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OGE Energy (OGE) CEO Sean Trauschke on Q3 2015 Results – Earnings Call Transcript

OGE Energy Corp. (NYSE: OGE ) Q3 2015 Earnings Conference Call November 5, 2015 09:00 a.m. ET Executives Sean Trauschke – President, Chief Executive Officer Steve Merrill – Chief Financial Officer Todd Tidwell – Director of Investor Relations Analysts Anthony Crowdell – Jefferies Matt Tucker – KeyBanc Capital Bryan Russo – Ladenburg Thalmann Jay Dobson – Wunderlich Paul Patterson – Glenrock Associates Operator Good day ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Third Quarter OGE Energy Earnings Conference Call. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will follow at that time. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this call will be recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today’s conference, Mr. Todd Tidwell, please go ahead. Todd Tidwell Thank you, Katherine. Good morning everyone and welcome to OGE Energy Corp’s third quarter 2015 earnings call. I’m Todd Tidwell, Director of Investor Relations and with me today, I have Sean Trauschke, President and CEO of OGE Energy Corp; and Steve Merrill, CFO of OGE Energy Corp. In terms of the call today we will first hear from Sean, followed by an explanation from Steve of third quarter results and finally, as always we will answer your questions. I would like to remind you that this conference is being webcast and you may follow along on our website at oge.com. In addition, the conference call and the accompanying slides will be archived following the call on that same website. Before we begin the presentation, I would like to direct your attention to the Safe Harbor statement regarding forward-looking statements. This is an SEC requirement for financial statements and simply states that we cannot guarantee forward looking financial results. But this is our best estimate to date. I would also like to remind you that there is a Regulation G reconciliation for gross margin and ongoing earnings in the appendix along with projected capital expenditures. I will now turn the call over to Sean for his opening remarks. Sean? Sean Trauschke Thank you, Todd. Good morning everyone and thank you for joining us on today’s call. This morning we reported third quarter results and our utility OGE contributed $0.82 per share compared to $0.79 per share last year. Looking forward to the full year, the company projects 2015 utility earnings to be at the low end of the earnings range of $1.41 to $1.49 per average diluted share. This is primarily due to mild summer weather as compared to normal and environmental compliance assets placed in this service that have not yet been included in rates. Earnings from the Enable Midstream for the third quarter of 2015 include a pension settlement and the good will impairment charges of $0.35 per share. Ongoing earnings on a consolidated basis which exclude these non-cash charges were $0.90 for the third quarter compared to $0.94 per share for the same period in 2014. Steven will discuss the financial results and impairment in more detail in just a moment. That being said, the Enable impairment does not change our plans for OGE. We are on plan to achieve our utility long term growth rate of 3% to 5% and to continue to grow our dividend through 2019. We continue to believe our businesses are strong and well positioned for the long term growth and value creation. In September the Board of Directors proved a 10% increase in the quarterly dividend, bringing the dividend to $1.10 per share annually. This was the 10 th consecutive year of dividend growth. It reaffirms our commitment to growing the dividend 10% a year through 2019. We have received approximately $104 million of distributions from Enable year-to-date. With the quarterly distribution they’ve just announced, distributions to OGE will be approximately $140 million for the year. As we said before, cash distributions received is the key metric we are using for Enable. Distributions from Enable will continue to help fund our dividend and utility investments. Turning to the utility, our service territory remains strong despite the continued pressure from the current commodity cycle. The latest economic statistics with Oklahoma’s unemployment rate at 4.5%, with Oklahoma City just under 4%. Although these rates have increased, we are still well below the national average. As expected, we are seeing pull backs in the industrial and oil field sector, but growth from the commercial sector, particularly chain accounts has offset those loses. This is a testament to our region’s growing economic diversity. Our operations team did a great job of maintaining the fleet in the grid this summary. Our combined cycle plants achieved best in class for liability of nearly 99% and capitalize on lower gas pricing to bring the best value to our customers. Our coal units demonstrated a liability of 91% and during the summer months 9% of our total generation came from renewable resources. On the cost side we continue to focus on controlling costs and increasing efficiency and productivity. As a point of reference, our O&M cost per customer is lower today than it was in 2011. This is really good news for our customs. Attracting customers with not only competitive rates, but additional products and services is a key component of our strategy. Last month our customers saw improved functionality with the implementation of our estimated time of restoration project. This technology allows customers access to outage issues, and estimates for when they can expect service restoration. We continue to look for ways in which technology will improve our customer experience. Next I would like to provide an update on our regulatory events in Oklahoma and Arkansas. In Oklahoma we are still waiting on a order for our environmental case. We plan to file a general rate case in Oklahoma later this month, with a test year ending June 30, 2015. The case as we have said previously will focus on two main issues. First, we have terminated a large wholesale contract and several smaller contracts and will now seek to place in the rates approximately 300 megawatts of that capacity previously used to meet those obligations. The second focus will be to recover the retail portion of several in-service transmission lines that OG&E has constructed at SPP’s direction over the last few years. Also in Oklahoma we’ve filed a distributed generation tariff with the commission. Oklahoma’s Senate Bill 1456 was signed into law last year, requiring us to have a tariff by the end of 2015. This tariff is to ensure that distributed generation customers are not being subsidized by other customers. Our proposed tariff enables an individual adding distributed generation to expense reductions in their utility bills, while ensuring that they pay for their fair share for the grid as the law requires. While the number of DG customers of our system is very small today, this prepares us for accurate cost recovery in the future, should the adoption of DG devices become more prevalent. Moving to Arkansas, we have filed under Act 310, which provides a constructive way to file and begin the recovery of environmental expenditures for assets placed in the service. We made our first filing in May, and put the rates into effect in June. The settlement hearing was in October and we are waiting the commission’s final order. We anticipate making our second filing later this month and we will update the filing every six months as additional compliance investments are placed into service. We are very pleased with this process in Arkansas. We also plan to file a general rate case in Arkansas in early 2016. We intend to utilize the formula rate provision in the recently passed legislation, and our biggest issue in Arkansas continues to be the imputed capital structure utilized. We are planning to work with the Arkansas Public Service Commission on this issue. Proper resolution of this issue will improve our ability to enhance the customer experience in Arkansas and to make investments that will help attract new businesses to this day. Turning to the environmental compliance plan, regardless of the delays we experienced on the regulatory side, we must move forward to meet our compliance deadlines. Regarding the activated carbon systems from MATS compliance, we are on budget and construction has begun to meet the April 2016 compliance deadline. Looking at the regional haze compliance plan, four of the seven low NOx burners are complete and in service and installation will begin on the remaining units this winter and will be completed by the spring of 2017. The equipment and installation vendors for the two dry scrubbers at Sooner have been selected and schedules and budgets are on plan. For the Mustang plants, full notice to proceed has been issued to the turbine manufacturer. Permanent applications have been filed with the Oklahoma Department of Environmental quality and we anticipate the final permit will be issued by the end of the month. Engineering studies for the conversion of the two coal units in Miscurgie have been completed and we’ve issued an RFP for gas supply, and recall our plan is to continue to run these coal units as long as possible to maximize the benefit to our customers. Finally the EPA issued its clean power plant in August and the plan seeks to reduce CO2 emissions in Oklahoma from 24% to 32% depending on the format of the compliance plan, the mass versus rate base plan by 2030. As you know Oklahoma’s Attorney General has begun the legal proceedings against the EPA in regard to the clean power plant, stating that it threatens the reliability and affordability of power generation across the nation. Similar to regional haze litigation, we will be support of the AGs efforts on behalf of the State of Oklahoma. In the meantime we are in process of reconfiguring our fleet with the addition of Mustang and the conversion of the Miscurgie units. In addition, we are we are 18 months into the SPP day head market and the decisions other generators and other states make could impact our fleet. As a result we will continue the evaluation of our units, our role in the state and our role in the broader southwest carpool, while continuing our active discussion with the state regarding various options of compliance. Finally, last week Rod Sailor was announced the CEO of Enable. As you know Rod joined us in April of 2014 and has been an instrumental part of the company. Since June, Rod has been leading the development and execution of the business strategy, and I’m comfortable that Rod brings familiarity to the company, customers and the market, providing that stability and consistency we are looking for. I’m confident that he is the right person to lead Enable’s growth strategy going forward. So in summary, this is an exciting time for us at OGE. As a management team we are committed to executing on our strategy to continue growing our business. I’ll now turn the call over to Steve to review our financial results. Steve. Steve Merrill Thanks Sean and good morning everyone. For the third quarter we reported net income of $111 million or $0.55 per share as compared to net income of $187 million or $0.94 per share in 2014. The contribution by business unit on a comparative basis is listed on the slide. I would like to point out that the loss from Enable is due in part to a $0.35 per share write down of good will and a pension charge. Excluding the impact of these charges, third quarter 2015 earnings would have $0.90 per share as compared to $0.94 per share for 2014. I will discuss the good will impairment on a later slide. The holding company loss is primarily attributable to changes in our differed compensation plan. The holding company is on plan, and is expected to be flat for the year. At OG&E net income for the quarter was $163 million or $0.82 per share as compared to net income of $157 million or $0.79 per share in 2014. Third quarter gross margin at the utility increased approximately $11 million, which I’ll discuss on the next slide. O&M is on plan for the year. The decrease of $4 million is primarily due to the lower maintenance cost at our power plant and our continual focus to control cost. Depreciation increased $7 million, primarily due to the large transmission lines that were added in the last 12 months, part of the over $800 million of plant placed in service in 2014. Income tax expense also increased approximately $4 million due to higher pre-tax net income and a reduction of federal tax credits recognized. Turning to the third quarter gross margin, utility margins increased approximately $11 million for the third quarter of 2015 compared to 2014. The primary drivers for gross margin were new customer growth, which contributed $9 million. We added over 9,000 new customers to the system as compared to the third quarter of 2014. We continue to see about 1% growth supported by the commercial sector. Weather contributed nearly $9 million of margin as cooling degree days increased 6% compared to the third quarter of 2014. However, compared to normal, weather decreased for us the margin, approximately $11 million for the quarter. Partially offsetting this growth was wholesales transmission revenues which decreased $4 million compared to the third quarter of 2014, primarily due to an adjustment of the SPP formula rate to reflect the continuation of bonus depreciation. Finally, on June 30 we had a wholesale power contract that expired, reducing margin by nearly $8 million for the quarter. As we’ve said before, this is an item that will be included in the general rate case we are filing this month in Oklahoma. For the third quarter of 2015, Enable Midstream contributed ongoing earnings of $0.10 per share compared to $0.14 per share in 2014. Cash distributions increased by 6% to $35 million from $33 million in 2014. Year-to-date OG&E has received approximately $104 million of distributions from Enable. Before I explain the impairment charge, I would like to point out that cash flow in the form of distributions, not the earnings from Enable of what is important to OGE. Though commodity prices are low, Enable is performing as planned in regards to allowing us to fund environmental CapEx and to grow our dividend by 10% per year through 2019. Turning to the impairment, Enable Midstream recorded a goodwill impairment of approximately $1.1 billion in the third quarter of 2015. OGE’s portion of Enable’s good will impairment is approximately $108 million. The reason our shares left within the pro rata share is because of the formation of Enable. We received a higher level of LT [ph] interest just compared to the assets that were contributed. However, we were required to record our investment of historical costs, thus creating a basis difference. Turning to 2015 outlook, the company projects 2015 utility earnings to be at the low end of the earnings range with $1.41 to $1.49 per average diluted share, primarily due to mild summer weather as compared to normal and environmental compliance assets placed into service that have not been included in rates. For the Midstream business we are projecting to receive approximately $140 million in cash distributions. Utility is on track to achieve its long term growth rate of 3% to 5%. Our cash flow position for 2015 remains strong and is key to our value proposition, which is growing utility UPS and utilizing our cash flow from Enable to fund our capital investments and grow our dividend at 10% annually. This concludes our prepared remarks and we’ll now answer your questions. Question-and-Answer Session Operator Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Anthony Crowdell with Jefferies. Your line is open. Anthony Crowdell Good morning. Sean Trauschke Hey, good morning Anthony. How are you doing? Anthony Crowdell Just crushing it. How about yourself? Sean Trauschke Just crushing it. Well, I’m going to use that line. Anthony Crowdell No worries. Just two questions, the first question is related to I guess the delay in the approval of your regional haze CapEx. Do you think that the clean power plant or the Oklahoma Attorney General fighting the clean power plant is what’s causing the delay of the regional haze approval? Sean Trauschke No, I don’t. I think those are totally independent issues and the ruling on the regional haze is with the three commissioners right now. So the AG is not part of that. Anthony Crowdell If I remember correctly, you guys said I think a 55 month window to comply. Is this eating into the time of that 55 month window to comply? Like it’s a clock running and you are just waiting to start executing once you get approval on it. Sean Trauschke Yes, no very good question Anthony. You’re exactly right. We have a