the next slide, let's analyze the FFO composition for the first three months of 2026. In the first quarter 2026, FFO reached $122 million as a result of the following factors. First, EBITDA totaled $423 million, as previously explained. Second, the increase of net working capital amounted to $161 million, mainly due to seasonality of energy payments and gas optimization agreement, for which the payment was registered in April.

Simone Conticelli

Third, financial expenses amounted to $93 million, also including the settlement of hedging derivatives. Finally, income tax expense payments amounted to $48 million, mainly related to generation business. Passing to the comparison with the results of the first quarter of 2025, the 2026 FFO was $13 million higher, mainly thanks to the EBITDA increase for $58 million, the lower increase of net working capital for $27 million, mostly due to lower CapEx payment related to the new development capacity, the positive effect of energy payment scheduling, partially offset by the increase of account receivable following the LNG agreement settled in April, the higher financial expenses for $62 million, and the higher income taxes for $9 million, reflecting higher monthly payment tax rates. Now let's take a look at our liquidity and leverage position.

Simone Conticelli

Gross debt amounted to $3.9 billion as of March 2026, remaining broadly flat compared to December 2025. The slight increase reflects the seasonal cash and working capital requirements, which were temporarily funded through a $50 million drawdown on the CAF credit line, partially offset by a $9 million reduction in IFRS 16 lease liability. The average term of our debt maturity reached 5.4 years by March 2026 versus the 5.8 years seen in December 2025, and the portion at a fixed rate was 85% of the total debt. The average cost of our debt reached 4.9% as of March 2026, in line with December 2025 figures. Regarding liquidity, we are in a comfortable position to support our capital needs for the upcoming months and cope with next year maturities.

Simone Conticelli

As of March 2026, we have available committed credit lines for $640 million and cash equivalent for $454 million. Thank you all for your attention. Now I will pass the floor to Gianluca for the closing remarks.

Gianluca Palumbo

To conclude, our resilient and diversified business model supported solid and stable results in the first quarter of 2026, even in a volatile operating environment. A well-balanced portfolio combined with disciplined execution continues to provide resilience, allowing us to navigate changes in market and climate conditions with confidence. Electrification is clearly emerging as a key driver of demand growth in Chile. This trend is supported by structural developments across mining, industry, transport and electromobility. In this context, we remain closely engaged and well-positioned to support the country's electrification process, leveraging our integrated offering of clean energy, infrastructure and services. At the same time, we continue to closely monitor regulatory developments and their potential impacts. Our solid financial position and flexible business model continue to support the execution of our investment plan and our ability to meet financial commitments.

Gianluca Palumbo

This financial strength allows us to continue investing in renewables and battery storage while maintaining financial discipline and delivering sustainable returns to our shareholders. Let me hand it over to Isabela for the Q&A session.

Isabela Klemes

Thank you very much, Simone and Gianluca. We now start the Q&A. As a reminding, we are receiving questions from our chat on the application. I will start now, Gianluca and Simone, with the first question. We actually received this question from several analysts, including Andrew McCarthy from LarrainVial. I will do the questions, okay? The first one is, congrats on the results. Apart from the gas valorization agreement, which is a positive one-off in your results, could you please indicate which other one-off negatives you have incurred in your first quarter 2026 figures? Basically, I'm interested in knowing the recurring EBITDA booked in the first quarter 2026.

Isabela Klemes

Actually, on the same, we also received a question regarding what we have mentioned in the EBITDA, regarding the provisions recorded in the first quarter 2026 related to energy and transmission charges. Simone?

Simone Conticelli

Thank you. Thank you for the question. You are right, in this quarter, we have more than one non-recurrent effect. The first one is the impact of the agreement with Shell. That is a positive impact, but then was partially offset by some problem with the transmission line that impacted in our efficiency. On the other side, this impact can be around $50 million, and then around $60 million of adjustment coming from the previous year. The main part from 2023, it was related to an adjustment of the ancillary services, booked in this year after quite a long discussion with the system, we finally take the final decision, and this has an impact of -$30 million. To make a synthesis, if you normalize all these non-recurrent effect, our results is around $360 million-$370 million for the quarter.

Isabela Klemes

Thank you, Simone. We are receiving several questions. Let me go to the second one. The second one is coming from Javier Suarez from Mediobanca. Javier has several questions that I will split here. The first one is, can you update on the key factors on the ongoing negotiations with regulator of the distribution regulatory framework? Also on the same page on distribution, he also is asking why, in other words, what is the reasons for the postponement of the settlement to July 2026 relating to VAD 2020-2024? Gianluca, is this yours?

Gianluca Palumbo

Yes. Okay. Let me start for the first part on the distribution regulatory framework. The VAD 2024-2028 process is still ongoing, so the methodology remains based on the reference model company with a regulated real post-tax WACC, as you know, of 6%. We believe there is still room for improvement in the CNE proposal, and we are actively participating with the distribution association in the observation and the discrepancy process. The final technical report is expected by June 2026, and the tariff decree in early 2027. Regarding the postponement of the VAD 2020-2024 settlement, the estimated impact is around $765 million.

Gianluca Palumbo

The recovery mechanism was defined by the SEC in February 2026, but collection was postponed by three months. In this moment, our current planning assumption is collection from July 2026, while the Ministry of Energy is also evaluating alternative mechanisms, including potential debt factoring.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Thank you, Gianluca. Now, another question from Javier. The other question from Javier, Simone, this is for you. Can you give more details on the profitability of the BESS project in Chile in terms of IRR?

Simone Conticelli

Yes, thanks for the question. First of all, let me make a initial comment saying that Enel is developing new BESS, following the strategical goal to balance our portfolio. First of all, we see this BESS project like an improvement of our portfolio and a way to have some energy shift that can result in a better match between the demand and the production curve. Looking at the BESS project as a standalone project, what we can say is that we launch this kind of project only if the return is at least 300 basis points above our WACC. Also that we make also some stress test trying to change the market condition to see the resilience of this kind of project also to some more stressed and critical scenarios.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Thank you, Simone. Move on. The other question is coming from Fernan Gonzalez. This is also for you, Simone, from BTG Pactual. The question is: Why did energy purchase cost in the generation segment increase so much if volumes were similar with last year and its spot prices were significantly below the first quarter 2025 levels, even in the non-solar hours? Simone.

Simone Conticelli

Okay. In such a way, we answer at the beginning indirectly to this question, because this negative impact from adjustment from the past, entered as sourcing cost. You are looking also at the impact of this negative adjustment.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Thank you, Simone. Moving on, we're receiving a lot of questions. The next one is coming from Andrew McCarthy, another question from Andrew from LarrainVial. Good morning. Energy losses in the distribution segment continued to deteriorate during the first quarter 2026. Can you comment on what is driving that, how you expect to evolve, and what can be done to reverse the trend? Gianluca.

Gianluca Palumbo

Okay. Thank you for your question. Energy losses increased mainly due to tariff adjustments and some change in customer behavior, which have led to a rise in not technical losses, such as the debt. In the first quarter, losses were also impacted by lower than expected demand and a more competitive market environment. That said, our loss levels remain below the regional averages, and we have a clear plan to reserve the trend. We are strengthening our loss reduction strategy through this plan. First of all, improved inspection targeting using better analytics. Second, expansion of micro and macro metering. This is an action to help the balance, micro balance. Increased field action and controls, considering the better analysis that we will do. Finally, enhanced coordination with authorities to address illegal connection. That is one of the problem that we have.

Gianluca Palumbo

Looking forward, we expect losses to gradually decline, targeting around 5.7% by 2028, supported by these operational and technological improvements. That is very important for us.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Thank you, Gianluca, for the question. I'm checking here other questions. Okay, the other question is coming from Felipe Flores from Banchile Citi. The question is: My question is related to the capital increase in distribution. Will this be subscribed by Enel fully using cash? How does the company plan to finance it? It's already covered? How much would take to recover the money? Gianluca, if you can give some color on the capital increase.

Gianluca Palumbo

Yes, of course. Okay. The capital increase is intended to strengthen Enel Distribución financial position, and it's expected to be supported by controlling shareholders in line with its long-term commitment to the business. From a financial perspective, it will be covered through group level financial resources, ensuring obviously efficiency and flexibility. In terms of returns, this is not a short-term recovery investment. It supports the long-term sustainability of the business through improved financial structure, lower financial costs and the ability to execute the investment plan under regulatory framework. This is the last question that I can add in this case. Okay.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Thank you, Gianluca. I'm checking here. We have receiving another question. Some of them, some of them, we have already talked about that is related the capital increase and also on the postponement on the VAD. I'm continue checking here. Another one was a question also, Gianluca, regarding the VAD 2020-2024, that potentially is gonna be a new pack. Gianluca has already answered this. That is one of the proposals that could be done in order to have the payment on the VAD. Let me just a second. Okay. We have other questions that is coming from Juan Felipe Becerra, that is relating.

Isabela Klemes

He ask Simone, if you can give more details on the gas optimization contract on Shell. We have already included, if you can check also. Now, he has another question. Does this optimization imply lower contracted volumes or changing pricing terms with Shell? Regarding the three BESS projects highlighting the presentation, can you provide more details on the expected timeline for each project to reach COD and enter in EGP capacity? Simone?

Simone Conticelli

Let's start talking about the Shell agreement. This is an agreement that has the goal to optimize our portfolio. As you know, we have a very valuable portfolio of gas contracts. Part of the contracts is for LNG. Part of this contract is for gas from Argentina. What I want to stress is that the total amount of volume of gas that we can manage is higher of our needs, even stressing the needs of our power plant during a dry year. What we have done in this agreement is try to rebalance the amount of the LNG contract to make coherent our portfolio. We did it in a very right moment in such ways. We have also positive impact on 2026 results.

Simone Conticelli

On the other side, talking about the BESS.

Isabela Klemes

Yeah, this is.

Simone Conticelli

Okay.

Isabela Klemes

Go to Gianluca.

Simone Conticelli

Gianluca.

Gianluca Palumbo

Regarding the three BESS, to complement, the answer, regarding the three BESS projects highlighted in the presentation, let me know that, we could you provide more detail on expected timeline. In this case.

Isabela Klemes

Yes. The question, Gianluca, was regarding the BESS. What we are expecting the COD on the BESS side. Also what Gianluca was saying that we are expecting, it's included in our business plan that we have recently presented. Gianluca, if you want, now your mic is up.

Gianluca Palumbo

Oh, okay. I understand.

Isabela Klemes

Going back again. Thank you.

Gianluca Palumbo

Okay. During 2025, we focused on engineering, permitting and project preparation. With the regulatory framework now in place, we are starting construction in 2026 and expecting the COD during the third and the fourth quarter of 2027. Our strategy also included additional BESS investment, like we presented in the last Capital Markets Day, in 2027 and 2028, reinforcing storage as a core pillar of our portfolio. This is our pillar in our optimization of our portfolio.

Isabela Klemes

Thank you, Gianluca. Another question is coming from Jay Samani from Scotiabank. This is for you, Simone. Where do you see Enel Chile next avenues for growth, given that lower demand from unregulated customers? He's mentioned about the termination of the PPA, regulated PPAs. How is Enel Chile position itself for long term, and can we expect the company to maintain the current earnings level for growth? He's asking about our business plan.

Simone Conticelli

Can you repeat me the first part of the question, please?

Isabela Klemes

Yes. Jay is asking you, where do you see that Enel Chile is going? What are the strengths of our plan? He's also mentioned that we have seen the results, not the reduction of the regulated PPAs, he's asking what we are seeing the long term, no? We are seeing more regulated customer coming on, new auctions, and how we are positioning ourselves in the long term.

Simone Conticelli

Okay. Enel will confirm its strategy. In this moment, clear we see a reduction in the volumes of regulated contract, but this is related in how the auction now will rise in the market. What we have to stress is that we want the full last to auction also at a valuable price on the market. We have a very good portfolio in term of price in the short term. Also, we can stress the fact that the pricing of our portfolio, the average price in the next three year, we will maintain the same value, even if the price on the market is going down. For the full following year, we will keep on looking to a good mix among short-term opportunity and also long-term contract. That can be new, regulated auction, but also, long-term contract with the big customer.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Thank you, Simone. We have a last question that is coming from Isabella from Bank of America. She's asking: What is the minimal cash position you are operationally comfortable with? You currently have a cash position of around $454 million. Do you plan on using your credit lines this year, or will you refinance your short-term debt?

Simone Conticelli

Thanks for the question. You know that our business has a strong seasonality with some needs in terms of financing in the first and in the second quarter, and higher cash production in the second half. We have an internal model to define the comfortable minimal cash position to cover the networking capital needs. For the future financial needs, we plan to refinance using a long-term financing that in this moment is under negotiation.

Isabela Klemes

Thank you, Simone. We do not have any more questions coming here from the chat. Any other doubts that you may have, the investor relations team will be fully available to execute other calls and to go into more details. Thank you very much for connecting today. Have a nice holiday. Thank you.

Operator

This concludes our conference. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.

Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2025-11-05

Enel Chile SA (ENIC) Q3 2025 Earnings Call Highlights: Resilience Amid Market Challenges

GuruFocus.com

This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Release Date: November 04, 2025 For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript. Enel Chile SA (NYSE:ENIC) maintained a stable EBITDA for the first nine months of 2025, demonstrating resilience despite challenging market conditions. The company successfully implemented a comprehensive winter plan, enhancing grid stability and service continuity during adverse weather conditions. Gas optimization activities supported margins, adding $74 million in margin during the first nine months of 2025. Enel Chile SA (NYSE:ENIC) maintained a strong liquidity position with available credit lines of $640 million and cash equivalents of $373 million as of September 2025. The company is actively pursuing strategic investments in renewable energy and battery storage projects, aligning with its long-term growth strategy. Net production decreased by 9% in the first nine months of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024, due to lower renewable energy production and transmission line limitations. The company's net income for the first nine months of 2025 decreased by 21% compared to the previous year, impacted by higher depreciation, amortization, and impairment expenses. Enel Chile SA (NYSE:ENIC) faced a $63 million decrease in EBITDA during the last quarter, primarily due to the termination of high-price regulated contracts. The company is dealing with increasing energy losses, with losses slightly higher than 6% due to various factors including tax increases. Regulatory uncertainties remain, with significant updates expected that could impact tariffs and market mechanisms, affecting long-term strategic planning. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 12 Warning Signs with ENIC. Is ENIC fairly valued? Test your thesis with our free DCF calculator. Q: What is the amount that Enel Chile must return to customers due to the miscalculation of the CNA included in the first half, 2026 PNP reports? A: The impact of the miscalculation is estimated to be between $40 and $45 million. The financial impact will primarily be in terms of financial costs, with only a small portion (2%) affecting customers. The process for returning this amount is expected to be completed in the first half of 2026. Q: What is the amount owed to Enel Distribution Chile in connection to the VAD 2020-2024? A: The amount owed is...

TranscriptFY2025 Q32025-11-04

FY2025 Q3 earnings call transcript

Earnings source - 25 paragraphs
Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Enel Chile Third Quarter and 9 Months 2025 Results Conference Call. My name is Carmen, and I will be your operator for today. During this conference call, we may make statements that constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements reflect only our current expectations, are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from anticipated in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors. These factors are described in Enel Chile's press release reporting its third quarter and 9 months 2025 results. The presentation accompanying this conference call and Enel Chile's annual report on Form 20-F, included under risk factors. You may access our third quarter and 9 months 2025 results press release and presentation on our website at www.enel.cl, and our 20-F on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on those forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates. Enel Chile undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements or to disclose any development as a result of which these forward-looking statements become inaccurate, except as required by law. I would now like to turn the presentation over to Ms. Isabela Klemes, Head of Investor Relations of Enel Chile. Please proceed.

Isabela Klemes

Good morning, and welcome to Enel Chile's 2025 Third Quarter and 9 Months Results Presentation. We greatly appreciate you taking the time to joining us today. My name is Isabela Klemes, and I'm the Head of Investor Relations. Joining me this morning is our CFO, Simone Conticelli. Our presentation and financial related information are available on our website, www.enel.cl in the Investors section as well as through our app investors. In addition, a replay of the call will be soon available. At the end of this presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions via webcast chat through the link Ask a Question. [Operator Instructions] Simone will kick off the presentation by covering key highlights of the period, our portfolio management actions, providing us updates on the regulatory context and an overview of our business economic and financial performance for the period. Thank you all for your attention. And now let me hand over the call to Simone. Simone?

Simone Conticelli

Thank you, Isabela. Good morning, and thank you for your participation. Let's start the presentation with our main highlights of the period. Let's begin with portfolio management. We observed a high-level performance of our thermal generation fleet, which helped offset lower hydrological conditions during the quarter. This outcome reflects our ability to adapt to evolving market dynamics and maintain operational stability. In addition, our gas optimization activities continued to support our margin, reinforcing their strategic role in balancing our portfolio and mitigating exposure to spot market volatility. On the distribution side, we achieved successful implementation of the comprehensive winter plan aimed at strengthening grid's resilience and improving service continuity under challenging climate condition. Indeed, our performance in the period was one of the best in Chile. The winter plan included the deployment of emergency crews strategically positioned in high-risk areas, extensive vegetation management action and the installation of new telecontrol units to reduce restoration time. Additionally, targeted measures were implemented to support vulnerable customers, ensuring continuity of supply during adverse weather events. Now let's move on the Chilean regulatory context. With reference to the VAD 2024-2028, a key milestone was the publication in the last weeks of the consultant report followed by the preliminary regulatory technical report. I will give you more details about it. Furthermore, in October, was also released the preliminary regulated energy tariff report for the first half 2026. Now the generation association, of which Enel is a part of, is working with authorities regarding the outcomes of the report. Looking ahead, 2 regulated energy auctions are scheduled for the fourth quarter 2025. Let's now turn to business profitability. We closed the first 9 months of 2025 with a stable EBITDA compared to the previous year despite the difficult context and significantly lower hydrology, demonstrating the resilience of our operations. Our FFO remained positive, driven by the recovery of $261 million of receivables generated by the PEC mechanism. This inflow significantly strengthened our cash position for the year. As a result, we maintained a strong liquidity position, enabling us to support our development plan and to mitigate operational headwind associated with the market and climate uncertainties. In the next slide, we will take a closer look at these topics to provide further insight, but let me anticipate that these achievements demonstrate our focus on operational excellence and sustainable growth. We remain committed to delivering long-term value to our shareholders while advancing in the energy transition and strengthening the resilience of our business. And now let's move to Slide 4 to talk about the energy market situation, especially regarding hydrology and gas opportunities. On the left side of the slide, you can see our hydro production over the last 10 years. For 2025, we set our target at 10.7 terawatt hour based on the last 10-year average. Although 2025 has been a particularly dry year, our hydro production has remained in line with our strategic plan. This was possible, thanks to the flexibility of our hydro plants with access to hydrological basins. For this reason, we are keeping our hydrology guidance unchanged. To manage this dry scenario, we relied also on the flexible and competitive thermal fleet, supported by a strong and diversified LNG and Argentine gas supply. This helped us respond quickly to market needs and reduce exposure to hydro volatility. As a result, we increased thermal production, used competitive gas and seized favorable trading opportunity, adding $74 million in margin during the first 9 months of 2025. Regarding gas business, in October, we completed a gas sales to Europe with margins similar to those recorded in the second quarter 2025. Looking ahead to 2026, we are evaluating options to secure competitive gas from Argentina through firm contracts in line with the past year strategy. And now moving on to Slide 5, let's review our generation portfolio and energy balance. During the first 9 months of 2025, net production decreased by 9% compared to the same period of 2024. This decline was driven by lower hydro dispatch during the first 9 months of 2025, reduction in renewable energy production due to the maintenance of 2 solar plants, higher curtailment levels also caused by transmission line limitations. These effects were partially offset by higher contribution from the efficient CCGT. The same factors impacted the third quarter generation that amounted to 5.4 terawatt hour, lower by 1.1 terawatt hour versus the same period of 2024. Energy sales reached 22.7 terawatt hour, mainly due to the lower sales to regulated customers following the expiration of regulated contracts. The regulated contracts volume reduction is also the main cause for the decrease of the third quarter sale from 8.4 to 7.6 terawatt hour. And now I would like to take a moment to review an important milestone in the resilient program of our distribution business. We are pleased to share that we successfully implemented a comprehensive winter plan aimed at strengthening the stability of our grids and guaranteeing service continuity during the most challenging months of the year, particularly for our most vulnerable customers. First of all, we deployed 376 emergency crew across our service territory. These teams were mobilized to respond to outages and restore power. One of the most impactful initiatives was the execution of more than 115,000 tree trimming actions, which significantly reduced feeder failures in areas exposed to severe weather. We also modernized the grids, installing new telecontrol unit. This helped us to isolate faults and reducing service interruption time. In parallel, we implemented several infrastructure upgrade that enhanced network reliability and quality of service for more than 193,000 customers. Supporting vulnerable customers remain a priority for Enel, so we assisted more than 3,000 electro-dependents, ensuring continuity of supply through targeted measures. Among them, more than 2,000 were equipped with digital meters, while almost 2,900 receive makeup power solutions, such as generators or battery systems. Finally, we strengthened the collaboration with municipalities to improve coordination during extreme weather events. This joint approach has enhanced emergency response capabilities. All these efforts translated into tangible improvements in the performance of our distribution network with results that clearly demonstrate the effectiveness of the winter plan. And now let's take a look at Slide 7, where we highlight key updates on the energy regulatory context. In 2025, we saw key changes in the regulatory framework. The distribution cycle for 2024, 2028 is under development. In September, the consultant final report was published. Then in October, the CNE released its preliminary technical report with changes in maintenance and technical standards. Company have until the 10th of November to submit comments. The final report is expected in 2026. In parallel, we are currently awaiting settlement of outstanding debt related to the PAD decree for 2020, 2024, published in April 2025, that is expected to be settled in 2026. Passing to generation business on the 4th of October -- on the 14th of October, the CNE published the preliminary technical report for the first half of 2026. It includes a correction related to the inflection effects. We are reviewing the impact and waiting for the final report. Passing to the stabilization mechanism as of September 2025, we have $149 million PEC 1 receivable to be fully recovered by the end of 2027. Going to other relevant topics in August came into effect a resolution on BESS remuneration that authorize the BESS to provide ancillary services. In the last week, changes have been introduced in 2025 regulated auctions, increasing the volume of the 2027-2030 auction from 1.7 to 3.4 terawatt hour per year. The offer deadline is now the 14th of November, launching a 1.5 terawatt hour per year short-term auction for 2026. The offer deadline is the 2nd of December. Finally, regarding subsidies, the third electricity subsidy round run from the 3rd of June to the 15th of July, covering the period from July to December 2025. Around 341,000 annual distribution customer benefit of it. A bid to expand the subsidy is still pending in the Congress. And now I will start reviewing the highlights of our financial performance over the period. Before we review the results, a quick reminder. As of January 1, 2025, Enel Chile changed its functional currency from Chilean pesos to U.S. dollars. For comparison, 9 months and third quarter 2024 figure are short using the average exchange rate of these periods. I will enter into details of our financial and economic performance in the next slide. So let's move to the next slide to look at the progress made on CapEx. Our total CapEx reached $245 million during the first 9 months of the year, maintaining a focus on grids and power plant fleet performance. Let's review the allocation in more detail. 41% or $101 million was directed towards grids investments. 31% or $76 million supported thermal power projects. 27% or $67 million was invested in renewable and storage. Regarding grids, the focus remain on the resilience program to strengthen the grids and ensure service continuity under adverse weather conditions. In thermal segment, the priority is the maintenance and performance announcement of the power plant fleet. In the renewable segment, we have centered our efforts on finalizing the PMGD program, enhancing hydro facility performance and maintaining fleet liability. Now let's move on to the breakdown by nature. Asset management CapEx totaled $139 million, accounting for 57% of total CapEx, mostly used for the maintenance of Atacama Quintero and San Isidro CCGT, the improvement of renewables fleet availability and corrective maintenance and digitalization of grids. Development CapEx was $60 million, mainly driven by investment for grid reliability enhancement, digital methods programs and telecontrol deployment and for the completion of 2024 investment program for PMGDs. The 2025 development CapEx for battery-related project will be recorded starting from the next quarter. Finally, customer CapEx totaled $46 million, mainly invested in low and medium voltage connection projects and initiatives to support load increase. Let's now turn to the next slide, which provides a closer look at our EBITDA performance. During the last quarter, our EBITDA totaled $345 million, representing a decrease of $63 million compared to the same period of 2024, mainly explained by the following factors. Starting with the generation business, we recorded a decrease of $89 million in PPA sales, mostly due to the termination of some high-price regulated contracts that impacted on volumes and average price of regulated portfolio, partially offset by the negative impact of exchange rate hedges recorded in 2024. Regarding sourcing, its contribution remained in line with the same period in 2024. This result was mainly achieved, thanks to our optimized sourcing strategy and the issuance provision, mainly coming from GasAtacama, which effectively offset higher cost in the energy spot market mainly due to the higher purchase volume. Gas trading contributed positively with a $5 million margin increase, mainly fueled by expanded trading activity in the third quarter of 2025. Turning to grids. We recorded a positive impact of $17 million, mainly driven by regulatory provision reflecting the settlement adjustment for the previous year and higher OpEx recorded in the third quarter of 2024 due to the extreme weather events that occurred in May and August. These effects were partially offset by the increase of OEM expenses, mainly associated with the implementation of the comprehensive winter plan. And now let's move on to the next slide to review the main impacts on EBITDA during the 9 months period. Our EBITDA reached $1,004 million, remaining flat compared to the same period of 2024. Starting with the generation business, we recorded a decrease of $244 million in PPA sales, mainly due to the termination of high-price regulated contracts, partially offset by the negative impact of exchange rate hedges recorded in 2024 and the positive price effect due to the indexation of the free market contracts. Regarding sourcing, we recorded a positive effect of $192 million despite the $34 million negative impact related to the transmission line restriction following the February blackout and the additional second quarter issues. The result was obtained, thanks to lower spot and third parties energy purchases costs, energy settlements from previous periods, already anticipated insurance provision and finally, lower transmission costs. In the first 9 months of 2025, gas margin contributed for $27 million, also thanks to the increase of the gas trading activity versus the same period in 2024. Passing to grids, we recorded a positive impact, primarily driven by the provision reflecting the higher tariff expected for the 2024-2028 regulatory period and tariff indexation, some settlement adjustment from the previous year, higher OpEx recorded in the period 2024, mainly due to the extreme weather events, partially offset by the increase of OEM expenses, mainly associated with the implementation of the comprehensive winter plan. We also recorded an increase of generation costs due to the new developed capacity and the maintenance activities. Finally, in 2025, specifically in the second quarter, we recorded the personnel cost one-off effect, mainly for the incentivized early retirement plan to support the company organization aimed at improving internal skills and performance. And so now let's move on to the next slide, where we will review the net income evolution. Our 9-month 2025 net income reached $352 million, a 21% decrease compared to the last year's figure, mainly explained by higher depreciation, amortization, impairment and bad debt expenses for $84 million, mainly due to the commissioning of new renewable capacity amounting to $32 million, the impairment related to our decision not to proceed with the new PMGD solar project initially planned for development in this area. And finally, the $12 million increase of grid's bad debt provision, mainly due to the higher billing resulting from tariff increase and long overdue customer debt. Regarding financial results, we recorded a negative variation of $38 million, mostly explained by the lower capitalized expenses on renewable projects by $61 million, partially offset by lower financial expenses for $29 million resulting from lower average outstanding debt and lower average interest rate. The latter was partially offset by a $20 million reduction in corporate income tax expense, mostly explained by lower results. Focusing on the quarter, net income decreased by $74 million, mainly due to a $63 million decrease in EBITDA, a $29 million increase in depreciation, amortization and bad debt, primarily due to the operation of new renewable capacity and an $11 million increase in financial results, mainly due to the lower capitalized expenses on renewable projects. The latter was partially offset by a $23 million reduction in corporate income tax expenses mostly explained by lower results of the period. And now let's move on to the FFO analysis on the next slide. Let's analyze the FFO composition for the first 9 months of 2025 and the main effect compared to the same period in 2024. Our FFO reached $615 million, representing an improvement of $248 million compared to the previous year. This is due to the following factors. First, EBITDA totaled $1 billion, remaining flat compared to the same period last year, as previously explained. Second, the recovery of PEC receivable in 2025 contributed for $285 million, mainly thanks to factoring executed in April 2025 related to PEC 2, 3 and recovery to the tariff of $31 million of PEC 1 receivable. It is worth mentioning that we offset a positive FFO variation of $248 million versus the 9 months 2024, thanks to the end of accumulation of PEC receivable started in October 2024. Third, the increase of net working capital impacted for $329 million, mainly due to the 2024 development CapEx payment, lower collection in our distribution business and other seasonality effect. The increase was higher by $255 million versus previous year, mainly due to the negative effect of energy payment scheduling and the voluntary compensation paid in 2025 regarding the extreme climate event from May and August 2024. These effects were partially offset by lower CapEx payments related to renewable capacity. Fourth, the income taxes impacted on FFO amounted to $231 million, mainly due to the tax payment in the generation business. Income taxes paid in the 9-month 2025 were higher by $63 million compared to the 9 months 2024. This difference is mainly due to the increased tax payment in the generation business, driven by both higher results and higher monthly payment tax rates. Finally, financial expenses were $130 million, mostly due to the debt related costs. This represents a reduction of $52 million compared to the 9 months 2024, mainly driven by a lower average debt this year. And now let's take a look at our liquidity and leverage position. Our gross debt is $3.9 billion at the end of September 2025, in line with the gross debt as of December 2024. The average terms of our debt maturities decreased from 6.2 years as of December 2024 to 5.5 years as of September 2025, and the portion at the fixed rate is 87% of total debt. The average cost of our debt reached 4.8% as of September 2025, decreasing from 5.0% in December 2024, in line with our efforts to optimize the financial costs. Regarding liquidity, we are in a comfortable position to support our capital needs for the upcoming months and cope with the next year maturities. As of September 2025, we have available committed credit lines for $640 million and cash equivalent for $373 million. And now I would like to share the following closing remarks. In the coming months, significant regulatory updates are expected that will clarify tariffs and market mechanisms. These represent an essential step to refine our long-term strategy and to assure that our investment decisions remain aligned with regulatory developments. We are implementing proactive initiatives to address portfolio dynamics and climate challenges. This includes action to strengthen our generation and distribution businesses, improve risk management and enhance our ability to respond to extreme weather events. The measures are designed to safeguard service continuity and maintain system stability. Our solid financial position and flexible business model allow us to follow with our business plan, even through market uncertainties, while continuing to invest in strategic renewable and BESS project and deliver sustainable returns for our shareholders. Finally, we are preparing for our 2026 Investor Day scheduled for the first quarter 2026, where we will share a comprehensive view of our strategy and the actions that will drive long-term value creation. And now let me hand it over to Isabela for the Q&A session.

