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The MFS "Active Advantage"… Really?

For those of you who like to peruse CNBC every once in a while, there is a very high chance that you have seen commercials from an outfit called MFS Investment Management. They are very well scripted and highlight some of the typical selling points active managers like to make when speaking to investors about topics such as risk management, downside protection, alpha, and a globally informed perspective through a network of analysts that have boots on the ground at different locations around the world. It is a very compelling story that speaks to a lot of the fears investors have when broaching the topic of investing for the future. The biggest selling point and overall message from these commercials is the fact that MFS Investments are being active in the sense they are not just sitting back and letting things happen. This is often one of the issues we have as advisors when talking about the difference between an active and passive approach to investing in that passive insinuates this idea of not taking action and letting things like large market swings or problems in China just happen. In other words, we are not being proactive in controlling the outcomes these events have on the wealth of our clients. And it is completely understandable. How many times in our daily life do we just sit back idly and wait? It is not the American way or the American spirit. We are supposed to take control of our day and our future. Our outcomes at work and other personal goals such as fitness or relationships are a direct reflection of the actions we take or do not take. Therefore, the same should apply when it comes to investment outcomes, right? This is the unfortunate paradox that traps many investors into believing that the same active approach we take in other areas of our life also applies to that of the financial markets. The reality is that an individual investor has very little control over the day-to-day fluctuations of the market. Furthermore, nobody has enough foresight to know what is going to happen to the markets that somebody else doesn’t already know; at least not with a high degree of certainty. What an investor does have control over is the long-term growth of wealth, which is dependent upon their individual savings rate and amount of risk taken within their portfolio. Legendary investor and mentor to Warren Buffett, Benjamin Graham, famously stated in Security Analysis , “in the short run the stock market is a voting machine, but in the long run it is a weighing machine.” Now, even though we have laid out a line of thinking that seems reasonable, it still wouldn’t be a robust argument without empirical support. Let’s take a look at the individual claims that MFS Investment Management makes in their commercial and the corresponding peer-reviewed academic support for their statements. This is not intended to highlight the merits of MFS Investment Management individually since their claims are very common amongst the active investment community. Claim #1: Active management tends to perform well during market transitions, particularly more difficult markets, providing value in risk management and reducing downside volatility. This is a classic argument active management proponents like to use. It assumes that based on current information they know exactly where we are at in a market cycle. In terms of the academic literature, there has been no conclusive evidence that demonstrates that this claim is true. Active management tends to perform similarly during down markets and up markets. We have already written articles before on the topic of active management providing protection during down markets here . We referenced a paper from the Fall 2012 edition of the Journal of Investing called Modern Fool’s Gold: Alpha in Recessions , which concluded that there is very weak persistence in a manager’s ability to provide superior outperformance during subsequent recessions or expansions. So while it sounds very comforting to say we reduce downside volatility but fully embrace upside volatility, managers usually do not know when each is going to occur, and by the time they act on their premonitions, the market has already moved on. Claim #2: Focus on security selection is such that no systematic component of risk drives performance and offsets everything we are trying to do. Let’s dissect this sentence since there is a lot of fluff. No systematic component of risk refers to either overall market risk, size risk, or relative-price risk. These are more formally known as the different dimensions of risk, which were comprehensively introduced in 1992 in Eugene Fama and Ken French’s seminal paper, The Cross Section of Expected Returns . So if we don’t want one single component of these risk factors driving the performance of the overall strategy, then what we are really saying is that we want to be very well diversified. We want large stocks, small stocks, growth stocks, and value stocks across all different sectors and regions. The problem with this approach is the more and more diversified you get, the more and more you look like the overall market (i.e., index fund). As we will show later, this seems to be an issue MFS Investment Management is running into with a lot of their seasoned strategies. From a security selection standpoint, most active managers have a really tough time distinguishing the next winners from the next losers. In Fama and French’s paper, Luck versus Skill in the Cross-Section of Mutual Fund Returns , they looked at the performance of 819 different mutual funds over the 22 years ending in 2006. They found that the vast majority (97%) didn’t beat their respective benchmark (produce positive alpha), and the small amount that did is indistinguishable from just choosing stocks at random. Click to enlarge Claim #3: From a philosophical standpoint we look to take risk where we think we will be compensated and budget risk for where we have the most skill and ability to consistently deliver alpha. This claim is very similar to that of Claim #2. We already know where investors should be expected to earn a return for risk taken; that would be in stocks that are smaller in size and value-oriented. Anything beyond these factors is assuming the pricing mechanism inherent in the market is not functioning properly. In other words, current stock prices do not properly reflect future expectations of a particular company, which is just complete nonsense. To look at a price and say it is currently mispriced means that your ability to estimate the fundamentals of a particular company or your ability to predict the future are superior to that of the other few million professionals in the world. It’s their collective estimate of a company versus yours. That is quite a claim to say you know something they do not. And the law of large numbers is stacking the odds against you. We can once again cite the paper by Eugene Fama and Ken French on Luck versus Skill . The vast majority cannot consistently deliver alpha across multiple asset classes and time horizons. What is so special about MFS Investment Management that they believe they can deliver it? To say they have a global operation that believes in collaboration