deadline to comply. By law we have to comply. So we are actually in that process of complying. I mentioned in my comments, we’ve got four of the seven low NOx burners already in service. We’re well down the path that Sooner on the scrubbers. We’ve made the commitment; we’re doing an RFP right now for the gas supply, the stogie for the conversion. So we’ve got to move ahead. We could not wait for commission approval to begin this. I mean we have to comply and so that’s what’s going on, we’re moving forward. Let me say it differently; non-compliance is not really an option. Anthony Crowdell Right, but I guess I’m just thinking out loud if you did not get approval for regional haze, does that create a more challenging regulatory environment? Sean Trauschke Yes, while we’re surprised or disappointed that it’s taken this long to get the order; we do believe that we’re going to receive approval for these required expenditures. Anthony Crowdell Great. And moving to the easy part of the business Enable, I think on Enable’s second quarter call or whatever they spoke about when they thought they’d hit maybe the Tier 2 distributions, which that also I think it begins with GP just like getting some distributions. When does OGE forecast that they start receiving some of the GP distributions? Steve Merrill Sure. At the present time with the guidance that Enable put out yesterday, we would anticipate starting to receive those in 2017. Anthony Crowdell And is it like a – I don’t want to use the word trickle, but a small amount and then 18 to get a gradual step up or… Steve Merrill That’s correct. I mean at the current growth that’s out there right now, it would be a gradual step up. Anthony Crowdell Great. Guys, thanks for taking my questions. I’ll see you at EEI. Sean Trauschke All right, see you Anthony. Operator Thank you. Our next question comes from Matt Tucker with KeyBanc Capital. Your line is open. Matt Tucker Hey guys, good morning and thanks for taking my question. Sean Trauschke Good morning Matt. Matt Tucker I was hoping you could elaborate a little bit on what’s changed in terms of the utility outlook. If you could maybe quantify how much of the headwind is weather versus the recovery of environmental investments and is that Writer drag just related to the delay in the environmental case approval? Steve Merrill Yes, that’s correct. If you look at weather, it’s about $0.03 and then the environmental drag is a couple of cents at this point and yes, it’s just timing of the Writer. That will go away as soon as we get the Writer. Matt Tucker Got it, thanks. And then thinking about, you’ve maintained the long term outlook despite Enable kind of reducing its distribution growth guidance for the next couple of years and I know that you built a lot of cushion into your longer term assumptions. Could you talk a little bit about how stress tested those are if Enable were to hypothetically hold its distributions flat for the next couple of years or beyond. Would you still be okay in terms of the dividend growth guidance and lack of equity needs? Sean Trauschke Yes, we would. Matt Tucker Okay, great. That’s all I had guys, thanks. Sean Trauschke Thanks Matt. Operator Thank you. Our next question comes from Bryan Russo with Ladenburg Thalmann. Your line is opened. Bryan Russo Good morning. Sean Trauschke Hey, good morning Bryan. Bryan Russo Just curious. How much environmental spend is not in base rates. Steve Merrill Right now that’s about $39 million. Bryan Russo Okay, great. I realized the delay in the OCC order. I think previously you had conveyed that they indicated they were going to try to make a decision by September and we’re probably six weeks past September; any reason for the delay? Sean Trauschke None that we’re aware of Bryan to be perfectly blunt. There was that public hearing they did allude to. They thought they were going to try to get an order out within 30 days. We’ve not seen the order and we’re talking to them and anxious to receive the orders as quickly as you are. Bryan Russo Okay, so it’s basically any day is how we should look at it? Sean Trauschke Yes, but I wouldn’t characterize that any day any differently from September. Bryan Russo Understood. And if you don’t get the ECP for the tracker order by the end of the month and you file your rate case, does not having that tracker or a decision on the order, does that complicate this rate case at all or is it because your environment, the spin is so back end loaded that your able to manage it? Sean Trauschke Yes, you’re correct in your assumption there. I think the complication that arises with this filing is that under 1910 there is a provision there that you file a rate case every two years after the Writer goes in place and our goal and objective was we wanted to run our business and we didn’t want to get tangled up in rate cases every couple of years and just because of the time, energy and money you spend going through that process. In your scenario there we would file and not have – file a rate case and we potentially could not have rates, the Writer in place and so that may give rise to another rate case. I believe we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. I think the thinking thereby and just to be perfectly honest, we said all along we were going to file this rate case this year and this is to recover those items that Steve’s mentioned to that are not being recovered today. There would be good value for customers, the transmission lines are in service and we are going to bring 300 megawatts there back to our utility customers around 230 a KW. So that’s good value for the customers and we ought to be doing it, but we’ve got to kind of run our business for our customers and not get bogged down with kind of the regulatory timeline. Bryan Russo Okay, and the June 2015 test here. What’s like the true-up here or a known and measurable date? Sean Trauschke Six months. Bryan Russo Okay, and what’s the statutory deadline for the commission to issue a final order in a rate case? Sean Trauschke Well, after 180 days from that filing in the rate case, we can implement rates. Bryan Russo Okay, got it. So we should feel rest assured or comfortable that new rates are going to affect prior to near your summer third quarter peak period. Sean Trauschke Yes sir. Bryan Russo Okay, great. Thank you. Sean Trauschke Thank you. Operator Thank you. Our next question comes from Jay Dobson with Wunderlich. Your line is open. Jay Dobson Hey, good morning Sean. Sean Trauschke Hey, good morning Jay. Jay Dobson Hey, a couple of questions if I can. Operating cost trends obviously have been moving in the right direction and you spend a little time highlighting them. Can you talk a little bit about what’s going on there and sort of the durability of those controls or reductions? Sean Trauschke Yes, I think – good question. So we’re actually quite proud of this and philosophically this is not a one-time project that we have these initiatives or teams out there; this is every day. This is just grinding away, looking for opportunities. We’ve seized opportunities around supply chain recently, around our maintenance of our facilities, our engineering systems. We’ve had a number of opportunities as people have retired. How we re-tool the workforce and brought new people into the company. So there’s no singular item Jay is what I would tell you and I think that speaks to the durability or the sustainability of what we’re doing here and it’s just a daily effort and we’re keenly focused on keeping our own costs low. In this case actually reducing them, but I expect that to continue. Jay Dobson Is that something we’d measure in quarters or years? Sean Trauschke I think it’s probably something that you do on an annual basis. A lot of things going at your own expense, but I think that’s more of an annual trend and we’ve been trending that. We’ve been watching that since 2011 and I’m really proud of the effort the entire company has put forth on this. I don’t expect it to seize. The expectation is we’ll continue going forward. Jay Dobson No, that’s great. So the reduction sort of to-date or whenever the rate case is filed, you’ll be sort of handing those back in a rate proceeding, but looking forward sort of post rate case we should assume that costs could continue to decline in a measurable pace. Sean Trauschke Well, let me clarify that a bit. So we are very fortunate to see low growth on our system and so we’re adding customers and so what we’ve been able to do is absorb that and not see incremental costs go out, okay. So I don’t think you’re going to see O&M reductions go down if you’re thinking in terms of rate case activity or anything like that. What we’re saying is that we’re absorbing this additional low with productivity and efficiency gain in our system. Jay Dobson Nope, that’s perfect. It’s like you read my mind. So commercial trends you indicated, what exactly is going on there? Is there new customers coming in? Is this expansion sort of economically related? What’s going on there? Sean Trauschke Yes and yes and so we’re seeing a number of the chain account kind of builds, box stores and restaurants and things like that coming in. We are beginning to see a bit of a slowdown in the oil field sector as you would expect, but it does not seem to be slowing down on the commercial side or the retail side. Jay Dobson Got you, that’s great. And then Enable, I assumed they’d be in the running to serve the Miscurgie conversion and Mustang gas needs. Sean Trauschke Yes, I think we’ll conduct a competitive bid process like we do with everything we procure in this company and if they are successful they’ll get it, if they are not, somebody else will get it. But yes, they would certainly be a viable candidate, but they will not receive any kind of special treatment. Jay Dobson Do they serve other facilities on your system currently? Sean Trauschke Yes, they do. So Enable serves the Mustang plant currently and Horseshoe Lake and Seminole and then some other suppliers serve Redbud and McClain. Jay Dobson Got you. And then two last ones; tax rate with the write down maybe more for Steve. I imagine not that you’re a big tax payer, but that it would do Steve, actual taxes paid, so cash flow benefit. Am I thinking about that right from the good will impairment you recorded? Steve Merrill Yes, you are. We won’t be a full tax payer until 2018. Jay Dobson Perfect. And then last one, just to tag on to the – I think it was the last question Sean. So you can implement rates, 120 days if you don’t have a decision, but am I remembering historically you haven’t actually done that. Sean Trauschke Yes, so it’s actually 180 days and so have we done that? I believe we’ve done it way, way back in the past, but not in recent history. Jay Dobson Okay, got you. Awesome! Thank you so much. Look forward to seeing you in a couple of days. Sean Trauschke All right, thanks Jay. Take care. Operator Thank you. Our next question comes from Paul Patterson with Glenrock Associates. Your line is open. Paul Patterson Hi, how are you doing? Sean Trauschke Hey, good Paul. How are you? Paul Patterson I’m managing. With respect to the, back to this regional haze thing, I mean I guess it was asked and I guess if you could just elaborate a little bit. I mean there’s no sense as to why this is being delayed. Sean Trauschke Well, they are deliberating right now. This is I think the top item on their play. In fairness to the commission, they’ve got a heavy case load. They’ve been very involved in some of the – there’s been a lot of earthquakes here. So they’ve been involved in that analysis and in fairness to commissioner Hye [ph], he walked into this. He didn’t have the benefit of the history that had gone on the previous four years with this. So he is quickly getting up to speed as well. So I don’t really have any, Paul any more insight than that and we’re as anxious as you are to get this resolved. We’ll tell you that we have had some discussions, not complaining or anything about this case, but more about prospectively we’ve got to come up with solutions. What can we do on our side to make this process faster in the future. So we are looking forward in terms of how we can improve this process to make it more timely. Paul Patterson But the record has been closed for some time. There was a deliberation statement from Anthony right. I mean so isn’t like – it seems like it’s got nothing to do with you guys at this point, correct. I mean you guys can’t do anything to – so generally your really… Steve Merrill I think your thesis is exactly right. I mean we have asked if they are looking for any more information or they need anything from us. I think your thesis is right. Its sitting there on their desk. They are deliberating right now. Paul Patterson So we are really not going to be in a situation where you are going to be doing things to address the regional haze issue before we get this; at least nothing that would be controversial potentially. Correct? Sean Trauschke Are you talking about as far as taking access to comply? Paul Patterson Yes. Sean Trauschke No Paul, we are taking actions to comply. We have a deadline, we have a compliance date between regional haze and MATS and we are taking actions – go ahead. Paul Patterson But is there anything that like I guess in terms of – is there any risk that you’ll be taking action that these guys might say, ‘hey, well that’s not what we really thought you were going to do.’ Sean Trauschke No, no the actions we are taking is exactly what we spelled out in our testimony, exactly what we communicated well in advance of our filing and our plan of attack is exactly what we’ve been communicating for a couple of years now. Paul Patterson Okay and so if these guys come up with a decision that’s different than that? Sean Trauschke When you say a decision different than that, what do you mean? Paul Patterson I mean if they go with the ALJ recommendation, right. Would that… Sean Trauschke The ALJ, I think the ALJ was primarily speaking about various components of how you’d recover that, but the commission is not – it’s our job to kind of design and operate this system and make these decisions on how the business is going to operate, and aside I don’t believe that they are going to get into making decisions about what asset we should be utilizing. And besides remember, the ALJ did indicate all of this was prudent, and the legislation provides for that as well and that this was a mandate, a requirement and that’s what this legislation that was put in place was to address, was timely recovery for environmental mandate and this is the mandate. Paul Patterson But the Mustang monetization plan and stuff like that, I mean how do we think about that I guess. Do you follow what I’m saying? Sean Trauschke Yes, so on Mustang, our point there on Mustang was we wanted to be upfront and transparent with the commission. Let them know where we are going with how we are going to reconfigure our fleet. We had a window of opportunity there to be able to site new generation closest to the largest load center. It serves a very critical piece of our 345 transmission loop around the city and we made that case to the committee, to the commission and whether they account for that and the writer or whether they want to do deal with that later in a rate case, that’s fine, we’ll deal with that. Paul Patterson Okay. And then just in terms of good will, I’m sorry to be a little so on. Just with the account and back to Jay’s question, what was the tax impact? I apologize, it’s been a busy morning, associated with our write-off. Steve Merrill I mean it’s really just a timing issue as it relates to a tax impact. That write-off will actually flow through our corporate tax calculation and impact our effective rate accordingly. Paul Patterson As opposed to being amortized, is that how we should think about it. Steve Merrill That’s correct. It accelerates in the amortization, and you don’t really amortize good will anyway. It just sits there until… Paul Patterson Not on a GAAP basis, but on the tax basis, was there any amortization on that. Steve Merrill No. Paul Patterson Okay, I just wanted to check on that. Steve Merrill Okay. Paul Patterson Thank you. Sean Trauschke Thanks Paul. Operator Thank you. And I am showing no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the call back to Sean Trauschke for any closing remarks. Sean Trauschke Well, once again I want to thank our members for their hard work and dedication and commitment to safety and thank all of you for joining us on this call today and have a great day. Operator Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation in today’s conference. This does conclude today’s program. You may all disconnect. Everyone have a great day.

