NRG Energy, Inc.

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Energy, Energy, Inc. Second Quarter 2021 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during this session, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star 0. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Kevin Cole, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Ray. Good morning and welcome to NRG Energy's second quarter 2021 earnings call. This morning's call will be 45 minutes in length and is being broadcast live over the phone and via webcast, which can be located in the investor section of our website at www.nrg.com under Presentations and Webcasts. 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. Actual results may differ materially. We urge everyone to review the safe harbor in today's presentation, as well as the risk factors in our SEC filings. We undertake no obligation to update these statements as a result of future events except as required by law. In addition, we will refer to both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. For information regarding the non-GAAP financial measures and reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures, please refer to today's presentation. And with that, I'll now turn the call over to Mauricio Gutierrez, NRG's President and CEO.

Thank you, Kevin. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for your interest in NRG. I'm joined this morning by Alberto Fornaro, Chief Financial Officer. Also on the call and available for questions, we have Elizabeth Killinger, Head of Home Retail, and Chris Moser, Head of Operations. Just a few weeks ago, we hosted our Comprehensive Investor Day. Since then, we have had the opportunity to speak with many of you in detail about our strategic plan, which will position us as the leading energy consumer services company and create tremendous stakeholder value. I look forward to updating you on our progress in the coming quarters. But for this call, we will keep our remarks brief and focus on our quarterly results. Turning to slide three, I would like to start with the three key messages for today's call. Our integrated platform delivered strong results during the second quarter, up 14% compared to the same period last year. And today, we are reaffirming our 2021 guidance ranges. Next, following Winter Storm Yuri, the governor and Texas legislature acted swiftly to begin to address critical issues and improve grid reliability. The public utility and railroad commissions are now in the process of implementing these directives to strengthen both the electric and natural gas systems to improve reliability and protect customers. I want to thank the governor and the Texas legislature for their leadership on these issues. Finally, in June, we held our Investor Day focus on our long-term strategic outlook, our roadmap through 2025, and the compelling value proposition of our consumer platform. Now moving to the financial and operational results for the quarter on slide four. Beginning on the left-hand side of the slide, we again delivered top decile safety performance. This is the ninth straight quarter we have achieved top decile safety, an incredible accomplishment for the entire company. As we start to come back to the office, we will continue to adhere to the CDC guidelines to ensure the safety and well-being of our people. During the quarter, we continue to make progress on our strategic initiatives with focus on integrating direct energy, advancing our capitalized decarbonization efforts, and expanding our secondary product capabilities. Starting with the direct energy integration, through the second quarter, we achieved $89 million in synergies, or two-thirds of our 2021 target. Today, we're reaffirming both the 2021 and full plan targets. Next, we continue to perfect our customer-centric model through advancing non-core asset sales and retirements and expanding our renewable PPA strategy across all of our markets. Moving to the right-hand side of the slide, We are reporting $656 million of adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter, or 14% growth year-on-year, and $1.223 billion, or 33% growth year-to-date. Strong second quarter results were largely driven by the direct energy acquisition and favorable weather in the east, further demonstrating the value of our diversified platform of consumer services. Alberto will discuss in more detail the quarterly drivers in his section. Turning to slide five for a brief update on our core markets. Beginning on the left-hand side of the slide, following Wither's story in February, it was clear that market reforms were necessary to improve grid resilience. In the months following the event, we actively engaged in discussions with legislators, regulators, and other market participants to introduce comprehensive and competitive solutions across the entire system to address areas that fail and to ensure an event like this does not happen again. The Texas legislature acted swiftly in addressing these issues, passing Senate Bills 2 and 3, which were signed into law by the governor on June 8, focused on reliability from the wellhead to the light bulb. Importantly, Senate Bill 3 provides the Public Utility Commission Railroad Commission, and other parties the tools and mandate to get it done right. The PUCT and ERCOT are now working to implement the power market portions of the reform. We are focused on supporting them in the implementation of these policies and procedures to ensure the market functions properly in the future. We expect the focus over coming months to be on improving price formation through mechanisms to incentivize reliability. it will also establish clear winterization and maintenance outage standards and protocols for the electric system. Importantly, the PUCT is focused on customer bills and ensuring these actions do not materially impact affordability, which has been a compelling attribute of living and doing business in Texas. We believe the PUCT will be able to address the key issues of market design, system hardening, and weatherization this year for the power sector. Next, moving to the bottom left-hand side of the slide, the governor and legislature recognize the financial harm of socializing the cost of defaults by regulated