Isabela Klemes

Thank you, Simone. Now let's move on to Q&A session. We will be taking questions via chat through the webcast. The Q&A session is now open. Okay. So Simone, the first question is coming from Rodrigo Mora from Moneda. Rodrigo has 4 questions, so I will be talking one by one, okay? So the first one is, what is the amount that Enel Chile must return to customers due to the miscalculation of the CNE included in the first half 2026 PNP report?

Simone Conticelli

Okay. Thank you, Rodrigo. Just to give some context. So in the first half of October, the CNE explained that they have changed the formula for the calculation of the PNP. And so this change in the formula will have some impact. We have calculated the impact for Enel in an amount that is between $40 million and $45 million. So we have to expect a negative provision in terms of mainly financial costs. So the impact will be mainly in the financial items. And -- but in your question, you talked about customer, but in any case, just comment that the customers were impacted just for a small amount because just the 2% of the total amount of the changes was transferred to customer in the tariff. So this amount will be accrual by Enel in 2025, and then we will pay back. In this moment, the process is not so clear. But in any case, we expect in the first half of 2026. But the amount, we will have not impacted directly for the total value of the customer.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Thank you, Simone. So the second question now is on Enel distribution. So what is the amount on to Enel's distribution Chile in connection to the VAD 2000, 2025, please?

Simone Conticelli

So talking about the remuneration period of 2020, 2024, we are really not finalizing the last steps of the process. So the amount was ready to be defined. And what we are waiting is that the sector will say when we have to receive back the missing part. And the amount, in this case, is around $50 million, $55 million. There are 2 possibilities. If you want to be prudent, you can imagine that this the cashback can start middle of 2026, even if I remember interview of the new Minister of Energy that say the process can also be faster and start earlier.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Thank you, Simone. So now let me check here. We have the third question. So the third question of Rodrigo now is on generation side on the LNG strategy. So could you please explain about your strategy regarding LNG and Argentina gas firm or interruptible? For the year 2026, how many ships do you plan to buy?

Simone Conticelli

So as you know, for us, the gas business is very important business because we need gas for our thermal power plant, but also because we find during the year some creative opportunities to make margin to our gas contract. We have basically a long-term gas contract for LNG. And more or less, the volume for this contract for any addition in more than 32 teraBtu per year. And so in 2026, we'll keep on using this contract. In these very days, we are working -- we are negotiating Argentinian supplier to the new contract for Argentinian gas. And so in this moment, I cannot talk about this negotiation. The negotiation is ongoing as well and has not been finalized.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Thank you, Simone. Now the last question of Rodrigo is regarding CapEx also on generation business. Regarding CapEx for generation, could you please give us an update for 2025? And actually, we also received the same question from balance as well.

Simone Conticelli

So very well. Talking about this year's CapEx, as you know, we follow the plan with one exception that was the CapEx for the development of the new system because we recorded a little delay for this project and it was due to strategic reason. I mean we have the new piece of regulation related to BESS. I mean the regulation for the participation of BESS in the ancillary service market. And then we keep on starting the evolution of the market and the penetration of the BESS in the Chilean production system. So we started a little bit late in the project. And in the first 3 quarters, the amount of CapEx for this project was reduced compared to the expectation. But the projects have been already started are ongoing. And so you will see in the last quarter -- in total, talking about AGP and generation investment for more or less USD 150 million, USD 160 million. And a part of this investment will be the BESS, at least $50 million. And then we keep on growing also in investments on thermal fleet and how strategic is the thermal fleet. And of course, in case of low water in the system, our efficient CCGT plants are called to produce. And so we have to keep on these plans at the highest level of efficiency and performance.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Thank you. And we have a final one. Sorry, Rodrigo. We have 5 questions from Rodrigo Mora. So the last one is on distribution side, okay? On distribution, could you outline the measures being taken to address the increasing energy losses?

Simone Conticelli

Okay. Talking about losses in energy, we have discussed the losses getting higher in the last 2 years, started from 2023. And so in this moment, the percentage of losses is a bit higher than 6%, which is the reason -- can be many reasons, but the most important reason is the increase in the target. So the final customer. And so a little bit a change in EBIT related also to this increase in tariff. What we are doing? From one side, we are increasing the activity to recover these losses. And so we have recovered more than expected in the initial planning related to losses. And on the other side, we are making other action, for example, launching flexible payment plans for the customers that want to pay the new bill. We have a new smarter special tool. We work on formulas to localize where the losses are originated and we can intervene. And finally, we are working with the regulator to try to find changes also in the regulation that can help to contain this phenomenon.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Thank you, Simone. Now move on. We have questions from Javier Suarez from Mediobanca. Thanks for the question. So the question is, is the company Enel Chile confirm its latest guidance?

Simone Conticelli

So the answer is simple, it's yes, but just some context. This was a very tough year in terms of hydrological situation. So finally, the season was drier than expected. But in any case, we show our flexibility as a company. We leverage on our very profitable gas contract. We use the flexible and efficient CCGT. And so we have those effects. So we maintain high production. Also our hydropower plant can use reservoir. And so also the production for Enel did not decrease so much. And given all this action and the flexibility the company built in the past year, we can react to this adverse climate conditions and achieve -- we can confirm the results for the year.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Thank you, Simone. So move on. The next one is also from Javier Suarez, Mediobanca. It's about the FFO. So could you explain the dynamics of FFO during the 9 months of this year? And your expectation by the year-end?

Simone Conticelli

Okay. Talking about the FFO, talking about our business, the FFO usually is concentrated in the second half of the year and particularly in the last quarter. And the main reason is that EBITDA is higher in this period and so on. This year, in the first 9 months, and this week, we had a very high level of FFO. And this was -- thanks to the not ordinarily cash-in from tech regulatory process. So we cash in around USD 300 million recovering cash credit from the past. Looking ahead, the cash flow from ordinary business will be higher compared to the first months in the last period. And also, we will have more efficient management of the net working capital because in the last part of the year, the CapEx are focused in the last part of the year. So also the net working capital can be managed in a more efficient way. And so we expect to improve the performance of FFO in this last quarter, which is more or less the dynamic.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Perfect. So now the next question is coming from Fernan Gonzalez from BTG Pactual. So Fernan is talking about the BESS, not the storage that we are implementing. So I will read here. I saw that BESS Las Salinas, 200 megawatts and BESS Acebache, 58 megawatts were declared under construction at the CNE. So these projects involve additional solar capacity or just the energy storage. There are still an additional 200 megawatts of BESS capacity to meet your announcement plan. Will this be added to exist in solar PV in the North?

Simone Conticelli

Yes. So talking about the strategy on BESS, we have launched 3 projects this year in line with what was expected in the plan. And these projects are hybrid projects. So we are going to implement BESS system in solar power plant in the North. And while we do this, in general, the BESS can be profitable also like a stand-alone device. But the profitability is higher if you use the BESS system to [ improvise ] our power plants and why? Because the project in faster. You need less environmental document to be produced, considering that you are building the BESS in your plant and also we have some savings in terms of cost and electrical infrastructure. And so I think that I have answered the question. At this moment, we are not increasing the solar capacity. You are just equalizing solar project.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. So let me check here. So we have another one from [ Thomas Peruchi ], Balanced Capital. Well, part of the question was already answered. So I'll just keep the one that wasn't here. So thank you for the presentation. And he has one question. If I'm not mistaken, you had a target of -- for 2025 of $500 million for expansion projects, mainly relating to batteries to storage. How has that changed by now, given that you are expecting a resolution on ancillary services before moving forward? And was the resolution in line with your expectations? Do you think we will be enough to unlock high investment in storage?

Simone Conticelli

Okay. So in our current power plant, we put more or less 600 megawatts of new capacity. And you are right, 450 average in BESS projects. This well project should have been launched at the beginning of the year and were launched during the second launch. And so you can expect a movement of the COD. The recent COD was in 2026 in the second half. And then the new COD will be in 2027, and this will have an impact. But in any case, we start from a fleet of around 9 gigawatts of production and so this change is not a huge change. Talking about regulation. So in August, the 4th of August was largely in new regulation that say that BESS can participate in Chile service mark. It means that this is a very good news for the country because the BESS very means important element that can stabilize the system at a very low cost. And so usually because for the system, it is also reducing the cost for the participant. In terms of revenues, it's not a huge increase, but it's in line with what we expected. Talking about the current BESS that we have, the BESS that we have already installed, it means that amount USD 5 million and USD 7 million per year. But in any case, it's an important step because a permit to meet the BESS project is little bit more profitable than considered in the beginning. And it means that they are profitable also imagining a higher penetration of BESS project.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Perfect. So we have the last question that is from Edward Palma from Itaú Asset. So the question is, do you have any news for unregulated PPA contracts?

Simone Conticelli

In this moment, no, we don't have any news related to this stock.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Perfect. Let me just check if we have no more questions. Okay. As there are no further questions, we formally conclude our conference call. The Investor Relations team is at our disposal for any further inquiries. Many thanks for joining us, and have a great rest of the week. Thank you.

Operator

And ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our conference. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2025-07-31

Enel Chile SA (ENIC) Q2 2025 Earnings Call Highlights: Strong EBITDA Growth Amid Operational ...

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EBITDA: $659 million, a 10% improvement compared to the previous year. Net Income: $246 million, an 8% decrease from the previous year. FFO (Funds From Operations): $403 million, 7.8 times higher than the previous year. CapEx: $157 million in the first half, with 40% directed towards grid investments. Net Electricity Generation: Decreased by 5% compared to June 2024, totaling 5.9 terawatt hours. Energy Sales: Almost reached 15.1 terawatt hours in the first half. Debt: Gross debt increased slightly to $3.9 billion as of June 2025. Average Cost of Debt: 4.9% as of June 2025. Liquidity: Available committed credit lines of $590 million and cash equivalents of $320 million. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 8 Warning Signs with ENIC. Release Date: July 30, 2025 For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript. Enel Chile SA (NYSE:ENIC) reported a 10% improvement in EBITDA for the first half of 2025 compared to the previous year, driven by strong performance in generation and improved gas trading activities. The company maintained a solid liquidity position, supported by a positive cash flow from operations and a $261 million stabilization energy mechanism factoring. Enel Chile SA (NYSE:ENIC) is set to launch construction of battery energy storage projects in Northern Chile, adding around 0.5 gigawatts to its portfolio, marking a significant milestone in its commitment to renewable energy. The company has implemented a Resilient and Winter program to strengthen its grid and improve response to climate-related events, including deploying remote control systems to reduce service restoration times. Enel Chile SA (NYSE:ENIC) has a diversified portfolio with 78% of its net installed capacity coming from renewable energy sources and battery energy storage systems. Net income for the first half of 2025 decreased by 8% compared to the previous year, mainly due to higher general and administrative expenses. The company faced challenges with transmission line constraints and temporary unavailability of certain thermal units, impacting its operational efficiency. Hydro generation was affected by poor hydrological conditions, leading to increased spot market prices and higher operating costs. Enel Chile SA (NYSE:ENIC) experienced a decline in net electricity generation by 5% compared to the same period in 2024, driven by lower...

Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2025-05-01

Enel Chile SA (ENIC) Q1 2025 Earnings Call Highlights: Strong Start with Renewable Growth Amid ...

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Release Date: April 30, 2025 For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript. Enel Chile SA (NYSE:ENIC) successfully achieved the commercial operation date for the Los Condores power plant, adding significant capacity to its portfolio. The company has a strong and diversified portfolio with 88% of its capacity coming from renewable energy sources and battery energy storage systems. Enel Chile SA (NYSE:ENIC) reported a strong start to the year with solid EBITDA and net income levels, reinforcing confidence in its strategic plan. The company has implemented a resilience plan to strengthen grid infrastructure against increasing climate risks. Enel Chile SA (NYSE:ENIC) maintains a competitive average cost of debt at 2.9%, supporting its financial stability. Net electricity generation decreased by 8% compared to the previous year, primarily due to lower hydro and renewable generation. Energy sales saw a 9% reduction compared to the previous year, attributed to lower state-regulated costs and the expiration of regulated contracts. The company faces challenges from transmission line restrictions and lower water availability, impacting its operations. There is uncertainty regarding the impact of new regulatory changes, particularly concerning ancillary services and CO2 taxes. The maintenance of solar plants and network restrictions following a blackout have contributed to operational challenges. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 10 Warning Signs with ENIC. Q: Can you provide more details on the resilience program for the distribution segment and whether it involves reinvesting all EBITDA back into the grid? A: We initiated a strong resilience program at the end of last year to address increasingly frequent extreme climate events. This includes actions to improve grid quality and digitalization. The CapEx for this program was already included in last year's capital investor day presentation, and we are increasing our CapEx compared to previous years to address these new challenges. Giuseppe Cuciarelli, CEO Q: The CapEx in the first quarter seemed low. Is the $800 million CapEx guidance for the year still valid? A: Yes, the $800 million CapEx guidance remains in place. The main part of our CapEx for the year will occur in the second half as we start some of the bigger projects planned. Simon Conticelli, CFO Q: How will...

TranscriptFY2024 Q42025-02-27

FY2024 Q4 earnings call transcript

Earnings source - 39 paragraphs
Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Enel Chile Full Year and Fourth Quarter 2024 Results Conference Call. My name is Carmen, and I'll be your operator for today. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. During this conference call, we may make statements that constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements reflect only our current expectations, are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors. These factors are described in Enel Chile's press release and reporting its full year and fourth quarter 2024 results, the presentation accompanying this conference call and Enel Chile's annual report on Form 20-F, included under Risk Factors. You may access our full year and fourth quarter 2024 results press release and presentation on our website at www.enel.cl and our 20-F on the SEC's website, www.sec.gov. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on those forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their date. Enel Chile undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements or to disclose any development as a result of which these forward-looking statements becomes inaccurate, except as required by law. I would now like to turn the presentation over to Ms. Isabela Klemes, Head of Investor Relations of Enel Chile.

Isabela Klemes

Good morning, and welcome to Enel Chile's 2024 fourth quarter and full year results presentation. Thanks to you all for joining us today. My name is Isabela Klemes. I am the Head of Investor Relations team. Joining me today are CEO, Giuseppe Turchiarelli; and our CFO, Simone Conticelli. Our presentation and related financial information are available on our website, www.enel.cl in the Investors section and on our app Investors. In addition, a replay of the call will be soon available. At the end of this, there will be an opportunity to ask questions via phone or webcast chat through the link Ask a Question. Media participants are connected only in listening mode. Giuseppe will start the presentation by covering key highlights of the period. He will then discuss our portfolio management actions, provide updates on regulatory context and share our guidance achievements. Following that, Simone will offer an overview of our business economics and financial performance. Thank you for your attention. Giuseppe will now take over the call.

