speaker
Operator

It is now the scheduled time.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

We will begin the Kansai Electric Power Company fiscal 2025 financial report and fiscal 2026 management plan investor briefing.

speaker
Operator

Please allow me to introduce our participants. Mr. Mori, CEO.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

This is Mori. Thank you very much. Mr. Tanaka, Executive Vice President. My name is Tanaka. Thank you very much. Mr. Kikoka, Executive Officer, Office of Accounting and Finance. Hello. Thank you. First, CEO Mori will give his presentation first.

speaker
Mori

So I'm going to start my presentation.

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

This is Mori. Thank you very much for joining us today for our company briefing. Yesterday, we announced our results for fiscal year 2025. We posted consolidated revenue of 4 trillion yen, 56.6 billion yen, and recurring profit of 518.5 billion yen. This represents a decrease in both revenue and profit from FY24. For FY25, the dividend remains unchanged from the revised forecast announced at the second quarter. We will pay an annual dividend of 75 yen per share. Looking ahead to fiscal year 2026, we expect a recurring profit of 290 billion yen. This represents a decrease of 228.5 billion yen. The main factors for profit declines are foreign exchange movement, fuel price fluctuations, lower nuclear capacity factor, and higher costs. These include inflation-driven expenses and increased maintenance and construction costs. Although earnings conditions remain challenging, we will continue steady investment. This includes maintenance investment for safe and stable supply and disciplined growth investment for the future. For FY2026, we planned an annual dividend of 80 yen per share. This is an increase of 5 yen from FY25.

speaker
Mori

Last October, we presented the status of our new management plan.

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

Since then, we have engaged in dialogue with shareholders and investors, incorporating the feedback we received with further discussions. Yesterday, we announced Kansai Electric Power Group Management Plan 2026. Looking towards 2040, our group aims to prioritize safety above all, lead Japan's energy sector, and go beyond cancer and electric power to provide a vital platform for a sustainable society. The environment surrounding us is changing rapidly. Geopolitical risks, inflation, rising interest rates, and population decline are progressing simultaneously. At the same time, DX and AI are transforming industries. Power demand is also likely to increase over the medium to long term. In such an era, a vital platform for sustainable society is essential to support Japan's growth in people's daily lives. At the core of it is energy.

speaker
Mori

While decarbonization remains a major trend, we believe that energy security, stable and secure supply is now more critical than ever.

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

While achieving S plus 3E simultaneously is a fundamental prerequisite, elevating its delivery to meet the demand will support Japan's sustainable growth. In addition to energy and transmission distribution, we will expand into ICT, real estate, and new businesses to provide a vital platform for sustainable society. Beyond Kansai and electric power, we will deliver new value to customers and society in a timely manner. As one group, we will advance the strengthened KX Kanden transformation toward 2040 and realize our vision for 2040. We will implement disciplined investments totaling 15 trillion yen on a cumulative basis by 2040. Across the group, we aim to secure a ROIC-WAC spread of 100 to 150 basis points. We will also take immediate action to strengthen balance sheet management, human capital, and supply chains.

speaker
Mori

The next three years are a period to accelerate growth towards our vision.

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

Continuous investment is essential for businesses that provide a vital platform for sustainable society. While building new facilities takes time, 2040 is not the distant future. Although earnings conditions remain challenging, from where we are, we will, with a long-term perspective, steadily move forward with investments for safe and stable supply as well as disciplined growth investment. For that, we will generate over 380 billion yen in cash through asset recycling, including the divestment of our shareholdings. This will enable us to balance investments and shareholder returns. From FY26, we will revise our shareholder return policy. We will target a consolidated payout ratio of 25% to 35% and to maintain or increase dividends. more than 270 billion yen is to be returned over the next three years. We aim to achieve key targets, including ROE of over 8% on a three-year average. Together with our diverse stakeholders, we will create new value, share empathy and growth, and achieve sustainable enhancement of corporate value. That concludes my presentation. Next, Mr. Kikuoka, general manager of accounting, will explain the details of the financial results. Please refer to the materials in front of you or the projector.

speaker
Mr. Kikuoka
Executive Officer, Office of Accounting and Finance, Kansai Electric Power Company

This is Kikoka.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

I will provide supplementary explanations regarding fiscal 2025 fiscal results. Please go to page 4. We have generally achieved the financial targets for fiscal 2025 set out in our midterm management plan. Page 5. The projected figures for fiscal 2026 based on earnings forecast for each of the financial goals outlined in the Management Plan 2026 are shown in the table below.

speaker
Mr. Kikuoka
Executive Officer, Office of Accounting and Finance, Kansai Electric Power Company

Please go to page 8.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

Track record of growth investments for fiscal 2025 totaled approximately 185 billion yen. Although the actual results fell short of projected 300 billion yen, this was the result of thoroughly reviewing each project and making investment decisions with the aim of achieving the expected returns. Please go to page 14.

speaker
Mr. Kikuoka
Executive Officer, Office of Accounting and Finance, Kansai Electric Power Company

These are major factors for fiscal 2025.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