and sharing of information is nothing special. Most of the big asset managers have global operations and are promoting the exact same thing. Claim #4: We like to tell clients to arbitrage the time horizon and have a long-term view. This is just fancy speak for staying diversified and having a long-term focus, which is something we also promote. Because nobody can accurately predict what is going to happen in the future, it is best to “arbitrage the time horizon” by buying low-cost index funds and rebalancing when necessary. The market, not one particular individual, knows best. Cold, Hard Facts Let’s look at the cold, hard facts. We examined the performance of all 87 different mutual funds that MFS Investment manages to see if their integrated research platform around the world that promotes the sharing of information, protecting investors from downside volatility, taking risk where they expect to be compensated, and budgeting risk for where they think they can provide alpha has worked out well for them. We first looked at all of their US-based strategies that had at least 10 years of performance history to see if they were able to deliver outperformance over a medium time horizon. Of the 14 funds that were US-based strategies and had at least 10 years of data, not a single one produced a positive alpha that was statistically significant to a high degree of certainty (95% confidence level) once we adjusted for the known dimensions of expected return using the Fama/French 3 Factor Model . See chart below. Click to enlarge As you can see, most of the funds hug the dashed line that represents zero annualized alpha. This is what we would expect to see not only in an efficient market , but also for someone who is tracking the overall market, which is the point we made under Claim #2. The second thing we looked at was the performance of all 87 mutual funds against their Morningstar assigned benchmark, since inception, to see if there were any funds that produced a statistically significant alpha. Here is what we found: 53 (61% of all funds) displayed a NEGATIVE alpha compared to their Morningstar assigned benchmark since inception Only 1 fund (1.15% of all funds) displayed a POSITIVE alpha that was statistically significant at the 95% confidence level compared to its Morningstar assigned benchmark 27 (31%) displayed a POSITIVE alpha compared to their Morningstar assigned benchmark 7 (8%) of the funds had no alpha to report since they had been around for less than 1 year. It is important to note that these performance figures do not take into account the front-load fees that are associated with these funds. The average maximum front load-fee as of 10/31/2015 across all MFS Investment strategies is 5.16%. These fees may or may not be paid by investors based on broker recommendation or custodial and/or broker platforms. The table below lists the fees for all MFS funds. Readers can find a more in-depth analysis and illustration of the costs associated with strategies from MFS Global Management here . So the vast majority (61%) of their funds displayed negative alpha and only 1 strategy had a positive alpha that was statistically significant at the 95% confidence level . Which was the only fund whose performance may have been attributable to skill? It is the MFS International New Discovery A (MUTF: MIDAX ) coming in with an annualized alpha of 4.96% and a t-statistic of 2.02. Below is its alpha chart showing the performance comparison against the MSCI All Country World ex US Index. Click to enlarge Does this necessarily mean that we would concede that investors should reliably expect to be better off investing in MIDAX versus a comparable index fund or mix of index funds? Absolutely not! There are key reasons why, although MIDAX has historically produced a statistically significant alpha, that investors should still stick with a passively managed index fund instead: First has to do with the Morningstar assigned benchmark, which happens to be the MSCI All Country World ex US Index. The Index has a 99% developed and 1% emerging market makeup, while MIDAX has consistently had 10-15% allocated to emerging markets, which we know has experienced a higher historical return than that of its developed counterpart. We cannot control for the overall size and value tilts in this particular strategy like we can with US-based companies since we do not have independent size and value factors for a global ex US portfolio of stocks. As we showed with the 14 US-based strategies, the alpha is diminished down to nothing once we have controlled for known dimensions of expected return. A lot of the alpha seems to have happened during the first 4 years (very tall green bars) of the fund’s history, but since then, results have been mixed. This means the statistical significance might be subject to in-sample bias. As we have mentioned before in this article , the best way to control for in-sample bias is to look at two independent time periods to see if the statistically significant alpha persists. Although the alpha for the strategy is statistically significant at the 95% confidence level, there is still a 5% chance that the outperformance was due to random luck. Our opinion that it’s random luck is bolstered by the very weak performance for the remaining 79 funds in the MFS Investment lineup. The policies, procedures, and systems in place in terms of hiring professional staff, gathering and analyzing information, and implementing investment strategies would seem consistent across the business. Unfortunately, this has not translated into an overwhelming success story across all of their strategies. Unless they applied a process, which was unique to MIDAX, it may seem reasonable to believe that just by random chance 1 out of their 87 strategies would have success. There is nothing distinguishing about MFS Investment Management’s process that would give us confidence they could deliver future outperformance. As we have said before in other articles that examine the performance of major mutual fund lineups (see Fidelity Funds Part 1 , and Part 2 , American Funds , Lord Abbett Funds , JP Morgan Funds , Hedge Funds , Olstein All-Cap ), this in no way is supposed to critique the level of intelligence and competence of the individuals in these organizations. They are the very brightest and most knowledgeable in our industry. Their reason for their lackluster performance has to do with the environment in which they operate. The free market that allows for the continuous sharing of information and exchanges that have the ability to aggregate that information are the ultimate culprits for the existence of the manager who can consistently deliver “alpha.” No single individual is more powerful than the overall market and no single individual will ever have all the information at their finger-tips about a particular company and its future earnings potential. All individuals are subject to estimation error when it comes to analyzing financial information and future growth prospects, and the aggregating of these estimation errors by the markets allows the price to be the single best estimation at any given time. Some active managers may be right at times at the expense of other active managers, but that is what we would expect. Unfortunately, the persistence of any manager’s outperformance comes down to either better estimation faculties, quicker access to information, or illegal insider information. In today’s overwhelmingly competitive markets, the latter or blind luck seems to be the biggest reason why most managers have experienced long-term success. Below are a few examples of the alpha charts we do in our analysis based on Morningstar assigned benchmarks. Click to enlarge Click to enlarge Click to enlarge You can find alpha comparisons across all 87 MFS strategies in the original article here . Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it. I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Fear Of A ‘Black Swan’ Event Is Worse Than The Actual Event Itself, Study Shows