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Thank you, Isabela. Good morning, and thanks for joining us. Let's start the presentation with our main highlights of the period on Slide 2. Our hydro portfolio performed exceptionally well with hydro generation increasing by 12% compared to last year. This performance was a result of a higher reservoir level at the beginning of the year, influenced by El Nino phenomenon observed in 2023 and a solid rainy season during 2024. Also on hydro, we are pleased to announce that the Los Condores hydro power project has finally been connected to the system. The plant is already in full capacity mode generation. All the tests were concluded and we are now expecting to receive the COD in the next weeks. As we reviewed last quarter, the force majeure climatic event on August severely impacted our distribution concession area. In this presentation, I would like to provide you with some updates on the additional measures we have been taking to prepare for the future climate events, while we do not see changes in distribution regulations. Regarding the August event, I would like to emphasize that Enel Distribucion was the first distribution company to request and agree on a voluntary compensation plan for its clients impacted by the force majeure event in August. Also, I will give you more color on how we are in terms of VAD 2024-2028 process and the tax situation, considering the publication of PNP the regulated consumer tariff during January this year. Regarding the business profitability, I'd like to remind you that we changed the company's functional currency during the fourth quarter. This led to a non-cash impact of $657 million at the EBITDA level. As we have emphasized before, this will not affect the dividend distribution for our shareholders. Throughout the presentation, we will discuss adjusted EBITDA and net income, excluding this impact. Taking the adjustment, I'm pleased to announce that our adjusted EBITDA and net income results were fully in line with the 2024 guidance, reaffirming the confidence in our strategic plan. In terms of FFO, we see an important improvement versus last year, coming mainly from our EBITDA and the PEC factoring executed in the fourth quarter. I will provide more detail on this later. Now let's review some updates regarding our generation sourcing, beginning with the hydro and natural gas situation, as outlined on Slide 3. The positive hydrological condition during 2023, which led to a greater water availability from the beginning of 2024, coupled with the higher than expected rainfall recorded in 2024, allowed us to increase our hydro production. This resulted in a 12% increase compared to the 2023 period, equivalent to 1.5 terawatt hour of additional hydro generation. The hydrological situation in our reservoir continued to be comfortable year-to-date compared to the last year figures despite experiencing a La Nina phenomenon. However, for the year, we have chosen to adopt a conservative strategy and set our hydro condition target for our hydro fleet close to the average of the last 10 years, equivalent to 10.7 terawatt hour. To strengthen and diversify our portfolio, we have strategically secured contracts with a variety of Argentinean natural gas provider for 2025. Unlike previous years, this agreement covered the entire year, not just the winter and summer period. This approach enhanced our visibility of both prices and quantities, providing us with a more stable and predictable supply for the year. Furthermore, while Argentinean gas remain highly competitive, our strategy continue to be anchored to our long-term and firm LNG contract with Shell. This dual sourcing strategy ensure the security of our required volumes and offer the flexibility to explore trading opportunity in both internal and external market. This proactive measure position us strongly to navigate market and climate fluctuation and capitalize on opportunity. Let's continue discussing our generation sourcing with a focus on the development of our portfolio on generation assets now on Slide 5. I would like to start emphasizing that in 2024, we successfully completed the expansion of our renewable portfolio across the country, increasing our exposure to battery energy storage. This milestone represents a crucial step in our strategy to diversify and make our portfolio more flexible. Our ongoing efforts to advance battery regulation for ancillary services are vital for boosting market competitiveness and reducing system costs. In 2024, we received authorization from the National Electricity Coordinator to begin commercial operation of a total of 693 megawatts. This includes 385 megawatts of solar, 202 megawatts of battery storage and 106 megawatts of wind capacity. Additionally, we successfully connected 404 megawatts of renewable capacity in 2024, bringing our total capacity to 8.9 gigawatts. Today, almost 80% of our total capacity is renewable and BESS. As anticipated in the fourth quarter, we connected Los Condores hydro power plant into the grid. The plant is already operating in a testing mode until we receive approval for the coordination to commence commercial operation. The good news is that we are generating at high levels. To date, we have received approval for the 11 testing procedure requested by the system coordinator and have sent a letter formally requesting approval for commercial operation last week. Therefore, it is reasonable to anticipate authorization by March this year. Now on the next slide, we will review the performance of our generation KPI. Net electricity generation totaled 24.6 terawatt hour as of December 2024, exceeding by 2% the production during 2023, mainly due to higher hydro and renewable generation resulting from the improved hydrology this year and the operation of new projects. During the fourth quarter of 2024, net generation decreased 8% to 6.1 terawatt hour, mainly due to lower thermal dispatch during the fourth quarter 2024, lower other renewable production and slightly better hydrology recorded during 2023. Our energy sales totaled 33.4 terawatt hours during 2024, 8% higher than the level recorded in the previous year, resulting from higher sales to both regulated customers and free clients. Our commitments with our clients were fulfilled with a higher portion of our renewable generation, coupled with an efficient portfolio of purchases to third-parties. Regarding the latter, in terms of our balance during 2024, we increased our purchases from third-parties by 2.3 terawatt hours as part of our continued efforts to diversify and optimize our energy sourcing. During the fourth quarter 2024, physical energy sales grew by 6% to 8.1 terawatt hours, mainly due to higher sales to regulated customers. Now I would like to take a few minutes to talk about the extraordinary weather events of last August. I would like to provide updates on the extreme weather events that impacted our concession area in August 2024 and discuss our preparation for future events. Just to recall, on August 1 and 2, an extraordinary and unpredictable storm with winds of up to 124 kilometers per hour impacted the metropolitan region, causing extensive damages. This storm severely affected our electricity distribution network, resulting in widespread power outages and making system restoration extremely challenging. We requested the local regulator to declare the August 2024 storm as a force majeure event, but it was rejected. In response, we filed a reclamation remedy with the Santiago Court of Appeals to overturn the Superintendencia de Electricidad y Combustibles' decision, SEC. On September 30, 2024, the Santiago Court of Appeals accepted our reclamation remedy requiring the SEC to provide substantial information about our claims. As anticipated on November 2024, the SEC report recommended rejecting our claim. We are now awaiting the court's file resolution, which remains pending and we stand confident in our position. Still related to the event in August, last January, the SEC imposed a $20 million fine on Enel Distribucion. This fine is the largest ever imposed on electricity provider in Chile for service disruption, among other issues identified by the SEC. Enel Distribucion booked 100% in December 2024 of the fine, but filed an administration remedy, reiterating that August climate event was an unforeseen and resistible force majeure under Chile current legal and regulatory framework. We are awaiting the SEC formal response to our appeal. On February 4, 2025, Enel Distribucion as part of a voluntary collective procedure became the first distribution company in Chile to reach a voluntary agreement with the National Consumer Services, SERNAC, to establish an extraordinary compensation mechanism for residential customer affected by the prolonged power outages. The agreement includes a total voluntary agreement of approximately $80 million, benefiting around 800,000 customers. This amount is divided into first, compensation of interruption; second, compensation for claims; and third, compensation for the loss of food, medicine and similar items. This agreement is separated from the legal compensation that are pending the resolution of the force majeure and aggravated abnormal state reclamation remedies. The impact of this voluntary agreement program was also recorded in our 2024 financial results, as Simone will show you later. Despite several regulatory and legal discussions surrounding the August event, we have introduced many initiatives to improve the response of all parties involved in the future climate event. We believe that climate changes will make such events always more present. Therefore, it is essential for all parties to act promptly and effectively to ensure the proper functioning of the networks. Let me provide you with some examples. We agreed on operational emergency guidelines with the municipality to better coordinate with our operational teams during climate events. We signed a collaboration agreement with the electro-dependent group to ensure back-up for medical devices and to provide training on the correct use of the KIP. We accelerated the rollout of the smart meter program for electro-dependent clients. And we conducted through preventive aerial inspection of the grid in preparation for the upcoming winter, particularly to identify any potential additional damage from the August events and to address any further needs for preventive training. Part of these actions were already included and presented as part of Enel Distribucion 2025 autumn and winter season plan, which was submitted to the SEC on February 19, 2025. In the distribution sector, we remain committed to promoting reform and modernizing the regulatory framework to enhance asset resilience. This effort will enable us to optimize the value of our distribution network, fully meet our clients' needs and ensure long-term sustainability. Talking about regulation, let's take a look at the main update on the next slide. A supportive regulatory framework is crucial for attracting investments necessary for the energy transition and providing resilience against increasingly extreme frequent events to climate change. Therefore, we continue to advocate for a new model based on real assets that addresses factors such as proper remuneration rates and incentives mechanisms for resilience, quality and performance improvement. We appreciate the consensus among academia, the electrical industry and the Congress on the urgency of the distribution reform and hope it will soon be part of the legislative agenda once the legislative member return in March. The process for the 2024-2028 VAD has started using the same methodology applied for the 2020-2024 cycles, the reference model company. The delivery and official publication of the consultant final report are expected by the end of March. And we estimate that by the second quarter of 2025, the regulator will publish the preliminary technical report on this new cycle. We expect an improvement in remuneration for this new process, considering the newly approved Valor Nuevo de Reemplazo, VNR, and all the economic and technical assumption of the December 2022 included in the report. We believe that this factor will be confirmed in the various stages of this process. Regarding the PEC, since October of the last year, we have not accumulated additional receivables as the client tariff now reflect the real contract price. In December 2024, the decree for the first half of 2025 PNP was published and the regulated tariff was updated. In this process, the average residential consumer in the metropolitan region of Santiago experienced an average increase of around 12%, mainly due to the integration of the client protection mechanism MPC into their tariff. This mechanism allows for the gradual repayment of accumulated debt to the generator and establish a transitional subsidy for the most vulnerable clients. On the other hand, clients with consumption higher than 350 kilowatt hour per month that have been paying for this mechanism since last year saw a decrease of approximately 3% compared to the tariff from the last year. Related to the PEC accrual as of December 2024, we had an account receivable related to the PEC already net of factoring and including the adjustment and interest of around $500 million, showing a reduction of around 40% versus 2023. This reduction is mainly due to the factoring executed last October 2024. We expect to execute a new factoring during the second quarter of 2025 of around $250 million. Let's move to the right side of the slide where we will review the key points of the government's proposed law to expand subsidies, which currently benefit around 1.8 million families. The new proposal aims to extend coverage to approximately 4.7 million families, targeting the 40% most vulnerable households in Chile. In January 2025, the Chamber of Deputies approved the government's proposed tax with some changes. The proposal, which will now move to the Senate for its second legislative stage includes various instruments to fund the subsidies. The key instruments to fund the subsidy are as follows; allocating the additional VAT revenue that the treasury is collecting due to the increase in the tariff, implementing a temporary surcharge on the green tax emissions, increasing it from the current $5 per ton of CO2 emitted. Also in this project, the Chamber of Deputies has approved the following; increasing the amount of compensation that the distribution company must pay to clients in case of distribution power outages and for what concerns the small and medium companies replacing the price of electricity currently provided through the regulated contract with a price that includes a reduction coming from the electricity prices of PMGD in order to offer a tariff discount to this client limited to 500 gigawatt hour per year. At Enel, we support the government efforts to assist the most vulnerable families amid potential economic challenges. While this solution aims to provide necessary support, it is important to ensure that they do not disrupt the market as occurred since 2019. For a sustainable approach, it is essential to consider a measure that preserve long-term investment, competitiveness in the energy sector. We believe that allocating additional VAT revenue could be a viable and sustainable option among the proposed measures. I will now conclude with our commitment and deliverable on Slide 9. Let me point out that we have reached our main financial targets for the year 2024. Our results adjusted for the non-cash effect of the change in functional currency show an EBITDA of $1.4 billion and a net income of $0.6 billion. These achievements reflect our ability to generate value in a resilient and flexible manner. Even in a challenging environment, a more efficient portfolio mix driven by improved hydrology condition allowed us to meet our EBITDA and net income commitments of our guidance announced during 2024 Investor Day. Simone will provide details on our performance on EBITDA and net income in the following slides. The action taken during 2024 have ensured the fulfillment of our leverage and net debt to EBITDA commitment, allowing us to recommend maintaining the committed payout in our guidance. This recommendation was also endorsed by the company Board of Directors and will be submitted for approval at the 2025 Annual Shareholder Meeting. Now I will hand over to our CFO, Simone Conticelli. Simone, the floor is yours.

Simone Conticelli

Many thanks, Giuseppe, and good morning, everyone. I will start my presentation with a summary of our main results for the period. First, to better evaluate our company's earnings performance, we present the 2023 and 2024 figures adjusted by the following one-time effects. For 2024, full year and fourth quarter EBITDA and net income have been adjusted by the non-cash effect of the change in the functional currency, respectively amounting to $657 million and $468 million. For 2023, the full year and fourth quarter net income exclude the capital gains obtained from the sale of Arcadia executed last year and amounting to $163 million. And the full year FFO exclude the taxes paid on capital gains obtained from the sale of Enel Transmision amounting to $310 million. Considering this adjustment, let's pass through the analysis of economic and financial performance, starting with a quick overview of the key figures, which I will detail in the following slides. Adjusted full year 2024 EBITDA and net income recorded significant improvements when compared to the previous year indicators despite the negative impact of the force majeure event of August 2024. This is mainly explained by a more efficient sourcing mix boosted by a better hydrological situation and an increase in our energy sales and better pricing. These results demonstrate the resilience of our business and the solidity of our strategy. Furthermore, the full year 2024 figure show an important FFO increase versus previous year, mainly due to a better EBITDA and the PEC's factoring operation with a significant impact on the fourth quarter. And now on the next slide, let's review the progress on CapEx. Our total CapEx reached $583 million during 2024, 19% lower than the previous year, considering the conclusion of several renewables and storage projects over the 2023-2024 period. 61% of the total CapEx amounting to $355 million was mainly related to renewable and storage deployment CapEx and 22% equivalent to $130 million was related to grids. Asset management CapEx reached $203 million, which represents 35% of our total CapEx. It increased around 77% compared to 2023 figures, mostly due to the following facts in both businesses. In the generation business, an increase of $58 million was mostly related to maintenance activity in the Atacama CCGT power plant and also in the solar and wind assets. In the distribution business, an increase of $30 million due to climate event emergency and maintenance activities related to the line failures. Finally, the development CapEx reached $318 million, a decrease of 40% compared to 2023 figures, mainly due to the conclusion of renewable and BESS projects. So let's move to the next slide where we have a summary of the fourth quarter EBITDA breakdown. During the fourth quarter 2024, our adjusted EBITDA reached $424 million, excluding, as anticipated, the one-time and non-cash effects of the change of functional currency. The $5 million increase compared to the same period of 2023 is primarily due to the following effect. In the generation business, we recorded a $71 million increase due to a significant contribution from PPA sales. This growth is mainly related to pricing FX, primarily due to contract indexation in the free market and higher volumes, especially in the regulated market. Additionally, we recorded an increase of $33 million due to positive performance in our generation. This is mainly explained by lower production costs resulting from reduced thermal generation dispatch, partially offset by higher commercial costs. The positive performance of generation business was reduced by $68 million, mainly due to the reduction of gas trading margin given the 2023 outstanding results. Regarding grids, we recorded a $9 million positive impact mainly due to an increase in remuneration associated with the rise in the Valor Nuevo de Reemplazo, VNR. However, this margin was more than offset by the impact of last year extreme weather events, including the force majeure event on August. The impact amounted to $41 million, including fines and clients voluntary compensation program. So let's move to the next slide to review the full year EBITDA breakdown. In the full year 2024, our adjusted EBITDA reached $1,421 million, not considering the impact of functional currency change. The increase versus 2023 amounts to $320 million, primarily due to a significant contribution of $321 million from PPA sales in the generation segment, mainly explained by higher volume, especially in the regulated market and pricing effect related to the contract indexation in the free market. The positive impact of $227 million from the generation sourcing activity, mostly due to lower variable production costs resulting from lower thermal generation, thanks to the remarkable hydrology during the year. And lower price in spot market purchases, partially offset by higher purchases from the third-parties. The reduction of gas trading margin compared to 2023 outstanding performance amounting approx to $0.2 billion. Finally, regarding grids, we recorded a $31 million positive effect for the full year, primarily due to the increase in the remuneration linked to the publication of VAD 2024 regulatory report, the increase in the Valor Nuevo de Reemplazo and the tariff indexation, partially offset by higher technical losses and the negative impact of inflation on our costs. These results were more than offset by the impact of extreme weather events that amounted to $62 million for the full year, including fines and clients' voluntary compensation program. And now let's move to the next slide where we will review the net income evolution. Our full year 2024 net income amounted to $622 million, 22% higher than last year figure, mainly explained by the already commented EBITDA improvement. So now let's comment the additional effects for this year. Referring to depreciation, amortization, impairment and bad debt, we recorded higher cost for $81 million, mainly resulting from higher depreciation in Enel Green Power due to new added renewable capacity and Chilean peso devaluation in the period. An impairment made in December 2024 related to Las Salinas expansion projects, higher bad debt accrual in grids due to a worsening in clients' payments behavior and higher tariffs. Regarding financial results and equity investment, we recorded a $75 million negative variation versus last year, mainly explained by positive exchange rate differences in 2023 and higher financial expenses, mainly due to FX variation and higher amount of PEC receivable also in 2023. Finally, on income taxes, we recorded a $39 million increase mainly due to better results in the period. Focusing on the quarter, our adjusted net income decreased by $37 million. This is mainly explained by, first, the difference of impairment accounted in the period for $29 million; second, the higher financial expenses for $10 million, mainly due to lower interest recognition related to PEC 2 in the fourth quarter 2024, partially offset by positive exchange rate differences in 2023. These effects were partially offset by lower tax expenses of $2 million, mainly due to lower EBITDA in the fourth quarter 2024. And now let's move to the FFO analysis on the next slide. Let's analyze the FFO composition for 2024 period and the main effects when compared to 2023. It is worth mentioning that the 2023 FFO figures have been adjusted by $310 million related to taxes paid on capital gains from the sale of Enel Transmision Chile in December 2022. 2024 FFO reached $1,209 million. It means an improvement of $332 million versus 2023 as a result of the following factors. First, the adjusted EBITDA amounted to $1.4 billion with the already explained positive variation of $320 million versus 2023 result. Second, the cumulative negative impact of the stabilization mechanism amounted to $310 million, which was more than offset by the execution of the IDB factoring related to PEC 2 and PEC 3 amounting to $697 million. If we compare the 2024 total FX of the PEC net of factoring versus 2023, we see an increase of $393 million. Third, the increase of net working capital equal to $153 million, mostly due to CapEx payment related to renewable development in the second half of 2023. Compared to the last year figures, the impact of working capital on FFO was negative for $233 million, mainly due to CapEx payment related to 2023 renewables, collection impact from distribution business and cash in from the sale of Santa Rosa building received in 2023. Fourth, the income taxes that negatively impacted our FFO by $205 million, primarily due to tax payments related to generation business and to the sales of Arcadia asset. Comparing income taxes paid in 2024 versus paid in 2023, we see a negative effect of $174 million. The difference is mainly due to the tax payment of Arcadia transaction in 2024, higher tax payment in the generation business and lower recovery from previous periods. And finally, the financial expenses amounting to $241 million, mainly due to the debt-related expenses. Compared to the last year, our financial expenses decreased by $25 million in 2024. This decrease was mainly due to the financial expenses related to PEC 1 in 2023. So now let's take a look at our liquidity and leverage position. Our gross debt decreased by 11% to $3.9 billion as of December 2024 compared to December 2023. This decrease was mainly due to the optimization on the use of cash from the PEC 3 factoring, which took place in October 2024 and the operational cash generation during the year. The average term of our debt maturities slightly increased to 6.2 years as of December 2024 versus 6.1 years in December 2023 and the portion of gross debt at fixed rate was 89% of the total debt in December 2024. The average cost of our debt reached 5.0 as of December 2024, slightly above the 4.9% recorded in December 2023, primarily due to the Enel Generacion Yankee Bond maturity in April 2024 for $400 million at 4.25%. And finally, regarding liquidity, we are in the comfortable position to support our capital needs for the upcoming months and cope with 2025 maturities. As of December 2024, we had available committed credit lines for $690 million and cash and cash equivalents for $385 million. With the financial debt analysis, we close our comment on the company figures. So thanks, everybody, for the attention. And now I will leave the floor to Giuseppe for the final remarks.

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Thank you, Simone. To conclude my presentation, I would like to give you the following closing remarks. Despite the very challenging context related to the crisis events registered in August, Enel Chile resilient business model allowed us to obtain robust results for the year, enabling us to fulfill our commitment to all our shareholders. This year, we have delivered a robust economic and financial performance, aligned with the target and strategic pillar presented on our last Investor Day. This gives us confidence that Enel Chile is more than preferred to operate in a volatile environment and to take advantage of a new opportunity. For 2025, we will continue to advocate for utilities reform and the modernization of the regulatory framework to enhance asset resilience. This will help us optimize the value of our assets across both businesses and ensure long-term sustainability. Finally, to conclude, on April 28, we will hold our Annual Shareholder Meeting, during which the final and extraordinary dividend to be paid in May 2025 will be proposed, including the interim and eventual dividend, the total amount will be CLP 4.24 per share. Now let me hand over to Isabela for the Q&A session.

Isabela Klemes

Thank you, Giuseppe. Thank you all for your attention here. We will now begin with our Q&A session. We receive questions via phone and chat in the webcast. The Q&A session is open. Operator, please. You may start.

Operator

[Operator instructions] Our first question is from Alessandro Di Vito with Mediobanca.

Alessandro Di Vito

I have 3 or 4. First one is we saw a couple of days ago that you had a big blackout in Chile and it looked like it was a systemic event. So I wanted to understand whether distribution companies like yourselves will be liable for potential penalties or it was more like a systemic event. So no fault on networks. This is the first question. Second question, I was looking at the hydro output. Your assumption for 2025 of 10.7%. I understand that we come from that the estimate is based on our 10 years average, but we come from 2 exceptionally wet years. So would you argue that this estimate could be conservative? And maybe it would be interesting to understand if you had moved some -- maybe a portion of the extra 2024 hydro resources for production in '25. The third question is more related to batteries because we saw that you started operation of 200 megawatts of batteries. I wanted to understand whether these were standalone batteries or they were part of a hybridized renewable plant? And if they are standalone batteries, I wanted to understand which IRR do you see on battery projects in the country? And in general, how do you see the ramp up in standalone battery capacity in the country for the coming years? And the last one, last question is if you confirm 25 gallons that was included in the latest DV.

Isabela Klemes

Thank you, Alessandro, for your question. I will pass to Giuseppe.

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Okay. Well, let's start from the blackout for what's concerned is massive interruption of the electricity supply that has been caused by the transmission system and disconnection, which unfortunately affected also our distribution company. We are not liable for any penalty because we are not responsible as distribution company for this interruption. Of course, there will be several analysis that has to be made by the coordinator and the SEC. So we're going to see, which will be the results. But as of today, our information is that everything is coming from an interaction in the transmission line. So we don't foresee right now any kind of penalty for our distribution cost. For what concern the hydro output for 2025. As you see in the presentation, we made maybe conservative assumption using the 10 year average historical data. This is our current approach since several years because we believe that the hydrology is pretty volatile. So we prefer to take this kind of conservative approach. Is too early to understand whether there will be an extraordinary -- rainy season or weather condition we're going to see in the following month as soon as the winter season will start so basically in May. We are confident to match this hydro production we're going to see and we're going to give you more information in the following months, not before May or June. Talking about the battery, the battery that we have already in operation and the battery that has been presented in the last Capital Market Day are hybrid so basically we are going to build up together with solar or wind project. And for what's concerned, the IRR is double-digit of course, the IRR depends on each project and the characteristics that the project has and the location that the project have in the system. And finally the guidance, yes, we confirmed the 2025 guidance that we present in the last Capital Market Day.

Isabela Klemes

Operator, do we have more questions coming from the line?

Operator

Yes, let me bring the next one to our stage and it's from Martin Arancet with Balanz Capital.

Martin Arancet

I have three questions. First, regarding the distribution business, you mentioned a fine of almost $20 million and the voluntary compensation program. If I'm not mistaken, the government was also assessing the possibility of revoking the concession. I was wondering if that's off the table or if the government is still working on assessing that possibility. My second question, well, regarding CapEx, if you can share with us possibly the CapEx plan for this year and my third question, probably a follow up of a recent question. I was wondering, what is your strategy, your commercial strategy with batteries? Is it just to take advantage of arbitrage opportunities due to low marginal cost during solar hours or if you think that you could add the cost of batteries to new PPA prices to give a 24/7 solution.

Isabela Klemes

Thank you, Martin. I will pass over to Giuseppe and then to Simone.

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Okay. Well, talking about the concession. Well, first of all, let me remind that the revoking of the process of the concession has not yet started. What happened is that the Minister of Energy tasked the SEC, the Superintendent, with preparing a technical report on Enel Distribucion concession and according to the authority, this study could take between 6 and 18 months. As of today, I would like to point out that we have not received any notification or communication in this regard. So no administrative process is pending for the forfeiture of any distribution electricity concession and under the local laws, the President of the Republic must declare the forfeiture of the electricity distribution concession through an administrative act and the SEC, the Superintendent is mandated by law to carry out all necessary steps regarding the expiry of the operational concession. But again, it's really important to underline that the law excludes the forfeiture of the electricity distribution concession in case of force majeure duly verified by the Superintendence. And as of today we don't have, as I said, any further update on that. Talking about CapEx and, the BESS -- the business model, I mean the BESS we used to have in terms of business model. Let me remind you the business model first of all, as of today we have 2 revenue stream in our business model for the BESS. The first one is the energy shifting. So basically we charge the BESS during the solar hour and we discharge during the night. So we take advantage of the spread that we have in terms of prices. You probably know that in Chile there are in general in all the countries, but specifically in the North there is a very important variances between solar and non-solar power. And the second revenue stream for the BESS is the capacity payment. Capacity payment foreseen by the regulation that guarantee a certain percentage of the revenue for the base. Let me say in general, I would say that is around 30% capacity payment, 70% energy shifting. Important point for what concerns the BESS is that this year is supposed to be issued a change in the regulation. We hope it's going to be issued by the end of this year, probably in the mid, we hope based on which there will be a new regulatory stream for the BESS because they are going to be entitled to receive ancillary services remuneration. So I believe that the BESS business model is very, very good as of today in Chile. And by the way, the system requires this kind of technology so everything is going well.

Martin Arancet

Yes, just a small follow up on that. Well, you shared that arbitrage is currently like the most important revenue stream, I was wondering if you have, I don't know, an estimate on how that could change with these ancillary service charge if that will be relevant close to arbitrage revenues or what's your expectation there?

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Well, the ancillary services remuneration is a very good complement to remuneration of the battery because of course there will be a moment during the year or in the following year in which the arbitrage is less convenient than what we see right now. And having the 3 states is a very good complement in order to guarantee the remuneration of the battery. Clearly it's not going to be a third -- it's going to be a third remuneration, but not in the same moment.

Isabela Klemes

And now from the CapEx, I will pass over to Simone.

Simone Conticelli

Thanks for the question. Talking about 2025 CapEx. As we commented during the presentation of the plan, we are focused on obtaining the BESS mix in terms of generation, just to reduce the cost of generation. So we expect a very intense year in terms of CapEx in general, we are going to invest something less than $800 million and more or less $0.5 billions are related to development CapEx in new power plant. We are going to focus on new BESS project, 3 BESS projects with a total of more or less 450 megawatt. This kind of base that Giuseppe described. Hybrid projects and the investment are more or less all in this year, in 2025, but the BESS will arrive at beginning of next year. So improving our mix of Production starting from 2026.

Isabela Klemes

Operator, do you have more questions to the line?

Operator

[Operator Instructions] All right, It's from Emanuele Oggioni with Kepler.

Emanuele Oggioni

I have two left. One is on the regulatory framework you mentioned in a very detailed slide. The next steps as expected, my question is about the related to your target of roughly USD 150 million of EBITDA for 20 -- along the plan basically yearly in '26-'27 if the current expectation based on the regulatory framework the evolution of the regulatory framework could confirm or not or improve or not the current targets including the business plan? This is my first question. And the second one is on the renewable side and the additional capacity. If you remind us the expected additional capacity in '25 if there is some delay or something to flag?

Isabela Klemes

Thank you very much. Giuseppe?

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Okay. Well the Enel Distribucion Industrial Plan 2025 to 2027 has been made according to the view that we had at the end of last year. That is supposed to be confirmed in this preliminary report that is going to be issued at the end of November by the consultant. So everything is in line. There could be some smaller improvement and that we are going to see in the next month, but I mean it's really to say whether we are going to have any upside. But the amount that we put in terms of EBITDA for distribution companies in line with the most conservative expectation that we have about the new regulatory cycle and for what concern the renewable capacity, all the CapEx, I will give you the floor to Simone. All the CapEx are devoted to capacity that is going to be in operation next year. But Simone, please.

Simone Conticelli

So talking about the CapEx and complementing about the CapEx, the new project will involve the company basically for the larger part in the second half of 2025 and the plants are expected to reach the COD just in the first half of 2026. As of today, we don't see any specific reason for a delay. In any case, the impact of these plans I want to highlight that are not for this year. it will improve the EBITDA for 2026.

Isabela Klemes

Operator, if you don't have more questions come from the line I go to the to the chat questions that we received. We received several questions. So a lot of the questions coming from the outages from Chile from last February '25, so received questions related to it from Francisco Paz, Santander; Andrew McCarthy, LarrainVial; Fernan Gonzalez, BTG. So the questions are all more or less all the same. Okay. So I will read one of these. Regarding the massive power outages in Chile the Minister of Energy puts Enel Chile as one of the companies pointing out in the problem in this case for the delay connected some power plants in the system in order to establish the electricity service in the country, particularly the hydro power plant Rapel. Do you think you can see fines for the delay in connecting your plants? How long did it take to activate the plants versus what was requested from the authorities? And we also received questions about potential impacts on the distribution business related to the breakout. So if you see an impact on the distribution as well. So Giuseppe.

