Equatorial Energia S/Adr

Good afternoon and thanks for waiting. Welcome to the conference call of Equatorial Energia SR regarding the results of the second quarter 2021. Today with us are Augusto Miranda, CEO, and Leonardo Lucas, CFO and IR officer. We would like to inform you that this event is being recorded and that all participants are going to be in listen-only mode during the company's presentation. Will they start the Q&A session when further instructions will be provided? Should any of you need assistance during the conference call, please reach the operator by pressing star zero. This event is also being simultaneously webcast on the company's IR website, www.equatorialenergia.com.br. And there you also find the respective presentations. You will be able to control the slides during the presentation. The replay of this event is going to be available soon after it's closing. We would like to remind you that webcast attendees will be able to post their questions to Equatorial Energia as well on the web. They will be answered after the end of the conference call by the IR department. Before moving on, we would like to let you know that any statements made during this conference call relative to Equatorial's energy business outlooks, projections, operating and financial goals are based on the beliefs and assumptions of the company management and rely on information currently available to the company. Forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of performance since they involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. They refer to future events and therefore depend on consequences that may or may not occur. Investors and analysts should understand that general conditions, industry conditions and other operating factors may affect the future results of Equatorial Energia SAE. and lead to results that will materially differ from those expressed in the forward-looking statements. We'll now turn the floor to Mr. Augusto Miranda that will start the presentation. Please, Mr. Miranda, you may go on. Well, first of all, I'd like to wish you all a good afternoon and thanks for attending. It is with great pleasure that we present the company's 2Q21 earnings. We have moved from a first quarter in which the pandemic context presented itself again in a more acute way, now to a current scenario in which there are clear positive prospects as vaccination moves forward and economic activity shows signs of recovery, as registered in the levels of energy consumption in our concessions. The second quarter was of great importance, not only for the positive results registered, but also for the steps achieved in our value creation agenda. just as the victory in the bidding process for CEA in Alapá at the end of June, and more recently, the beginning of the management at CEED in Rio Grande do Sul, already in July, in addition to the acquisition of a distributed generation company, Inova. In this sense, we would like to point out that we are still active in the analysis of new business opportunities, broadening our view not only to the segments related to energy, but also opportunities in sanitation. We'll then move to slide number three. I start with the highlights of the period. Starting with the economic financial highlights, we ended the quarter with the companies recurring consolidated EBITDA at 1.2 billion BRL, growth of 42.7% compared to the second quarter of 2020. The significant performance reflects the gradual economic recovery in our concession areas. And not only that, but also the consequence expansion in consumption and tariff gains, surpassing pre-pandemic levels, and that is very important. Leo will bring details of our evolution later on. We invested more than 473 million in the quarter, especially in the distribution sector, focused on strengthening and expanding our network and fighting losses. We continue with a robust, consolidated cash position of 8.2 billion reals, which allows us to maintain our current investment projects and at the same time be competitive for eventual capital allocation opportunities. As for our consolidated leverage, we ended the quarter with a net data beta ratio of two times against 2.3 times in 2Q20. We are in a movement of deleveraging, benefiting by the transmission assets and also the strong performance of our distributors. As for the performance of our distributors, I would like to highlight the growth of the consolidated volume of energy in sales, which advanced 10.7%, particularly this significant expansion of 13.2% registered in Equatorial Pará and 14.7% in Equatorial Piauí. Léo will also comment on the operational performance of our assets in the next slides. Another important point that I would like to highlight was the approval of the annual tariff due adjustment of the Caturia Pará that took place last week, with an average effect to be perceived by consumers of 9.01%. The result, on the one hand, mitigates the impacts of inflation through the use of PISCOFIN credits for tariff moderation, and also allowed the growth of parcel B, reaching the amount of approximately 2.9 billion. We'll provide more details at the end of the presentation. In transmission, at the end of this quarter, we've reached 100% of our active RIP. That is, with all assets already in operation, or receiving revenues through the Revenue Release Agreement, the TLR. The next quarter will be presented with a full RIP and a bidder. In this quarter, we started operations of our last asset, SPE3, in June, which represented an anticipation of the regulatory deadline of approximately three months. Finally, I would like to highlight the victory in the CEA auction, adding one more asset to our portfolio, in which we'll be able to promote our rent-consolidated turnaround and value generation model, and also the beginning of management of CEEED, whose acquisition was concluded on June the 8th. In this quarter, these results are yet not consolidated in our economic financial performance, but they will be as of the next quarter. I will now turn to Lel that will comment on the company's operational and economic financial performance in the period. Lel?

Thank you.