Originally posted on May 3, 2016 Are investors more frightened of freak market crashes than the reality of such crises? Sometimes fear of a freak, outlier event can be a lot worse than the event itself, at least when it comes to the markets. Most of us are aware of the now famous credit crisis book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb , “The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable.” The central thesis of the book is of course that black swans , or freak market events, are more common than we expect in life, and in particular, in complex systems such as economics. The credit crisis was, therefore, no great surprise, and such crises can be expected to occur in one form or another on a fairly regular basis. Well, that was Taleb’s thesis. But it was also a thesis written at the height of negative market sentiment. Subsequent serious academic work reported by Bloomberg by William Goetzmann, Dasol Kim and Robert Shiller looked at 26 years of survey data to test Taleb’s thesis. They found that people consistently expect things such as stock market crashes and earthquakes to happen more frequently than they really do. In other words, there may be black swans out there, but more important perhaps than their occurrence is our exaggerated fear of their occurrence. There are indeed periods of irrational exuberance when we forget about the possibility of black swans. But certainly since the credit crisis , it seems that there has indeed been an exaggerated angst that has gripped the global investing community. It is as if the crisis was sufficiently intense that it set off a type of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder among investors, leading to everyone seeing specters around every corner. This overarching sense of angst has had very significant effects since the credit crisis. Although there has been modest growth in gross domestic product in the United States ever since 2009, the recovery hasn’t felt like a recovery. We continue to suffer what economist Joseph Stiglitz calls the “great malaise,” a lack of those animal commercial spirits. Shiller himself sees this anxiety as driving this very low rate environment as most investors and banks keep the bulk of their assets in low-return fixed-income assets, which itself further lowers the yield on said assets. This has also driven excess regulation. No one can say that the credit crisis didn’t merit a significant re-think of various parts of the U.S. financial regulatory architecture. But it is now becoming equally clear that the Dodd-Frank Act was a behemoth of a piece of legislation, 848 pages long, most of it with half-baked concepts that were left to be developed over time by sub-legislation. Many now expect the very framework of large chunks of Dodd-Frank to require major re-engineering, given its excessively controlling and complex features. The idea, for example, of bank living wills was probably a non-starter from day one. The concept was that banks must put in place plans for their orderly wind down in the event of financial failure, ones that didn’t rely on government support. But this was immediately a bizarre exercise for all financial institutions because it involved making up totally theoretical failure scenarios, some concatenation of events that is unlikely to have any bearing on the actual features of any next crisis. After all how on Earth could we predict what that crisis will really entail? The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Federal Reserve made all the banks write their living wills twice, on the basis that they were too loosely drafted the first time, but more granularity here doesn’t solve the conceptual problem. The situations conceived are so hypothetical that these living will models are often the case of garbage in garbage out. In addition, for those institutions that matter – the systemically important financial institutions – living wills are a particularly absurd exercise because, by definition, these large financial institutions are simply not sustainable during periods of acute illiquidity without government support. It seems, in other words, that Dodd-Frank itself was premised on their being black swans everywhere. And the capital requirements it imposes on banks, the compliance burden, the business line restrictions and high levels of liquidity buffers all mean that banks simply haven’t been meeting much of even the legitimate credit demand in the United States. The result, of course, has been huge growth since the crisis of the shadow lending market, which is legitimate lending done by non-depositary institutions. The shadow lending market has gone through a total re-birth since the crisis, as multiple research papers demonstrate. There can be dangers of an excessively large non-bank lending sector, but again Dodd-Frank has embedded within it another mechanism for seeing black swans in this sector also. That is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau . The role of the CFPB in supposedly protecting borrowers from predatory lending is only just being defined now by the regulator. But there is already considerable confusion about the CFPB’s ambit, and, indeed, even a recent court hearing indicated that the bureau may be acting outside the scope of the Constitution. Meanwhile, the U.S. economy struggles to get above 2% GDP per annum, consumer inflation is negligible and growth is so anemic that the Fed’s attempt to raise short rates and normalize monetary policy is materially struggling. So it is back to Shiller and Stiglitz, just too much fear in the system to allow growth really to ignite. And so what does such economic neurosis really amount to? It isn’t necessarily the product of there being too many black swans but the product of an irrational belief that there may be too many black swans. And the big question then is when will it all end? When does the anxiety end, when is the neurosis cured and how? Disclosure: Jeremy Josse is the author of Dinosaur Derivatives and Other Trades , an alternative take on financial philosophy and theory (published by Wiley & Co). He is also a managing director and head of the financial institutions group at Sterne Agee CRT in New York. Josse is a visiting researcher in finance at Sy Syms business school in New York. The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author and don’t necessarily reflect the views of CRT Capital Group, its affiliates or its employees. Josse has no position in the stocks mentioned in this article.