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Okay, so in response to the failure of the National Enel system, NLH and Green Power immediately mobilize all its things procedure and protocol to control and restore the operation of generator across the country. Specifically for what concerned one of our plants, Rapel at our plant which had several attempts to connect to the nationalistic system. We emphasized that there was no technical unavailability of the plan. External factor on conditions that prevented regular start-up are being analyzed. Additionally NL team immediately mobilized all teams procedure protocol to control and restore the operation for all the country in particular our generation control room center was operational for corresponding communication with the national electricity coordinator. And talking about I saw other questions and talk about the possible findings. As I said before is too soon to foresee any impact related to it. The incident is under investigation by the system operator and there are a lot of issues regarding the system operation that must be clarified before assigning any accountability to any company.

Isabela Klemes

And on distribution you have...

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

As I said before, distribution is not involved in terms of responsibility. Actually we made a lot of effort in order to restore the electricity to the final customer but not having any kind of responsibility, we don't believe there will be any kind of liability for the company.

Isabela Klemes

Okay, thank you, Giuseppe. And now changing the subject, received some questions on the extraordinary effect the one-off effect on the functional currency. So questions coming also from Francisco Paz, Santander; and [Indiscernible] from HSBC. So regarding the change of currency in the reporting of results going forward we will see any additional adjustments to the one observed in ENEL generation in the next period. Also please could you give further details on the impact on the effect no change the function of Corinth to USD what are the mechanisms behind this move? Simone?

Simone Conticelli

So thanks for the question. I will give some detail about this change of currency. First of all, highlighting that given the international financial reporting standards, the change of currency is not like a choice of the management it's something that we have to do. I mean what I have said that the currency should reflect relevant transaction, event and condition of the company. So what happened between 2024 and 2025 to the 3 companies that changed the currency? It's important starting from Enel Generacion cause the impact on Chile is related to the change in Enel Generacion Chile, Enel Generacion Chile has 2 main forms of revenues and flows. One, the regulated contracts and the other one is the contract on a free market. The first, the regulated contracts are exposed to the exchange rate among between the U.S. dollar and the CLP. On the other side, the free contracts are strictly linked to U.S. dollar. So which was the trigger for the change? On one side the regulated contract volume decrease at the end of 2024, of course, some old bid from the past expired. On the other side, linked to our policy to keep on selling on the free market. We increase the volume in the free market contracts. And so as a result the volume for 2025 is now higher. Looking at the free market contract and this is the reason why we had to change the currency. Talking briefly about Pehuenche is similar Pehuenche had in the past until 2024 a contract that was a big contract with same condition as regulators contracts and now changed a little bit strategy because it's going to sell energy to spot price. And this kind of contract are basically strictly linked to U.S. dollar. Talking about Enel Chile. Enel Chile receives the dividends from its affiliate company and so the change in Enel Chile changed the flow and so we had to change also in Enel Chile. And this is the story. Now the impact until 2024 we have to make some research related to exchange rate risks. To hedge this exchange rate, we denominated some liability in dollar and following the IFRS principle you had to create this reserve that was negative reserve. Given the trend of the exchange rate in the moment in which in the last quarter of 2024 we decided to change the currency in this very moment we have to discontinue this kind of activities and so take this reserve and bring them to the P&L and this is the impact that you see in the P&L at level of EBITDA at level of net income. And finally, to finally answer the question, all the changes were recorded on 2024 and so we will not have any other impact starting from 2025.

Isabela Klemes

Thank you, Simone. So moving on to the questions now we have question in terms of the gas trading. So the following question is coming from Andrew McCarthy, LarrainVial; and also Andres Navarrete from BTG. So the question is where and when do you see the most likely gas commercialization opportunities this year? And could you give us some color regarding the gas contracts from Argentina? Size, price range, take or pay agreement and also why will there be an extraordinary shareholder meeting on April and end of April for the Enel Chile?

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Okay. So during February we have already traded a star plus volume for 2025 around 6 terabtu taking advantage of the current market condition and we are always looking for new opportunity to improve our financial results. This trading opportunity was already included in our guidance figures. However, at the moment we cannot share more detailed information due to the confidential conventional strategic nature of this operation. About Argentina gas, we have contracted about 30 terabtu distributed in the year 2025 with a competitive price lower than GNL prices due to competitiveness, what I can say is that is lower than 2024 prices of USD8 per million terabtu. Extraordinary meeting, the extraordinary shareholder meeting will be held to amend the bylaw in order to reflect the new function and regarding the currency changing the capital currently expressing in pesos to move to dollar to implement the functionality currency changes from a statutory perspective, it is necessary to amend the company's bylaw to redenominate the share capital from China based on 2 years.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Thank you, Giuseppe. So moving on the questions, we have questions coming from Fernan Gonzalez from BTG; and also Felipe Flores from i3 Capital. The first one is about the fines. So if the $20 million fines were already booked in 2024 numbers. Then Fernan have some questions regarding distribution. What makes you think that the debate around the distribution reform can begin in March? The Minister has said that some of your this is already have been said. Then he's asking about if our plans in terms of a strategic plan, the guidance in CapEx and also EBITDA would be changed considering the last updates in terms of the distribution segment. And now so if we keep our plan to invest the free cash flow in the distribution segment in this period or if we're seeing any change to regulatory restrictions.

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Okay, well, first of all, as I said in the presentation, all the fines, all the other extraordinary items like the compensation to the client are already booked then the closing 2024. As I said in the past, the distribution business is very important for our strategy. We believe that there is a lot of value in the company. So we confirm our CapEx and our strategy in this segment. There is no reason as of today to change our strategic plan for Watcoms and the distribution company. So we are focused to spend most part of our cash flow in order to improve our grids in terms of resilience and quality.

Isabela Klemes

Okay, thank you. Giuseppe. Simone, Just another question came in regarding the CapEx and EBITDA for Enel Distribucion. We have already said, but just to complement according to the guidance that we gave to the market.

Simone Conticelli

Yes. So we can confirm the guidelines given to the market. You have seen that we expect an increase in terms of EBITDA in 2025 compared to 2024 and the reason of this delta is mainly related to the very negative impact of the climate event on 2024 that amount for more than $60 million impact. On the other side, as you know, the evolution of the regulation is giving us a little bit more space. And so these are the 2 reasons. This plan, in our opinion, as of today is quite solid and so can be confirmed.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Thank you, Simone. Thank you, Giuseppe. Just checking if there is any more question. As we do not have any more question, I conclude the results conference call. Let me remind you that the investor relations team is available for any doubts that you may have. Many thanks for your attention and see you soon. Bye-bye.

Operator

And thank you all for participating and you may now disconnect.

TranscriptFY2024 Q32024-10-30

FY2024 Q3 earnings call transcript

Earnings source - 43 paragraphs
Operator

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Enel Chile Nine Months and Third Quarter 2024 Results Conference Call. My name is Carmen, and I will be your host for today. [Operator Instructions]. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. During this conference call, we may make statements that constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements reflect only our current expectations, are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors. These factors are described in Enel Chile's press release reporting its nine months and third quarter 2024 results. The presentation accompanying this conference call and Enel Chile's annual report on Form 20-F, included on the risk factors. You may access our Nine Months and Third Quarter 2024 results press release and presentation on our website www.enel.cl, and our 20-F on the SEC's website, www.sec.gov. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on those forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates. Enel Chile undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements or to disclose any development as a result of which these forward-looking statements become inaccurate, except as required by law. I would now like to turn the presentation over to Ms. Isabela Klemes, Head of Investor Relations of Enel Chile. Please proceed.

Isabela Klemes

[Foreign Language]. Good afternoon, and welcome to Enel Chile 2024 third quarter and nine months results presentation. Thanks to all joining us today. My name is Isabela Klemes. I'm the Head of Investor Relations. Joining me today our CEO, Giuseppe Turchiarelli; and our new CFO, Simone Conticelli. Simone is a nuclear physicist and holds an MBA from Luiss University of Rome. He joined the Enel Group in 2006, working in the administration, finance and control of Enel S.A. From 2018 to 2022, he worked in Chile as the CFO of Enel Generacion Chile. Before becoming CFO of Enel Chile, he held the position of CFO at Slovenské elektrárne another company within Enel Group. Our presentation and related financial information are available on our website, www.enel.cl in the Investors section and our app investors. In addition, a replay of the call will soon be available. At the end of this presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions via phone or webcast chat through the link ask a question. Media participants are connected only in listening mode. In the following slides Giuseppe will start the presentation with our key highlights of this period. He will then cover updates on our portfolio and regulatory contexts. Finally, Simone will provide an overview of our business economic and financial performance. Thank you all. And now let me hand over the call to Giuseppe.

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Thank you, Isabela. Good afternoon, and thanks for joining us. Let's start the presentation with our main highlights of the period on Slide 2. During the first nine months, our hydro portfolio performance was very robust with hydro generation increasing by 20% compared to last year. This improvement was due to higher reservoir level at the beginning of the year, influenced by the El Nino phenomenon observing the previous year and a solid rainy season this year. This resulted in an efficient generation portfolio mix for the period. We are pleased to announce that the Los Condores project is nearing completion. After several years of construction, the project has reached the pre-commissioning tests. We expect Los Condores to be connected to the grid by the end of the year. As everyone knows, an extreme climate eventually impacted the Central and Southern part of the country, including our construction area in the metropolitan region. Further in the presentation, I will give you more detail to you regarding the unforeseeable and predictable climatic events that affected our distribution segment. On the regulatory side, we have some important news to share. The factoring related to the PEC 3 receivable was successfully executed last week. We have carried out a factoring totaling $630 million. The PNP Decree for the second semester was published on October 5, which will result in a lower PEC accumulation for the year end. And the draft bill for the electricity subsidies for vulnerable customers is still under discussion. Today, the Energy Commission is renewed to evaluate government proposal. I will give you more color on these topics during the presentation. Regarding profitability, and let's announce that our EBITDA and net income results were better than last year's figures, fully confirming our guidance for the year. We achieved a positive FFO, even though during the first nine months of this year, we recovered only a small portion of receivables related to the PEC. As I mentioned before, much of the recovery of the PEC 3 receivable was made through the factoring executed the last week. So we will see them in the presentation of the full year results. And finally, for the 2024 nine-month results, we present a strong and sound level of liquidity, I will provide more details on this later. Now let's look at some updates on the hydrological situation on Slide 3. In addition to the positive hydrological conditions during 2023 that allow us to have greater water availability this year higher-than-expected rainfall recorded during 2024 has allowed us to increase our hydro production, exceeding 20% in the same period of 2023. Therefore, during the first nine months of 2024, we have accumulated 1.6 terawatt hour of additional hydro generation compared to last year. The hydrological situation in our reservoir is also very positive year to date compared to the last year's figures, particularly in the South. In fact, with the water accumulation in our reservoir to date, we have sufficient availability to supply our energy demand until the end of this year, even with the possibility of La Nina phenomenon in November and December. It is worth mentioning that there's no melting season has already started. Unfortunately, there has been a rainfall and a rapid increase in December during the south, generating increases in the affluent flows of the river. In fact, we had to carry out these charges in Penta power plants a few days ago and on October 24 in the Ralco in the Pangue power plants as well. Of course, this manual were coordinated and previously informed to the competent authority and the communities. Based on this fact, we have updated our hydro generation estimate to approximately 15 terawatt hours for 2024 and 3.3 terawatt hours for the fourth quarter of which we have already produced 1.3 terawatt hour. Let's move to the next slide to review how we continue improving our portfolio on generation assets. We continue consolidating our renewable capacity through a diverse portfolio of projects distributed across various country regions. This year, we increased our exposure to battery energy storage, the best system. In recent months, we received authorization from the national electricity coordinator to begin conventional operation of 101 megawatts associated with the two projects El Manzano BESS located in the metropolitan region of Santiago, and La Cabana BESS, located in the south of Chile. Considering this latest authorization from the coordinator in 2024, we initiated the commercial operation of a portfolio equivalent to 511 megawatts and 1,735 mega since 2023. In this 9-month period, we reached a total net installed capacity of 8.7 gigawatts, of which 6.8 gigawatt renewable, representing 77% of the total. A good news, the Los Condores hydropower plants had significant updates in this period. We have concluded the filling of the tunnels and started the pre-commissioning test. We expect to be connected by the end of the year. Now on the next slide, we will review the performance of our generation KPIs. Net electricity generation totaled 18.6 terawatt hour as of September 2024, exceeding by 6% of the production during the first nine months of 2024, mainly due to higher hydro and renewable generation, resulting from the improved hydrology this year and the operation of new projects. During the third quarter of 2024, net generation decreased 8% to 6.5 terawatt hour, mainly due to better hydrology recording during the same period of 2023 and lower thermal dispatch during the third quarter of 2024, partially offset by greater wind generation. Our energy sales totaled 25.3 terawatt hours as of September 2024, 9% higher than the level recording in the first nine months last year resulting from higher sales to both regulated customers and free customers. Our commitment with our clients were fulfilled with a higher portion of our renewable generation, which also led us to lower energy purchases in the stock market. During the third quarter of 2024, physical energy sales grew by 8% to 8.4 terawatt hour, mainly due to higher sales to regulated customers. In terms of our balance, during the first nine months of the year, we increased our purchases from third parties by 2 terawatt hours as part of our continued effort to diversify and optimize our energy sources. Now I would like to take a few minutes to talk about the extraordinary weather events of the last August. I would like to present this slide to discuss the extreme weather events that impacted the country and not just our concession area, which impact was higher than the earth quake occurred in 2010. On August 1 and 2, the metropolitan region of Santiago was severely hit by an extraordinary and unpredictable storm, with winds of up to 124 kilometers per hour. Significantly exceeding the forecast and warnings issued by authority and technical expert. This storm caused the fall of more than 2,000 trees, over 1,000 utility poles and large ranges, which destroyed part of our electricity distribution network, causing widespread power outages. The damage is comparable only to death caused by the earthquake already mentioned. And [indiscernible] Chile deployed all available resourcing going much further than required by Chilean electrical legislation. And it adopted extraordinary special measures to restore power to its customers as quick as possible. Reaching this amount of queue was only possible as part of Enel Group. We have requested support and received more than 100 technicians in this type of event coming from different parts of Latin America and Europe. Furthermore, it is worth noting that for this weather event, we spare no expense to recover and normalize the power supply which made possible. This is reflected in the number of field crews, 383 crew at the peak of the event versus 100 is considered in the reference model company of the current tariffs. Establishing the system was extremely difficult. And we have already submitted to the local regulator and the core debt resistibility and unpredictability of this event. Therefore, we really faced a major climatic event, the severity of which exceeded all the possible measures to be adopted under the Chilean legislation and will appear clear to all the different stakeholders in Chile once the pertinent data will be disseminated. As Enel, we have been working on proposing different kinds of regulatory model to meet the regulatory and physical system more relating to future weather event. We clearly understand the diffusion to modernize and digitalize the Chilean electrical for the solutions. Now I would like to talk about some regulatory framework, milestone in the next slide. As you may recall, during last call, we indicated that in January this year, the Ministry of Energy presented the bill related to the energy stabilization mechanism, which the power of continuing the PEC mechanism in mitigating the projected sales increase for Enel customers. At the same time, they also aim to improve the client protection mechanism known as the MPC mechanism to allow gradual repayment and accumulated debt to the degenerator and establish a transitory subsidy for the most vulnerable client. This new law was discussed and approved by the Chilean Congress in April. It came into force at the end of April. Following this, the first half and the second half PNP decrease were published and the regular -- regulated tariff was updated. After the communication of the second half Decree, all clients, including that, with the consumption of less than 350-kilowatt hour which are basically households, are paying the regulated PPA real price. The consequence of this is that no further debt will be accumulated during the tariff stabilization. An outcome that has not been achieved since 2019. This shift map a critical step towards financial stability, reflecting a significant change in managing tariff-related obligation. After the issuance of the sovereign guarantee decree as well as the complementary set of rules and regulation to the new law, the factoring was executed. We were able to factor $630 million last October 2024. As of September 2024, we had an account receivable related to the fact already net of factory and including readjustment and interest of around $1.1 billion approximately. So taking into this new factory realized in October, we are expecting to the end of the year with accruals in the range of $500 up to $550 million. Let me go to the right side of the slide, where we will recall the main topic related to the proposed law the government is introducing to increase the subsidies, which currently cover 1.2 million families to reach approximately 4.9 million families, representing the 40% most vulnerable families in Chile. Now Congress is discussing with executive authorities, potentially increasing this benefit to increase the number of the family, supported by these subsidies. Currently, the Energy and Mining Committee of the [indiscernible] is deliberating on the matter, which including general terms doubling the green tax emission from the current $5 per ton of CO2 emitted, for reference last year, we paid around $15 million related to it, allocating the additional VAT revenue that the treasury is collecting due to the increase in the tariffs, doubling the fines imposed by regulator and allocating them to support the subsidy fund, applying new charges to the small and medium distributed energy units known as PMGDs. As Enel, we support the government efforts to find alternatives to assist the most vulnerable family in the country, especially in light of potential economic change. However, we have observed that over the year, government solution have often disrupted the market. The same company that has been impacted by various regulatory measures since 2019 are once again being called APAB to support these subsidies mechanism. To maintain Chile reputation as a quality marketplace, it is crucial that such measures are reconsidered. Otherwise, we risk severally impacting long-term investments, competitiveness, and the health of energy sector. Among the proposal measure, we believe that allocating the additional VAT revenue is the most viable and sustainable option. To conclude, regarding distribution EBIT 2024-2028, there have been no significant developments since our last call. Our perspective on the next steps. In the process is detailed in the annex of our presentation. Now I will hand over to our CFO, Simone Conticelli.

Simone Conticelli

Many thanks Giuseppe and good afternoon, everybody. First of all, I would like to tell you that it's a pleasure for me to join Enel Chile. And now let's move to economic and financial performance. During this nine-month period and the third quarter of 2024, our results continue to demonstrate a solid economic and financial performance. Let me begin with a quick summary of the main figures which I will detail in the following slides. Both nine months '24 and third quarter '24 EBITDA and net income recorded important improvement when compared to last year's indicator. This is mainly explained by a more efficient generation mix, thanks to better hydrological situation, coupled with an increase in our energy sales and better pricing. Regarding the FFO the nine-month 2024 figure show a slight reduction versus last year, particularly in the third quarter, mainly explained by a temporary negative effect from tax factoring operations and higher tax payments in 2024, primarily related this to Arcadia transaction in October 2023. This trend is expected to deliver during the last quarter of this year. Now on the next slide, let's review the progress on CapEx. Total CapEx reached $406 million during the first nine months, 16% lower than last year considering the conclusion of several renewable and storage projects over the year 2023 at beginning of 2024. 62% of the total CapEx amounting to [$253] million was related mainly to renewable and storage CapEx deployment and 22% equivalent to $92 million was related to grids. Asset management CapEx reached $133 million, which represent 33% of our total CapEx. It increased by around 50% compared to the last year figure. The reason for this increase can be found both in the generation and distribution business. In the generation business, this increase of $29 million is mostly related to maintenance activities in the Atacama CCGT power plant and in solar and wind assets. In the distribution business, the increased approx $16 million is due to climate events, emergencies and maintenance related to fall in the low and medium voltage lines. Looking about development CapEx, they reached $227 million a decrease of 32% compared to the last year figure, mainly due to the conclusion of renewable projects. And now let's move to the next slide, where we have a summary of the second quarter EBITDA breakdown. In third quarter 2024, our EBITDA was $405 million, which is $63 million higher than the same period in 2023. Referring to generation business, we have an increase of $68 million, thanks to a significant contribution from PPA sales. This is mainly due to higher volume, especially in the regulated markets, as mentioned by Giuseppe and pricing effects mainly related to contract indexation. Going to gas trading. We had a $11 million margin increase coming from additional trading activities in third quarter 2024. Particularly the sale of LNG cargo to Europe. Referring to the margin is higher by $5 million, mainly due to the increase of remuneration linked to publication of the VAD 2020, 2024 regulatory report. This margin was totally offset by the extreme weather events, including the force majeure events of August 1st and 2nd that affected our distribution segment. This generated $16 million of additional OpEx and other expenses mainly related to an increase in dispatch for center facilities and generators rent and operation. Let's move now on the next slide to review the main impact on EBITDA during the nine month figures. Our EBITDA reached $1 billion, an increase of $300 million, representing a 46% improvement compared to the last year. I will start explaining the positive effects. First, we had a great contribution of $250 million in PPA sales, mainly related to higher volumes, particularly in the regulated market and PPA pricing in the free markets, mainly due to indexation in line with the assets explained previously in the quarter. Second, industrial sourcing had a positive impact of $123 million, this is mainly explained by lower variable production cost due to lower thermal generation because of the remarkable hydrology of the deal. Then, that's a positive contribution of $70 million related to commercial sourcing mainly explained by lower prices associated with purchases in the stock market. This effect was partially offset by higher purchases from third parties and the impact of PPA renegotiation that benefited us in 2023. Then we have another positive effect of $23 million loan from grid margin. This is mainly due to the grid remuneration linked the publication of VAD 2024 regulatory report. As we have seen in the quarterly analysis, this positive effect was offset by the impact of the weather events. The aforementioned that positive that were partially offset by a negative impact of $115 million associated with the notable gas trading activities carried out during the first nine months of 2023, amounting to approximately 29 terabytes and a negative net effect of $16 billion, mainly due to higher OpEx associated with new renewable projects. recognition of Transantiago business in buses in 2023 for NLX. Negative impact of inflection across all the businesses. Let's move on to the next slide where we will review the net income evolution. Nine months 2024 net income amounted to $446 million, 62% higher than the last year's figure, mainly explained by the EBITDA improvement. Let me drive you through the additional aspects for this nine-month period. Returning to the depreciation, amortization and bad debt we have a higher cost for $47 million, mainly resulting from higher depreciation in green power due to the new renewable capacity coming into operation and Chilean peso devaluation in the period. Higher bad debt accrual increase due to the rise in credit losses associated to the higher tariffs. Regarding financial results and equity investments, we reported a $63 million negative variation versus last year, mainly explained by positive exchange rate differences in 2023, higher financial expenses, mainly due to FX variation and lower financial income linked to lower average interest rates, partially offset by higher interest related to the tax receivables. Talking about the income taxes, we recorded an increase of $42 million, mainly due to the better results in the period. This was partially offset by a lower cost related to representation of Arcadia assets held for sale in 2023.. Focusing on the quarter, our net income increased by 3%. This is mainly explained at high pricing EBITDA contribution, lower tax expenses of $50 million, mainly due to lower cost for the electrification of Arcadia assets held for sale in 2023 and lower cost due to monetary production. These positive effects were partially offset by, first, an increase in D&A and bad debt of $12 million due to higher depreciation mainly linked to operation of new renewable capacity in EGP. And an increase in bad debt mainly due to a rise in credit losses associated to the higher Second, highest financial expenses of $60 million, mainly due to positive exchange rate differences in 2023 and lower interest recognition related to PEC 2.0 in third quarter 2024 versus third quarter 2023. And now let's move to the FFO analysis on the next slide. Let's review the composition of our FFO for the period and the main effect versus 2023. First, let me highlight that the 2023 FFO figure has been adjusted by $310 million due to tax paid on capital gains for the sale of Enel transmission in 2022. Our FFO in this nine-month period of 2024 reached $366 million, nearly align in the same period of 2023. Excluding the 2024 tax payment for the sale of Arcadia asset last year, an FFO would have shown an improvement versus last year. EBITDA in this nine-month year amounted to more than $1 billion, showing a variation of $380 million compared to the last year's figure. This is mainly due to higher PPF sales and positive performance in commercial and industrial sourcing as I previous explained. We have also already talked about the cumulative impact of the stabilization mechanism, which amounted to $313 million. This negative effect was partially offset by the execution of the IEB factor related to PEC 2, PEC 3, which amounted to $83 million in the nine months period. When we compare the total aspect of PEC net of factoring for the nine months of 2024 versus 2023, we see an increase of $270 million this year. However, this is only a temporary aspect as we have already received an additional USD 630 million. Working capital in the nine-month period showed a negative balance of $74 million, mostly due to CapEx payments related to 2023 renewable. Compared to the last year's season, working capital impact on FFO was positive for $84 million, mainly due to the higher cumulation of VAT tax credit in 2023. Income taxes negatively impacted our FFO by $169 million this period, primarily due to tax payment in the generational business in 2024 and taxes paid on the sale of Arcadias. Comparing income taxes paid in the first nine months of 2024 to 2023, we see a negative effect of $163 million. This difference is mainly due to the tax payment of our value operation in 2024, higher tax payment in generation business and lower recovery from previous years. To conclude the financial expenses as a net negative impact of $166 million on the nine-month 2024 FFO, mainly due to the debt related to expenses. Once compared to last year, our financial expenses decreased by $12 million in the first nine months of 2024 compared to 2023. This decrease, it may be due to the financial strength related to PEC 1 in 2024. Now let's take a look at our liquidity and leverage position. Our gross debt increased by 8% to $4.8 billion by the end of September 2024 compared to December 2023. This higher debt was mainly due to accumulation effect and seasonality of generation business. This increase in gross debt should reverse during the last quarter of 2024, considering the factor under the PEC 3 mechanics, which took place on the last October 24 allowing us to pay an important amount in short-term credit lines, taking advantage of our debt flexibility. The average sale of our debt activity slightly decreased to 5.7 years by the end of September 2024 versus the 6.1 years that's seen in December 2023. And the portion at the fixed rate was 75% of total debt. The average cost of our debt reached 5.0% as of September 2023, slightly above a 4.9% recovered in December 2023. Mainly due to the energy generation reactive bond maturity in April 2024 for $400 million at 4.25%. All in all, we can see a significant improvement in our leverage generations. In this September, our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio was 2.9, demonstrating solid decreases versus last quarter figure. Regarding liquidity, we are in a comfortable position to support our capital needs for the upcoming months and cope with the next year. Thank you all for your attention. And now I pass the floor to Giuseppe Turchiarelli for closing remarks.

