The AES Corporation

Good day and welcome to the AES Corporation Q4 2020 Financial Review Conference Call. Today, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance during today's call, please signal for a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. As a reminder, if you are viewing the webcast and intend to ask a question over the phone, Please mute your computer speakers before asking your question. As a further reminder, today's event is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Ahmed Pasha, Treasurer and Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our fourth quarter and full year 2020 financial review call. Our press release, presentation, and related financial information are available on our website at aes.com. Today, we will be making forward-looking statements during the call. There are many factors that may cause future results to differ materially from these statements, which are discussed in our most recent 10-K and 10-Q filed with the SEC. Reconciliations between GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures can also be found on our website, along with the presentation. Joining me this morning are Andres Klosky, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Gustavo Pimenta, our Chief Financial Officer. With that, I will turn the call over to Andres. Andres?

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our fourth quarter and full year 2020 financial review call. This morning, I will provide an update on our major financial and strategic accomplishments, which position us well for the future. Some of you may recall that last year I set out three short-term catalysts for our stock, hitting our numbers, getting a second investment grade rating, and becoming Norges Bank cold generation compliant. In 2020, we delivered on all three metrics and set ourselves up for continued progress. First, let me talk about hitting our numbers. We delivered adjusted earnings per share of $1.44. which was above our guidance range of $1.32 to $1.42. Our parent-free cash flow came in at $777 million, which also exceeded the top end of our range of $725 to $775 million. Second, in November, S&P upgraded us to an investment-grade rating of BBB-, joining Fitch, which had upgraded us in 2019. Third, by selling and retiring coal plants and building new renewables, we reduce the percentage of megawatt hours being produced by coal plants to 25% on a pro forma basis, which is comfortably below Norges Bank threshold of 30%. All of these results reflect the resilience of our business model, which is anchored on long-term dollar-denominated contracts with investment-grade off-takers and U.S. regulated utilities. In addition to these achievements, in 2020, we continue to advance our leadership in innovation and new green technologies. We signed three gigawatts of long-term contracts for renewables, which is also at the top end of our range of guidance of two to three gigawatts. As you can see on slide four, these three gigawatts of new renewable PPAs are mostly in the US and South America. In the US, we have merged our two development companies AES Distributed Energy and S-Power into one entity, AES Clean Energy, to better take advantage of synergies and economies of scale. In South America, our renewables growth was fueled, in part, by the continued success of our green blend and extend negotiations, which combined new renewables with existing long-term conventional capacity contracts. With the addition of these three gigawatts of new PPAs Our current backlog of projects reaches 6.9 gigawatts, as shown on slide five. About half of the total solar and most of the remainder is wind and energy storage. 100% of our backlog is renewable. We expect to bring almost four gigawatts of this backlog online in 2021, one of the largest capacity additions in AES's history. Finally, turning to slide six, Fluence, our joint venture with Siemens to provide energy storage systems, maintained its global leadership position, and signed 785 megawatts of new capacity. Its revenues grew 400% versus the prior year, and they acquired AMS's leading AI-enabled bidding software business. A capital raise was also announced with the Qatar Investment Authority, which will provide funds to further accelerate the development of its digital product offerings and the deployment of its systems around the world. As you can see, we are very well positioned to continue our solid renewables growth, aggressive decarbonization, and deployment of leading technology innovations. The electricity sector is changing rapidly, and we will be providing a comprehensive view of AES's long-term plans and opportunities in this new environment next Wednesday, March 3rd, at our Investor Day. Now, let me turn the call over to Gustavo, who will provide more color on our financial results for 2020 and guidance for 2021.