Companhia Paranaense de Energia’s (ELP) CEO Luiz Fernando Leone Vianna on Q1 2016 Results – Earnings Call Transcript

Companhia Paranaense de Energia (NYSE: ELP ) Q1 2016 Earnings Conference Call May 13, 2016 2:30 PM ET Executives Luiz Fernando Leone Vianna – Chief Executive Officer Luiz Eduardo da Veiga Sebastiani – Chief Financial and Investor Relations Officer Adriano Fedalto – Accounting Superintendent Sergio Luiz Lamy – President of Copel GeT Antonio Sergio de Souza Guetter – President of Copel Distribuição Analysts Miguel Rodrigues – Morgan Stanley Operator Good afternoon and thank you for waiting. Welcome to Companhia Paranaense de Energia Copel conference call to discuss the first quarter of 2016 results. We would like to inform you that all participants will be in a listen-only mode during the company’s presentation. Afterwards, we will have a session for questions and answers, when further instructions will be given. [Operator Instructions] Before proceeding, we wish to clarify that forward-looking statements that might be made during the call related to Copel’s business perspectives, operating and financial targets, and projections are beliefs and assumptions of the company’s management as well as information currently available. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of performance. They involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions as they refer to future events and therefore will depend on circumstances that may or may not occur. General economic conditions, industry conditions, and other operating factors may affect the future performance of Copel leading to results that differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. Participating in this call, we have Mr. Luiz Fernando Leone Vianna, CEO of the company; Mr. Luiz Eduardo da Veiga Sebastiani, CFO and Investor Relations Officer; Mr. Gilberto Mendes Fernandes, Business Management Officer; Mr. Jonel Nazareno Iurk, Business Development Officer; Mr. Antonio Sergio de Souza Guetter, President of Copel Distribuição; Mr. Sergio Luiz Lamy, President of Copel GeT; Mr. Ricardo Goldani Dosso, President of Copel Renováveis; Mr. Franklin Kelly Miguel, President of Copel Comercialização; and Mr. Francisco Cesar Farah, CFO of Copel Telecom. The presentation will be made by Copel’s management and it can be followed at the company’s website, www.copel.com/invesor relations. Now, we would like to give the floor to Mr. Luiz Fernando Vianna, CEO of the company. Mr. Vianna, you have the floor. Luiz Fernando Leone Vianna [Interpreted] Good afternoon, everyone. My colleagues in the executive committee, all participants, welcome to our call to talk about the results of the first quarter of 2016. I would like to start by talking about important regulatory issues that bring or could bring relevant impact on Copel. The first point and it couldn’t be different, is the 4th Tariff Revision Cycle of Copel Distribuição. We certainly are a company to develop such as a process. As you have already had access to the documents available at the ANEEL website in the number #20 Public Hearing that shows a net remuneration base of R$4.8 billion with the new cycle. This increase means that our distribution company doubled in size in the last four years. However, it’s important to highlight the investment was not made only with extensions. We also invested quite a lot with the improvement in the quality of service that we deliver. And this led us to be recognized as one of the best distribution companies in the country. Now, with the beginning of the 4th cycle, all these investments will be remunerated. And for this reason, we are certain that we have adopted the adequate strategy for the business. The 4th cycle still brings about other important points such as the remuneration of special obligations and the trajectory of costs that will allow us to have a more adequate coverage for the PMSO expenditures within the cycle that starts in 2016. Nevertheless, the most interesting point is that the practices, [the clever strategy] [ph] by Copel Distribuição should suffer a reduction of approximately 10% with the beginning of the new cycle, which is targeted for consumers, because they will be spending less with energy and for the company as well, because it brings a substantial delinquency reduction and growth in consumption, factors that have been impacting our results in the last few quarters. However, it’s important to stress that the process hasn’t been concluded yet. The hearing is still open until May 19 and after this period the prices would be validated and rectified by the ANEEL administration. And conclusion is estimated for the end of June. According – continuing with the regulatory theme, as Resolution 706, coming from Public Hearing 04, will talk about an important advance into the issue of involuntary over-contracting of business. The new rule allowed us to consider part of the energy that we receive through the quota system as involuntary over-contracting, which was enough to mitigate Copel’s distribution risk [negative as seen] [ph]. In transmission, the Ministry of Mines and Energy got the news about the RBSE implementing, which are the transmission assets already existing in May 2000, by means of ordinance 120 of 2016 and ANEEL established the integration of RBSE to the regulatory asset base, the restatement of the value of the assets since 2012 and payments of indemnity by means of RAP since the tariff process of 2017. This is interesting to say that the cost of own capital to be considered in the restatement of the asset value is 10.4% in near-term, which allows us to have this adequate restatement of the amount to be indemnified. In the case of Copel, this amount has not been ratified by ANEEL yet. And I would like to mention that any effect on our results or conditions to the ratification of the final result of the evaluation report by the regulators, ANEEL. Just to remind you, in March 2015, we submitted to ANEEL the evaluation report to the amount of R$882 million referring to RBSE and the date of it was December 31, 2012. On slide number 4, I would like to highlight that we have important achievements related to the projects that we are building. Starting with Colíder, the Supreme Court of Justice in a decision supported by technical studies canceled the injunction that mandated Copel GeT to suppress 100% of the vegetation of the area to be flooded by the reservoir, and confirmed that the suppression of 70% of the area was environmentally adequate. With