NRG Energy (NRG) David Whipple Crane on Q3 2015 Results – Earnings Call Transcript

NRG Energy, Inc. (NYSE: NRG ) Q3 2015 Earnings Call November 04, 2015 9:00 am ET Executives Chad S. Plotkin – Vice President-Investor Relations David Whipple Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Mauricio Gutierrez – Chief Operating Officer, Director & Executive VP Kirkland B. Andrews – Chief Financial Officer, Director & Executive VP Christopher S. Moser – Senior Vice President-Commercial Operations Elizabeth Killinger – SVP & President, NRG Retail, NRG Energy, Inc. Kelcy Pegler – President-NRG Home Solar Analysts Stephen Calder Byrd – Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC Daniel Eggers – Credit Suisse Securities (NYSE: USA ) LLC (Broker) Greg Gordon – Evercore ISI Julien Dumoulin-Smith – UBS Securities LLC Jonathan P. Arnold – Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. Neel Mitra – Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. Securities, Inc. Operator Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the NRG Energy Incorporated Q3 2015 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will follow at that time. As a reminder, today’s conference is being recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today’s conference Mr. Chad Plotkin, Vice President of Investor Relations. Sir, please begin. Chad S. Plotkin – Vice President-Investor Relations Thank you, Liz. Good morning, and welcome to NRG Energy’s third quarter 2015 earnings call. This morning’s call is being broadcast live over the phone and via webcast, which can be located on the Investors section of our website at www.nrg.com under Presentations & Webcasts. Because this call will be limited to one hour, we ask that you limit yourself to only one question with one follow-up. As this is the earnings call for NRG Energy, any statements made on this call that may pertain to NRG Yield will be provided from NRG’s perspective. Please note that today’s discussion may contain forward-looking statements, which are based on assumptions that we believe to be reasonable as of this date. Such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. We urge everyone to review the Safe Harbor statement provided in today’s presentation as well as the risk factors contained in our SEC filings. We undertake no obligation to update these statements as a result of future events, except as required by law. During this morning’s call, we will also refer to both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures of the company’s operating and financial results. For information regarding our non-GAAP financial measures and reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures, please refer to today’s press release and this presentation. And with that, I will turn the call over to David Crane, NRG’s President and Chief Executive Officer. David Whipple Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Thank you, Chad, and good morning, everyone. And thank you for joining us on this, our third quarter call. Today joining me are Mauricio Gutierrez, the company’s Chief Operating Officer, and Kirk Andrews, the company’s Chief Financial Officer, and both of them will be participating in the presentation. We also have available to answer any specific questions you have in their areas Chris Moser, who runs the company’s Commercial Operations business; Kelcy Pegler, who runs our Home Solar business; and Elizabeth Killinger, who runs the company’s retail business. So with just over six weeks passed since we hosted the NRG Reset call, we’re going to do our best to be brief so that we can provide you with ample time to ask the questions that you have. However, with the unabated selloff in our stock and across the entire sector during the quarter, I want to begin by acknowledging how difficult a time it has been for you, our shareholders. In truth, in this market environment, I don’t know that I can predict what exactly will cause the stock to turn around and recover to some level that approximates fair value, but I can tell you that NRG’s operational and financial performance has been strong and solidly within expectations, that our current liquidity is as strong it has ever been at over $4 billion, and that our Reset program has passed through the planning stage into implementation with every aspect of it well on track, albeit still in the early going. It is certainly our hope and expectation that’s a gradual accomplishment of various aspects of the reset, the cost-cutting, the freeing up of committed capital through various measures, the allocation of capital particularly to the reduction of debt, all will provide a continuous impetus to the recovery of our share price. And after that preliminary comment, let’s move on to discuss how our business has performed through the third quarter of 2015. Turning to slide three in the business update, I’m pleased to report today that we are narrowing our 2015 full year adjusted EBITDA guidance to $3.25 billion to $3.35 billion, solidly in the middle of the original guidance range. Our financial performance in the ever-important third quarter was just tremendous, and demonstrated once again the resilience of having a matched retail-wholesale platform. In a period of subdued wholesale power prices, our retail business, alongside our outstanding commercial operations team, excel. Indeed, our retail business delivered its best quarterly result since 2010, with $225 million in adjusted EBITDA for the quarter. Regarding our conventional wholesale business, which by the way turned in another strong operational quarter, probably the most noteworthy event during the quarter has been the extensive commentary in the financial community questioning the medium- to long-term prospects for power plant fleets like ours. My reaction to this point, based on the many commodity price cycles I have live through in this industry, is that you can’t ignore the underlying reliability value of locationally advantaged assets in competitive markets. Our 48,000 megawatt fleet has a key competitive advantage in each of our three regional markets. First, in Texas, our generation portfolio’s footprint closely matches and complements our thriving Texas retail business. Second, in the East, our portfolio has been shaped to focus on providing and being compensated for reliable capacity, as demonstrated by the enhanced value in earnings to NRG as a result of the recent capacity performance auction, and the importance of which has been underlined by the recent announcement of Entergy with respect to the closure of the FitzPatrick plant. And third in the West, our portfolio features a heavily contracted Fast-Start gas capability tailored to a market moving towards 50% renewables. In all three of our regional markets, the steady and stable operations of our generation remains critical, not only to the enterprise, but to the grid in general. Moving on to other signs of successful execution of our business plan, I’m pleased to announce today that just yesterday, we closed our most recent drop-downed NRG yield, which delivered $210 million in cash back to NRG, which as you know we will be utilizing as part of our efforts to strengthen the balance sheet as we discussed on our last call. I’m also pleased to report that, as we announced on September 22, we successfully executed on the $251 million share repurchase program, which in combination with all shares repurchased year-to-date brings the total shares acquired this year to 7% of our outstanding shares. And as we will discuss in more detail in a bit, we are now shifting our immediate capital allocation focus to debt reduction, as we indicated would be the case on our NRG Reset call, as a way not only to further strengthen our balance sheet but also to unlock shareholder value. Lastly, our Home Solar business remains well on track, as we outlined six weeks ago, driven by tremendous top line growth with over 6,300 net bookings in the quarter, and we believe one of the highest, if not the highest growth rate of the major players in the sector. This volume places us in a fight for third with Sunrun and not that far off from Vivint in the number two position. With respect to our installations for the quarter, which numbered 1,900, or now a total of approximately 80 megawatts, we are making progress in our concerted effort to reduce the backlog going into and through the early months of 2016. For those tracking Home Solar’s negative EBITDA contribution projected for full-year 2015 continues to track within the negative $175 million disclosed on the second quarter call. So, let’s move on to discuss progress on the NRG Reset and drivers behind our 2016 financial guidance, turning to slide 4. Let me start with components of the Reset which are fully within our control. We are well into the implementation phase of our companywide cost reduction program of $150 million across G&A, marketing and development expense. In addition, and Mauricio will provide more details on this, I’m also pleased to announce today that we have identified and are implementing an additional $100 million in O&M spending reductions across all of our businesses, all of which can be done in a manner that does not sacrifice the reliability of our portfolio. So when combined with the initial NRG Reset cost reduction plan, our cost reduction efforts now bring, on an annual basis, a total cost savings target of $250 million to be achieved in 2016 and recurring thereafter. On the asset rebalancing component of the program, we remain focused on and highly confident in our ability to unlock, in combination with the cost reduction program, over $1 billion in capital for allocation to reduce the balance sheet. The modifications of our plans at Portland and Avon Lake Unit 9 are complete, reducing or eliminating additional capital spend at those plants, and we are actively marketing select assets for disposition. Given the high level of interest in these assets expressed during our preliminary marketing phase over the past few weeks, we are moving forward at a pace and in a manner that we believe will lead to an optimization of value for NRG shareholders. You should expect in all likelihood a series of such transaction announcements over the weeks and months to come. Regarding the GreenCo business, the $125 million GreenCo runway around NRG Home Solar, the C&I business at NRG Renew, and eVgo is established, and ready to commence on January 1, 2016. As it relates to the process around the securing of a strategic or financial partner in GreenCo, through the initial phase of our efforts we are quite pleased with the interest we are seeing. We continue to be in the market discovery process and remain focused on selling a majority interest in GreenCo with the goal of financial deconsolidation and simplification at the parent company level. However, and not unlike our approach to asset dispositions on the conventional side, our approach with respect to GreenCo is value first and speed of execution second. The choice of partner in at GreenCo is an important one and we are focused on both optimizing current value and positioning the business, which NRG will continue to own a significant stake in for future success. We will provide you with more material updates as the process allows. So as we look at all the actions we are taking, and importantly marry this with the ongoing benefit of our integrated platform, we are introducing 2016 financial guidance of $3 billion to $3.2 billion in adjusted EBITDA and $1 billion to $1.2 billion in free cash flow before growth on a consolidated basis. As an additional item and something Kirk will provide more detail around, in response to many of the questions we are receiving from investors pertaining to the complexity of our capital structure, for the first time we are now providing our expectation for free cash flow before growth at the NRG level. What this represents is the free cash flow generation excluding non-recourse subsidiaries such as GenOn, NRG Yield, and the primary NRG ROFO assets. Our hope is that providing this to you, we will eliminate at least part of the concern about the geography of our cash flows. Now turning to slide five, I would like to touch upon capital allocation. We have repeatedly stated over the past few months that our focus over the coming year is on shrinking the balance sheet, so for the avoidance of doubt, let me put our thinking in this regard into some historical context. For many years now, indeed for almost my entire time as CEO of NRG, our focus has been to establish a diversified business platform that reduces our company’s exposure to near-term fluctuations in natural gas and power prices, amongst other potentially concentrated risks. Specifically, our goal always has been to minimize commodity price impact on free cash flow, while maintaining the upside that occurs when the commodity markets move in a positive direction. Our key tool in this regard, in addition to hedging, has been asset and business diversification. Our diversification commenced in earnest when we entered the retail business six years ago through the acquisition of Reliant, followed with our strong move into contracted generation targeted around renewables, our redevelopment efforts that are locationally advantaged Brownfield sites, and most recently our asset management program aimed at maximizing our economic advantage in capacity markets like PJM. This quarter’s performance, especially with our outstanding retail performance, and next year’s guidance, coming as they do at a time of historically low natural gas prices, speaks to the effectiveness of our business diversification as a financial buffer. But of course, this diversification becomes a moot point if market concerns around the balance sheet persist. It is our strongly held belief that NRG’s equity investors will benefit from an absolute reduction in our debt, most notably at the NRG level, but also across our entire capital structure. As Kirk will outline, that is the focus of our capital allocation program now. At this slide five describes, as a result of our recent efforts, we aim to free up roughly $1.6 billion in total over the next 14 months to apply to balance sheet shrinking, and particularly to debt reduction. Further, as we look out beyond the next 14 months, our efforts around reducing maintenance CapEx and the material completion of our capital expenditure program will provide further capital allocation flexibility. Our overriding goal that animates this entire effort is to put to rest the question of whether NRG is carrying an excessive level of debt, so that all of us can be on the same plane where we can focus on the cash generative power of the NRG businesses and how that cash can be put to its best use for the benefits of NRG shareholders. And with that, I will turn it over to Mauricio. Mauricio Gutierrez – Chief Operating Officer, Director & Executive VP Thank you, David, and good morning, everyone. Our integrated platform continued to perform extremely well during the third quarter. Our wholesale business mitigated the impact of lower power prices through active hedging and good commercial execution, while our retail business benefited from lower supply costs, highlighting once again the strength of our wholesale-retail platform. During the quarter, we continued to take steps on repositioning our portfolio to optimize and improve economics and returns. First, our asset optimization effort in the Northeast, which focuses on capacity revenues, was validated by the recent PJM capacity performance auction resource (15:07). Second, we continue to reduce spend across the fleet, which I will discuss in more detail in a later slide. And finally, we have taken the necessary steps to hedge our portfolio in the short term to protect from further downside. All of these efforts are in addition to the business diversification strategy that David already mentioned in his remarks. So let’s start with a review of our operational performance on slide seven. We have another quarter of top-quartile safety performance, with 147 out of 168 facilities that finished the quarter