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Thank you, Simone. To conclude this presentation, I would like to give you the following closing remarks. Better hydrology and incorporating new technology such as optimization in hydro facility and the development of battery in our portfolio have helped us to improve our margin. Also, our trading capabilities were also important in adjusting our sales portfolio, contributing to important margin in the period. As a result, we have delivered a more than solid operating and financial performance during the year. We received around $713 million through various factoring activities related to the fact. Larger part of which came from the last week operation, which reached $630 million. The proceeds will primarily repay short-term debt, strengthening our balance sheet. As I mentioned, taking this new factor in realizing in October, we expect to end the year with accrual in the range of $500 million up to $550 million. Finally, to conclude, we want to embark you to the event of November 21, where we will present the new strategic plan for 2025, 2027 to the financial community. More information will be provided in the coming year. Let me now hand over to Isabela.

Isabela Klemes

Thank you, Giuseppe. Let's now begin with our Q&A session. We will receive questions via phone and chat in the webcast. The Q&A session is open Carmen, please, you may start.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] One moment for the first question. And it comes from the line of Javier Suarez with Mediobanca. Please proceed.

Javier Suarez

Hi. Many thanks for the presentation and for taking my questions as well. I have three questions. The first one is on the guidance. If you can elaborate on the latest guidance that you provided to the market in terms of EBITDA net income and also net debt, we should consider this guidance confirmed and the implications of the fact that the company is increasing their higher guidance to 13 terawatt hour this year, when previous guidance were 12 terawatts hour. So any light on existing guidance could be appreciated. Second question is on the recovery of regulatory receivables under the destabilization mechanism. So the question is, can you update us on your latest expectation for the timing for the recovery of the pending amount. I think that on the previous conference call, you mentioned something like $200 million in 2025 and the remaining portion in 2026 and '27. Is that guidance is still a good one. And the final question is on the -- your latest expectations on the publication of the new distribution tariff. I think that you mentioned during the conference call that there is no significant update. So if you can give us a latest thought on when the final report should be unveiled.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Thank you, Javier, for your questions. I will hand over to Giuseppe.

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Yes. Okay. Let me say that for what concerns the guidance, as you probably remind last year, we present a range of EBITDA between 1.3, 1.5, and we confirm it. Of course, we're going to be in the upper side of the range, but we are confirming our guidance. Same confirmation for concern, the net debt-to-EBITDA ratio, we're going to be below 3x, that is basically our target. We feel comfortable with this duration. And for work content hydro, as you see in the presentation, we are expecting to close the year with approximately 13 terawatt hours of hydro production. Let me say that already in October, we had 1.2, 1.3. So we are in line -- everything is in line with our forecast that people send in the call. So this should be the production that we're going to have at the end of the year. For what concern back with Simone. Well, okay, maybe just to find -- to finalize my part for what concern there in 2024, 2028 distribution tariff process. We don't have any kind of update. We expect to have some news at the beginning of the next year, when the CNA, the regulatory model will show the feedback for the technical consult record. So we are waiting for this report.

Simone Conticelli

Okay. Thanks for the question. Let's talk a little bit about PEC. As you know, at the beginning of the year, the debt was quite high, $750 million. And then this increased first three quarters, of course, each quarter, we accumulate something like $100 million of new debt. And in the first three quarters, we received a factoring process, just more or less $80 million. And so at the end of September, the situation is that we have debt about [$1.1] billion. The important message that already Giuseppe gave you is that, in any case, the increase in time change the situation. starting from a few weeks ago with the PPD of second half. So we are not accumulating more or less any other tax receivable. And so from now on, the PEC amount should decrease each month. Now as we have already commented, we received a cashing of $630 million, so the 24th of October. And given this cashing at the end of the year, our position should be in a range around $500 million and $550 million. This amount should be cashed mainly in the next two years. The larger amount, more or less [$200] million in the first year, plus in '25. And the most of the remaining in 2026. We expect just a small part to be cashed in 2027. And particularly, we are talking about the sector one mechanism. As you know, these mechanics consider that as part of the total debt will be cashed in through the tariffs. And so we had to wait before the end of 2027.

Isabela Klemes

Thank you, Simone. Operator, do you have more questions on line? .

Operator

We do not have any other questions. Back to you for webcast.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. So Giuseppe and Simone, I will start with some questions that we have received from the analysts and investors connected. So the first one is coming from Francisco Paz from Santander. Francisco is saying thanks for the presentation. The question is the following. We have observed a positive water availability during this year and the previous one, which has helped the company to reduce cost pressures and increase hydro generation. Going forward and in the context of uncertainty for water availability in the long term. What do you assume is the reasonable estimate of hydro generation in the medium to long term for the company in an motor?

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Well, let me say that we are clearly happy to have this two year with a very good hydrological condition. We do not consider this 3-year as a proxy for the following year. So we used to project in terms of hydro condition the last 10, 11 year average. So in general, we are soon to have around 10, 11 terawatt hour per year. These are our estimation as soon as we're going to see a different kind of path in terms of hydrology, we are going to change our estimation. But as of today, we keep our estimation around 10, 11 terawatt hours per year.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Thank you, Giuseppe. So we have some questions now from Andrew McCarthy from LarrainVial. So the first question is also related to the hydro generation, but I think we have covered now the question. So the second one relating to the fact, the factory, now so when do you expect to sell more factory receivables? And how much do you expect to receive?

Simone Conticelli

So I think that we have answered also in the previous question, but I will focus on the specific questions. Thank you. We are keep on selling the PEC debt going with the new decreases that we, and we are expecting to have cash for around $200 million or something more by the end of 2025. This is the first block of the effect that we are going to cash in.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Thank you, Simone. So we have another question from Andrew that also their investors analysts have sent to us. So do you see more gas commercialization opportunities for the first quarter?

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Well, at this moment, we don't expect any additional sales of cargo for the rest of the year. Clearly, we are always looking at mainly opportunity to increase our profitability but as of today, we don't have any in front of us in [indiscernible] in front of us.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. So the last question from Andrew is, do we expect the distribution business to return to normalized operating profit in the fourth quarter of this year or should there be more negative impacts from fines or compensation to clients for services interruption that occurred in 2024.

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

For what concern, the distribution business, of course, we are still evaluating all the period that we need in order to put our grid to the original status. We are waiting also in discussion for what concern the possible fines or compensation, and we're going to give you more detail during our Investor Day.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Thank you. We have some questions from Ignacio Sabella from Itau. So the question is also very similar to the ones that we have already answered. But just to focus on the PEC 2. Now so how much we expect the receivable accumulation regarding the factory going forward. Simone, just to rephrase as we have several questions on this.

Simone Conticelli

Yes. As we have commented on this one, that the two segment of customer with the consumption below 350 and with the consumption higher of 650 are started to pay. Basic the sales price we call the cost of the system and then also a component that is needed to recover. So from now on, we expect no significant increase or accumulation of debt.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. So a question from now coming from Martin Arancet from Balanz. Also on PEC, but he is asking more details about the usage of the funds from the factory that we received in October.

Simone Conticelli

Okay. Thank you for the question. As we have commented, the 24th of October, we received a payment of more or less [630]. This cash in was received by Enel Chile. And Enel Chile used the money to reduce the debt position in the short term. And part of the mine was invested also in the short term as the market interest rate. Clear, we keep on looking ahead to have further opportunity to optimize also the long-term debt. And on the other side, you know that the financial stability is one of our core growth for our strategy while, of course, we can leverage on that to graph eventual proximity that can come up in the market. And so this increase of our financial stability is a very positive effect that can enable us to do more in the future.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Thank you, Simone. So we have one more from Martin. He's asking, if I'm not mistaken, the government is preparing a technical report to evaluate if a non-distribution has taken the proper steps to return service to clients after the extreme weather event conditions. Could you give us any color on the time line of this report, your expectations? And also your options if it has a negative outcome.

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Okay. So let me first mention the fact that the process of revoking the concession has not yet started. The Minister of Energy tasked the sector is preparing a stemming report on energy distribution concession. According to the authority, the study should take between 6 and 18 months. And once it's going to be ready, it will be delivered to the President of the Republic for review and only the President of the Republic of Chile through a decree can start the process. So we are waiting for the record that should be issued by the SEC or let's understand whether this technical mode see any possibility or any suggestions in order to revoke or to suggest the blocking of the concession. Just to be clear, below the current law exclude any possible revocation of the concession in case of force majeure. This is the reason because we believe that any record from the SEC should give this kind of suggestion because it is clear from the situation that has been occurred in August that the force majeure is clearly part of the bank, let me say. And what we're going to do in case of negative outcome. Well clearly, we're going to start with all the legal action locally and international. So we're going to start really defending our interest in terms of concession.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Thank you Giuseppe. We received all the questions also from [Rodrigo Mora], but were the same on distribution and also on gas commercialization. So Tomas Gonzales from Scotiabank. Some questions we have answered, but I go to the dividend. And also, he is asking regarding the dividend, do you plan to pay our interim dividend before the year-end? Any possibility to increase the payout in the future is mentioned because of the funds of the PEC.

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Okay. Talking about Enel, soon, the business policy of Enel [indiscernible] to increase to the year the dividend. In this moment, this cash in is in line with the possibility to stay in the policy. And in the very short term, so we will reach in the future until the 70% of the dividend. And so this money are very good news. No, will permit stay with our in policy. But in my opinion, and this is a matter for the Board of Directors and for the assembly of owners of the company. But in my opinion, there will be no big changes regarding the dividend policy.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. So let me check here. We have other questions. Okay. So we have one from Martin [Poso]. So he's asking us. Can you give more detail about the impact the company might have with the increase of the green taxes in case the new project law is approved. Can you give you more details Simone.

Simone Conticelli

Well, let me remind you that last year, we paid $50 million in green taxes. And we have a very good mix in terms of plant fleet. Our CCGT is tied with a very competitive contract. And the green tax at the end of the day, represents a very low percentage of our thermal power plant. We have several options in order to compensate this taxes. But at the end of the day, as I said before, we are -- the law is under discussion is at the beginning of the discussion, actually. And the amount of the taxes are almost. Yes, very, very low.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Thank you, Giuseppe. So one more from Rodrigo Mora from Moneda. He's asking about Los Condores project, okay? So he's asking if we could give more color about the status of testing of Los Condores. And the energy generated expected to this plant. So just if you can give more on how we are in Los Condores, and then Simone the generation of Los Condores?

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Okay. Well, Los Condores project is in a very good shape right now because we already started the pre-commissioning test. We are going ahead and we are pretty sure to have the first synchronization in the following month. It should be before the end of the year, we expect we could have a very good surprise in the following weeks. But let me say just to be conservative by the end of the year.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Thank you. Simone, on the generation, please.

Simone Conticelli

Talking about generation of this new plant, we can give a range of production expected for the next year and should be on 150 and 200 gigawatt hour for one year.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Thank you. So we have one from [Andres Barberis]. So the question is on Andres. Thank you for the presentation. I have a question regarding the regulated sales. We observed a year-over-year increase of 606 gigawatt, is this increase driven by higher demand in your current CPAs? Or is due to a start of a new regulated contract?

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Basically, increase in sales are connected to a new cons that start recently this year actually. And it was a regulated standard that we won in 2017. So it's a matter of perimeter. So we have a new PPA entering our portfolio.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Thank you, Giuseppe. So Carmen operator, do we have any more questions online.

Operator

Yes, we do. We have a follow-up or moment, please. Okay. Thank you from the line of Javier Suarez with Mediobanca.

Javier Suarez

Sorry for coming back again. Is on the guidance, you mentioned that the guidance for the EBITDA in 2024, is now seen at the upper end of the range, the previous range, $1.3 billion to $1.5 billion. If you can confirm that if you can share with us also on the guidance for the net income.

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Okay. I confirm you on that if you're going to be at the upper range. So around closer to 1.3 rather than 1.3. So upper range. And for what concern the net income similar situation, I mean, we are going to confirm the guidance at the upper range that we presented last year.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Thank you. If there is no more questions, I would like to conclude our conference call. The Investor Relations team is available to answer any questions you may have. Many thanks for your attention. Have a great rest of the week and see you soon at our Investor Day. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. And with that, we conclude today's conference. You may now disconnect.

TranscriptFY2024 Q22024-07-25

FY2024 Q2 earnings call transcript

Earnings source - 57 paragraphs
Operator

Good morning ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Enel Chile's First Half and Second Quarter 2024 Results Conference Call. My name is Carmen and I will be your operator for today. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker’s presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. During this conference call, we may make statements that constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements reflect only our current expectations are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors. These factors are described in Enel Chile's press release reporting its first half and second quarter 2024 results, the presentation accompanying this conference call and Enel Chile's annual report on Form 20-F included on the Risk Factors. You may access our first half and second quarter 2024 results press release and presentation on our website www.enel.cl and our 20-F on the SEC's website, www.sec.gov. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on those forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates. Enel Chile undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements or to disclose any development as a result of which these forward-looking statements become inaccurate except as required by law. I would now like to turn the presentation over to Ms. Isabela Klemes, Head of Investor Relations of Enel Chile. Please proceed.

Isabela Klemes

[Foreign Language] Good morning and welcome to Enel Chile 2024 second quarter and first half results presentation. Thank you for all joining us today. My name is Isabela Klemes and I'm the Head of Investor Relations. Joining me this morning is our CEO, Giuseppe Turchiarelli. Our presentation and related financial information are available on our website, www.enel.cl in the Investors section and also in our app Investor. In addition a replay of the call will be soon available. At the end of this presentation there will be an opportunity to ask questions via phone, webcast chat through the link ask the question. Media participants are connected only in listening mode. In the following slide Giuseppe will open the presentation with our key highlights of the period then go through our portfolio and regulatory context update. And finally he'll give us a view of our business economic and financial performance. Thank you all for your attention, and let me now hand over to Giuseppe.

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Thank you, Isabela. Good morning and thanks for joining us. Let's start our presentation with our main highlights of the period on slide 2. During the second quarter, our hydro portfolio performed outstandingly, repeating the good performance of the first quarter. This resulted from higher reservoir level at the beginning of the year due to El Nino phenomenon last year, coupled with strong weather events during this quarter. This gave us a robust and efficient generation portfolio mix for the semester. We added approximately 250 megawatts of new renewable energy capacity and BESS project. All these additions will support our long-term ambition of decarbonization and the ongoing optimization of our portfolio. Furthermore, I would like to mention that we have received the commercial operation date from the system operator for around 410 megawatts this year, totaling 1.6 gigawatts since January, 2023. Moreover during this period Enel Generación a subsidiary of Enel Chile secured a 20-year term regulated PPA, representing a sales of around 3.6 terawatt hour in the regulated auction starting to deliver around 1.5 terawatt hours till 2027 and the remaining part to reach 3.6 terawatt hour in 2028. This contain Enel Generación goal to diversify its sales and include more long-term PPA in its portfolio. On the regulatory side, we have some important news to share. First, as you may know, the Chilean Congress approved the law related to the stabilization mechanism, type III. In July, the decree which updated the regulated tariff was published. Now, we are awaiting the sovereign guarantee decree during the third quarter to enable to start the factoring process. Second, the distribution tariff for 2024 came into effect in June of this year. The review process for the distribution tariff for 2028 has already begun and is progressing as expected. I will give you more color on this topic later on. Regarding profitability, I am pleased to announce that the first half showed solid EBITDA and net income results. This reflects our confidence in our guidance for this year. We achieved a positive FFO despite the tax receivables. As you know, we expect to recover a portion of it during the second half of this year. The positive effect of FFO reflects our solid operation performance during this semester. And finally, we have a solid level of liquidity to be used for future cash CapEx deployments. I will provide more details on this later. Now, let's look at some updates on the hydrological situation on Slide 3. Positive hydrological conditions during 2023 allowed us to have greater water availability during the first quarter of this year. In addition, higher than expected rainfall during the second quarter of 2024 allowed us to increase our hydro production, exceeding by 72% the level recorded in the second quarter of 2023. Therefore, during the first half of 2024, we have accumulated 2.1 terrawatt hour of hydro generation compared to the last year. The hydrological situation in our reservoir is also a very positive year-to-date once compared to the last year. Especially in the south. In fact, with the water accumulated in our reservoir to date, we have sufficient availability to supply our energy demand until the end of this year, even with the possibility of a weak La Nina phenomenon in August and September. Based on these results, we have updated our hydro generation estimates to approximately 12 terrawatt hour for 2024. We expect to complement this information once we know the results of the Ruta de Nieve studies, which will be carried out in the coming months, so that we can better estimate the snow melt forecast for the fourth quarter. Now, let's move to the next slide to review how we continue to improve our portfolio of generation assets. We continue developing our strategies towards a more efficient generation matrix, increasing our renewable capacity across different areas of the country, focusing on solar close to the center of consumption and incorporating more batteries in our portfolio projects. During this first half, we reached a total netting soil capacity of 8.7 gigawatt. We connect almost 250 megawatt of additional net capacity related to our solar plant with batteries, Don Humberto, located in the metropolitan region, and two more projects with batteries. These are El Manzano BESS, which is also in the metropolitan region, and La Cabaña BESS, too, in the south part of the country. During this half, we received authorization from the National Electricity Coordinator to begin commercial operations for 410 megawatt related to the two solar plants, Las Salinas in the north zone, a hybrid project that is located in the same field as Sierra Gorda Este, a 112 megawatt wind farm, and El Manzano, a solar plant located in the metropolitan region of Santiago, very close to the consumption center, and finally, our wind farm La Cabaña, located in the south of Chile. In addition, let me inform you that we have concluding Los Condores a hydro power plant. In September, we will have the important milestone. We will start filling the tunnel with water to execute what we call the wet test. Following it coordinated with the system operator we will start the testing process of Los Condores. Our goal is to add the connection and testing concluding during 2024. The deployment of our renewable plants aim to increase the flexibility of our portfolio, which is today 77% renewable-based. It should be noted that with everything mentioned above we have completed the first wave of growth projects that were part of our plan. Now on slide -- on the next slide, we will review the performance of our Generation KPIs. Net electricity generation totaled 12.1 terawatt hours, as of June 2024, exceeding by 15% the production during the first half of 2023 mainly due to higher hydro and renewable generation resulting from the improved hydrology in the operation of the new projects respectively. During the second quarter of 2024, net generation grew by 11% to 6.1 terawatt hours mainly due to higher hydro and wind generation. Our energy sales totaled 17 terawatt hours in June 2024, 10% higher than the level recorded in the first semester last year resulting from higher sales to both regulated customers and frequent clients. It's worth mentioning that our commitment with our clients were fulfilled with a higher portion of our renewable generation, which also led us to lower energy purchases in the spot market mainly in solar hour. During the second quarter of 2024 physical energy sales grew by 11% to 8.5 terawatt hours mainly due to higher sales to regulated customers. In terms of our balance, during the first semester, we increased our purchases from third-parties by 1.5 terawatt hours as part of our continued effort to diversify our sourcing. Now on the next slide, we will review the performance of our main KPIs. In the generation business, during this semester, we have seen relevant improvement in our KPIs. In terms of renewable and BESS increased capacity reaching 6.8 gigawatts of net capacity, representing a 77% stake in our generation portfolio. This enabled us to reach 74% CO2-free production, which is 13 basis points higher than in the first half of 2023. Additionally, the energy sold in the generation segment reached 17 terawatt hours, representing an improvement of 10% compared to the last year. I would like to highlight now the great contribution that [indiscernible] is making in terms of our energy offering that allow us to continue driving the electrification process. We improved our figures in this semester compared to the last year period. We have increased the number of public and private charging points for electric cycles by 25% reaching almost 3,000 charging ports. Regarding e-Home services and ectrification indicator we also improved our number by 40% and 60% respectively compared to the last year. In regarding the public lighting, we reached 372,000 lighting poles 1% higher than last year mainly due to the maintenance contract with La Pincoya [ph], Castro and Huechuraba Municipality. Regarding the Distribution segment the number of clients in distributed energy in our concession area continued to grow by 2% and 3% respectively compared to last year. It is relevant to mention that this quarter we had some critical weather events with heavy rains and snow that affected the stability of the electricity supply impacting our quality indicators such as SAIDI, SAIFI and losses. Regarding SAIDI and SAIFI as a matter of comparison the number presented on this slide do not include the impact of the maintenance event. Now on the next slide, let's look at some updates related to the regulatory content. As you may recall last call we indicated that in January this year the Ministry of Energy presented a bill related to the stabilization of energy mechanism with the purpose of continuing the PEC mechanism and mitigating the projected increases to final customers. At the same time, we also aim to improve the client protection mechanism known as MPC mechanism to a low gradual repayment of accumulated debt with the generator and establish a transitory subsidy for the most vulnerable clients. This new law was discussed and approved by the Chilean Congress in April published and came to force last Tuesday, April, 30. In June, the P&P decree was published. And with this publication the tariff of the regulated clients started to be updated maintained their location and monthly consumption. Clients with consumption below 350 kilowatt hours had their generation component of the target updated by inflation and clients with consumption above 350 kilowatt hours shall foresee a higher amount increase of around 35% related to the starting to pay the real price of electricity plus a new charge NIM MPC. We are now waiting for the issuance and publication of the sovereign guarantee decree as well as a complementary set of rules and regulation to the new law needed to start the factoring process. This guarantee will be presented to investors as a part of the issuance coordinated by the IDB expected in the next few months. As of June 2024, we had an account receivable related to the PEC already net of factoring of $904 million. Considering the readjustment in the interest of around $115 million we reached an accrual of $1 billion approximately. With the issuance and publication of the pending regulation we expect to execute the factoring of the current accounts receivable during the second half of this year ranging from $550 million to $650 million. We expect that by the end of 2024, the accounts receivable net of factoring should range between $350 million to $450 million. Now all the discussions are standard on the subsidy in place which could increase the number of family that will receive these subsidies and avoid further tariff increase. According to the law approved today, $100 million are coming from subsidies paid by the consumer particularly repeat customer and $20 million are coming from the treasurer of Chile. This $120 million would support around 1.2 million families. The family that will be beneficiated shall be known during September and the distribution company shall apply retroactively since July this benefit during October this year. Now Congress is discussing with executive authorities a potential increase of this benefit to increase the number of families supported by the subsidy to around 4.7 million families increasing the total around subsidy to around $300 million per year versus the current $120 million in place. The potential changes to increase the subsidies are still under discussion by the government and the Congress. We expect the final proposal to be submitted by the middle of August. On the distribution tariff review the regulatory final decree for 2020-2024 cycle was published in early June, and therefore the new distribution tariff will represent an increase in the tariff for the finance customer in our concessionaire of around 5%. Regarding the 2024-2028 cycle in July, the consultant technical reportable review was received and is currently being reviewed by the committee. The final record is foreseen to be published early in the Q4 2024. We expect that by the end of this year, the regulator shall publish the preliminary technical report on this new cycle. We are more confident regarding the process considering that the consultant who is working is the same one who was in that previous cycle period. Therefore, we understand that some topics already discussed for the previous cycle shall be automatically applied to this process. Now let's review on the next slide our earnings indicator. Our economic and financial performance was very solid in the first half and second quarter of 2024. As you can see on the slide, in the first half and second quarter 2024, we had an important improvement in EBITDA and net income versus last year's figures. This is mainly explained by the outstanding hydrological situation and a more efficient generation mix. In the first semester of 2024, the FFO also showed an improvement compared to last year, reaching $52 million. This is mainly explained by the improvement in EBITDA, offset by a negative impact due to higher tax payments related to Arcadia operations and a more significant PEC accumulation. Regarding the second quarter, FFO improved by $27 million in 2024 versus 2023 due to the same impact already mentioned in the slide. We will review more detail on the following slide. Now on the next slide, let's review the progress on CapEx. Our total CapEx reached $290 million this first half, 9% lower than last year considering the conclusion of several renewable and solar projects since the second quarter of 2023. 66% of our total CapEx equivalent to $190 million was related to renewable and storage, and 22% equivalent to $63 million was related to [indiscernible], mainly due to new customer connections associated to the growth of our customer base and corrective maintenance of the network. Asset management CapEx reached $87 million, which represents 30% of our total CapEx. It decreased by around 22% compared to the last year's figures, mainly explained by increased CapEx in the distribution business, mostly related to activities in the low and middle voltage, and maintenance activity in our generation fleet particularly in our hydro and gas facilities. Finally, development CapEx reached $167 million, representing 58% of our total CapEx, a decrease of 21% compared to last year's figures, considering that we are finalizing our renewable and BESS portfolio under construction. Let's now move to the next slide where we have a summary of the second quarter EBITDA breakdown. In the second quarter of 2024, our EBITDA reached $301 million, 6.4 times higher than the second quarter of 2023. Let me explain the main effects on this call. I will start with the positive effects. First I would like to highlight a relevant contribution from PPA sales equivalent to $150 million, primarily related to higher volume, mainly regulated market as we have view in the preliminary slide and indexation in the free market. Another relevant aspect of these quarters is related to industrial sourcing for $70 million, mainly explained by lower variable costs coming from lower commodity prices and thermal generation, considering this quarter's hydrological situation and more efficient generation mix. Third, there is a positive contribution of $60 million related to commercial sourcing, primarily due to lower parties in the stock market, mainly explained by lower prices as a result of more significant higher generation in the period. In addition, we had a positive effect of $12 million related to the grid margin, mainly explained by the grid remuneration associated with the VAD 2024 regulatory report publication. Finally, we had a positive effect of $13 million from OpEx and others. This is mainly explained by higher capacity payments coming from new projects, which more than offset higher OpEx related to these new renewable projects. The above mentioned effects were partially offset by a negative effect of $7 million related to the largest gas activity carried out during the second quarter of 2023. And finally, we had a negative effect of $10 million related to the Metka PPA agreement, which was signed in 2023. Let's move on to the next slide to review the main impact on EBITDA during the first half. In the first half, our EBITDA was 74% higher than last year, reaching $597 million. Let's start by explaining the positive effect. First, we had a positive contribution from PPA sales equivalent to $168 million, mainly related to higher volume in the regulated market and indexation in the pre-market in line with the effects explained previously in the quarter. Second, there is a relevant effect of $160 million related to industrial sourcing, primarily explained by lower variable costs due to lower thermal generation as a consequence of the remarkable hydrology of the period, and a more efficient generation mixing by positive effects of the AG instrument versus 2023. Third, there is a positive contribution of $108 million related to the commercial sourcing, primarily explained by lower prices and volume associated with the purchases in the spot market. This effect is partially offset by higher purchases from third parties. In addition, we had a positive effect of $16 million related to the grid margin, primarily explained, as in the quarter, by the recognition of the VAD 2020-2024 in the period. Now, on OpEx and others. We had a positive effect of $16 million from OpEx and others, which is mainly explained by the same effect as I already mentioned in the quarter, linked to the higher capacity payments coming from the new project, which offset higher OpEx related to them and higher costs for contingency plan after the climate events during the second quarter of 2024. The above-mentioned effects were partially offset by a negative effect of $124 million related to the remarkable gas trading activity carried out during the first half of 2023 for around 2020 tera btu. Finally, there was a negative effect of $35 million related to the Metka PPA agreement signed in 2026. Let's move on to the next slide, where we will review the net income evolution accounting for $267 million. Our net income increased by 2.2x versus last year's figures, mainly explained by the EBITDA results. Let me drive you through the additional effects for the first half. Higher depreciation, amortization, a bad debt of $34 million, mainly resulting from higher depreciation in energy and power due to the new renewable capacity coming into operation, higher bad debt accrual in Green due to higher credit losses expected associated with the residential customer. Regarding financial results and equity investment, we recorded a $6 million reduction versus last year, mainly explained by higher interest related to the PEC receivables, offset by higher financial expenses and lower financial income linked to the lower average interest rate. Income tax increased by $57 million, mainly due to better results in the period. This was partially offset by lower costs related to the reclassification of assets held for sale in 2023, specifically those related to Arcadia. Focusing on the quarter, our net income increased by $137 million. This increase is mainly explained by the rise in EBITDA contribution, which was partially offset by an increase in D&A and the debt of $21 million, primarily due to a $15 million linked to the operation of new renewable capacity. Bad debt increased by $6 million primarily due to higher credit losses among the residential customer in the distribution business. These dynamics closer in euro but offset in the first half. Higher financial expenses and lower financial income linked to the lower average interest rate. An increase in tax of $58 million in the period is mainly due to the earnings before tax losses recorded in the second quarter of 2023 and positive EBITDA in 2024. Moving to FFO analysis on the next slide. Regarding FFO, the figures for 2023 have been adjusted by $310 million paid in taxes on capital gains obtained from the sale of Enel Transmission in 2022. In the first half of 2024, our FFO reached $52 million, representing an improvement of $56 million compared to the same period in 2023. Let's see the comparison of our first half 2024 FFO and the balances versus 2023, starting with EBITDA. $597 million coming from EBITDA in 2024 and a variation of $254 million versus last year period, primarily due to higher PPA sales and positive performance of the industrial and commercial sourcing, as already explained. $216 million negative impact coming from the cumulative stabilization mechanism effect in our receivables. This negative effect is partially offset by the execution of IDB factoring related to the PEC, which amounted to $70 million this first half. Once compared with the last year figures, the net impact of the PEC adjusted by factoring in the period totaled $147 million, an amount of $15 million higher than last year figure. Working capital reached a negative balance of $142 million, mainly due to the payment from 2023. Once compared to last year's figures, the working capital was $19 million lower, mainly explained by the sales of our headquarter in Santa Rosa building in 2023, partially offset by higher accumulation of VAD tax credit and payments associated with the Santa Rosa feedback explained. Income tax also negatively impacted our FFO results by $137 million, mainly explained by higher tax payment in generation business in 2024 and taxes paid on the sale of Arcadia assets. Once comparing the income tax paid in the first half of 2024 basis, first half 2023, we see a negative balance of $135 million. The main differences come from the tax payment of Arcadia operation, the recovery from previous periods obtained during 2023 and lower tax payment in generation business. To conclude, regarding financial explain -- expenses, this first half of $120 million has a negative effect primarily explained by the payment of debt related expenses. Once we compare this first half financial expenses with the last year figures, we see a balances of $32 million, mainly explained by lower financial income linked to both reduced cash level and lower average interest rate. Now, let's take a look at our liquidity and leverage position. Our gross debt increased by 8% to $4.8 billion by the end of June 2024 compared to December 2023. This higher debt was mainly due to higher working capital and CapEx needs for 2024. This increase in gross debt should reverse during the second half of 2024 considering the seasonality of our generation business and then currently factor under the PEC we're making which we expect to be carry out soon. The average term of our debt maturity slightly decreased to 5.9 years by the end of the first half of 2024 versus the 6.1 years in December 2023. And the portion of the fixed rate was 76% of the total debt. The average cost of our debt reached 5% as of June 2024 and slightly above the 4.9% recorded in December 2023, primarily due to the Enel Generacion Yankee bond maturity in April 2024 for $100 million at 4.25%. Regarding liquidity we are in a comfortable position to support our capital needs for the coming months and cope with the next year maturity. As of June 2024, we have available committed credit line for $750 million and a cash and cash equivalent for $305 million. Now, I will conclude this presentation with some closing remark. The first half of this year was very important regarding update in the regulatory framework. The VAD 2020-2024 decree and the approval of the PEC three were followed by the publication of the PNP decree which was a significant milestone for the generator starting to execute factoring in the third quarter 2024. Today, the regulatory agenda is centered on the potential increase of subsidies for vulnerable family. We understand the importance of this moment and we are constantly monitoring the situation. We will provide any necessary feedback to the authority and association according to former processes. However we hope that the State of Chile will make the best decision for all maintaining the security of the regulatory and market environment. An important message that I would like to leave here concerns the increase of flexible technology in our generation markets. As you can see all the committed megawatts of renewable generation and BESS were successfully delivered. As I mentioned before, we are also concluding the Los Condores hydropower plant by the end of this year. To conclude, in this quarter, you can also see that we have been able to deliver a more than solid operating and financial performance in the first semester. These are the results of our actions to unlock value and give us enough support to be confident about our 2024 guidance. Let me now hand over to Isabela.