that, the work is then concentrated in the construction of the transmission line that will be linking the Colíder plants to the interconnected systems, and the electromechanic assembly of the equipment. Commercial operations should start in the first-half of 2017. We also had an important achievement related to the Baixo Iguaçu project in which we hold a 30% stake and we are building in partnership with Araucária [ph] in a recent decision. And they approved an additional 130 days for waiver of responsibility for the plant and the total number of days now is 756, which means at the beginning of the sale to other utilities was postponed to the end of 2018. And this is enough time for us to build the plant and start commercial operations. In the transmission segment, SPC Matrinchã concluded its construction work and over 1,000 kilometers of lines have already been planted and commissioned successfully. And now, we need a confirmation by the regulators in order to officially start operation of these projects. Besides Matrinchã other transmission projects are about to be concluded and start commercial operation. SPC Guaraciaba should start-up by the end of June, whereas SPC Paranaíba has already concluded construction of 346 kilometers of lines and should come on stream by the end of next month. Jointly, these three projects will bring about to Copel around R$158 million. Lastly, I would like to highlight that we have recently held two auctions for the sale of energy in the free market in which we have sold over 6 million megawatt hours in products, where delivery in two to five years, and starting delivery as of June 1, 2016 then January 1, 2017, and then January 1, 2018. Our strategy is to hold additional auctions in order to reduce the amount of energy, whose contracts have been terminated and allows a better predictability for the generation business. It’s important to highlight that the results already obtained allows us to make or give a significant step in order to reach this objective. Now, I give the floor to my colleague, Sebastiani, our CFO, who will talk in detail about the results for the period. Luiz Eduardo da Veiga Sebastiani [Interpreted] Thank you, Mr. Luiz Leone Vianna, our CEO. As he said, we have a participation of all these executives due to this important moment for the company. And thank you very much for participating in this call. As you will see on Slide #5, some events again impacted our results in the first quarter of 2016. We posted over R$120 million in provisions, of which R$84 million are related to labor litigation and R$32 million to civil loses. We posted R$38 million in allowance for doubtful accounts because of the economic crisis that we are going through in Brazil. And that has a direct impact on Copel Distribuição results. Economic crisis has been impacting energy consumption leading to a drop of 4.3% in the capital market of Copel Distribuição, in line with the drop in consumption that we see in the country. The decrease in Copel’s results is also explained by the lower results of Araucária TPP, which represented only [indiscernible] in the first quarter of 2016, accruing R$14 million loss in the period vis-à-vis earnings of over R$150 million in the first quarter of 2015, besides the drop in results which also impacted by the lower allocation of energy at Copel GeT to the short-term market aligned to the lower value of the spot price in the period. Slide #6 now, details of our operating revenue, with the reduction of 27% in the first quarter of 2016, being close to R$3 billion. The main reason for this decrease is the recognition of the result of sectorial assets and liabilities that was negative by R$527 million in the first quarter of 2016, when there was a positive result of R$561 million in the first quarter of 2015 due to the amortization of R$402 million in the period coming mainly from the recovery via tariff of the deferrals realized in 2013 and 2014, and the negative constitution of R$144 million coming from the reduction in the value of the CDE, the economic development account, and the lower cost with the purchase of energy vis-à-vis the current coverage. Revenue from delivery to end customers grew by 19% due to the adjustments of the tariffs to the Copel Distribuição tariff over last year. Nevertheless, these adjustments were affected negatively by the charges and by the slowdown in the captive markets of Copel Distribuição and the free markets of Copel GeT. Revenue from sales to other utility, that means the many of the sales of Copel GeT and all the sales of Araucária TPP had a 47% reduction in the first quarter of 2016, resulting in the lower dispatch of TPP, the lower volume of energy allocated [indiscernible] by Copel GeT, and lower spot price as we mentioned. Revenue from the use of the power grid grew by 44% due to the tariff adjustment applied by Copel Distribuição in June 2015 and also the increase of revenue of the transmission segment coming from the RAP adjustments and the startup of new Copel assets. Other operating revenues items made up by telco revenue, gas distribution and others grew by 6% and reflect mainly the 31% increase in the telco revenue which comes from the increase in the client base. On the next slide, Slide #7, we show the operating costs and expenses that were below R$2.8 billion in 1Q 2016, 23% less than the one that we had in the same period 2015. This can be attributed mostly to the 33% decrease in the cost with the purchase of energy because of the end of existing energy contracts that were replaced by energy contracts coming from the quota system, much cheaper and the reduction of the Itaipu tariff. Regarding the other costs, it’s important to say, that we had higher expenditures with charges for the use of the grid, due to the dispatch of TPP’s results by the order of merit. Manageable costs went up 12% in the first quarter this year due to higher personnel cost and third-party services due to inflation that reached 10% in the period. The provisions and reserves line, as I said before on Slide 5, represented R$121 million was impacted by labor and doubtful accounts provisions. But when compared to the same period in 2015, we see a 45% decrease in the period. But it’s important to highlight that in the first quarter of 2015 we posted R$73 million in allowance for doubtful accounts related to the difference between the contract of Colíder plants and the spot price, which means a higher amount of provisions at the beginning of last year. On