Good afternoon, everyone. I hope you are all well. Let's talk now about the market evolution, starting on slide number five. The volume of injected and built energy continues to expand at a strong pace, growing 8.8% and 10.7% respectively in Q2 2021, with growth in all our concessions. But I highlight the advances in PARA and PoE, benefited both by the weather component, and by the higher industrial activity and commercial reopening throughout the quarter. The growth of energy distributed at levels above those injected is also very positive, as it indicates a reduction in a consolidated manner in our distributors and the level of losses. It's interesting to note in this quarter that differently from previous quarter in which growth was very much concentrated in the residential class, we started to register an increase in other classes led by the commercial class, which grew 25.5%. As a consequence of the strong market growth, total consumption levels even surpassed pre-pandemic levels. In fact, compared to 2019, the energy distributed grew by 14.3%. However, it's worth noting that in Alagoas State, at the time, there was a billing adjustment in 2Q19. If we disregard this effect, the growth compared to pre-pandemic levels was 9%, which represents an average annual growth of 4.4%. In this period, it's evident that our concession areas are resilient. They presented low retraction in consumption in the second quarter 20 and the expansion in the residential segment. And then the removal of restrictions and economic recovery drove growth in a homogeneous manner, both in comparison between distributors and in the opening or the breakdown by classes. Finally, it is worth noting that we continue to grow strongly in the number of consumers classified as low income, with more than 261,000 customers added in the last 12 months. That represented an increase of approximately 12%. Let's move on to the next slide. Slide six. Here we show the performance of the company with regards to collection and defaults in our distributors. The bad debt provisions and collection percentages saw an evolution compared to 2Q20 and are a consequence of the improved economic scenario, but also our success in our programs and strategies to incentivize collection. the company adopted a series of actions to encourage and facilitate fulfillment of obligations of our customers, fostering compliance, such as participation in campaigns with prices offered, and also facilitation tools, such as negotiations on the website, virtual assistance, and other initiatives that were implemented in the period. I would like to highlight the Energia project, and year promotion. It encouraged customers to be payment regularly in order to be eligible to participate in premiums offered, also generating an increase in the quality of our base. Under the initiative, we had approximately 1.6 million customers that joined, which resulted in an increase of 4.06 percentage points and the levels of these consumers. With that, we close the quarter with a collection rate of 99.2% and a provision for bad credit of only 1.3% of gross revenues, consolidated numbers. It's worth noting that the suspension of energy supply to low-income customers established by Enel, which is effective until June the 30th when by Resolution 92821 was extended until September the 30th. Resolution 93621, we want to make a joint negotiation program with these customers until the end of September to avoid any energy cutoff. On slide seven, we show the total losses in our distributed. As I mentioned on slide five, consolidated losses dropped basically because of the growth in energy distributed above that of the injected energy, a result of a decreased loss in three of our distributors. In Pará, where we have the highest level volume of losses, the reduction for the second consecutive quarter is a reflection of the actions that were implemented in the period. and which should advance in the coming quarters. The emphasis is the expansion of our centralized metering system, that is SMC, and the reductions of restrictions imposed by the pandemic. We want to continue on with the reduction. In PoE and Alagoas, which continue to advance consistently in their turnaround processes, the highlight is the performance of PoE, very close to the regulatory level. less than three years after the group started its operation. This is a consequence of process improvements and productivity gains of the teams that work in this area. It is worth noting for the seventh consecutive quarter, it's possible to observe a drop in the percentage of losses in Alagoas and for the ninth consecutive quarter in PLE. In my email, energy losses into Q21 had an increase due to a more adverse scenario that was imposed by the pandemic. However, it's worth noting that it is the distributor with the lowest level of losses in the group. Let's go to the next slide, slide number eight, where we show you quality indicators. In Maranhão, it's important to note that the accrued indicator continues to be impacted by the atypical events that we had in the first quarter. mainly related to suppliers, and in the second quarter, also impacted by atypical events as a result of the increase in the number of occurrences due to vegetation interference in remote and rural areas. These areas, generally, we do not have automatic fault detections. In Alagoas, there was a 1.2-hour increase in the quarter due to higher volume of rainfall in the period compared to 2Q20. As a comparison, in the month of April, the rainfall volume was 279% higher than that of April last year. Despite the increase, the CED performance in Alagoas continues to evolve with a 22% reduction compared to 2Q20. The same applies for PoE, which had a reduction of 18% year-on-year. we reinforce that the turnaround process of our most recent assets continues to move forward. This has only been possible due to the maturation of