Isabela Klemes

Thank you, Giuseppe. Let's now begin with the Q&A session. We will receive questions via phone and chat in the webcast. The Q&A session is open. Operator, please you may start.

Operator

Thank you so much. [Operator Instructions] One moment for our first question and it is from Alessandro Di Vito with Mediobanca. Please proceed.

Alessandro Di Vito

Hi, thanks for taking my question. I have three. The first one is on the PEC mechanism. So, I wanted to understand you said that you have more or less $1 billion to recover. I wanted to understand if this amount can move or is it still? Because I saw that on your cash flow you booked additional $200 million in this first half. So, I wanted to understand if you could either move upwards or downwards? And then you said that you expect to recover let's say $600 million of receivables by the end of the year but the whole amount is going to be fully recovered by 2025. So I wanted to understand the trajectory of the remaining $400 million? This was the first question. The second question is on the update of distribution tariffs. I wanted to understand if the conclusion of the review for 2020-2024 tariffs had some impact on your numbers? And you also said that you expect a 5% increase in tariffs for the next update for 2024-2028. So, I wanted to understand which impact this may have on your numbers? And the last question is on guidance. So, you confirmed the guidance for 2024. If I remember correctly the guidance was based on an assumption of a 10 terawatt hours hydro output. But now we see that the projections are pointing more towards 12 terawatt hours. So I wanted to understand whether this guidance is conservative? Because looking at the numbers they are more or less we're more or less halfway through the year and they're off the number of the guidance. So I just wanted to square the circle on this matter. Thank you.

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Okay. Starting from the first one. As I said we have at the end of June, we had $1 billion. That includes also around $150 million in terms of income. Now, the evolution of the PEC is based on the exchange rate U.S. dollar-pesos because I remind you that we have the PPA in dollar even if the payment of the [indiscernible]. So, we have a certain trend at the end of the year but again this trend is strictly linked to the exchange rate FX. The recovery that we are -- the recovery that we expect in 2024, of course, are strictly linked to this factoring process. The remaining part is going to be recovered between 2025 and 2026 [ph]. I would like to remind you that the PEC 1 was seen to have a mechanism of recovering that is going to finish in 2027. So, approximately we have but again this is just an estimation so far. We are going to recover another $200 million in 2025 and the remaining part between 2026 and 2027. These are basically the current estimation that we have today. For what concern the tariff update 2020-2024, as I said, we have an increase in our number of around $15 million in June versus last year. You have to consider that this amount include also around $7 million that are part of recognition that is referring to the previous year. You have to consider that this tariff decree is basically adjusting a situation that was absolutely externally because we are at the end of the process and only now we got the final tariff. So, part of this increase is related to the adjustment from 2020-2023. And for what concerns the next regulatory cycle 2024-2028, let me say that the technical report that we have received supplies in line with our strategic plan. So basically we don't see any kind of situation that could so far -- could affect the strategic plan. Clearly we are going to give us our feedback and we are going to try to understand which is the, best tariff for covering the several aspects of the distribution company but as of today we don't have any kind of issue for the PEC a technical report. In terms of guidance, well, what I can tell you is that as of today we confirm our guidance of course. What we declared on the last Capital Market Day was the range. And as of today I can confirm that we are in a range -- in this range. Clearly we are still trying to understand which are -- which is the results of the [indiscernible] and that will give us further information to understand how the amazing season will be in the following months. But as of today I can tell you that we are in the range of the guidance.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Thank you, Giuseppe. Operator, do we have more questions coming from the line?

Operator

Yeah. Thank you. One moment for our next question and that is from Maria Florencia Mayorga Torres with MetLife. Please proceed.

Maria Florencia Mayorga Torres

Thank you. Thank you for taking my questions. Just a follow-up regarding the receivables, so for this year how much are you expecting to be able to monetize?

Isabela Klemes

Thank you, Florencia.

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Well, for what concern the receivable that is currently affecting our generation company. As I said in the June closing we have approximately $1 billion. And if everything is going as expected in the second half between I would say, September and October we were able to make the -- to proceed with the factoring process so we should have around $450 million and $600 million of outlook.

Maria Florencia Mayorga Torres

Okay.

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

This is the EBITDA.

Maria Florencia Mayorga Torres

Okay. Perfect. Thank you.

Isabela Klemes

Thank you, Florencia. Operator, more questions coming from the line?

Operator

Yes. I have one more question from the line of Martín Arancet with Balanz. Please proceed.

Martín Arancet

Hi. Thank you for the presentation and for taking my questions. I have three questions. I would like to run them one by one, if that's okay. First we learned that Santiago electrical expressed a desire to see the Santiago electrical that was even stimulated in order to address potential issues with quality of service. I was wondering if this could affect the distribution of Chile Opex and CapEx plans and if so, about how much?

Isabela Klemes

Thank you, Giuseppe.

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Yeah. I mean maybe the extreme weather events that we had in May, affected our supply of energy into our work. It was very, very complicated, because of rain and also temperature. And clearly we had some cost associated with it which are approximately $10 and clearly we are in discussion with BESS to understand how to manage this situation. We don't have so far any other information about that.

Martin Arancet

Okay. Well following up then on energy solution. And I'm sorry because I think that you already mentioned this so I may be asking you to repeat yourself. But I want to understand the situation around poor household power bills? So if you could please tell us which hikes have already been implemented by July? I guess that the ones related to Valor Agregado the distribution already implemented. I was wondering which hikes have been implemented in the energy component? And also specifically about the surcharge for large customers related to the PEC grade payment if that has been already implemented in the power bills also?

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Thank you. Giuseppe?

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

For what concern the tariff adjustment in the distribution segment, we have two kind of adjustment depending on the cluster. So we have the clients that consume lower than 350 kilowatt hours, which the increase is going to be around 16%. And this increase is basically the result of three components. The first one is the update of VAD 2020-2024. That represents 5%. So basically the increased tariff associated to the VAD 2020-2024 the distribution company is around 5%. The remaining part is split between an increase in the tariff coming from the updating transmission regulatory framework so this is around 4%, and finally, we have 8%, which is associated to the generation segment. This is for what concerned the cluster of clients lower than 350 kilowatt hours. For the other one more than 350 the increase of tariff is higher, because we have an increase in Distribution segment 5% transmission 4% and an increase in the segment for the generation company that is going to be around 33%. And this is because basically for this customer we are going to apply basically the cost of PPA that the tenders in the past year has been resulting. For what concern the PEC the PEC that we're going to factorize by the end of the year includes also the interest.

Martin Arancet

There is a date for these increases sorry?

Isabela Klemes

The date of this increase?

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

It's already in place.

Martin Arancet

Okay. Thanks. Well, my last question then regarding the El Manzano and La Cabaña batteries. I think that they were connected if I'm not in mistaken before. They are co-located generation plants start the operations. So I was wondering what is the remuneration mix that you expect to receive from these? For the moment sale on batteries is shut spot trading or also capacity payments and perhaps some ancillary services as well? And also who will be in charge of deciding the charging and discharging times of these batteries? Is it going to be Enel Chile or [indiscernible]?

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Okay. Look for what concern this battery basically the composition of the revenues are basically coming from the capacity payment and the energy shift. These are the main component of the remuneration of this plant. The ancillary services we are waiting for an update of the regulation by the end of this year. And as soon as it's going to be in force, we are going to have also an additional FX coming from this stream of revenue. And these two projects are projects retrofitting. So basically are jointly to another renewable project in this case the El Manzano [ph]. And in this case, we are talking about solar power plant. So basically they are charging from the solar power plants but the regulation allow us to charge the battery also by the grid. So depending on the situation we are going to use one of the two.

Isabela Klemes

Thank you, Giuseppe. Operator, do you have more questions coming from the line?

Operator

Yes, I do. One moment for a follow-up from Alessandro Di Vito with Mediobanca. Please proceed.

Alessandro Di Vito

Hi, again. Thanks for taking my questions. I have a follow-up -- a couple of follow-ups actually. Well, the first one is on PEC. So you said that the general framework to recover the PEC-3 receivables goes up to 2025, but you want to recover all the $1 billion before 2027. Is this correct? And you said that you have this $1 billion at June 2024, of which $150 million is related to interest and $850 million is related to tax receivables. Is this correct? Because in this sense the $850 million is what is still and the $150 million related to -- let's say, related to interest is the amount that is going to -- that may change in the coming months. So this is the first follow-up. The second follow-up is just a clarification on the update of tariffs. So you said that you expect a 5% tariff increase on the next regulatory period so 2024-2028 but the $16 million that -- let's say, that you are accounting in your numbers, it's related to the update so the one that's been concluded the 2020-2024. I just wanted to have a confirmation on this? Thanks.

Isabela Klemes

Thanks, Alessandro. Giuseppe?

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Yes. I mean we'll try to be more clear. So, as I said, as of today, we have $1 billion that includes $1 billion credit coming from the PEC-3. That includes $150 million in terms of interest. And by the end of the year, we are going to factorize around $550 million $650 million. The remaining part is going to be recovered not necessarily through the factoring but according to the regular mechanism. By the end of 2027, the increase for what concern the outstanding credit that we have today. Clearly from now onwards, we are going to accumulate -- depending on the market conditions, we're going to accumulate another remaining part that is going to -- is not going to be a huge part of our credit but we are going to recover it in the next year. And...

Isabela Klemes

The second question...

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

For what concern the update tariff in the distribution, as I said, the impact for the distribution -- sorry the remuneration that is going to impact the distribution company is only related to the 5% increase that the company is going to receive, because of course, the remaining component transmission international is going to be passed through to the international company and the establishment company. So the amount that you see there in terms of margin, of course, is linked exclusively to the 5%. And as I said, we are -- sorry?

Alessandro Di Vito

For the next regulatory period 2024-2028, right?

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

No. For the 2024-2028, we are still understanding how it's going to be the...

Alessandro Di Vito

Okay. I just wanted to understand the -- what regulatory period was related to $15 million which relates to the 5%. So it's -- .

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

First one.

Alessandro Di Vito

Okay.

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

As of today, at least the information that we got are in line with our expectations. So, we don't see a drop today, we don't see any kind of worry, but it's too early to understand how it's going to be, the tariff.

Alessandro Di Vito

Okay. Thank you so much.

Operator

And I'm not showing any further questions in the queue. I will pass it back to Isabela for any additional questions on your side.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Isabela, your line is muted if you are reading the questions.

Isabela Klemes

Thanks, operator. So the first question is coming from Felipe Torres from ISP Abita [ph]. So the question is, could you explain the better results in the Distribution segment? Is it related to the tariff decree of June?

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Yes. As I said, basically, the tariff decree allows energy distribution to adjust the provision made in the past regarding the VAD 2024. So basically, up to June we used to make an estimation on the provision point of view, estimation of the tariff. Right now, we have the funnel size. So we started applying the funnel size that we received, and we are recovering part of the adjustment that we made in the previous year. So this is basically the main reason of increase in the distribution company. Clearly, we have all -- several other effects, the demand, the inflation. But basically, in terms of the decree, this amount is clearly significant for a company because it is recovering the gap that we had in the last year.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Also now on distribution, we have received some also questions coming from now our e-mail, okay? So some retail investors are asking us, not regarding the impact of the current tariff discussions on Enel Chile. The question is whether the published tariff decree explain the results of Enel Chile as indicated by the press?

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Let me clarify the point. For what concern the generation company, the tariff decree doesn't have any kind of impact in terms of EDA because since the first PEC law has been issued, we started to register, to make a provision according to the PPA in place. So basically, we don't have any kind of increase in terms of PPA because of this tariff increase. And this is the reason because we have the PEC receivables. So we continued since the beginning to repeat the correct PPA price. What we received in terms of payment only a part of this PPA price. This is the reason because we have the PEC receivable. For what concern the target decree, the only impact that we can -- that is related to the increase of our performance is on the distribution company. So basically, what we have already said, distribution is after three years roughly starting to accrue according the current tariff, and this is explained -- and this explains around $15 million, not more, not less, of which half of it approximately is coming from the adjustment of the previous year. So basically, in a very short way, I would say that the current decree impacted in our performance in a very, very low amount.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Thank you, Giuseppe. Let's go to another question now coming from -- the second question is coming from Fernan Gonzalez from BTG. So Fernan is asking us how and when do you expect to receive in the payments from the accumulated debt in the distribution segments from the delay of 2020-2024 decree?

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Okay. Well our estimation is that we are going to receive the accumulated debt at the beginning of next year – in the first quarter of the next year. This is the estimation that we have as of today. I don't believe that we're going to get any kind of adjustment by the end of the year.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Thank you, Giuseppe. Now we joined two questions here one from Fernan Gonzalez from BTG. So how do you feel about your medium to longer-term contracted portfolio? Are you still participating in the new unregulated option to try to win new PPAs? Or do you believe you don't have much room left? So also there is a very similar question coming from Ken Shao [ph] from Morgan Stanley. He's also asking us about are you still on track to hit the 33 terawatt hours sales by 2024-2026? You have several regulated contracts ending. So how will you source additional contracts?

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Well as of today we don't see any -- we don't have any kind of information about new regulated trends as of today. In general of course as I already explained several times I mean we don't have any kind of prejudice in our customers. So the best PPA in we are going to choose. So for what concern the 33 terawatt hour this year we don't see any kind of issue. We basically -- all the contracts have been already in place. From the next year we are in negotiation with several customers in order to fulfill the amount of terawatt hours that is going to expire according to the PPA in the regulatory segment. So as of today we confirm our target in terms of sales and we are confident to reach.

[indiscernible] [68

26] :

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Yes. I mean in terms of wind I would say it is around $1.6 million per megawatt approximately. We said several times it's depending of the project how it is an extension of an existing one how much it's close to the grid. But in general $1.6 million per megawatt is a good proxy of the cost. For what concern the solar I would say that we are close between $0.7 million and $0.8 million per megawatt. Let me remind you that in our plan as of today we are not expecting any other solar power plant. And for what concern the best [ph] we believe that something is improving the best cost because we are -- we believe that we're able to reach $1 million per megawatt in the best power plant per hour.

Isabela Klemes

Perfect. Thank you, Giuseppe. We do not have any more questions. So we would like to thank you all for being connected today. And as always if you have any other doubt the Investor Relations team will be available. Have a great end of week. Bye-bye.

Operator

And thank you all for participating in today's program and you may now disconnect.

TranscriptFY2024 Q12024-05-02

FY2024 Q1 earnings call transcript

Earnings source - 24 paragraphs
Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Enel Chile's First Quarter 2024 Results Conference Call. My name is Victor and I will be your operator for today. During this conference call, we may make statements that constitute forward-looking statements within the meanings of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements reflect only our current expectations, are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors. These factors are described in Enel Chile's press release reporting its first quarter 2024 results. The presentation accompanying this conference call and Enel Chile's annual report on Form 20-F include under Risk Factors. You may access our first quarter 2024 results press release and presentation on our website www.enel.cl and our 20-F on the SEC's website, www.sec.gov. Readers are cautioned to not place undue reliance on those forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates. Enel Chile undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements or to disclose any development as a result of these forward-looking statements become inaccurate, except as required by law. I will now like to turn the presentation over to Mrs. Isabela Klemes, Head of Investor Relations of Enel Chile. Please proceed.

Isabela Klemes

[Foreign language] Good morning and welcome to Enel Chile's 2024 first quarter results presentation. Thank you all for joining us today. My name is Isabela Klemes and I'm the Head of Investor Relations team. Joining me this morning is our CEO and CFO, Giuseppe Turchiarelli. As announced, it on April 29, our shareholders' meeting has designated a new Board of Directors, and I would like to thank the former members for their contribution to our company over the year and our best wishes for the new members that will be part of our new board. In the sector, governance of our annex, you can find the new names and the ones designated to be the new Chairman of our Board and the Chairman of the Directors committee. Also on the same date, the Board of Directors, [material effect] nominated Giuseppe Turchiarelli as our new CEO. As to the designation of a new CFO, Giuseppe will also hold in the interim deposition of our CFO. Our presentation and related financial information are available on our website, www.enel.cl in the Investors section and in our Ask Investors. In addition, a replay of the call will soon be available. At the end of the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions via phone or webcast chat through the link, ask a question. [Operator Instructions] In the following slide, Giuseppe will open the presentation with our key highlights of the period, then go through our portfolio management actions and regulatory context updates, and finally, will give us a view of the business economic and financial performance. Thank you all for your attention, and now let me hand over the call to Giuseppe.