Slide 8, we show the EBITDA that was 37% lower year on year, totally R$528 million in the first quarter this year with 17% margin over the operating revenues. The Copel GeT cash generation accounted for 86% of the consolidated EBITDA and Copel Telecom 5%, the other companies in the group accounted for 9% and the main contribution came from Elejor. Copel Distribuição closed the first quarter of 2016 with a negative EBITDA of R$29 million vis-à-vis a positive result of R$49 million in the beginning of 2015. But we have the effect we consider non-recurring, because of that we show on Slide 9, the comparison between the adjusted EBITDA of Copel Distribuição. As we know, the tariff for Copel Distribuição compensate for coverage for delinquency that for the current tariff cycle is of about R$13 million per quarter. However, the tariff increases and the economic stagnation have been contributing to an increase in the level of delinquency that is higher than the tariff coverage and ended up having a negative impact of R$22 million. The results of the distribution company in this sector decide in a non-recurrent fashion, we posted R$38 million in legal claims, provision for legal claims. And in February, we had some organizational adjustments that caused the transfer of part of our fuel cost from the holding company to subsidiaries with higher impact on Copel Distribuição. Considering these adjustments the adjusted EBITDA of the first quarter of 2016, which has been positive in R$38 million, 58% lower than the adjusted EBITDA of the first quarter of 2015, reflecting very clearly the impact from the market downturn, therefore the economic scenario that we have in the country now. On Slide 10, we show the consolidated net income of Copel, which reached R$136 million in the first quarter of 2016, 71% lower than year-on-year. Analyzing the results of the subsidiaries, you can see that Copel Distribuição posted R$39 million of losses in the first quarter of 2016, vis-à-vis a positive result of R$29 million in the first quarter of 2015. Copel GeT ended the period with R$165 million net income, 60% lower on a year-on-year basis, whereas Copel Telecom reached R$11 million net income, dropping 23% year on year. Specifically about Telecom, it’s important to say that the drop that we saw in the quarterly income is directly related to the increase in the financial expense that came from the increase in the debt that’s necessary to support the subsidiary’s expansion of services. Before opening for questions, I would like to talk about the leverage of the company. As you can see on Slide #11, the indebtedness of Copel measured by the net debt to EBITDA ratio grew in the last few years, then closed March at 3.3 times. It’s important to highlight that this ratio is as planned is below the limit imposed by the covenants that also lower than what we see in similar companies. This increase in the leverage was expected, but it has to do with the significant expansion [indiscernible] the company has been going through and will be reduced with the beginning of the cash flows from the different projects that we are building, many of them starting up in the next few months. So these were now our highlights. We are available to you now to answer any questions that you might have. Question-and-Answer Session Operator Thank you. Now, the floor is open for questions. [Operator Instructions] Mr. [Kaikobet Gonzales] [ph] from Citibank. Unidentified Analyst [Interpreted] Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for the call. Now, talking about provisions, R$84 million related labor claims, could we go more in-depth, what was exactly that? And do you expect this to continue for the remainder of this year? Thank you. Luiz Fernando Leone Vianna [Interpreted] Thank you. I will give the floor to the accounting person of Copel. Unidentified Company Representative [Interpreted] Good afternoon, Kaikobet. Referring our provisions for contingencies in the first quarter of 2016, in fact we had a very [non-recurring thing] [ph] that was collected to – from the existing labor union, so very prudently we applied a conservative approach and this event represents about R$45 million in our provision. And with here our allowance for doubtful accounts is coming up because of delinquency represented R$30 million of this R$112 million. And the others are the ones that you are familiar with, R$45 million should be non-recurrent for the next few quarters. And we are monitoring very closely the issue of delinquency in order to maintain or to move down as much as we can this amount of provision for that specific end. Thank you. Operator Mr. [Jimmy Saskenia] [ph] from Credit Suisse. Unidentified Analyst [Interpreted] Good afternoon. I have two questions. The first one about provisions, you explained about the provision regarding expenses that there was a big reversal as well. Maybe you could mention what it was all about, could you point any commitment? And the second question has to do with what Sebastiani shared about the covenants. When we look at Slide #11, I understand that there are many projects that will be coming on-stream in the next few quarters. But when we look at the average for the last 12 months, we see deterioration in generation. And the situation has a negative impact may on the third quarter of last year. As we look ahead, okay, you have new projects coming on stream, but as we look at the average of the 12 months, generations and distribution worsened, because of Araucaria maybe. So do you believe there will be any break of covenant? Are you negotiating any of the covenants that you still have? Adriano Fedalto [Interpreted] Good afternoon, one again. This is Adriano from accounting making brief remarks about contingencies. Regarding this reduction, if I understood correctly vis-à-vis last year in 2015 the provision of R$75 million referring to the difference of price for the Colíder plant. And then, we had complied to the contract fully, but there was still a doubt about the price. We only took the full amount and we provisioned the difference of R$75 million prudently. As soon as this is judged, we will be able to reverse this provision in the future quarter as soon as we have a legal decision about that. Unidentified Analyst [Interpreted] Just to clarify, the reversal of R$15 million, you’re saying that we had provision R$75 million for Colíder, and you reverted R$50.8 million of this amount? Adriano Fedalto [Interpreted] No, no. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. There is some misunderstanding. The comparison that I am making is between 2015 to 2016. This is what represents the variation of minus R$47 million in our results. Unidentified Analyst [Interpreted] No. My question was about Slide #5. When you talk about the breakdown of provisions et cetera, there are reversals. On Slide #5, was it something specific that was reverted? Adriano Fedalto [Interpreted] Okay, I understand. So in 2015, we had two events that represent the R$50 million, R$24 million in benefits to employees regarding the Copel Foundation and we were able to revert R$24 million. And another one, which is trivial as well, difference of the context of almost R$28 million, almost R$29 million also is something non-recurring and that was reverted during this period. So if you add up these two events, we have this difference of R$50 million… Unidentified Analyst [Interpreted] Okay, very clear. And the other point is about the covenants. Sergio Luiz Lamy [Interpreted] The President of Copel GeT, good afternoon. Before Mr. Sebastiani make specific remarks about covenants, I would like to make one remark about the result of Copel Generation and Transmission, in the first quarter and the expectation for the second quarter, and of course it is linked to the issue of covenants. As we’ve said before, I would say that three factors came into play that was very relevant in this regard impacting the results of the first quarter. The first one was that last year, we have made an allocation of free energy, which was much stronger in the first quarter, and then this year we made a more linear allocation over the year and this tends to show better results as we evolve over the year. And the second answer was very much impacted also, and this has to do with the spot price with a sensitive recovery and a trend. We believe that the trend would continue to be there for the next few quarters. And we believe there will be more positive impact on our results coming from the increase in the stock price. And then, Araucaria also was a driver as we believe that, at least the second quarter or part of the third quarter. By the end of the second quarter and part of the third quarter, it will come back online due to the Olympics, so we have a positive outlook for better trend. Operator Now, Mr. Sebastiani. Luiz Eduardo da Veiga Sebastiani [Interpreted] One of the most important things that have already been mentioned by Lamy, and the worst moment that we see, which is the beginning of the first quarter and that was already mentioned, because of the economic scenario and the specific reality of this [last year] [ph], and what regards for instance to the non-residential [ph] GDP and the positive outlook that was mentioned by Lamy, so all that leads us to have a positive scenario for the future. The covenants are analyzed on a daily basis, all of the time, we track our covenants, and it was still below the average of the factors, and below the average of the covenants that we see, and that are only posted at the end of the period. So I understand we are concerned which is legitimate, also it is important also to clarify to you and to everybody that we have a permanent monitoring of the covenant, and observing a better scenario from now on for the next few quarters. We’ve driven high degree of comfort with the risk indicator. Unidentified Analyst [Interpreted] So you expect an improvement in the 12-month EBITDA, offsetting the deterioration of distribution and generation compared to last year, so you believe the situation will not worsen? Luiz Eduardo da Veiga Sebastiani [Interpreted] No. Our outlook as far as that is not negative. We have already established our covenants below the limit and below the average of the sector, and because of all the factors that I mentioned, our outlook is positive as we said. Unidentified Analyst [Interpreted] One last question. The issue of exceeding it, is it only for one quarter or two quarters? Did you have any type of debate? Luiz Eduardo da Veiga Sebastiani [Interpreted] It’s at the end of the year – the fiscal year. That will conclude the merger of the covenants with the contracts that we have in place. Unidentified Analyst [Interpreted] Thank you. Operator [Mr. Lacio Lusali] [ph] from UBS. Unidentified Analyst [Interpreted] Regarding to volume of energy that you sold, 300 megawatts sold in each year and the comparison with the price cut. So the price cut over time. It becomes more and more difficult to predict the EBITDA for distribution. What will be the record level of EBITDA? Can you have the visibility? And do you expect an improvement because of the next tariff revision? So how much do you believe the EBITDA will be going up? Unidentified Company Representative [Interpreted] This is [Lamy Matialon] [ph] In relation to the sale to commercialization company in 2016, while the generation company should 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020. And the amount that we showed, I don’t have the exact figures here with me, but we were rather successful with a sense of selling all the energy that we are making available for this auction. So besides having been able to create all our available energy, we were able to reach average prices that are very satisfactory around R$128 per megawatt hour. I can send you the exact figures for each year later after this conference about the result of the auction, okay. I’ll give them to you later. Unidentified Analyst [Interpreted] Just to the order of magnitude, is there anything – it was reasonably significant, but always within a negotiation strategy? Luiz Fernando Leone Vianna [Interpreted] We’re going to the energy during – over several different auctions during the year. It’s an amount that will exceed the annual value as of 2017 of R$200 million, R$250 million just to give you an order of magnitude, okay. Unidentified Analyst [Interpreted] Okay. Operator [Rodrigo Guchelin from Gusachi] [ph]. Unidentified Analyst [Interpreted] Good afternoon. Thank you for the call. My questions were about the covenants, in your [indiscernible] volume of energy sold. It was not so clear to me, I mean, the volume of energy sold, it seems to me that at the beginning you’re having a more aggressive effort around 125 to 130, they’re also megawatt hour. Am I interpreting correctly, what you said? Luiz Fernando Leone Vianna [Interpreted] What’s your name please? Could you repeat your name? Unidentified Analyst Vudilu [ph]. Luiz Fernando Leone Vianna [Interpreted] Vudilu, good