our processes and the strengthening of the group structure. Now we are going to go to slide number nine. Basically, the main highlight here is the fact that for the sixth consecutive quarter, we have all four distributors below regulatory caps. Alagoas has been ready-paced for reduction with a drop of 20.4% in comparison with the same quarter last year. Another point to be highlighted is Equatorial POE that showed a 5% decrease when compared to 2Q20, which reflects investments for improving the network made as part of the turnaround process. In Equatorial POE, It's worth noting that the company reached in June the lowest rhetorical levels of FAC and DAC ever recorded. Now I'm going to turn to the economic financial performance. Here on slide 11, we show the evolution of manageable expenses, consolidated adjusted P&O, and variation by asset. It's important to remember that the second Q20 was heavily impacted by cost reductions due to the pandemic. which generates a base effect when we compare to the adjusted 2Q21 PMSO. When we compare the second quarter 21 and the first quarter 21, PMSO fell slightly. And when compared to the first quarter 20, it rose about 9%, in line with the inflation for the period. It's worth noting that since the first quarter, Equatorial implemented another stage of its organizational redesign, strengthening regional structures to improve its results, which were reflected in the quarter in reduction of losses and provision for credit. The comparative impact of this redesign remains. As you can see, Maranhão registered an increase of 2.3% in the comparison between periods, below the accrued inflation of 8.35 measured by the IPCA. In Paraguay, as in the previous quarter, the increase is mainly due to higher personnel expenses, mainly to the organizational restructuring and the acquisition of the eighth-hour work, and also higher expenses with third-party services, especially intensification in the collection and loss-fight fronts, as well as expenses with legal fees on successes. In PoE, the increase is mainly due to the payment of profit-sharing for the achievements of goals and also higher volume of expenses due to the identification of collection strategies and expansions with software maintenance. In Alagoas, the variation reflects the recognition of personnel expenses included in profit-sharing. and increase of third-party services related to legal fees on successes and expenses with maintenance and software licenses. In these two companies, in less than three years of management, we already have a PMSO per consumer within group standards. In transmissions, The increased results from the startup of our assets whose expenses until last year were activated and now are being recorded in the results. Finally, the variation in the group of other businesses, including holding, is mainly due to the effect of accounting illumination because of less services intragroups with no impact on EBITDA, in addition to higher expenses with MMA operations and valuation of opportunities. Let's go to the next slide. Adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter 21 reached 1.2 million, a significant increase of 42.7% compared to that of the second quarter 20. If we remove from the adjusted EBITDA the non-cash effects as the financial asset adjustment and IFRS 15 in transmission, The growth is 81.8%, or 516 million, going from 630 million in Q to 1.1 billion this quarter. This expressive growth is a consequence both of the distribution segment, benefited by gains in tariff and volumes, as well as the entry into commercial operation of the transmission assets. Next slide. we are going to give you a breakdown of EBITDA by asset. 13. In this slide, we can see the contribution per asset in the adjusted EBITDA for non-recurring effect. Here, the highlight is the strong growth in adjusted EBITDA presented by all distributors, which together contributed with an increase of 451 million compared to 2Q20. In this sense, I draw attention to the performances of POE, which captured significant increase in the B tariff due to the RTE that took place in December last year, and is also influenced by the reduction in losses and market growth, in addition to improvements in spot prices. Another highlight is the state of Pará, whose adjusted beta reached R$515 million, an increase of 90% of the result above all, of gains with tariffs, market, basically because of reduction of losses, and also a significant reduction of spot prices of 58 million, in addition to the updates in our financial assets. In transmission, the variation captures the slowdown of capex, which leads to a reduction in contract asset revenues as a result of IFRS 15. In the graph below, we show the contribution per asset in the adjusted EBITDA, disregarding the effects of the financial asset update and IFRS, where we can observe the evolution of the transmission EBITDA due to the startup of operations of part of our assets. Going to slide 14, as you can see on the slide, we invested $473 million in the quarter. This amount is 21 lower than that of the previous quarter. The biggest highlight is the increased investments in the distribution segment, especially in the states of Paraná, Pará and Alagoas. And also a carryover effect of non-executed volumes last year due to the restrictions that were more severe because of the pandemic. The total investments allocated to the segment amounted to 428 million. an increase of 5%. Investments in the transmission segment peaked in 2019, and since now, then, are slowing down due to the completion of projects. In total, since first quarter of 2017, more than $5.2 billion have been invested in our transmission projects. Let's go to the next slide, slide 15. which showed that the net debt was practically stable in relation to the previous quarter, with a total of 10.3 billion. Considering our 100% consolidated assets, the net debt-to-bid ratio