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Thank you, Isabela. Good morning, and thanks for joining us. Let's start the presentation with our main highlights on Slide 2. In this quarter, our hydro generation portfolio continue to perform remarkably, a result of the exceptional [ideologic] seamless last year, mainly due to El Nino phenomenon in 2023 and a better meltdown season. This performance give us a strong start to the year in terms of efficient generation portfolio mix. Today, the CNE will publish the last month's regulated section spot price its own [indiscernible] offering. Given this release, we will be able to confirm whether or not our offering was competitive. We will only know the winner name in the coming days. Still on the regulatory side, we have some important news to share. First, the Chilean Congress approved the law related to the stabilization mechanism PEC 03, a very positive important sign of stability in the energy market. Law 21 667 has already been published last April 30. Second, we continue to expect the new distribution tariff in 2024 to enter into force in the second half of the year. The distribution tariff review 2024-2028 process has already started, and we are expecting some updates in the field next month. We will give inputs on all topics later. In terms of our profitability, I'm pleased to announce that 2024 has started its solid results in terms of EBITDA and net income, which reflects our confidence in our guidance for this year. To conclude, the shareholders meeting approved the final dividend for 2023 of CLP 4.58 per share. Now in May, we will pay CLP 3.98 per share, complementing the amount already distributed in paid as interim even during January this year. Now let us move to Slide 3 to review how we executed our goals and strategy toward a more efficient generation portfolio mix. The favorable hydrological conditions during 2023 not seen since 2010, allowed us for a more comfortable weather availability until the end of the first quarter 2024. This effect associated with the feat of amazing season during 2024 resulted in higher hydro generation of 0.9 terrawatt hour. Net electricity generation totaled 6.1 terrawatt hour as of March 2024, exceeding by 19% the production during the first quarter of 2013, mainly due to higher hydro renewable generation, resulting from the improved hydrological condition of new projects, respectively. These also offset the lower thermal dispatch, mostly related to the better hydro situation of the period. Our energy mix totaled 8.5 terrawatt hour in March 2024, 0.8% higher than the level recorded in the first quarter of 2023, primarily due to higher sales to regulated customers. In terms of our balance, during this quarter, we increased our purchases from third parties by around 0.6 terrawatt hour as a part of our continued efforts to diversify our sourcing. As a result, our spot purchases have decreased by 0.9 terrawatt hour. Almost 60% of this reduction was in the non-solar hours. A lot has been told regarding the operations at El Nino for 2024. So we continue to have a conservative hydro projection for 2024 of 9.6 terrawatt hour. [indiscernible] that even if we see a drier scenario for this year versus 2023, the big difference we see from the driest year in the past is that now we have plenty of gas volume to fulfill our needs, thanks to [indiscernible] contract and our long-term energy contract with Shell. For reference, we have already achieved new firm agreement with several Argentinian gas suppliers for up to 2.6 million cubic meters per day from May to September 2024, and an additional 3.5 million cube meters per day from October to December this year, giving us certainty to optimize our portfolio during 2024. Now let's move to the next slide to review our main KPI on Slide 4. In terms of renewable investment to increase capacity in this first quarter, we reached 6.5 gigawatt of net capacity, representing a 77% stake in our generation portfolio. This enabled us to reach 76% CO2 free production, 11 basis points higher than in the first quarter of 2023. Regarding Enel X, an important complement to our integrated offerings that support the electrification of our clients, we have improved the performance of several KPIs compared to 2023 [indiscernible] in July. Regarding the distribution segment, the number of clients in distributive energy in our [indiscernible] continue to grow. For the [indiscernible] KPI, looking at the last 12 months indicator, they have remained in line with the same period of last year. Now on the next slide, let's look at some aspect relating to the regulatory context. As you may recall, last call, we have indicated that in January this year, the Ministry of Energy presented a law related to the stabilization energy mechanism with the purpose of continuing the PEC and mitigating the projected increases to final customers. At the same time, we also aim to improve the client protection mechanism known as ABC mechanism for low gradual payment of community [indiscernible] generators and establish a transitory subsidy for the most vulnerable clients. This new law was discussed and approved by the Chilean Congress in April and published and coming to force last Tuesday, April 30. Now we are waiting for two important [effects]. First, the publication of the sovereign guarantee decree needed to start the factoring process. This guarantee shall be presented to investors that will be part of the vision coordinated by the IDB, expected for the next month. Second, the publication of the P&P decree expected by the end of June. With the publication of the document, the tariff on the regulated clients will be active. We expect that the clients shall receive new tariffs at the beginning of the second half of 2024. As of March 2024, we had an account receivable related effect already net of factoring of $849 million. With the publication of the sovereign decree and the PNP decree, we expect to execute the factoring of the current accounts receivable during the second half of this year ranging from $450 million to $600 million. We expect that by the end of 2024, the accounts receivable net of factoring should range between $400 million and $500 million. On the distribution tariff, the regulatory final report for the 2020-2024 cycle was published in January-February, and then tariff decree, and the same period, the remuneration shall be published within the next few months. Regarding the 2024-2028 cycle initiated in January 2024, we expect that the external consultant responsible for realizing the [indiscernible] company studies have started work. And final report is foreseen to be published early in the Q4 2024. We expect that by the end of this year, the regulator shall be published the preliminary report of this new cycle. Even though the new cycle shall not have a relevant change in terms of modeling, we will continue our work with leading the association to address the changes in the regulatory model to match the needs we believe the distribution business requires to guarantee that the electrification and decarbonization plan acquired by the government and by the society shall not be just jeopardized by the like of the distribution infrastructure. Now let's review, on the next slide, how our earnings indicators performed. Our economic and financial performance for this quarter is very solid. Here is a fixed summary of the main figures, which I will detail later. As you can see, this quarter EBITDA remains stable compared to the first quarter of 2023 even though in the first quarter 2023 we had an important contribution from gas trading activity. Our generation portfolio mix in the quarter explain largely these solid results. The net income improved by 6% compared to the same period last year, reaching $157 million for this quarter. This was mainly due to the recognition of PEC 2 interest, which positively impacted the financial results. Net FFO also showed an improvement of 34% in the period, which reached $114 million in this quarter. The improvement too has been impacted by the [indiscernible] we will see more details in the following slides. Now on the next slide, let's review the progress on CapEx. Our total CapEx reached $179 million in the first quarter, which is 65% higher than the figures from the first quarter of the last year. I would like to mention that 67% of our total CapEx is totaling $120 million and was related to renewables and storage, and 22% to $40 million was related to grid, mainly due new customer commissions as a result of the growth of our customer base. Regarding asset management CapEx, which represents 30% or $54 million of our total CapEx, it increased by around 50% compared to the last year's figures, mainly explained by increased maintenance activity in conventional generation trends and distribution business. Finally, development CapEx reached $103 million, representing 58% of our total CapEx, an increase of 77% compared to the last year figures. Considering our renewable portfolio and cost structure and activity at some of our hydrology plants to improve their efficiency. Let's now take a look at the next slide where we will review a summary of this first quarter EBITDA. In the first quarter of 2024, our EBITDA reached $293 million, in line with the last three-year figures. Let me explain the main effects of this cost. First, I'd like to highlight the positive contribution from PPA sales increasing to $53 million, primarily due to higher volume mainly in regulated markets and indexation in the free market. Second, a positive effect of $40 million of the industrial sourcing, mainly explained by lower variable costs, considering a better regulatory scenario and a more efficient generation mix that enable to reduce our fuel consumption. Third, the positive contribution of $47 million related to commercial sourcing, primarily due to lower purchases in the stock market in terms of lower volumes and lower prices, partially offset by higher volume passes from third party. In addition, we had a positive effect of $4 million related to the grid margin. This variation is mainly explained by the greater remuneration, which is associated with the VAD 2020-2024 regulatory report publication. The above mentioned effects were partially led by first, a negative effect of $118 million related to the gas trading activities carried out during the first quarter 2023 for around 10 [indiscernible]; second, we had a negative effect of $25 million related to the Metka PPA agreement signed in 2023. Let's move on to the next slide where we will review the net income evolution accounting for $157 million. Our net income increased by 6% versus last year figures, let me [indiscernible] El Nino effect. EBITDA in line with the last figure as already explained, higher depreciation, amortization of $13 million, mainly resulting from higher depreciation in power due to our new renewable projects in operation and in Chilean peso devaluation in the period, which was partially offset by the change in the consolidation perimeter given [indiscernible], partially offset by lower bad debt accrued [indiscernible] due to a reduction in the commission debt level as a result of the commercial agreement and capping programs executed in the period. Regarding financial results and investment, we recorded a $19 million improvement primarily explained by $21 million related to higher interest and adjustment due to the PEC 2 recognition. Income taxes decreased by $2 million, mainly due to penalties provisions reversion from preliminary period. Moving to FFO analysis on the next slide. When reviewing our FFO for this period, this quarter, our FFO reached $114 million, representing an improvement of $29 million compared to the same period in 2023. [indiscernible] explain our FFO in this year. $293 million coming from EBITDA, mainly thanks to our PPA sales and a positive performance of the industrial and commercial sourcing as explained previously. And negative effect coming from the cumulative stabilization mechanism effect in our receivable -- to $105 million this quarter. This negative effect is being partially offset by the execution of the IDB capital related to PEC 2, which amounted to $15 million this quarter. The result and negative effect coming from the working capital that reached $29 million as a continuance of payment coming from 2023. In addition, income tax this quarter negatively impacted our FFO by $26 million, mainly explained by tax savings in generation business in 2024. To conclude, in terms of financial expenses, we paid $34 million debt interest. Making the comparison of the FFO between first quarter 2024 and first quarter 2023, we can see how the figures are very much in line. The only main difference is related the net impact of the PEC accumulation, as you can see in this slide. Now let's take a look at our liquidity and leverage position. Our gross debt decreased around 1% to $4.4 billion by the end of March 2024 versus December 2023. We foresee that our net debt will continue to decrease by second half 2024, considering the execution of net working capital section expected for the period. Therefore, the [indiscernible] investment level is a temporary condition that will be recovered by the end of the year. The average of our debt maturity decreased temporarily to 5.7 years as of March 2024 from 6.1 years as of December 2023. And the portion at the fixed rate is maintained at 58% of the total debt in line with December 2023. The average cost of our debt reached 4.83% as of March 2024 in line with December 2023. In terms of liquidity, we had a comfortable position to support upcoming investment we see in 2024 we've and cope with possible headwind in the debt market related to the economic situation. As of March 31, 2024, we had signed two new credit lines with third parties, totaling $150 million and with a fee $750 million. In terms of maturity for 2024, we have approximately $770 million during 2024, including $400 million of the Yankee bond in [indiscernible] which was successfully paid in April. The payment was realized using a short-term intercompany investment between Enel Finance and Enel Chile using part of the revolving committed credit lines available for NLG. Now I will close the presentation with some closing remarks. We had a strong start to the year in terms of operating performance, mainly in generation business. The better-than-expected hydrology in 2023 was reflected in a better reservoir level at the beginning of this year. The pace of demand seen in our generation needs also supported our solid results. Sound liquidity put us in a comfortable position to support our short-term strategy and cover the maturity over the plain period part of our derisking and deleveraging strategy announced in our last Capital Market Day. Finally, the next month, it'll be very important in terms of regulatory update for the sector as the release of the sovereign currency decree that will support the start of the factory and the debt recovery as well as the publication of the 2020-2024 tariff decree of the distribution business. Let me now hand over to Isabela.

Isabela Klemes

Thank you for your attention. Now let's begin with the Q&A section. We will receive questions via phone and chat in the webcast. The Q&A section is open. Operator, please, you may start.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Javier Suarez from Mediobanca.

Javier Suarez

Congratulations to Giuseppe for the appointment of new CEO. Two or three questions. The first one is on the impact that the approval of the new stabilization mechanism may have on the working capital improvement during 2024 and the next following year, particularly in the period 2024 to 2026, this approved by the Congress, and that should have a positive impact on the cash flow generation. Second point is also on your latest expectations from the approval of the 2020 to 2024 electricity distribution tariff. The tariffs decrease should be valued in the third quarter. But if you can share with us your latest expectations on what you see or quantify as possible upside from this new regulation? And the third comment is if you can share with us your latest expectation by debt -- for the debt of the Company by the year-end? And the final comment is on the comment that you have made that you feel comfortable with current guidance for 2024. So my argument would be that taking into consideration that hydro production is higher or is likely to be higher than your assumption in the current business plan, taking into consideration that the new stabilization mechanism should allow for the collection of some pending regulatory receivables, there should be some upside from the new distribution framework. Shouldn't we see current target as conservative? If you can elaborate on that, that would be helpful.

Isabela Klemes

Giuseppe?

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Thank you for your congratulations. Well, in terms of price stabilization mechanism, as I said previously, the law has been approved and public. So now we are waiting for several next steps, which are probably the most important fact that we are waiting for are, first of all, the mission of the sovereign decree that give us the guarantee that we cover 30% of our credit we need in order to proceed with the factoring. And the second set is the indication that in decree at the end of June, basically we can define exactly an amount of factoring that is supposed to be done in the second half. Now second half means between the end of third quarter, beginning of fourth quarter. And we are talking about our estimation according to the information that we have, should be between $450 million and $600 million. If we are able to proceed with this factoring, we are going to close the year with accounts receivable that will be between $400 million and $500 million. Consider that -- let me say, most of this amount will be recovered between 2025 and 2026 with a small portion related to the PEC 1 that will be recovered in 2027 according to the law. So this was what concerned the first question. In terms of the impact of VAD 2020 and 2024, we have already included in our profit and loss. So we are talking about around $20 million comparing with our previous assumption. In terms of that at the end of the year, we're supposed to close the year with a net debt of around $3.6 million. Let me say that clearly, this amount that I'm giving you is based also on the possibility of performing the factoring that we already mentioned. So if everything is going well, we are going to close $3.6 million net debt at the end of the year with ratio net-debt-to-EBITDA lower than 3x as our guidance and target already in the cluster time. The guidance, yes, is apparently with the results of the first quarter clearly expected a better guidance. As I said at the beginning, we are not -- we don't know yet how the raining season will perform. So basically, we prefer to be conservative to confirm the guidance that we declared in the capital market. Clearly, there could be some possible upside, but it's [indiscernible]. We probably give you a better or a more updated guidance as soon as we're going to close the second half because as you probably remember, the new season use to start end of April, beginning of May, or the closing of -- for the closing on June, that will be public at the end of July, we are able to give a better view on the guidance. But as of today, we confirm the guidance that we presented in the Capital Markets Day.

Javier Suarez

And to be just 100% crystal clear on your first answer on the amount of regulatory receivables by the year-end. So you were mentioning that that amount of regulatory receivables by the year-end should be along the lines of $400 million, and that should mean a reduction through the year between $400 million to $600 million. Is this correct?

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Yes. Between $400 million and $500 million will be the year-end credit receivables, depending on how much we're able to do in terms of [indiscernible]. Again, I will repeat it, the factoring we're supposed to have between $450 million to $600 million in terms of factoring, and we are estimating to close the year with a credit between $400 million and $500 million.

Isabela Klemes

As we do not save another question from the line, let's go to the chat. Okay. The first question to me from Fernando Gonzalez from BTG. Fernando is saying, Giuseppe, congratulations on your appointment, can we assume continuity from a strategic point of view, or is there something different that you'd like to focus on? What are the things that you will dedicate more time and that concerns you most in the Company? Then Fernando has other questions. So go one by one. That'd be better.

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Thank you, Fernando, for your congratulation. And well in general, I can tell you that no change in terms of strategy. I mean, we stick with the strategy that we have already presented last year in our Capital Markets Day. So the topics and the focus of the Company is the same. That means the capitalization in terms of clearly increase our capacity in terms of renewable with special focus on the financial stability that we have as a pillar in our strategy. So I don't see any kind of changes so far.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. So let's go to the second question. Could you please elaborate more on the $25 million negative impact on EBITDA from the Metka PPA agreement?

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Yes. I mean last year, in the first quarter 2023, we reached an agreement with our supplier of energy. We had a PPA with this company, Metka. And the PPA for seeing the start of the operation this year is a certain amount in certain point of commission delivery. For several reasons, we negotiate with this company an uptake of the contract and the negotiation foreseeing a different delivery point and the compensation regarding the new contract, the update of the contract with Metka was $25 million in 2023. So basically, it is a one-off effect that we had last year that clearly is not going to be repetitive. That's a matter of very specific negotiation with our supplier.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. And the final question for the night. What are your thoughts on the quotation regulatory change that is being discussed with about the way the export market works? Is it a change that you agree with?

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Well, I mean, the -- we are still evaluating the point, consider that the spot price, the impact on the [indiscernible] very extensive topic so much so we are trying to figure out which is the best way of possible changes for, at least, energy. We are at the beginning of the call said we are going to give you more update in the following call.

Isabela Klemes

Thank you, Giuseppe. Now we have a question also on chat here from Florencia Mayorga from MetLife. Florencia is asking if you could repeat again the outstanding about PEC, about we are expecting also for the end of 2024. And also, if we have any update about the prices from the recent regulated adoption?

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

In terms of accounts receivable coming from the PEC, we are assuming to have an amount of factoring that was between $450 million to $600 million in the second half of this year. This factoring in year two, we are going to close the credit receivables at the end of 2024 in a range between $400 million and $500 million. Well, for what concerned the regulatory tender, I mean, right now, we are waiting for the release of the reserved price, the cap price that we mentioned before. And we believe that in a couple of hour, or the next hour, we are going to have some more information and we are going to evaluate in order to understand whether we want or not.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. So another question is coming from [Ignacio Galvez] from Santander. Financial cost during fourth quarter 2023 and first quarter 2024 contains some costs related to electrical [indiscernible] accounts receivables. Are these nonrecurring costs already over or should we expect additional costs in the next quarters? Giuseppe, so this is the question.

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Basically, in understanding the effects related to the transaction that we had with the [buses], we sold the asset to a third-party, and we are not going to have any additional effect in the following months. It's just a matter of account impact, not a financial one. The business of Enel and the electric bus [indiscernible] such an effect once you sell the business.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Then let's go to the final question, the last one from Tomas Gonzalez from Scotiabank. Giuseppe, Isabela, congratulations on your appointment to CEO. Well-deserved recognition. The question of Tomas is can you give us an update in relation to the potential sale of up to 49% of renewable assets and if this sale could be result in a higher dividend going forward?

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Thank you, Tomas. Well, we are going to add with the operational phase of minority stake of our assets, even as of today any kind of update for you, but in the following months, in June, I hope to give you more color on that. In terms of additional dividend, that we're going to see how the process and the price will be. As of today, really, really early to discuss about this topic.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Thank you, Giuseppe. So with this, we conclude our conference call. The investor relation team is available for any doubt you may have. Many thanks for your attention and have a great end of week.

Operator

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.

TranscriptFY2023 Q42024-02-29

FY2023 Q4 earnings call transcript

Earnings source - 28 paragraphs
Operator

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Enel Chile’s Full Year and Fourth Quarter 2023 Results Conference Call. My name is Carmen, and I will be your host for today. [Operator Instructions] Please note that today’s conference is being recorded. During this conference call, we may make statements that constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements reflect only our current expectations, are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors. These factors are described in Enel Chile’s press release reporting its full year and fourth quarter 2023 results, the presentation accompanying this conference call and in Enel Chile’s annual report on Form 20-F, included under Risk Factors. You may access our full year and fourth quarter 2023 results press release and presentation on our website, www.enel.cl and our 20-F on the SEC’s website, www.sec.gov. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on those forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates. Enel Chile undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements or to disclose any development as a result of which these forward-looking statements become inaccurate, except as required by law. I would now like to turn the presentation over to Ms. Isabela Klemes, Head of Investor Relations of Enel Chile. Please proceed.

Isabela Klemes

[Foreign Language] Good afternoon, and welcome to Enel Chile’s 2023 fourth quarter and full year results presentation. Thank you all for joining us today. Joining me this morning is our CEO, Fabrizio Barderi, and our CFO, Giuseppe Turchiarelli. As announced yesterday by our Board of Directors today is the last day of our CEO, Fabrizio Barderi, after 2 years in charge of our company, assuming a new position within Enel S.p.A in Italy. During the period that – the new CEO shall be decided, Giuseppe Turchiarelli shall accept being as Interim CEO of Enel Chile. I take the opportunity to thank Fabrizio for all his contributions to our company over the years. Now our presentation and related financial information are available on our website, www.enel.cl in the Investors section and in our app investors. In addition, a replay for the call will be soon available. [Operator Instructions] In the following slides, Fabrizio will open the presentation with our key highlights of the period then go through our portfolio management actions, regulatory context updates and guidance achievements. Finally, Giuseppe will give you a view of our business economics and financial performance. Thank you all for your attention. And now let me hand over the call to Fabrizio.

Fabrizio Barderi

Thank you, Isabela. Good afternoon, and thanks for joining us. Let’s start our presentation with our highlights on Slide 3. I want to start with our portfolio management highlights. During the year, we added around 600 megawatts of new renewable energy capacity, including our first BESS project. All these additions will support us in our long-term mission of decarbonization and the continued optimization of our portfolio. As of today, we have received a commercial operation date and cost from the system operator for around 1.4 gigawatts, which is in line with our expectations announced in our last 2 Investor’s Day. This year, we had a remarkable performance of our Generation portfolio. The better-than-expected hydrology due to the El Nino phenomenon and all the gas trading activities’ outstanding performance supported the achievement of our goals and targets. On the regulatory side, we have some important news to share. First, the Chilean government presented a draft bill to congress introduced the stabilization mechanism. The PEC 3.0, a very important positive and important sign of stability to the energy market. At the same time, the regulator has published the final technical distribution record. Referring to the 2020-2024 cycle, this step was very important to reduce events or uncertainties to the Distribution business remuneration. I will deep dive into most topics later. Finally, I am pleased to announce that will beat all our financial targets for 2023. which reflects our confidence in Enel Chile’s future and solidity. Giuseppe will give you more color on this. To conclude, during 2023, we recovered around $358 million related to the stabilization mechanism, the PEC 2, include the current project, which represented around $180 million, a positive impact in our net income. Now let us move to Slide 4 to review how we executed our goals and strategy towards a more efficient Generation portfolio. Over the last few years, we have significantly increased our renewable capacity through a diversified pipeline across different tariffs of the towns, increasing our exposure to solar close to center of consumption, to wind and more recently to storage. During 2023, we connected almost 600 megawatts of additional net capacity. In Q4, we connected 106 megawatts related to the last phase of our power plant in Sierra Gorda, 34 megawatts of La Cabana BESS and 39 megawatts of some solar PMGD. During the year, we have also executed some asset rotation in the form of the sale of 416 megawatts of solar generation assets to Sonnedix in the North of Chile and the sale of our Huasco gas turbine power plant. Both were initiatives aimed at optimizing our portfolio and resizing our capital. Regarding costs, since January 2023, we have received the authorization from the National Electricity Coordinator to begin commercial operation for 1.4 gigawatt. This includes projects such as Campos de Sol, Valle de Sol, Finis Terrae, Guanchoi, Sierra Gorda and the recent announced El Manzano and La Cabana. Now let’s look at some updates on the hydrological situation and gas optimization activities on Slide 5. Favorable agrological conditions during 2023 allowed us to reach a higher-than-expected hydro production, exceeding by 25%, the level recorded in 2022, totaling 12.2 terawatt hour of hydro generation, a scenario that we had seen since 2010. The agrological situation in our reservoirs is also very positive year-to-date, when compared to last year’s figure, especially in the South. We have included an updated view of our reservoir levels in the annex of our presentation. Rainfall during 2023 surpassed the last 10-year average period, allowing us to have comfortable water availability until the end of the first quarter of 2024. In fact, as of February 3, 2024, water available for generation was equivalent to 1,800 gigawatts hour, 150 gigawatt hour more than the same day in 2023. Regarding our gas optimization and trading activities, we have guaranteed natural gas and LNG supply to our fleet and executed some very profitable sales to local industrial and mining customers and also to foreign market. The foreign market rates were negotiated during 2022 at very attractive price. And the deliveries were mainly concentrated during the first and fourth quarters of 2023, totaling 4 cargoes sold overall. All the above, contributed around $300 million as margins for 2023. For 2024, we also see the situation as very comfortable. For reference, we have already executed a new firm agreement with several Argentinian gas suppliers for up to 4 million cubic meter per day that are already in operation from October 1 until April – end of April 2024, allowing us to optimize our combined cycle and generation cost. In addition, we have already secured new agreements for 2024 during the period with Argentinian suppliers for up to 2.6 million cubic meter per day from May to September 2024, giving us security to optimize our portfolio during 2024. Now let’s look at some important updates related to the regulatory context on Slide 6. In January this year, the Ministry of Energy presented a draft bill related to the stabilization of energy mechanism with the purpose of continuing the PEC mechanism and mitigating the projected tariff increases to final [indiscernible]. At the same time, they aim to improve the client protection mechanism known as MPC mechanism, to a low gradual repayment of accumulated debt with the generator and establish a transitory subsidy for the most vulnerable clients. Also, during January, the draft bill was reviewed and approved by a Special Energy Commission from the Senate. And now after the Congress annual leaves that end during the month of February, the draft will be discussed first in the Senate plenary and then in the chambers of Congress. Let me say that we consider government proposals very solid and aligned with Chile’s position and growth in incentives investments towards the decarbonization. Let me quickly explain the PDL proposal, starting with how this mechanism is financed. The PDL considers the 3 sources of finance. First, a temporary state subsidy until 2026 of total $20 million per year, then the public service charge, which involves a regulated and pre-clients and that amounts to around $200 million annually. And finally, the client protection mechanism charge that would be applied only to regulated customers up to 2035. Both charges shall have different fees depending on the consumption of each line. With this finance mechanism in place and also the gradual increase in the tariff, which will depend on the client consumption, shall support the recovery of the generator’s account to receivables generated since the enforcement of PEC 1 and PEC 2. In our case, on December 31, we had an account receivable related to the tariff already net of factoring of $759 million. In addition, the PDL has confirmed that PEC 1 settlement shall occur up to 2027. Also, the PDL modifies the PEC – the PEC 2 by extending the settlement limit period from 2032 to 2035 and increasing the total amount of the fund by $3,700 million, totaling $5,500 million. We expect that the PDL will be approved and published to, in the first semester for 2024, considering the urgency of the decision and the fact that the next regulatory auction is scheduled to be held during April. Regarding the distribution tariff review, the regulatory’s final report for the 2020-2024 cycle was published early this month of February. And the tariff decrease on the distribution 2020 to 2024 remuneration cycle should be published within the next few months. And let me say that we had a more positive view of the process when comparing to 2023. Additionally, by November 2024, we should start the distribution regulatory cycle comprising the 2024-2028 period. We have still at the very beginning of this process. Currently, the external consultant responsible for realizing the reference model company studies had started this work. The results of this study shall be known in the following months. Now let us move to Slide 7 to review our main KPIs of 2023 versus our guidance. In terms of renewables and BESS execution, we have achieved our goal reaching 77% of renewables and BESS contribution in our metrics on 31st December 2023, contributing to our commitment to the country’s energy transition. The latter also enabled us to reach our goal of 74% greenhouse gases free production over the total during 2023. Let me point out that our efforts intending to improve efficiency and quality of the Distribution business have led us to the increased indicators such as target and also to achieve our goal regarding network losses in spite the more complex market scenario. On the electrification efforts, we have all touched our goal. Now let us review on to Slide 8, our main financial indicators over our 2023 guidance. During 2023, we experienced a significant improvement in our operation, mostly explained by a more efficient generation mix related to a better agrological situation and the contribution of our optimization portfolio action plans developed and executed during the last year. That later coupled with the conclusion of optimization initiatives, such as the sale of Arcadia last October, enabled us to achieve our EBITDA and net income committed. On the last financial year, we have reached the upper range of the guidance announced during 2023 Investors Day. Giuseppe will provide details on our performance on EBITDA and net income in the following slide. All the above guaranteed our leverage and net debt-to-EBITDA committed, meeting a comfortable – recommending the maintenance of the committed payout which was also the company’s Board of Directors recommendation and was also in line with our guidance. Now I will hand over the call to Giuseppe, the floor is yours.