without a single recordable injury. We’re mindful that our portfolio is going through some changes and we need to stay vigilant and redouble our efforts to ensure that safety is and remains always first. Our total generation was up 5% for the quarter, driven primarily by higher generation in the Gulf and the West. The East was relatively unchanged, with slightly lower coal generation offset by higher gas runs. Our coal and nuclear plants improved their availability and reliability metrics. I want to congratulate STP, Parish, and Dunkirk for almost perfect runs this summer. Our gas units continue to be called on more frequently in the market, as you can see in the bottom right chart. We continue to maintain a remarkable 99% starting reliability on our gas (16:27). Turning to slide eight, our retail business continued its trend of exceptional performance, delivering $225 million of adjusted EBITDA, the highest third quarter since 2010 and $58 million more than last year. During the quarter, we captured value from lower cost to serve, effective margin management, and expansion of our product offering. We have also sustained our strong momentum in customer acquisition and retention that led to 5,000 customer account growth, despite the continued expiration of acquired Dominion customers’ contracts in the East, where we continued to see better than expected retention levels. Excluding the Dominion acquisition, our customer growth was 26,000. As we have stated in the past six years, the ongoing success of our retail business continues to demonstrate the value of our integrated wholesale-retail platform, and most importantly provides NRG diversification in earnings through all phases of the commodity cycle. Turning to slide nine. Let me share a few comments on the gas market. We have experienced pretty mild weather this past year, a warm winter followed by a mild summer. This weather combination most likely will lead to a new record storage number in the coming weeks, at or near 4 TcF. Combined with the expectation of an El Niño weather forecast, and you’ve got a market with only bearish news and falling prices. It’s worth noting that El Niño is typically associated with a warmer upper Midwest winter and a colder Gulf Coast one. As a diversified energy company with assets in both areas, we could do well in such a scenario. I want to remind everyone that we’re very well hedged through 2016 and about 50% in 2017, giving us some nice runway to what we see as a more bullish future. Make no mistake, where we see plenty of upside if gas prices were to rise, but have protected significantly the downside through hedging and business diversification. Regardless of current sentiment, in our view, long term natural gas price fundamentals look strong. The first half of this decade was dominated by supply growth outstripping demand. We expect the second half to reverse that trend with demand growth outstripping supply. Natural gas production has been stagnant since late last year, in part because of lower rig counts and low prices. In the meantime we see growing LNG exports, increasing exports to Mexico, higher industrial production, and greater demand from the power sector. As an example, our fuel conversions of new gas flow from Joliet and Shawville alone will increase our summer peak day gas consumption by 0.5 BCF/day. The gas demand from new builds and conversions is real and is coming. Simply put, we are well positioned to weather the short-term low prices and remain open to benefit from bullish long-term fundamentals. Turning to slide 10, on our power market update, and starting with ERCOT. As we have discussed for several years now, market changes are needed to better reflect scarcity conditions like the ones we experienced this summer. During August, we saw our first real test of the operating reserve demand curve mechanism, and sadly, we watched it fail. Scarcity conditions were right for a few days, during which a new record peak was set. But aside from one $350 day head clear (19:56), the week was mostly disappointing. A combination of scarcity conditions and low prices caught both market participants’ and the PUCT’s attention. ORDC is expected to be a major topic of conversation at the open meeting tomorrow. Discussions are now underway to examine potential changes that can be made to the ORDC parameters to make it more effective in reflecting true scarcity on the system. We’re supportive of that effort and will actively participate in the discussion. Otherwise fundamentals remain strong, with load growing by 2.7% on a weather-normalized basis so far this year, despite low oil prices. Combined with the risk of additional retirements, current forward prices look too low and present an upside to our low-cost and environmentally controlled coal portfolio. As for the Northeast, we have been repositioning our portfolio from providing base-load energy to providing reliability as a capacity resource. The recent results in PJM and New England, which we just covered in our recent call, validate our commercial strategy. In the past couple of weeks, we’ve heard news of additional nuclear retirements. It would seem that smaller nuclear plants are struggling to cover cost and may lead the way to further tightening in the market. Turning to our hedging disclosure on a slide 11, and as I mentioned earlier today, we’re pretty well hedged for the next two years. As the chart in the upper left of the slide shows, we’re very well hedged against our expected production for 2016 and almost 50% hedged for 2017. We are evaluating further entry points to increase our coal hedges, and are comfortable with current inventory levels as we head into the winter months. We like the remaining open position for the back half of 2017 and beyond, given our more constructive view of gas and power. Finally, on slide 12 I want to provide more details on our expanded cost reduction program across the company, and more specifically the $100 million reduction in O&M savings that David mentioned. As you likely have assumed, most of these will be executed on the wholesale business, where we continue our work on evaluating and prioritizing every actionable spend decision on an asset-by-asset basis. Key drivers of the overall reduction relate to the asset optimization efforts that we announced around Portland and Huntley respectively, changes in the way we’re managing operational risks and further cost reductions on units that have lower capacity factors. Of course, we will not make any O&M reductions that jeopardize the safe and efficient operations of our fleet. In addition to the $100 million reduction just announced, we’re introducing the fourth iteration of NRG’s continuous business improvement program, called FORNRG. This program is driven by employee ideas and innovation to enhance each department’s bottom line. The FOR stands for focus on return, and is rooted in ensuring all employees are empowered to find better, more cost-effective ways on doing our jobs. Our goal is to achieve $150 million of cumulative EBITDA over the next three years. Just as we have done in the past, we remain committed to our continuous improvement program that has yielded so many benefits for NRG and its shareholders. With that, I will turn it over to Kirk. Kirkland B. Andrews – Chief Financial Officer, Director & Executive VP Thank you, Mauricio. And beginning with the financial summary on slide 14, NRG delivered a total of $1.145 billion in adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter, and over $2.7 billion for the nine months ended September 30. Our third quarter results were highlighted by $225 million in adjusted EBITDA from Home Retail, a 35% year-over-year increase, again highlighting the success of NRG’s integrated business model as results improved largely due to favorable supply cost. Business and Renew combined for $722 million in EBITDA for the quarter, while NRG Yield contributed $198 million. Despite the subdued summer power prices, our strong Home Retail performance combined with effective wholesale hedging allows us to narrow our adjusted EBITDA guidance range to $3.25 billion to $3.35 billion, still in line with the midpoint of our original 2015 guidance. Looking to the business segment components of adjusted EBITDA guidance, the increase in guidance for NRG Yield reflects the full-year impact of the closing of the wind portfolio drop down as required under GAAP, with an equal reduction in Business and Renew guidance, which previously included the EBITDA associated with the equity stake now held by Yield. Based on the strong retail performance for the quarter, we are also increasing the retail component of 2015 EBITDA guidance, which offsets the modest reduction in expected 2015 wholesale results. Finally, we’re also narrowing guidance for 2015 free cash flow to $1.125 billion to $1.225 billion. Turning to other highlights, and focusing first on our progress on NRG Yield drop downs, we’re pleased to announce we’ve now closed the previously announced sale of a 75% interest in a portfolio of 12 wind projects to NRG Yield for $210 million in cash. The remaining 25% interest continues to be part of the drop down pipeline remaining under the expanded right of first offer agreement. NRG intends to complete the balance of the $100 million in commercial distributed solar projects and $150 million in residential solar leases under our existing partnerships with NRG Yield over the balance of 2015 and into early 2016. As we’ve indicated in previous quarters, NRG also intends to offer its remaining stake in CBSR to NRG Yield in late 2015, which makes up the balance of the $600 million in expected drop down offers to Yield during 2015, as originally announced on our first quarter earnings call. Turning to share repurchases, NRG completed the purchase of $251 million of its common stock during September and October of 2015, which when combined with our previously completed share repurchases and annualized dividend leads to a total of approximately $630 million in capital returned to NRG common stockholders in 2015, and a 7% reduction in common shares outstanding. Turning to 2016 guidance on slide 15, we’re initiating 2016 guidance ranges with adjusted EBITDA of $3 billion and $3.2 billion, consisting of business and utility-scale renewable adjusted EBITDA of $1.545 billion to $1.67 billion, retail adjusted EBITDA of $650 million to $725 million, which is a $50 million increase over our initial 2015 retail guidance. And finally, NRG Yield adjusted EBITDA of $805 million, which includes the recently closed wind drop downs. Our free cash flow before growth guidance, which is net of maintenance and environmental capital, is expected to be a robust $1 billion to $1.2 billion. Our 2016 guidance excludes the impact of the GreenCo businesses as identified during our Reset call on September 18, for which NRG’s total cash committed is limited to $125 million, which will be managed through an intercompany revolving credit facility as part of NRG 2016 capital allocation, which I will review in greater detail shortly. As David mentioned earlier, to further clarify the cash flow and capital available at the NRG level, we are also initiating guidance for the portion of our total free cash flow before growth guidance, which is available at the NRG level, which for 2016 we expect to be $750 million to $950 million. This range is based on deducting the portion of our total free cash flow guidance expected to be generated at NRG’s non-guarantor subsidiaries, which consist primarily of GenOn, NRG Yield and the remaining ROFO assets. And then finally, adding back the expected cash distributions and dividends from these subsidiaries makes up the adjustment to arrive at NRG level free cash flow before growth. Turning to slide 16, and continuing the theme of clarifying and enhancing our disclosures, in light of increasing questions and focus from our investors on leverage levels at NRG, I have provided here a deconstructed view of the consolidated balance sheet, as well as the derivation of the NRG corporate debt to corporate EBITDA ratio, which is the cornerstone of our targeted prudent balance sheet metrics. As you recall, we target this ratio at 4.25 times, which is consistent with our targeted BB credit metrics, recently reaffirmed by S&P. Based on the midpoint of our 2016 guidance and previously committed debt reduction from 2015, we are in line with that target. As shown on the left of the slide, although NRG’s consolidated debt balance as of the quarter end is approximately $20 billion, over $11 billion of that debt resides at our excluded project subsidiaries, which consist primarily of NRG Yield and the remaining ROFO assets, most of the debt at which is fully amortized and consistent with the contract durations, with the remaining non-recourse debt residing at GenOn. This debt is non-recourse to NRG and is not counted in our corporate credit metrics, including the debt-to-EBITDA ratio prescribed by our credit facilities, which contain thresholds governing our ability to purchase shares and pay dividends. Only the remaining $8.8 billion of debt consisting of our senior unsecured notes and term loan facility is recourse to NRG and counts toward this ratio. On the right of the slide, after adjusting for the $500 million in 2015 capital already allocated to NRG-level debt reduction, which we expect to augment using 2016 capital, we anticipate corporate debt, or the numerator of the ratio, to be less than $8.3 billion in 2016. Turning to corporate EBITDA, or the denominator of the targeted ratio, we began with the midpoint of our 2016 adjusted EBITDA guidance. As only cash distributions from our excluded project subsidiaries count as EBITDA for ratio purposes, we next deduct the midpoint 2016 EBITDA from these subsidiaries, and then add back these cash distributions, which include our share of dividends from NRG Yield and distributions and payments from the remaining nonrecourse subsidiaries, primarily the remaining ROFO assets. The final adjustment is an add-back of non-cash components of corporate level expenses, which we’re deducting in arriving at our EBITDA guidance. What results is $1.95 billion of corporate-level EBITDA, which basically represents EBITDA from assets and businesses from our recourse subsidiaries, plus the cash distributions and payments from nonrecourse subs. Based on the midpoint of our 2016 guidance, our expected corporate debt-to-EBITDA is no greater than 4.26 times, in line with our long-term target for this ratio and significantly below both our restricted payment and default ratios. As I mentioned earlier, we expect to augment our 2015 allocation of capital to debt reduction, with additional debt reduction using 2016 capital driving this ratio even lower and providing additional balance sheet strengthening as we move into 2017. We remain committed to shrinking the NRG balance sheet as part of the NRG Reset, and leaving no doubt as to the strength and integrity of NRG credit ratios as we move into 2016 and beyond. Turning to slide 17, having initiated 2016 guidance, I’d like to next review NRG-level capital available for allocation for 2016. We are focused here on capital allocation at the NRG level, which excludes NRG Yield excess cash as well as GenOn excess cash reserve for liquidity and the completion of our asset optimization project at GenOn. Moving from left to right, we have now allocated all remaining 2015 capital towards debt reduction, which we expect to execute over the balance of 2015 into 2016, totaling $500 million in discretionary debt reduction at NRG. This balance consists of $200 million, which is one-third of the targeted 2015 NRG Yield drop down proceeds, plus $300 million of remaining capital also announced as part of the NRG Reset in September, which we are now committing to debt reduction as well. Turning to 2016, incremental NRG level capital for allocation begins with the midpoint of our NRG-level free cash flow guidance of $850 million. Total 2016 committed capital at NRG is approximately $600 million, as shown in the red bar, and is comprised of the $125 million GreenCo runway