afternoon. The sound is very bad. So I would like to ask you to repeat the question. Unidentified Analyst [Interpreted] I had two questions, one about the covenant that you have already answered. And the other one, I need some more color about the order of magnitude of your energy sales of the Comitaligadura [ph] company. Is it according to the prices that are acceptable between R$130 and R$125 per megawatt hour, could you clarify this, please? Luiz Fernando Leone Vianna [Interpreted] We had a few auctions in place, in which we sold energy from the generation company, in one modality and the Comitaligadura in another modality. So, you are asking about the Comitaligadura company and because of that, I am going to give the floor to the president of this company. Unidentified Company Representative [Interpreted] Good evening. The [indiscernible] it was very concentrated and incentivized and the expectation that we have is attempting around R$165 as of 2017. For 2016, the amount is slightly lower, and with the purchase is more feasible. Within conventional, R$30, R$35 is slightly below this amount. Unidentified Analyst [Interpreted] Thank you. Operator Also Lusali from UBS. Unidentified Analyst [Interpreted] I had a question about distribution and the recurring EBITDA. How much it will increase with the implementation of the tariff revision? And since the move there R$200, R$250 average megawatts that’s already sold by the generation company is very high volume. So, it slightly better than between R$150 and R$200, that’s all I have just checked, okay. Luiz Eduardo da Veiga Sebastiani [Interpreted] Now, I’ll turn it Antonio Guetter, President of Copel Distribuição who will answer your other question. Antonio Sergio de Souza Guetter [Interpreted] Hello, [Murino. No, Marcelli] [ph], sorry, okay, and everybody, about the reduction in our EBITDA as we have said before, it tends mainly from distributions and also by the problems that we have the distribution company regarding the allowance for doubtful account. Because at the moment that the country is dealing with recession and reduction in consumption, and at the same time here in Paraná as another state, we have an increase in cost of energy, and this results a reduction in the size of our market and the increased delinquency. As a consequence, our allowance for doubtful accounts, we have been working very strongly, and our allowance for doubtful account even increasing our cost to – and also work with a client in order to revert this delinquency cost and we believe that this decision with tariff that we have a trend of change in 10% over June, we would be seeing a reversal in this current – of the EBITDA that was negative this quarter. I believe that the market will continue to be weak, and looking at the scenario that we have for this year, we believe we will not even have R$100 million EBITDA do you agree or may be a little bit more than that? [Indiscernible] as our CFO said, we have already reached the worst point of the year, and now we expect EBITDA – we already see that in terms of delinquency because we see already a reversal in our curve, because we put in place many actions in this regard. And we believe that the level that we will have by the end of this year will depend a lot on what a new administration the new government does, but we believe there will be a positive trend in the market reduction in delinquency whether actions regarding allowance for doubtful accounts, we will start to have the effects. Unidentified Analyst [Interpreted] How much of your EBITDA would increase because of the carrying provision, how much should we expect? Luiz Fernando Leone Vianna [Interpreted] I think you are following that, we expect to be doubled our asset. As a consequence, we believe that we will approximately double our EBITDA. Unidentified Analyst [Interpreted] Thank you very much. Thank you for the answer. Operator Miguel Rodrigues from Morgan Stanley. Miguel Rodrigues [Interpreted] Good afternoon. Two things. First, leverage. Net debt to EBITDA that you delivered it is already addressed by the CDE and what is the exact balance today? Going back to the energy portfolio, what about contracts will now come back on, are you going to accelerate expecting prices to pick up or do you tend to have new auctions and what is your intention regarding this? Luiz Fernando Leone Vianna [Interpreted] New covenants, net debt and EBITDA is not part of that calculation, okay. Sergio Luiz Lamy [Interpreted] Good afternoon. This is generation and transmission. Although we have an expectation trend and that’s a trend in the prices of energy from now up until the end of the year. Our strategy, a strategy based on the average price. So we are going to hold many auctions starting next month. So we do have many different auctions during the year not just for us to have an average selling price for the year, okay? Miguel Rodrigues [Interpreted] Let’s say the market conditions worsen, are you expecting R$125 to R$130, and do you expect market price is different from that, are you going to hold back on your auctions? Sergio Luiz Lamy [Interpreted] Our expectation is positive in the phase of having more favorable market prices. Of course, if this does not materialize, then we do have to address the amounts of energy to be sold due to the market prices with the decrease of rate, or increase of rate regarding the market prices and how they develop. Miguel Rodrigues [Interpreted] Thank you. Operator [Operator Instructions] There are no more questions, I would like to give the floor back to the company for the closing remarks. Luiz Fernando Leone Vianna [Interpreted] This is the CEO of Copel speaking. As we have said before, we had not only at Copel, but in the sector as a whole and in the country, we had a very unfavorable first quarter. We understand that the power sector was even better than the average for the country and our outlook, and we are very much convinced when we say we will be back in the second quarter. We will have better results than the first and place our bets on this new moment that the company’s starting to look and expecting a recovery, because of exchange and we are rather hopeful. We believe there would be improvements to the country and we will be able to close 2016 with a much better perspective than we have in the first quarter. Thank you. Operator Copel’s conference call about the results of the first quarter of 2016 is closed. 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