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Many thanks, Fabrizio. Good afternoon to all our investors connected. I will start my presentation with a summary of our main results of this year. To better evaluate our company earnings performance, we present the 2022 figures as a pro forma that includes the following adjustments. First, the full year 2022 EBITDA has been adjusted by the impairment of the coal stock and the write-off of generation projects totaling $124 million. This adjustment was $63 million in Q4. Likewise, these adjustments affected the bottom line by a total of $83 million in the full year and $41 million in the Q4 of 2022. Additionally, we have excluded from these figures in order to better evaluate the operational performance of our company, two one-off effects. The operational results and capital gain of the sale of Enel Transmision and the impact of the agreement with Shell, both executed in December 2022 totaling $643 million in the full year and $568 million in Q4. These adjustments affected the bottom line by a total of $1,230 million and $1,185 million in the full year and in the Q4, respectively. Regarding the FFO, the figure for 2023 – in 2022 have been adjusted only by the sale of Enel Transmision. It means that 2022 figures include the Shell agreement, in 2022, in terms of cash, the adjustment to $20 million in the full year and $2 million Q4. In 2023, we have excluded $310 million paid in taxes on capital gains obtained from this transaction. Considering these adjustments, let’s see how the earnings indicate on an FFO performance. As you can see in the full-year period and the fourth quarter 2023, our earnings indicator present an important improvement compared to the 2022 figures. Regarding EBITDA and net income, the improvement is mainly explained by a more efficient generation mix thanks to the outstanding hydro renewables performance and due to greater gas trading activities, we will see more detail in the following slides. Regarding the FFO, the ‘23 full year figures show a relevant improvement impacted mainly by the effects of factoring executed for around $345 million and other cash management optimization actions. Let me remind you that the Q4 2022 FFO includes $520 million agreement. We will see more details later on. Let’s review now progress on CapEx. Our 2023 total CapEx reached $804 million, basically in line with our guidance for the year. I would like to highlight that 78% of our total CapEx was related to the renewables and storage in line with our strategy of rebalancing our portfolio to adapt it to the new market context. In addition, 15% of our CapEx was mainly related to client new connection in grids, considering the growth in our customer base. Customer CapEx totaled $78 million, 7% higher than the previous year, mainly associated with the new customer connections. Asset management CapEx reached $129 million, 36% lower than previous year, mainly due to lower maintenance activity in conventional generation plants in Distribution business. Development CapEx reached $597 million, representing a decrease of 33% versus last year’s figures in line with the remaining renewable portfolio under construction. Let’s now take a look at Slide 12, where we have the summary of the fourth quarter 2023 EBITDA breakdown accounting for $471 million. First of all, let me remind you that we have included the pro forma of our fourth quarter 2022 EBITDA for comparison purposes. We have been – we have excluded from the 2022 EBITDA, the impact of the one-off effect from the sales of transmission that we [indiscernible] Chile and the agreement signed with Shell. Taking this into the consideration, our fourth quarter 2023 EBITDA was around $71 million higher than 2022 pro forma, mainly explained by the following: First, a positive contribution from hydro and renewable assets totaling $41 million, mainly related to the improved hydrology in the quarter. Second, a positive effect of $83 million on variable costs, mainly explained by lower withdrawal, spot price, lower transmission fees and savings due lower fuel consumption, both as a consequence of best hydrology in the period. In addition, a positive contribution of $80 million related to the gas optimization activity, mainly due to increased gas trading activity for 0.9 tera BTU made in Q4 2023. At a very – increase in prices, negotiating in end of 2022 when the international prices were very attractive. The above maintenance effects were partially offset by $115 million from lower PPA sales in Q4 2023 primarily due to lower average PPA price, mainly related to lower commodity indexation in the regulated market. $18 million in OpEx and other costs mainly explained by our new renewable capacity inflection across all the businesses and negative effects in [indiscernible] due to a higher recognition of gross margin in 2022 partially offsetting the positive effect in distribution margin of $3 million, mainly due to indexation. Let’s move on to the next slide, where we will review the full year EBITDA breakdown summary accounting for $1,237 million. In the full year 2023, our EBITDA increased $358 million versus 2022 pro forma, mainly explained by the following effects: first, a positive contribution from hydro and renewable totaling $213 million, mainly relating to improved hydrology volumes; second, a positive effect of $94 million in variable costs, mainly explained by lower spot price in the period due to a better hydrology since June 2023; a one-off effect of an agreement with one of our PPA suppliers and lower transition fees, partially offset by a lower [indiscernible] generation margin. In addition, a positive side of $81 million related to the gas optimization activities, mainly due to increased gas trading activities from 1 tera BTU in the full year. And finally, a positive contribution of $27 million in grid margin, mainly due to increased remuneration related to indexation, lower financing compensation and higher demand. The above-mentioned effects were partially offset by $17 million from lower PPA sales in the full year 2023, mainly due to lower average PPA price due to indexation partially offset by higher capacity payments in this year, $41 million OpEx and other costs mainly in Generation business explained primarily by our new renewable capacity and maintenance of plants and inflation across all the business. Let’s move on to Slide 14 to take a look at our Generation business new KPIs. Net electricity totaled 24.1 terawatt hours as of December 2023, exceeding by 9% the production during 2022, mainly due to higher hydro and solar generation resulting from the improved hydrology and the addition of new projects, respectively. This also offset the lower thermal dispatch, mostly relating to the disconnection of Bocamina 2 in September 2022. If we exclude the production of Bocamina 2 in 2022, the real increase in the company generation was equivalent to a growth of 15% coming mainly by hydro and renewable contribution. During 4Q 2023, net generation grew by 15% to 6.6 terawatt hour. Mainly due to higher hydro, solar and wind generation. Our energy sales totaled 3.9 terawatt hour in 2023, 0.5% higher than the level recorded in 2022, primarily due to higher sales to pre-customers. It’s worth mentioning that our commitment with our clients were fulfilled with a higher portion of our renewable generation, which also led us to lower energy purchases in the spot market, mainly the non-solar hours. During Q4 2023, physical energy sales increased by 2.2% to 7.6 terawatt hour, mainly due to higher sales to pre-customer. Let me point out that during the last quarter of 2023, our increased renewable production also allowed us to reach 0 net purchases in the spot market. Now on Slide 15, let’s go through the main drivers of our group net income. Our net income increased by 66% excluding the net impact of Arcadia sale of $183 million versus last year pro forma figures. Let me drive you through the main essence, a greater EBITDA of $358 million, as I already explained, higher depreciation and amortization of $22 million, mainly resulting from our new renewable projects in operation, which was offset by lower depreciation in Enel [indiscernible] mainly as a consequence of new investment in power plants that increased the average useful life of property, plants in the city, higher-amortization intangible assets in energy distribution due to the new IT system development, partially offset by lower depreciation and amortization due to the sales of Enel Transmision in December 2022. A lower bad debt mainly related to the client net debt recovery due to several commercial actions. Regarding financial results and net investment, we recorded a $35 million improvement, primarily explained by $98 million related to higher interest and adjustments due to PEC 2 recognition, $10 million, mainly due to equity income linked to not consolidated company and capital gains basically associated to the sales of Huasco thermal power plant. All the above effect were partially offset by lower income related to monetary adjustments, higher financial costs associated to payment schedule optimization agreement with supplier and higher financial expense linked to the sales of part of [indiscernible] business. Income tax increased by $138 million mainly related to the income tax associated with the sales of Arcadia of $148 million. During the fourth quarter of 2023, net income increased 44% to $426 million, primarily explained by higher EBITDA, as detailed in the previous line, higher depreciation and amortization for $10 million which is mainly explained by the Generation business due to new renewable energy projects in operations, higher financial results and equity investment of $13 million. This is explained by $84 million related to the previously mentioned PEC 2 adjustments, partially offset by higher financial expense linked to sales of [indiscernible] business, higher franchise costs related to the payment schedule optimization agreement with suppliers, higher financial costs mainly related to the higher cost of debt. And basically, slight variation on the quarter in terms of income taxes. Moving to the FFO analysis on the next slide, let’s review in detail our FFO for this period. Regarding the FFO, the figure for 2023 – 2022 have been adjusted only by the sales of Enel Transmision but not by the sale agreement executed in 2022. Last year, in terms of cash the adjustment amounted to $20 million in the full year. In 2023, we have excluded $310 million paid in taxes from capital gains obtained from this transaction. Our FFO in 2023 reached $986 million, representing improvement of $334 million. The main effects that explain our FFO in this period are the following: $1.3 billion coming from EBITDA driven by the strong hydrology contribution, gas trading activity and better results in the Distribution business, $406 million negative impact from the cumulative stabilization mechanism effect in our receivables, reducing the cash conversion of that period. This situation has been improved by the impact of the execution of the IDB factoring related to PEC 2, which amounted to $345 million. Working capital reached a positive balance of $88 million as a consequence of cash [indiscernible] from the sale of Santa Rosa buildings and cash management optimization, partially offset by VAT payments related to stabilization mechanism. Working capital improvement once compared to last year’s figures mainly comes from the sales of Santa Rosa building and other managerial actions as well as better collection on the Distribution business. $34 million income tax net payment mainly related to tax payments in Generation business in 2023, offset by tax recovery from previous periods before for both Generation and Distribution business contribution. Once compared to the income paid – income tax paid in 2023 versus last year, the main difference comes from the faster recovery from previous period obtained during this year. To conclude, regarding financial expense, we paid $299 million. This is explained mainly due to the debt interest related to the average impact on the gross debt of 4.9% that reflects also the new interest associated with the revolving credit facility. Once we compare the 2023 financial expenses with last year’s figures, we see an increase also explained by higher average interest rates on the gross debt and monthly payment relative to the revolving credit facility as a bridge instrument for the PEC 2 delay. Now let’s look at our liquidity and leverage position. Our gross debt decreased around $0.3 billion to $4.4 billion as of December 2023 compared to December 2022. This decrease was primarily due to the repayment of regulatory increase in line, partially thanks to the use of the proceeds from Arcadia sale concluded last October 2023. The average of our debt maturity increased to 6.1 years as of December 2023, also improving the portion of the fixed rate to 88% of total debt from 37% in September 2023. The average cost of our debt reached 4.9% as of December 2023, mostly owning to the new profile of our debt, the financial market condition and the prepayment of some bridge short-term instruments. In terms of liquidity, we have a comfortable position in order to support the coming debt maturity in 2024 and also to cope with possible headwinds in the debt market related to the economic situation. Talking about 2024, we had approximately $750 million maturing in 2024, including $400 million of the Yankee bond. In line with our financing strategy and according to our 2024 financial plan, we are evaluating the best alternatives to face this maturity. These would be done through the payment with cash, the use of long-term committed credit lines, executing a new financing at Enel Chile level or a mix between alternatives. Currently, we are in advanced conversation with several banks and financial institutions, which has shown great interest in participating in possible new financing. In the first quarter, we’ll give you more color on it. Now I will hand over to Fabrizio for closing remarks.

Fabrizio Barderi

Thanks, Giuseppe. Enel Chile’s sustainable business model demonstrated its resiliency and rationale and this while sustaining operating and financial results in the management group to conclude the company’s strategy towards decarbonization, electrification and profitability. As planned, the Arcadia transaction was concluded last October. With this, our asset rotation plan was successfully concluded. The 2023 results showed a solid operating performance. The better-than-expected hydrology and the gas trading activities during this year, complemented by the several managerial actions we have taken over the last year, supported us in achieving our commitment towards our shareholders. Finally, we would like to announce that the 2024 Annual General Meeting will be held on April 29 during which our shareholders will deliver on the final dividend for the 2023 results. Let me now hand it over to Isabela.

Isabela Klemes

Thank you, Fabrizio, and thank you all for your attention. So now let’s begin the Q&A session. We will receive questions via phone and chat in the webcast. The Q&A section is open. Operator, please, you may start.

Operator

Thank you so much. [Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from the line of Javier Suarez with Mediobanca. Please proceed.

Javier Suarez

Hi, good afternoon and thank you for the presentation. Several questions on the regulatory side, on Slide 6, you detail several significant improvements in the outlook for regulation when it comes to the stabilization mechanism and also the regulation for distribution. So the question for you is, if you can again clarify the amount of receivables that you have on your balance sheet related to the stabilization mechanism and your latest expectations on the time frame with the recovery of this amount. And how this new guidance may impact your guidance as presented in the recent business plan of November 2023? And a similar question for the distribution regulatory cycle, you are expecting the publication of the decree by – during the second half 2024. You can share with us your latest expectations on this regulatory review and how this compares with the assumptions embedded in your business plan. Then the third question is related to the hydro production and reservoir levels, you can kindly elaborate on how these higher reservoir that you have for 2024 compared with your assumption in the business plan for 2024 and what we may expect in terms of additional contribution from this additional hydro capacity, I guess. And the final question is, this year, we have seen a significant contribution as well from gas trading optimization opportunity, you can share with the expectation for 2024. Many thanks.

Fabrizio Barderi

Okay. Thank you very much. Well, several questions. So let me try to answer starting from the last one. And I will probably to change the order in my – the order in my answer. So gas trading is pretty simple. In the end, we usually have, let me say, between $30 million and $40 million margin in a normal year. And 2024 will be a normal year. So this is the range in which you have to consider our gas trading margin activities for 2024. As we usually experience also in the past, we have some, let me say, growth in gas tariffs, as I said, some million dollars we are talking about that. The order of magnitude changed actively in the last 2 years because of the very particular condition that we experienced in the international LNG market in 2022. That was the moment in which we materialized all our sales that we benefited from in 2022 and 2023 performance. So basically, the standard, let me say, expectation for natural gas trading activity is between $30 million and $40 million. Then hydro production. As I said, we have some through – we have some higher-than-expected levels in our reservoir. And of course, it would help us to probably perform better than expectation in our third quarter. It is difficult to project this in terms of yearly production because starting from the first of April, the [indiscernible] period would end and the new rainfall would affect the overall production of the year. So what can I say it is that we are pretty confident that first quarter results will be boosted by this additional hydro production and additional water in our reservoir that we have been experiencing in this first part of the year. Distribution, regulatory, yes. Well, as I mentioned that this is a positive piece of news. Of course, we still have to wait for the final decree and all the process, the review process from [indiscernible], but we are quite optimistic that this will be the final numbers for [indiscernible] for our distribution activity. And there are some upsides compared to what we registered in the last 3 years because I remember that in the last 3 years, we had to, of course, make our P&L assumptions about the 2020, 2024 distribution tariff. So we have some upside there, and we have probably posted some upside compared to what we now can expect for 2024. In the range of $20 million more in this more or less what we can expect as an upside in our distribution business as a consequence of this final report from the regulator. And then your first question about PEC, I will give you a very general answer, and then I will let Giuseppe to add some more color on that. As I mentioned during my speech, the amount of receivables, net of what we already factored is $759 million. This is the figures that we have in our account for this item. Of course, once the draft bill will be hopefully approved, there will be a path to recover all these accounts receivables that we already registered and, of course, also the evolution of what the – is in point accumulated in the next month. So it’s a quite is a bit complex between what we are going to anyway have as repayments and what it is going to accumulate more and so I will give you – I will leave Giuseppe to add some more color on it.

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Yes. Thank you, Fabrizio. Basically, we believe that the lowest is going to be booked in end of March, beginning of April we are seeing to recover $450 million approximately. It is the amount that we expect to be collected and factorized in 2024, and this is what we put in our projection for the year.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Thank you, Giuseppe and Fabrizio. I think we have reached all the questions from Javier. So now do we have any other questions coming from the line, operator?

Operator

No, we don’t have any more. I can hand it back to you for to mention any questions we have on the chat.

Isabela Klemes

Definitely. We have received some questions here from the audience coming from the chat. So I will start with the first question here that we received from Felipe Torres from [indiscernible]. Felipe Torres is asking us about can you give us more detail regarding this ordinary shareholders’ meeting to be held after the ordinary shareholders’ meeting in April 29? So Felipe, I will answer this one here. So soon all the topics of our shareholders’ meeting will be available in our website, okay? And then once it’s available, we will be here, the Investor Relations team, available for your questions and any other requirements you may have, okay? So coming from the second question now from [indiscernible] Capital. Martin is asking about the PEC Fabrizio and Giuseppe. Will the IDB offer to monetize the PEC 3 receivables as they did with PEC 2, do you expect any financial cost from generators? Giuseppe?

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Yes. Well, consider that the new system, we have seen a full pass-through costs for what concern the generation every time that they’re going to do the factoring except for the legal cost associated to the deal. And IDB is going to – already got the mandate from the government in order to arrange the new factoring. So we believe that the situation is going to be smoother than the previous one. So we do not expect significant cost associated with the factoring.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Thank you, Giuseppe. So now we’ll go to another question coming from Francisco Paz from Santander. The first question of Francisco is what level of gas commercialization do you expect for this year. I think we have already answered not this one. And the second one, what level of hydrogenation are you forecasting for this year in the context of El Nino, La Nina phenomenon, if you see any kind of change in the forecast because of these events that we may have this year. Thank you. Fabrizio?

Fabrizio Barderi

Yes, let me deliver a general answer to that. We already experienced in the past that having El Nino phenomenon or La Nina phenomenon doesn’t imply as a direct consequence – drastic change in hydrology in Chile. Sometimes it happens, sometimes not. So hydrology condition in Chile has not, as in other countries, a natural consequence of this phenomenon. So of course, we monitor this phenomenon, and we also adjust when we have some strong evidence of this phenomenon affecting our hydrological condition. But so far, we don’t see any particular, let me say, impact on what we could expect on 2024. So we have elaborated our budget, and we are still projecting an overall hydrology – an overall directed production for the year, in -line with the last 5 years average. And so meaning 9.6 terawatt hours. This is the reason why we have not changed at least so far, our assumptions about hydro production for this year.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Thank you, Fabrizio. We have one more question coming from Florencia Mayorga from MetLife. So the question is from Florencia. First, she’s giving us the congrats from the results and then how much of PEC 2 receivables are you expected to monetize in 2024? What’s your plans for the 2024 notes due in April? Florencia is asking about the Yankee bond, okay? Giuseppe?

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Yes. I mean, for what concern, the factoring of PEC 2 in 2024, basically, I’ve already answered. So we are talking about around $450 million in the second half of this year. Concerning the maturing of Yankee bond that is going to be repaid in the second quarter of 2024, as I said in my speech, we are basically exploring all uncertainty that we have in our hands. So it’s going to be – we are going to use cash that is available, but also the committed lines that we have outstanding and – of the use. And we are exploring also the possibility to issue a new loan. Now we are, as I said, already in advanced stage of negotiation with some banks and institutions, and we are deciding in this month – we are going to decide in during the March basically, which kind of alternative to apply benefit for our firm. Again, in the first quarter, results, we are going to give you more color on that.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Thank you, Giuseppe. Now questions coming from Rodrigo Mora from Moneda. Rodrigo asked about Los Condores. So the first question from Rodrigo coming about how – if we have some news on the project Los Condores, and also how much resources we will need to enter the construction during this year of 2024. This is the first question. And then the second question that Rodrigo is asking is about the agreement with the Argentinian gas producers. So he’s asking more details about what we have already signed with the Argentinian gas products for 2024. Thank you, Rodrigo, for the question. Fabrizio?

Fabrizio Barderi

Okay. Well, look, regarding Los Condores, we are finally at the end – the final stage of this very particular project, very challenging project, and let me comment, first of all, that all the main civil works that were related to all excavation demand and so the promise that we experienced with this project has concluded. So this is something that, of course, is really important for us to announce that main work that were, let me say, a little bit more risky from a geological point of view are final. They were finalize at the end of December. So about the time the timing we could expect Los Condores online, it would be in the second semester. With this – some months there is a bit more of what we projected previously. And this is – this is related to the big rainfalls that we had last year that, of course, on the one hand, were really positive to our performance in 2023. But unfortunately, on the other hand, make us impossible in some months to continue working on Los Condores project. And so we have some months delay due to this unexpected stop that is related to the heavy rainfall that we experienced last year. In relation with how much investment we need to finalize the project, well, I would say, relatively small amount because we are talking about $60 million. This is our projection for 2024 CapEx needed for – to conclude the Los Condores project. So as I said, finally, we are expecting this important project to be online this year. And we are also pretty optimistic since the main critical work were already finalized. Second question – about the Argentinian gas. Well, I can repeat the numbers I gave you during the speech. But let me first make a general comment. We have been committing to sign several agreements with the Argentinian suppliers because we want to be, let me say, sure about gas availability because the risk profile is really estimated in case hydrological conditions could change versus the ones that we projected in our budget. So of course, we wanted to be sure and to secure enough gas availability in order to be ready to face at best agrological conditions in case more gas production would be needed from our plants and from also from competitors power plants. So the figures I was referring to, it is 4.1 million cubic meters per day in the current period, so starting from October 2023 to August ‘24. Then in the winter period, we secured 2.6 cubic meters per day – millions per day, of course, sorry – and 2.6 million cubic meters per day, and then in the following period, October ‘24, December ‘24, 3.5 million cubic meters per day.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Fabrizio, now we have a last question coming from [indiscernible] from Itau. David is asking about the transmission costs that we had in 2023. So he’s asking, I would like to ask about the transmission costs in fourth quarter, we can see a lower cost in comparison to the other quarter of this year. What explains this difference? Can we expect the same level going forward?

Giuseppe Turchiarelli

Well, in the fourth quarter, the cost of transmission has been offset by the recovery of the cut in costs to the transmission tools. So basically, it’s a net cost on that we released in 4Q. Difficult to predict whether we are going to have again this kind of a recovery. So the kind of stuff that requires more analysis once we have the closing of the book. So right now, I cannot say that we are going to repeat the recovery.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Thank you, Giuseppe. Then we have a last question coming from Fernan Gonzalez from BTG. So Fernan Gonzalez is asking about the reservoirs. So the question is, given the current levels at reservoir and assuming dry conditions, do you see that it could support hydro generation beyond the first quarter and into the second quarter as well. So the question is about reservoirs throughout the next month.

Fabrizio Barderi

Well, of course, this is a very challenging question. because it will depend, of course, also on the level that we are going to experience in the next weeks about inflows generated by the last part of this [indiscernible] season. Of course, the inflows are decreasing, as expected, of course, as always, during the [indiscernible] season. But it is true that this year, we are experiencing a smoother [indiscernible] season when compared to the last year. So that is the reason why we have been accumulating more water in our reservoirs, and we are generating more hydro production compared to our budget expectations. Now saying – commenting if it’s possible to predict if would be also of some comfort in April or during the second quarter is difficult today. It will depend also on the level of inflows that would materialize in the next weeks. Anyway, as I said, of course, it’s a very good business news for Q1. Difficult to comment about Q2.

Isabela Klemes

Okay. Thank you, Fabrizio. As there are no more questions, I will hand over to you, Fabrizio for your final words. Thank you.

Fabrizio Barderi

Thank you, Isabela. Well, as may you know, today is my last day as CEO of Enel Chile. Tomorrow will assume another position within the Enel Group back to Italy. And I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the colleagues in Enel Chile and the management team who worked together with me for all the support during this year during which we worked together to unlock the value of this asset and to reshape the financial sustainability of Enel Chile. Being able to deliver all the commitments agreed to with our shareholders. Also, I would like to sincerely thank all of you for all the engaging interactions we had during our call and meeting. It has provided me with considerable professional growth. So thank you very much again, and all the best.

Isabela Klemes

Thank you, Fabrizio. Thank you all. So with this we conclude our conference call. The Investor Relations team is available for any doubt you may have. Many thanks for your attention and see you soon in our Annual Shareholders Meeting in the end of April. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Operator

Thank you, everybody, for your participation, and you may now disconnect.

As of 2026-05-18 • Updated weeklySource: Earnings sourceIngestion runbook