revolver; growth investments of $250 million, primarily our PH Robinson peaker project, Carbon 360, and the eVgo California settlement; with the balance allocated to NRG-level corporate debt amortization and our common stock dividend. The remaining free cash flow balance of $250 million, combined with $500 million of 2015 capital remaining to be deployed towards debt reduction, leads to $750 million in capital available at the NRG level through 2016, which we expect to further supplement through the execution of the remainder of the NRG Reset initiatives. These initiatives include non-recourse project financing, through which we expect to fund approximately $250 million of environmental CapEx at Midwest generation, thereby increasing capital available to NRG. Having now completed the rating process and documentation for this financing, we are prepared to launch when market conditions are more favorable. Targeted asset sale proceeds from the NRG Reset totaling at least $500 million are expected to further augment excess capital for consolidated balance sheet reduction. Finally, and potentially supplemental to the $1.1 billion in Reset capital, any proceeds from the GreenCo sell down and future NRG yield drop downs, located currently by equity market recovery, which serve to further expand NRG level capital for allocation. By way of reference, in the upper right corner of the page I have provided a walk, beginning with the remaining 2016 excess NRG-level free cash flow through the other components of the NRG Reset, which combined now total $1.1 billion in consolidated 2016 capital to be deployed toward shrinking the balance sheet. Finally, turning to slide to 18, I’d like to briefly review and update our expectations for significant reductions in maintenance, environmental, and growth capital from 2016 to 2017. Our revised 2016 capital expenditures reflect reductions in growth CapEx, stemming primarily from the $100 million in reduced spend on fuel conversions at GenOn as well as GreenCo-related growth CapEx, which is now capped at $125 million based on the runway amount. Turning to 2017, due to incremental reductions in expected 2017 growth capital expenditures, including the elimination of distributed-generation solar and residential solar, we now expect a year-over-year reduction of over $550 million in consolidated CapEx in 2017 versus 2016, with approximately $350 million of this reduction occurring at the NRG level. These substantial year-over-year reductions in expected capital expenditures provide a significant cushion against continued softness in commodity prices and a potential uplift in available capital in 2017, which may be allocated to further balance sheet reductions, including debt reduction and return of shareholder capital. With that, I’ll turn it back to David. David Whipple Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Thank you, Kirk. And if we turn to our closing slide, which is slide 20, we end by quantifying a point previously made, which is that NRG’s financial results in 2016 are not nearly as exposed to fluctuating gas prices as the market seems to be suggesting. We have successfully mitigated the downward exposure of falling natural gas prices through our hedging program and through our asset diversification. In the ultra-low commodity price environment that currently grips our market, this strategy is what has enabled us today to guide to a healthy adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow level for 2016, and which, together with the substantially increased capital flexibility arising out of the steps listed on the right side of this page, should enable us to implement a substantial capital allocation program over the months ahead. Our goal in all this is to make NRG a simpler, less leveraged company over the duration of the Reset program. NRG is not just an IPP. As we have demonstrated on this call, NRG’s unique advantage is that our balanced wholesale-retail business mitigates the financial impact of low energy commodity prices, which enables us to profitably serve our retail customers with a growing mix of products and services. This is essential during the current low commodity price cycle, when the value pendulum in the sector clearly has swung to serving the end-use energy customer. As I said, this wholesale-retail balance is NRG’s unique advantage, and all of us at NRG are excited about the opportunities we have in front of us to maximize the value of this advantage for the benefit of NRG shareholders. And with that, Liz, we are happy to take people’s questions. Question-and-Answer Session Operator Our first question comes from the line of Stephen Byrd with Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open. Stephen Calder Byrd – Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC Hi, good morning. David Whipple Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Hi, Stephen. Stephen Calder Byrd – Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC Thanks for the enhanced disclosure, it’s extremely helpful, very well done. Just on, hit on the couple topics on, first on just coal supply, Just given the very low commodity environment we’re in, very low gas and power prices, could you talk a little bit further to just what you’re seeing in terms of potential ability, whether it’d be on transport or the commodity itself – what are the dynamics, in terms of being able to continue to improve your position in terms of your coal costs? David Whipple Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Stephen, you want to tell us the two questions, so – and then we’ll answer them. So we’re tipped off and we can prepare an answer to the second? Stephen Calder Byrd – Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC Sure thing. My other question is just on competitive dynamics in retail. And I was curious whether you’re seeing overall any competitive dynamic changes in that business, and then more specifically whether you see a potential for some of your retail competitors to try to get into solar, as you’ve been doing? David Whipple Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Into solar, not into — not IPPs getting into retail, but you’re interested in … Stephen Calder Byrd – Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC In retailer to solar. David Whipple Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Yeah. Stephen Calder Byrd – Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC That’s right. David Whipple Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Well, let me start by answering the last part of that question, and then Chris Moser’s going to answer your coal question, and Elizabeth, as soon as Chris finishes, you answer the question about competitive dynamics in retail. But I would say, Stephen, given the market’s reception to us getting into distributor – so I don’t think that’s going to encourage other IPPs to get into that area. But, so – but in terms of the other IPPs getting into retail, which is something that I’ve sort of been expecting for a long time, maybe Elizabeth can talk about that in terms of the context of competitive dynamics. But – but Chris, why don’t you start with talking about the coal dynamics, and Elizabeth, you take over from Chris. Christopher S. Moser – Senior Vice President-Commercial Operations Sure. I would characterize it like this, Stephen. I think we’re working with our whole coal supply chain and the partners in it to make sure we’ve got reliable and competitively priced fuel. There’s really two pieces to that. There’s the rail piece and then the commodity piece. I mean on the commodity side, if you’ve been watching over the past couple of weeks, we’ve seen a pretty decent jog down in the prices, specifically PRB, but NAZ (40:36) as well, and so that will obviously help us next year. And then on the transportation side, without getting into too much specifics, I would say that our transportation partners have been good partners with us and want to make sure that the coal continues to flow. So, I think that’s how I would answer that. Elizabeth Killinger – SVP & President, NRG Retail, NRG Energy, Inc. And Stephen, regarding the competitive dynamics in the retail business, I think we continue to see intense competitive markets with – we’re 50 players in Texas, and it varies by market in the East, but anywhere from kind of 15 to 30-something competitors. So, lots of competitive activity. We are seeing competitors extend their product offerings to include more products than simply retail electricity, and that takes the form of energy management solutions, natural gas, some home-control type features; as you noticed, home solar, and otherwise. So, we expect that to continue, which is why we continue to lead the market in evaluating what consumers want, and making sure we’re delivering the best of it to them. Stephen Calder Byrd – Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC Thanks very much – sorry, David. David Whipple Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Well, Steve, I just, I guess my reaction on your people going into solar, response a little flippant about IPPs; what I think – and look, no one can predict the future, but I think the period ahead in home solar is going to be focused on consolidation around what I think is going to emerge as the four main players, the Solar Cities, the Vivints, the Sunruns, and ourselves. I don’t expect another IPP to come into that space anytime soon, but I would actually be surprised, since – and, I’m – I subscribe to the view that home solar is a mortal threat to the utility business model. I would be surprised if, within the next 18 to 24 months, some big utility doesn’t try and buy their way into this space, but that’s just my speculation. Stephen Calder Byrd – Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC Great. Thank you very much. Operator Our next question comes from the line of Dan Eggers with Credit Suisse. Your line is now open. Daniel Eggers – Credit Suisse Securities ( USA ) LLC (Broker) Hey, good morning, guys. Just on that update to the balance sheet, what target metrics do you guys want to get to at the corporate NRG balance sheet perspective, and of the $1.6 billion that you are expecting between now and the end of the next year for debt reduction? Is that all NRG-specific debt, or is that going to include some GenOn and some other pieces in that number? Kirkland B. Andrews – Chief Financial Officer, Director & Executive VP Sure, Dan. It’s Kirk. I’ll take that in reverse order. The $1.6 billion is really a consolidated look at uplift in capital for allocation. As you know, in particular, $500 million of that is what is part of the NRG Reset in asset sales, and depending on the mix of those asset sales – some of which we expect to be at the GenOn level, because we’re focused on the Northeast – that, more than anything else, would govern the proportion of the allocation of capital toward debt reduction at GenOn versus NRG. As to the targeted metric, we continue to target, as I’d said, 4.25 times corporate debt to corporate EBITDA. We also focused on FFO to debt, keeping that number below the – at or below the high-teens level. And I’d say that the tertiary component of that is, we look to stay around 50% debt-to-capital, though that is a book ratio. Certainly something that we focused on, the rating agencies focused on, but I think it’s probably certainly tertiary to those first two. And so – and part of the reason why we focused on that 4.25 is, as I said, it comports with what, based on our ongoing conversations with the rating agencies, support those BB credit metrics. It also gives us a significant cushion against the thresholds in our credit facility, above which we’re no longer permitted to pay dividends or buy back stock. So we’ve got a significant cushion there, and obviously even further cushioned below the default ratio. So those are the reasons that go into those target metrics. Daniel Eggers – Credit Suisse Securities ( USA ) LLC (Broker) I guess just on capital allocation, can you remind us, with all the resets, what growth CapEx commitments you guys have beyond 2015? And then maybe along those capital allocation lines, how you think about, is there going to be room for buy-backs next year, or is this all going to be debt related? Kirkland B. Andrews – Chief Financial Officer, Director & Executive VP Well, to answer the first part of that question, in terms of committed growth capital, as I think we’ve laid out, as we move into 2016, what we’re seeing in terms of the growth capital on a consolidated basis is primarily the completion of the GenOn repowerings, as well as the – and beyond 2017, the beginning of the capital allocated to our Carlsbad and Mandalay projects, and the balance of that capital in 2016 and a little bit further into 2017 is just, A, the remainder of the Carbon 360 project, which has about $150 million of capital left to go in about equal parts between 2016 and 2017, and the eVgo California settlement, which in both 2016 and 2017 is at or about $20 million in each year. That is really the bulk; that is all of the remaining growth capital that we have or expect to allocate at this point. As to the allocation of capital toward the balance sheet and your comment about share repurchases, what I would say is, as I’d mentioned, we’re continuing to focus on finding opportunities to return capital to shareholders. Certainly our dividend is something we’re committed to, and certainly we look to supplement that with share repurchases, but at the present time we are going to focus in swinging the pendulum towards the debt side of the balance sheet. In particular to leave no doubt, and to ensure not only that ratio is improved in 2016, but we are confident in our ability to maintain that ratio through 2017. I think that more than anything else will determine our focus in the near term on debt reduction, and ultimately arriving at that ratio through that debt reduction will govern the proportion of our capital allocation which would later go to share repurchases. Daniel Eggers – Credit Suisse Securities ( USA ) LLC (Broker) Great. Thank you. Operator Our next question comes from the line of Greg Gordon with Evercore ISI. Your line is now open. Greg Gordon – Evercore ISI Thanks. Good morning. David Whipple Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Morning, Greg. Greg Gordon – Evercore ISI Yeah. So if I’m looking at slide 17, just to be clear, thinking about the capital allocation beyond the $500 million, since the CapEx savings is coming at GenOn and a portion of the asset sales will probably be at GenOn, we should think about sort of $250 million, maybe plus or minus – plus whatever portion of the asset sales are non-GenOn, as being pointed at debt reduction at the parent, incremental to the $500 million in 2016, is that correct? Kirkland B. Andrews – Chief Financial Officer, Director & Executive VP I think the way you’ve categorized that, Greg, is right, although certainly we – as I’ve said, we’re focused near-term in allocating that capital towards debt reduction. So I’d be hesitant to say prescriptively all of it, but for right now that’s certainly where we are definitely focused. And the way you describe that in terms of the geography, yes, $100 million of that CapEx savings all resides at GenOn. The $250 million in the non-recourse financing we expect to be at the NRG level, offsetting what would otherwise be NRG capital allocation or CapEx towards the completion of that environmental spend at Midwest Gen. And then the asset sales, depending on the outcome, will be a blend in terms of proceeds between NRG and GenOn. So the way you summarized that is accurate, yes. Greg Gordon – Evercore ISI Right. And then the first – your primary focus is debt reduction. And when we get into 2017, you’re looking at, presumably, if we could keep the EBITDA from bleeding too much, an incremental $350 million improvement in cash available for capital allocation at the parent? Kirkland B. Andrews – Chief Financial Officer, Director & Executive VP Yes. That’s correct. Greg Gordon – Evercore ISI Okay. Kirkland B. Andrews – Chief