entities like Brassus and Rayburn across competitive markets. The legislation also addresses unhedgeable costs due to ERCOT's management of the grid, particularly during the final 32 hours of the event. the Texas legislature passed and the governor signed into law necessary securitizations to address both default allocations and uplift charges. We expect to have greater line of sight on our costs eligible for securitization later this year. Finally, our expected net financial impact from winter storm Yuri remains unchanged at $500 to $700 million. From last quarter, Our gross impact increased by $85 million, primarily due to resettlements and bad debt, which we expect to be fully offset through our mitigation strategy. Moving to the right-hand side of the slide for an update on our ongoing portfolio and real estate optimization efforts. First, during the quarter, PJM held its first capacity auction in roughly three years. which provided disappointing results. Subsequently, given market conditions, we announced our intention to retire 1.6 gigawatts, or 55% of our PJM call generation by 2022, and the strategic review of our remaining PJM portfolio. Next, our previously announced 4.8 gigawatt asset sale remains on track to close in the fourth quarter. Finally, our portfolio repositioning and optimization is a continuous process. We are committed to our business model and will continue to provide updates on our progress. On the next two slides, I want to review some of the highlights from our investor day, beginning on slide six with our strategy and platform. This was our first investor day since 2018. And in three short years, we underwent a significant transformation, doubling the number of customers we serve, optimizing our generation fleet to serve our customers, building an efficient operating platform, and strengthening our balance sheet while returning significant excess cash to our shareholders. The acquisition of Direct Energy in January marked the next step in our journey as we completed the three-year transformation plan and began our decisive transition into a consumer services company. While historically our core product has been electricity, the addition of direct energy brought scale to our retail natural gas and services businesses. With consumers increasingly seeking a trusted partner to provide home solutions, our advantage consumer platform is uniquely positioned to meet our customer needs in ways other providers cannot match. Just yesterday, Green Mountain Energy filed an application to provide its 100 renewable electric product in Arizona. We're constantly on the lookout for new markets and to grow our service offering in existing ones. As we offer adjacent products and services, we can leverage our existing platform to access cost synergies. This economic advantage, coupled with better insights and more personalization, resulting a better experience for our customers. For NRG, this advantage means broader insights into how consumers interact with their homes, additional margin, and better retention on our core product. And then the cycle repeats as we grow, creating a more valuable business. As you can see on the right-hand side of the slide, we have provided you a roadmap of our strategic priorities through 2025. Over the near term, our focus is on optimizing our core, which includes integrating direct energy, decarbonizing our retail supply, and expanding our current dual fuel customer base. Next, beginning in 2022, our focus will shift to growing the core through residential power and home services. Finally, throughout this entire period, we will be returning significant capital to shareholders. To summarize our roadmap, we're starting with our foundation as a best-in-class integrated energy retailer. We will leverage our operating platform to become a trusted partner for power services, and then we will broaden our offerings and partnerships to become a provider of select home services. Finally, We have quantified for you what I believe is an achievable growth opportunity over the course of this strategic roadmap. In total, we have identified $720 million of incremental EBITDA growth opportunity, which will be achieved through the direct energy integration and the deployment of up to $2 billion of growth investments in both CAPEX and OPEX opportunities. This capital will be deployed to the maximum return opportunity And you can expect transparency as we begin to allocate investment dollars. Given our near-term focus on integrating direct energy and growing dual fuel customers, you should expect this capital to be weighted toward the second half of our roadmap. Now turning to slide seven. Over the course of our strategic roadmap, we expect to generate $8 billion in cumulative excess cash. which also excludes roughly half a billion dollars of excess cash still to be allocated these years. Applying our 50-50 capital allocation framework results in $4 billion return to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases, and $4 billion for opportunistic growth. We have earmarked $2 billion to achieve the $520 million incremental EBITDA detail on the prior slide. The remaining $2 billion is available to be allocated to the maximum return opportunity, whether it be growth investments or share repurchases. In summary, we outline a compelling value proposition anchored by a portfolio of favorite brands serving nearly 6 million customers. We are positioned to grow and leverage our existing operating platform to achieve higher margins and longer tenure customers. We have the financial flexibility to invest capital at attractive returns while returning significant capital to shareholders. And we have the right people and the right platform to create sustainable value for all stakeholders. So with that, I want to welcome Alberto Fornaro to the call and provide a brief introduction. Alberto joined NRG on June 1st, following an extensive CFO search. Alberto is a seasoned finance expert who brings over 30 years of experience and a unique combination of consumer, technology, manufacturing, and risk management experience. I believe Alberto's expertise is the ideal feed to enhance our transition into a consumer services company. Alberto, welcome. And I will turn it over to you for the financial review.