continues on a deleveraging path, reaching a level of two times the quarter. This was basically influenced by the strong cash generation and also by the offsetting of Pisco Fin's credits. In this quarter, they had a net effect of $188 million. We understand that this level of leverage gives us flexibility to enjoy opportunities in the market regarding capital allocation. In this quarter, we kept a strong cash position with $8.2 billion in the period, enough to pay more than three years of debt material justice. whose average term at the end of the second quarter was approximately 5.5 years. The effective rate of 9.08% a year reflects the market movement as it captured the recent increase in our main indexes, IPCA and CDA. Additionally, it's worth noting that we are in process of restructuring the liabilities of CEE distribution. We have already made the first dismissal of a 4131 operation in the company in the amount of 250 million with 100% hedging in exchange exposure. We also hired a short-term NDF of $228 million in April to hedge the exchange exposure of CEE liabilities in Equatorial Energia And because CE distribution is still not being consolidated this quarter, there is an impact of contracting this hedge of about $95 million in the company's net debt and financial results. Let's go to the next slide, 16. Here we can see that after the start of operations of SPE3, which took place in June, we've reached 100% of the active RAP. SPE3 was already ready, but was waiting for the completion of works that were under the responsibility of a third party to be entitled to the anticipation of the RAP in relation to the regulatory deadline. In this case, this will occur for 10 months. As a result, we'll reach an annual revenue of 1.2 billion. if all the group's transmission assets are included, already considering the readjustment for the 21-22 cycle of 8.06%, which shows the segment's importance in the group's revenue and EBITDA portfolio. It's also important to highlight our commitment to a project's execution and delivery ahead of schedule, bringing even more value to our shareholders. Now I will turn the call to Augusto. Well, thank you. Before we move on to the final considerations, I would like to bring a little more color about the tariff adjustment in Para. The result was approved last week and it went into effect on the last 7th. ANEL approved the annual readjustment of Equatorial Paris tariffs with an average effect to be perceived by consumers of 9.01%, with the use of measures for tariff moderation. It is worth noting that for our residential clients, the readjustment to be perceived will be even lower, 8.02%. Parcel B of Equatorial Pará had a positive readjustment of 33.8% when compared to original amount in effect in the last tariff year, influenced by a GPM in the reference period and by factor X of minus 0.29%. Amongst the main measures for tariff moderation that are crucial in moments of inflation pressure is the reversion of balances not used in the COVID account, and mainly the use of ICMs credits on the base of PISCO fees, the latter in an approximate amount of 624 million. Now moving to the last slide, 19. I would like to close by highlighting our recent accomplishments and the outlook for 2021. Among the highlights of the period, as we talked about during the presentation, we achieved 100% of active revenue in our transmission projects, reaching an annual revenue level of over R$1.2 billion. Also this quarter, we won the CEA auction, the energy company of Amapá, whose acquisition is still subject to conditions precedent, such as CAD and new approvals, but which again reinforce our commitment to the growth and value creation agenda for the company. We expect to start the consolidation of this asset in the fourth quarter and begin a new chapter in our history to transform this asset into an asset of excellence and contribute to the development of the region. In addition, we completed the acquisition of CEED in July, starting the asset management. With this, we have advanced in the 100-day plan, accelerating the execution of our turnaround model in Priority France. We continue to reaffirm our growth trajectory based on financial discipline and efficient capital allocation. And once again, we are confident that these will be important chapters in our history. We also had the tariff readjustment in Paraná with a very positive result for the company, especially because of our ability to fully capture IGPM in parcel B. For the main perspectives in distribution, we are going to have tariff revision processes in Equatorial Maranhão, which will take place in the end of August, and also of CED, which will take place in November. Finally, we continue to evaluate an extensive pipeline of opportunities to grow and strengthen our portfolio, as verified by our recent participations in bidding processes, not only in the electoral sector. Now I'll turn back to the operator to conduct our Q&A session. Thank you. We'll now start the Q&A session. If you have a question, please press star one on your phone. If at any point in time your question is answered, you can press star two to withdraw it from the line. Questions will be answered as they are taken. Please remove your phones off the hook when you're asking a question so as to guarantee optimal sound quality. Please wait. while we post the questions. Our first question comes from Marcello Sa from Italy. Hello, everyone. Thanks for the call. I have some questions about this asset that you bought. I would like to know if you already have a project for that, in what states you could start operating, And if there are any chances of this company have significant EBITDA in the whole of Equatorial or if you are expecting something small in the beginning. And the second about Amapá, what is the company's mindset? I would like to know also if you were considering other M&A opportunities in the state.