Financial Officer, Director & Executive VP Which is – and as I said, that does not include, at least in that calculation, any anticipated proceeds from the GreenCo process or further NRG Yield drop downs, which would obviously supplement that $350 million. Greg Gordon – Evercore ISI Got you. And then my follow-up question, when I look at the buildup on page 16, the GenOn EBITDA of $335 million, that’s net of the shared services payments. So if I was looking at a simple EBITDA just on asset performance, you’re projecting it to be about $530 million in 2016? Kirkland B. Andrews – Chief Financial Officer, Director & Executive VP That’s right. You’d add back that roughly $200 million to get to that sort of asset-level performance as you said, correct. Greg Gordon – Evercore ISI Okay. Thanks guys. David Whipple Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Thanks, Greg. Operator Our next question comes from the line of Julien Dumoulin-Smith with UBS. Your line is now open. Julien Dumoulin-Smith – UBS Securities LLC Hey, guys, good morning. First quick easy question for you. I wanted to focus on the $100 million cost savings, just what that comprises of, and also more importantly, I see a FORNRG statement here of a cumulative 180. Just wanted to understand – or 150 through 2018. Can you comment how the two jive? What should we expect in 2017 and 2018 in terms of run-rate increments? David Whipple Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Mauricio? Mauricio Gutierrez – Chief Operating Officer, Director & Executive VP Hey, good morning, Julien. So, I mean, the first one is the operating expenses. And I would – I mean, I listed some of the main drivers of that, but I will say the first gives you the impact of the decisions, the asset optimization decisions that we made at Portland, the suspension of Portland and the retirement of Huntley. The second one is, we’ve gone through a line-by-line review of every single asset, particularly those that are in more challenging market conditions, and we have right-sized the cost structure to comport with those market dynamics. And then the third one is, as we have a portfolio of close to 50,000 megawatts, allow us to optimize the management of forced outage risk, and what I call the contingency money that we know we’re going to have to spend, we just don’t know where. So if you have a single asset you have to budget for the forced outage, the probability of forced outage. But when you have 50,000 megawatts, then you can optimize across the entire portfolio. So that is the step one. Step two is the FORNRG portfolio, and this is a target. You’re familiar with the FORNRG, because we show the fourth iteration of this. We are looking at, company-wide, how can we do the things are we’re doing today, better in a more cost effective way. So think of this as contract renegotiations, rail renegotiations, property tax renegotiations. So, I mean it is the host of things that we can do, that is very difficult to pinpoint today, but we’ve been very effective and we’ve been very successful in achieving, in the past, these cost savings, which they will flow directly to the bottom line. David Whipple Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director And that’s all, in every part of the company. Mauricio Gutierrez – Chief Operating Officer, Director & Executive VP That is, everywhere in the company, including retail, just across the company. Julien Dumoulin-Smith – UBS Securities LLC Got it. So perhaps just a quick follow up there. Some of your assets seem to generate negative cash flow in Texas. I’d be curious how that might fit into that puzzle? And then perhaps to boot with that, a more strategic question, coming back to perhaps the, what you alluded to earlier Dave, about yourselves being in those top four residential players, how is the strategic review proceeding? And perhaps, if you can answer one question, what is it that you need to “fix” your retail solar – your solar efforts more broadly? Is it an installation platform, or what are you kind of ending up in the strategic process thus far? David Whipple Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Okay. Do I… Mauricio Gutierrez – Chief Operating Officer, Director & Executive VP I mean, I’ll – Julien, I’ll go first about your… David Whipple Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Yeah, I’ll probably go on the second part of the question. I forgot what the first was. Mauricio Gutierrez – Chief Operating Officer, Director & Executive VP I will take the first one, David. So, I think you are alluding to – I don’t know what particular asset you are saying, but what I can tell you, Julien is I think we’ve demonstrated financial discipline when we have an asset that, number one, is in negative free cash flow; number two, the prospects of a recovery in that market are such that we cannot justify the continuing operation of that plant; and then number three, which I think is significantly important in Texas, is the prospect in terms of additional environmental CapEx to comply with upcoming rules. We will evaluate, and if needed retire, just like we did in Huntley. What I can tell you is that we’re not in such conditions right now in Texas. I have said in the past that our coal portfolio is a low cost, environmentally controlled portfolio, and I would expect that coal plants that actually have a much dire forecast in terms of environmental CapEx, we’ll have to make that decision before – so I’ll just leave it at that, but make no mistake, I mean, we will continue with the financial discipline that we have shown over the years. David Whipple Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Okay. Good. And Julien, I shall break your part of the question that I’m going to answer into, itself into two parts. So it was, sort of how is the strategic process going with GreenCo, I think particularly as it applies with a focus on Home Solar. And then you say, what you need to do to fix the sort of issues within Home Solar? So – and Kelsey is on the phone, and Kelsey if you have anything to add after I finish, go ahead, particularly obviously on the second part of that question. So, on the strategic process, what I would tell you, Julien, is we’ve been through the sort of preliminary discussion stage, out there talking to multiple people who are interested, and I think specifically road-testing the idea that what we’re looking to do is sell a majority stake to someone who is sort of strategically aligned with our thinking about the prospects for the business, but maintaining a substantial minority stake so that we can maintain the business connection with the rest of the company, and also have a second bite at the apple in terms of value realization. And it’s early days yet, what I would tell you, I mean it’s relatively easy for people to express interest before they have to write down a number on a piece of paper, but I would say in the early going, there is quite a lot of interest in it, and no problems with the structure we’re proposing. So that’s what I would tell you about where we are now on the strategic process. With respect to the issues in the Home Solar, what I would tell you is there are operational issues, basic blocking and tackling, that sort of come with running a business that has complex logistics and is growing at an annualized triple-digit rate. And so you get the sales engine revved up and then the installation and the deployment have to follow, and getting that exact balance right, as I think other players in the industry have demonstrated, is a constant work in progress. But I would say there’s an enormous amount of attention on it, particularly the productivity of our installation crews right now I think is double what it was just a couple of months ago. And then there’s the paper work from going from installation to deployment, which is – which is obviously, in terms of getting the right software and just making the process much more efficient. Kelcy, is there anything that you would want to add to that? Kelcy Pegler – President-NRG Home Solar No, I think that’s pretty good, David. I would just say we’re working on the cohesiveness. We’re satisfied with both our sales and installation increase in Q3. Most notably what was important to us was we were able to sell and install more systems without adding significant head count. In fact, we ended Q3, almost exactly flat from a head count perspective. So without adding cost. And Julien, I think what we’ve done is, we’ve really focused and we’re determined to achieve that 90 day from signature to energization of the solar system. And we’ve identified with this theme of an excess backlog, which is any job that exceeds that 90-day timeline. And then the optimal backlog, which is all the jobs being executed within that timeline, and we believe we’re poised to be executing all of our backlog and all of our bookings to energization in the first half of 2016 within 90 days. And so that’s what I would tell you. Julien Dumoulin-Smith – UBS Securities LLC Great. Thank you. David Whipple Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Thanks, Julien. Operator Our next question comes from the line of Jonathan Arnold with Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open. Jonathan P. Arnold – Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. Good morning, guys. David Whipple Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Good morning. Kirkland B. Andrews – Chief Financial Officer, Director & Executive VP Good morning. Jonathan P. Arnold – Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. Just picking up on the question about the GreenCo process. I was curious, David, you made the statement in your prepared remarks – I think it was the prepared remarks – that you wouldn’t be surprised to see utilities wanting to buy into this business. Are you suggesting that among the parties you’re talking to, there may be some utilities? Can you just give us any color, or is that sort of more further out in time? David Whipple Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Well, no – well, I didn’t say it in my prepared remarks, just for accuracy’s sake. I would not say that that’s the main body of – I mean, if you – I guess Jonathan, what I would say in simpler terms, if you divided the people that are interested – or if you categorized the people interested in GreenCo into financial partners and strategic partners, there are significantly more financial partners than there are potential strategic partners. Jonathan P. Arnold – Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. Okay. I mean, that’s helpful. And then I guess, I mean like, when you announced the Reset, you were talking much more broadly about potential structures, majority, minority, and the like, and it now seems to be – you have enough visibility that you are pretty confident that you can do a majority deal. Is that what we should take away from the shift in the language? David Whipple Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director I think what you should take away is that, through the preliminary phase, we got a significant amount of encouragement on that, but I think what you should really take away is the point that was made in the prepared remarks, that first and foremost it’s value that we’re looking for so. So, again, it’s – I’m just commenting, I mean, people have not put numbers down on a piece of paper. So there’s a significant amount of flexibility that remains around the GreenCo process, and we won’t – I don’t want to give any sort of final answer until we see numbers on paper, and then we might modify accordingly, but definitely in the non-quantified stage, there is a lot of encouragement around that structure. Jonathan P. Arnold – Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. Okay. Thank you. And you, can you just give us any sense of when, what do you think the likely timing for this to play out? I heard you say you prioritized value over speed. David Whipple Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Well, I mean, I don’t remember if we said it in our prepared remarks on September 17, but I think we did, which was that, we thought the whole process would be concluded within six months to nine months, and I continue to be highly confident in that timeframe. I mean, I know that some questions have happened, would be able to give people sort of more of an update by the end of the year. And I just can’t make a call on that, because usually right when you’re in the middle – I mean, we will clearly know more by the end of the year, but whether we share with you – usually you don’t talk about things when you’re in the middle of an active discussion. So I can’t really help you, other than say, Jonathan, we’re confident that it’ll all be done within the original six month to nine month timeframe. Jonathan P. Arnold – Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. Okay. Thank you very much, David. David Whipple Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Liz, I’m sorry, and I’m sorry for the people who want to continue to get in the queue, but we – since we have an NRG Yield call in a relatively few minutes, we’re going to take one more question, and then for the others in the queue, again, I’m sorry, and please call in and we’ll answer any questions that you have. Operator Our last question comes from the line of Neel Mitra with Tudor Pickering. Your line is now open. Neel Mitra – Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. Securities, Inc. Hi, good morning. Could you just kind of give us the timeframe for the cost cuts? So it’s the $100 million, is that for the full 2016 or is it a partial year? And then the remaining $150 million, when does is that fully kick in? David Whipple Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Neel, it’s a good question. I’m glad you asked it, because I mean, I would say within the prioritization of time, within the, all the various initiatives that make up the Reset, our immediate focus, and something that’s taken an enormous amount of time of management team and across the organization, has been cost-cutting. And that’s precisely so that we could give you the answer I’m about to give you, which is we’re – we’re working so hard so quickly, because we want full year 2016 effect, both with respect to the G&A cost program, which internally goes under the name DOP, for doing our part, and then on the O&M cost saving portion. And Mauricio, do you have anything to add to that or… Mauricio Gutierrez – Chief Operating Officer, Director & Executive VP No. David Whipple Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director I don’t think so. Yes. Anyway, Neel, did you have any follow-up question, and then we’ll call it a day, Liz. Neel Mitra – Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. Securities, Inc. Yeah, just had one quick question. So, with gas prices where they are, how are Parish and Limestone in Texas running now? Are you seeing some displacement from gas assets, or what do those capacity factors look like? Mauricio Gutierrez – Chief Operating Officer, Director & Executive VP Yeah, Neel. So, I mean I think the statistics that we’re providing on the third quarter were pretty representative of the – how competitive those two assets are. I mean, we increased our generation in Texas for our baseload fleet, that includes nuclear and coal. As we go into the shorter months, we always see a reduction in capacity factors, but that’s just normal seasonality. I can’t tell you that we’re seeing an increasing coal to gas switching that we haven’t seen in previous months, so. Neel Mitra – Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. Securities, Inc. Okay. David Whipple Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Neel, thank you for the question. David Whipple Crane – President, Chief Executive Officer & Director And I just want to thank everyone for participating, and we’ll keep you updated in the weeks and months to come. Thank you. Operator Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation in today’s conference. This concludes the program and you many now disconnect. Everyone have a great day.

Black Hills’ (BKH) CEO David Emery on Q3 2015 Results – Earnings Call Transcript

Black Hills Corporation (NYSE: BKH ) Q3 2015 Earnings Conference Call November 04, 2015 11:00 AM ET Executives Jerome Nichols – Director, IR David Emery – Chairman, President and CEO Rich Kinzley – SVP and CFO Analysts Dan Eggers – Credit Suisse Insoo Kim – RBC Capital Markets Operator Good day, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Black Hills Corporation Third Quarter 2015 Earning Conference Call. My name is Malerie and I’ll be your coordinator for today. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the prepared remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded for replay purposes. I would now like to turn the presentation over to Mr. Jerome Nichols, Director of Investor Relations of Black Hills Corporation. Please proceed, sir. Jerome Nichols Thank you, Malerie. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Black Hills Corporation’s third quarter 2015 earnings conference call. Leading our quarterly earnings discussion today are David Emery, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer and Rich Kinzley, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin today, I would like to note that Black Hills will be attending the EEI Financial Conference next week in Hollywood, Florida. You’ll find our presentation materials and webcast information on our Web site at www.blackhillscorp.com, under the Investor Relations heading. During our earnings discussion today, some of the comments we make may contain forward-looking statements as defined by the Securities and Exchange Commission and there are a number of uncertainties inherent in such comments. Although we believe that our expectations and beliefs are based on reasonable assumptions, actual results may differ materially. We direct you to our earnings release, Slide 2 of the investor presentation on our Web site and our most recent Form 10-K, Form 10-Q another document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a list of some of the factors that could cause future results to differ materially from our expectations. I will now turn the call over to David Emery. David Emery Thank you, Jerome and good morning everyone. I will be starting on Slide 3 of the webcast deck and then we will be following a format similar to that of previous quarterly calls. I’ll give an overview of the quarter and some highlights. Rich Kinzley will go over the financials from the quarter and then I’ll talk a little bit about forward strategy and then we’ll answer questions. Moving to Slide 5, the third quarter was another strong quarter for Black Hills Corporation. We posted solid earnings and made great progress on our growth goals for our existing businesses and we also made excellent progress towards our pending acquisition of SourceGas. Related to SourceGas on August 10th, which was less than 30 days after the deal was announced we filed joint applications for acquisition approvals in all four states. A week later, just a little over a week later, we received our Hart-Scott-Rodino antitrust clearance, we now have procedural schedules established in three of the states with the fourth state pending. The discovery process is ongoing and we still remain on track to close on the first half of 2016. Also, on the acquisition front we did close on July 1st, on our $17 million acquisition of about little less than 7,000 customers in Northwest Wyoming and notably related to that acquisition they were 100% integrated on to all of our systems and process on day 1 after close. From a business environment perspective, during the quarter we had warmer than average weather in our utility service territories, a slight positive for the electric utilities and a negative for the gas utilities and then energy commodity prices particularly oil and gas remained at very low levels. Moving on to Slide 6, utility highlights for the quarter, Black Hills Power is preparing to commence construction later this quarter on 144-mile, $54 million electric transmission line routed from Northeast Wyoming to Rapid City, South Dakota. Cheyenne Light recorded a new all time peak load of 212 megawatts on July 27th, that’s the third new peak for Cheyenne Light this summer, highlighting the strong growth in the Cheyenne area service territory. On October 21st, Colorado Electric received approval from the Colorado PUC to acquire the planned 60 megawatt Peak View Wind project which will help our utility meet the Colorado renewable energy standards. A third-party wind developer will build the project, we executed a build transfer agreement with that developer and we’ll take ownership upon commercial operations in the fourth quarter of 2016. Total cost of the project will be approximately $109 million. Our capital investment and a return on that capital and all expenses will be recovered through customer adjustment clauses and a base rate increase won’t be required for the first 10 years of the project. Moving on the Slide 7, a continuation of our utility highlights, we continued construction on our $65 million, 40 megawatt gas combustion turbine at our Pueblo Airport Generating Station, that’s being built for our Colorado Electric subsidiary and is expected to be in service in the fourth quarter of 2016. We also completed here just in a last couple of weeks our field service optimization project. We rolled it out to all of our utility techs in all of our states. Really that project is a deployment of tablet and GPS technology to automate and improve the efficiency of the lot of our field processes, including dispatching. We’re excited about the benefits of that project. On the non-regulated side or non-utility side we initiated a process to evaluate the possible sale of a minority interest in our Colorado IPP generating assets and we drilled the last of 13 horizontal Mancos Shale gas wells for our 2014 and ’15 drilling program in the Southern Piceance Basin in Colorado. We have six wells on production and we just started to flow back operations for the final three wells. We expect to have the test results on those three wells by year-end. And our results for the program continued to meet or exceed our expectations. Slide 8, which is corporate highlights for the quarter, the Board last week declared the quarterly dividend of $0.405 continuing the level we’ve been at for this year equivalent to an annual rate of $1.62 per share. During the quarter, we entered into the $250 million of interest rates swaps, really to mitigate any future interest rate risk associated with some of our future debt issuances, primarily related to the SourceGas transaction. And we continued our cost containment efforts which we started earlier this year to really help mitigate the impacts of low oil and gas prices and the moderate weather that we had earlier in the year. Moving on to Slide 9, financial highlights for the third quarter we earned $0.64 per share as adjusted from continuing operations during the quarter about a 5% increase compared to the same quarter last year, a really good result considering the negative impacts of our oil and gas business. Slide 10 provides a reconciliation of our third quarter 2015 income from continuing ops as adjusted against our 2014 results for the third quarter. Strong performance in nearly all of our businesses more than made up for poor performance in our oil and gas subsidiary. With that I’ll turn it over to Rich for the financial update. Rich? Rich Kinzley All right, thanks Dave. As Dave mentioned our core utility and utility like businesses continue to demonstrate strong performance. In the third quarter each of these businesses improved operating income compared to the third quarter of 2014, in particular our electric utilities posted strong year-over-year operating results. Our oil and gas business continued to manage through a challenging commodity price environment. Despite that challenge we posted a strong quarter. On Slide 12, we reconcile GAAP earnings to earnings as adjusted on non-GAAP measure. We do this to isolate special items and communicate earnings to better indicate our ongoing performance. In each of the first three quarters of 2015, we’ve incurred non-cash ceiling test impairments at our oil and gas business and in the second quarter of 2015 we also impaired in an equity investment at our oil and gas business. These impairments are due to low natural gas and crude oil prices and our non-cash charges that are not reflective of ongoing operational results. We also incurred external acquisition related cost in the second and third quarters of 2015 associated with the SourceGas acquisitions, such as financing and other third-party costs which were non-recurring in nature. Our third quarter as adjusted EPS reflective of ongoing operations was $0.64 per share compared to $0.61 per share in the third quarter last year and our trailing 12 months as adjusted EPS was $3.05. Slide 13 displays our third quarter revenue and operating income, on the left side of the slide you’ll note that revenue was flat in 2015 due to the lower gas utility revenues from the lower pass-through gas cost in 2015 and lower revenue from the oil and gas business due to lower receipt prices. These revenue reductions were offset by strong revenue growth at our electric utilities. On the right side of the slide you can see that strong performance in the third quarter at our core utilities, coal mine and Power Gen businesses more than offset decreased performance at oil and gas, resulting in a more than 10% increase in consolidated operating income as adjusted year-over-year. I will elaborate on each business unit in the following slides. Slide 14 displays our third quarter income statement comparing third quarter 2015 to third quarter 2014 gross margin increased 7% driven by strong electric utility results. Operating expenses increased 6% due largely to margin additive activities at our electric utilities. DD&A and interest expense increased primarily from added plant in-service and borrowings associated with our October 1, 2014 in-service of the $222 million Cheyenne Prairie Generating Station. The DD&A increase was partially mitigated by lower ongoing depletion at our oil and gas business, which I’ll explain in a few slides, as adjusted EPS grew 5% year-over-year and EBITDA increased by 8%. Moving to our business unit results, Slide 15 displays electric and gas utilities’ gross margin and operating income. In 2015 we changed from discussing revenue to gross margin for our utilities, as we feel gross margin is more relevant to understanding ongoing results, since revenue includes fuel cost pass throughs. On the left side of the slide you’ll see our electric utilities’ third quarter 2015 gross margin increased by 14 million from 2014. 9.5 million of this increase was driven by additional return from investments in our generation facilities with completed rate cases in late 2014 and early 2015 in Colorado, South Dakota and Wyoming. Gross margin also benefitted by nearly 3 million from the combination of higher commercial and industrial demand and the addition of two small Wyoming natural gas utility acquisitions in 2015 that Dave mentioned. These small utilities our subsidiaries of Cheyenne Light and we report their results in the electric utilities segment. Residential usage was favorable across our electric service territories and totaled up 4.6% comparing third quarter 2015 to 2014. Cooling degree days in our electric utility service territories for the quarter were 36% above 2014 adding 3.3 million to margin year-over-year. Overall weather impacts at our electric utilities were $300,000 favorable compared to normal. Operating income during the third quarter for our electric utilities improved by 8 million or 19% year-over-year, as a result of increased gross margin and solid cost management. Operating expenses including depreciation increased only 6 million year-over-year despite the addition of Cheyenne Prairie and the two small Wyoming acquisitions, the combination of which accounted for approximately half of the $6 million expense increase. Looking at the right side of Slide 15, our gas utilities gross margin increased slightly in 2015 compared to 2014. Increased margins from a rate case completed in Kansas in late 2014 and higher transport and industrial volumes were offset by unfavorable weather impacts. While weather isn’t a large driver for our gas utilities in the third quarter, it’s worth noting 2015 heating degree days in our gas utility service territories were 61% below 2014 and 57% below normal for the period, resulting in a 400,000 negative impact to margins in the third quarter compared to the prior year and compared to normal. So, if you take the electric and gas utilities combined weather was really flat compared to normal and total for the third quarter. Third quarter 2015 operating income at the gas utilities increased 800,000 compared to 2014 thanks to strong cost management which reduced operating expenses 600,000 year-over-year. On Slide 16, you’ll see Power Gen’s operating income improved by 1.4 million compared to last year’s performance. Power generation benefited from annual power purchase agreement price increases partially offset by decreased capacity payments since we sold the 40-megawatt CT2 to the City of Gillette in the third quarter of 2014. These last revenues were partially mitigated by the cost sharing benefits we enjoy as we operate this facility for the city. Cost management efforts at Power Gen have allowed us to reduce operating cost by 300,000 year-over-year. On the right side of Slide 16 our coal mining segment saw improved operating income in the quarter by $400,000 from 2014. While tonnes sold were slightly down year-over-year, our average overall coal price received increased 13% comparing Q3 2015 to Q3 2014. And strong cost management contributed to another solid quarter at the coal mine. Power Gen and coal mining continue to deliver solid results. Moving to oil and gas on Slide 17, you’ll see we sustained and as adjusted $7.2 million operating loss for the quarter. Commodity prices negatively impacted results in the third quarter of 2015 as our average received prices inclusive of hedges were down 27% for crude oil and 37% for natural gas compared to the third quarter of 2014. Overall, third quarter production increased 17% comparing the same period in 2014, driven by increases in both natural gas and crude oil production. On the cost side, our Q3 operating expenses increased slightly comparing 2015 to 2014 due primarily to employee severance cost as we reduced staff in the third quarter, which will reduce future period’s operating costs. Despite increased production volumes, DD&A decreased by $0.5 million in the third quarter compared to 2014 due to a substantially lower depletion rate. The reduction in the depletion rate resulted from a lower-cost pool due to the ceiling test impairments we incurred in the first and second quarters of 2015. In the third quarter we incurred a $62 million pretax ceiling test impairment charge related to our oil and gas holdings, in addition to the impairments we incurred in the first and second quarters. The ceiling test utilizes rolling 12 month average prices for crude oil and natural gas, prices for these commodities began to fall in the fourth quarter of 2014 and have remained low throughout 2015 compared to 2014. Consequently the average prices used in our ceiling test impairment evaluations have continued to drop each quarter in 2015. We are likely to incur an additional impairment charge in the fourth quarter, if crude oil and natural gas prices remain at current depressed levels. Also as a result of the third quarter ceiling test impairment we expect and a lower depletion rate again in the fourth quarter. Despite the challenges presented by the low commodity price environment we continue to be pleased with the momentum we have improving up our Piceance Mancos Shale play. We expect to substantially complete our drilling, completion and testing program as we finish out 2015. The play is well-positioned to potentially serve our cost of service gas model we filed in six states for regulatory approval and for additional upside value capture when commodity prices improve. We have right sized our cost structure in the oil and gas segment and expect a much lower depletion rate in 2016. We’ve also substantially reduced our expected capital spending in our oil and gas segment for 2016 and 2017. Dave is going to talk a little more about that in a couple of slides. Slide 18 shows our current plans for the SourceGas financing as well as other financing activities in the 2016-2017 horizon. We completed syndication of a bridge facility to give us flexibility with the timing and structuring for the permanent financings for the SourceGas acquisition. As previously disclosed we will be assuming 700 million of existing SourceGas debt and financing the remainder of the acquisition through potential asset sales and new debt and equity issuances. At our recent Analyst Day we discussed our financing plans for the SourceGas acquisition and indicated we will finance the acquisition in a manner that will support our strong investment grade ratings. We are currently reviewing our options for financing the recently announced $109 million Peak View Wind project and our other strong utility growth oriented capital activities in 2016 and beyond. To support an ongoing CapEx associated with our continued growth for SourceGas acquisition closing, we are considering the implementation of an at-the-market equity program in 2016. Slide 19 shows our current capitalization, at quarter end net debt to cap was 56.7%, an increase from June 30th that was primarily driven by the third quarter non-cash impairment charge in our oil and gas segment. Given expected cash flows from operations for the remainder of the year in our revolver capacity, we have ample funding available for planned CapEx and dividends in the fourth quarter. Slide 20 demonstrates our strong earnings growth performance over the last six years. Our third quarter results demonstrate the continuing strong operational performance and growth characteristics of our core businesses. While low crude oil and natural gas prices impacted our oil and gas segment in 2015 and tempered 2015 earnings growth, we expect to grow earnings again in 2016, which brings us to Slide 21. In our press release on October 7th, we increased our 2015 earnings guidance range to $2.90 to $3.10 per share as adjusted which we reaffirmed with our press release yesterday. We also yesterday issued our initial earnings guidance for 2016 to be in the range of $3.15 to $3.35 per share as adjusted. The assumptions for this guidance are listed on Slide 21. Most notably the assumptions exclude the SourceGas acquisition any material asset sales and any significant new debt or equity issuances. If any of these items occur we will issue updated guidance. As we previously disclosed, we believe the SourceGas acquisition if closed in the first-half of 2016 as planned will be meaningfully accretive to 2017 earnings per share. And with those comments I’ll turn it back to Dave. David Emery Thank you, Rich. Moving onto Slide 21 forward strategy, we group our strategic goals in to four major categories and we’ve done this for a couple of years. The overall objective being an industry leader in all that we do. Those four major goals are profitable growth, valued service, better every day in a great workplace. On Slide 24, I noted this earlier but we’re making excellent progress on our acquisition of SourceGas, we’re on track for closing in the first-half of 2016 as I said earlier and we have a very experienced leadership team guiding our integration effort. Our goal on the integration is to be fully integrated by the end of the year 2016. Moving on to Slide 25, strong capital spending drives our earnings growth and we forecast the total of 1.25 billion of investment for 2015 through 2017. Our projected capital spending far exceeds depreciation driving earnings growth. It’s important to note that this table on Slide 25 does not include any capital related to either the SourceGas acquisition or capital spent in the SourceGas territories post acquisition. On Slide 26 as I said earlier, we’re continuing to make great progress constructing a new turbine at the Pueblo Airport Generating Station. We commenced construction in June, we’ve spent about 27 million to-date out of the projected total of 65, construction is a little over 20% completed and we have no safety incidents to-date. On Slide 27, Monday of this week we announced that we received the necessary approvals and executed the necessary agreements to purchase 109 million 60 megawatt Peak View Wind Project in Colorado. I mentioned this earlier it will help us meet the renewable energy standard in Colorado for our Colorado electric customers. We expect construction to commence in the second quarter of ’16 and be completed by year-end. Slide 28, our electric utilities have demonstrated solid earnings growth year-to-date in 2015 and Rich covered that earlier. One aspect of that has been strong industrial growth in all three of our electric utilities. The overall growth rate has been 16% year-to-date. That growth has come from several different industrial customers and industry segments with the data center load growth particularly in Cheyenne Wyoming being the most notable. On Slide 29 a significant growth opportunity that we are pursuing is this utility cost to service gas supply program that we’ve been talking about for a well over a year now. Under cost of service gas program our direct investment in natural gas reserves would provide long-term price stability for customers while providing increased earnings for shareholders, an excellent win-win situation. We submitted cost of service gas regulatory applications now in a total of six dates, we hope to pursue and receive approvals on those programs in 2016. We’re continuing to evaluate producing properties and growing prospects for inclusion in that program and that certainly includes our Mancos Shale gas properties in the Piceance Basin in Colorado. On Slide 30 and we discussed this in quite a bit of detail on our Analyst Day, but in light of continued low oil and gas prices, our oil and gas strategy is really focused on providing cost to service gas cost effectively to our utilities. We’re working to finish up our 2014 and 2015 Mancos drilling program and then focusing on minimizing other capital expenditures and operating costs. On Slide 31, there’s an illustration of the impact that low crude oil and natural gas prices have had on our quarterly forecast ceiling test that Rich mentioned earlier. We do expect another impairment in the fourth quarter as Rich stated earlier if product prices remain at current levels. Slide 32, provides a well by well detail for our Mancos drilling program, it includes all wells drilled from 2013 through 2015. The top-six wells on the page have all been placed on production in 2015. We have good test results on those wells. We just started flowing back the three final wells that we intend to produce this year, that are in the Whittaker Flats area and should be tested and on production prior to year-end. On Slide 33, we continue to be very proud of our dividend track record, having increased our annual dividend to shareholders for 45 consecutive years. On Slide 34, we do have a strong balance sheet, strong cash flows and solid investment grade credit ratings and as we’ve discussed last quarter all three agencies reacted favorably as we expected to our SourceGas announcement. Slide 35, illustrates the continuing focus we place every day on operational excellence and on being a great workplace. Our safety performance year-to-date has been outstanding, our total case incident rate for the year of 0.7 is the lowest ever for Black Hills Corporation. Finally, on Slide 36, is our scorecard, this is our way of holding ourselves accountable to you our shareholders, we’ve done this for quite a few years now, we lay out our goals at the beginning of the year and literally keep you informed as to our progress throughout the year as we make progress towards those goals. Now, that concludes all of our remarks. We’d be happy to take questions. Question-and-Answer Session Operator Ladies and gentlemen, we are ready to open the line for questions. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Dan Eggers with Credit Suisse. Your line is now open. Dan Eggers I guess, if we step back and kind of think about the priorities around the earnings outlook, the commodity price assumptions in the E&P business are above the street, can you just explain how you kind of got to those numbers, or the sense to at least slog and kind of why you guys have settled, decided to settle above the curve right now? David Emery The curve changes every day and typically what we do Dan is we take a basket of multiple forecasts and try to use that to come up with a reasonable estimate for the future year. I mean, literally the curve changes every day and if we revise our forward look every time the curve changes, that’s all we do. So, we try to look at several forecasts, and bank forecasts the strip and other things, obviously weighted a little more heavily probably towards the strip and some of the other things and set a forecast at the beginning of the year that we think we can live with regardless of whether that price fluctuates up and down a little bit throughout the year. Dan Eggers And then, did I hear you currently say that on the Wind acquisition that there is no base rate increase for the first 10 years? David Emery Correct, yes, the way that we are going to get recovery for that is it’s basically going to flow through three different cost adjustment clauses that we have and we’ll earn the same amount basically but it’s going to go through the adjustment clauses, and then it’s going to be up to us to decide whether we want to continue that or go in for a base rate case in year 10, I think the commissions preference at least at this point would probably be that we do a base rate case in year 10. Dan Eggers Now we’re going to see a distortion in your tax build because the DTC is being generated will bring your tax expenses down, so a part of the return is going to come on that asset through the tax line effectively? David Emery That’s correct, Dan. Dan Eggers And then how much will that effect the tax rate for the next year or the year after if we want to try and bear any expectations? David Emery It won’t affect ’16 obviously because it’s going to go into service late in ’16 but in ’17 I don’t even want to guess. Dan Eggers I am sorry maybe I should ask what’s the right utilization rate you guys are expecting off the project? David Emery Yes, high-30s, low-40s right in there for our capacity effects. Operator [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Insoo Kim with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open. Insoo Kim Just back to SourceGas, are you able to give any more guidance on potential timing of the equity issuance whether it’d be before the end of the year or after? David Emery Basically what we wanted to do is get our third quarter financials out and then essentially we’re going to watch the market conditions and be prepared to go to the market. There is obviously some holiday and things in there, but we’re looking at anytime basically between a couple of weeks from now and closing would be our idea of timing. And we’re just going to evaluate market conditions and make a decision on timing as things evolve. Insoo Kim And regarding the financing of the deal, are you currently actively looking for buyers of your non-core E&P assets to help with the funding or is there not really a good market right now given the lower oil and gas prices? Rich Kinzley Yes the non-core assets in E&P aren’t going to generate I would say a material amount into that the Colorado IPP is the big thing there obviously. So we’ll opportunistically look for opportunities on the non-core E&P but it’s not going to be a huge number. David Emery Yes, it’s more just cleaning up the portfolio on the labor involved in managing it all than it is about big dollars on the capital side. Rich Kinzley Right. Insoo Kim And finally if the deal does close on time in the first-half of ’16, I know in ’17 you do expect some material earnings accretion, but in ’16 do you still expect some neutral to slightly accretive scenario for the ’16? David Emery It really depends on timing Insoo and if you think about SourceGas is no different than most gas utilities that makes a huge portion of its income in the first quarter. And so if you called after the first quarter as already you have relatively small piece of the income remaining and a relatively large piece of the expenses remaining for the year. So it’s going to depend on timing if we close right after winter for example we’re going to have three quarters of a year of expenses and roughly and half a year in income. Insoo Kim And then just one more question if I may, at the utilities with the strong industrial growth there that you’re seeing for the year is there any re-through to forecast for 2016 and potentially beyond? David Emery Well, I think we’ve accounted for that growth in our guidance if that’s what you’re asking. Insoo Kim Yes, I was just wondering if, I mean it’s pretty 16% industrial growth you say that is very strong and just wondering modeling out for ’16 kind of what levels we should be expecting? David Emery Well we’ve talked a little bit — the biggest piece that will be continuing is really the Microsoft piece and there is quite a few public disclosures around Microsoft they have made some announcements in Cheyenne related to their plans and they are continuing with additional expansions of datacenters there in Cheyenne. So we expect that to continue for a while. Operator Thank you. [Operator Instructions] I am showing no further questions. I’ll turn the call back to David Emery for final remarks. David Emery All right, well thank you everyone for attending the call this morning. We certainly appreciate your continued interest in Black Hills and for those of you who are going to be at EEI we look forward to seeing you next week. Thanks and have a great day. 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