Retail electricity sales volume amounted to 116.3 billion kilowatt hour, an increase of 800 million kilowatt hours. Electricity sales volume to other companies decreased by 4.6 billion kilowatt hour. Nuclear capacity factor decreased by 4.4% to 84.1%. Two lines below is Japan CIF crude oil price, which decreased by $11.0 per barrel to $71.4 per barrel. Exchange rate was 151 yen to a dollar, appreciation of 2 yen. Please go to page 15. Ordinary profit by segment increased year on year on all segments except the energy segment. I will explain only about the energy segment on the next page. Please go to page 16.

speaker
Mr. Kikuoka
Executive Officer, Office of Accounting and Finance, Kansai Electric Power Company

Profit decreased by 33.9 billion yen year-on-year to 377.3 billion yen per energy segment.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

This is due to negative impact resulting from a decline in nuclear capacity factor and increases in other expenses and maintenance costs despite the positive impact of increased profits from lower fuel prices. Please go to page 22. This shows the financial forecasts. Major factors and fuel prices incorporate this situation in the Middle East. Page 23. We expect consolidated ordinary profit for fiscal 2026 to be 290 billion yen, a decrease of 228.5 billion yen.

speaker
Mr. Kikuoka
Executive Officer, Office of Accounting and Finance, Kansai Electric Power Company

The main factors affecting this are decrease in nuclear capacity factor due to prolonged large-scale maintenance work, increase in fuel costs due to the Middle East situation,

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

The third is due to factors such as inflation and an increase in maintenance work. We anticipate an increase in corporate maintenance costs in energy and T&D segments. While the situation in the Middle East remains unpredictable, if fuel prices rise more than anticipated, our fiscal year 2026 results will be further impacted by timeline-related losses. We will therefore closely monitor the situation and update our outlook as necessary. This concludes my part.

speaker
Operator

Thank you. Next, Executive Vice President Tanaka will explain the Management Plan 2026.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

Please take a look at the Akasai Electric Power Group Management Plan 2026 or the projector in the front. So, I'm Tanaka. I will provide additional details on the Management Plan 2026. Page 24. This page shows the cumulative capital allocation from fiscal 26 to 28.

speaker
Tanaka

in 2040. So this is placed as a Merkmal.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

This is not the endpoint.

speaker
Tanaka

So this is a vision we have towards 2040.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

And there's no time to waste when it comes to investment for advanced KX. A content transformation toward 2040.

speaker
Tanaka

We'd like to grow together with the Japanese industry. We are serious about

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

And therefore, please allow us to accelerate investments so that we can grow alongside Japanese industry.

speaker
Tanaka

To that end, of course, we will pursue upside in the operating cash flow.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

But on top of that, we plan to generate cash through asset replacement and still execute a total of 2.5 trillion yen of investments over three years, 1.5 trillion yen for maintenance investments to ensure safe and stable supply, and 1.0 trillion yen for growth investments. Naturally,

speaker
Tanaka

We have no intention to make investments without spread.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

We want to secure appropriate level of spread.

speaker
Tanaka

And therefore, we would like to make disciplined investment that carefully assess profitability and business risks.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

We need to make investment to be able to secure this level of spread. And as for shareholder returns in the coming three years, We would like to provide shareholder returns of at least 270 billion yen over the next three years and will strive to maintain or increase dividends. Please go to page 25. This is about asset recycling initiatives. So we cannot be optimistic. And therefore, we will do asset recycling and generate cash.

speaker
Tanaka

And this is how we want to go about it in our real estate business. I talked about this in the IR Day last December.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

We would like to increase the proportion of assets subject to asset recycling and aim to recycle more than 550 billion yen in assets over the next three years. And we are thinking overseas 50 and others, and we do believe that we will be able to achieve that.

speaker
Tanaka

We announced the notice of tendering shares and the tender offer for owned shares by Kinden Corporation. This was a homework for us that we had held and we have been talking about this constantly and we have made this announcement

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

For the shares we own, we will look at the market situation in the coming three years. We plan to divest at least 380 billion yen, including kinden shares this time. Please go to page 26. This shows the illustrative impact of growth investments. I believe you can see the differences in the characteristics of each business, particularly the time it takes for profits to materialize. And in domestic energy sector, where projects have long durations, it takes 20 years or so to recover. And there's real estate and ICT below where you can recover in a short period of time. So by combining them, we would like to achieve growth.

speaker
Tanaka

Furthermore, for domestic energy sector, whose duration is long, we would like to choose the appropriate financing.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

Instead of just focusing on corporate financing, we will be engaged in joint development and capital recycling to accelerate profit generation and improve capital efficiency. And this was a short presentation, but this is all from me.

speaker
Andrew - san

That concludes our explanation.

speaker
Operator

We will now take questions.

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

First, we will take questions from participants in the room, and then from those joining via Zoom. When asking a question, please first state your company name and your name.

speaker
Operator

Now, we would like to take questions from participants at the venue.

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

Can you raise your hand? Shinya-san, please.

speaker
Mr. Kikuoka
Executive Officer, Office of Accounting and Finance, Kansai Electric Power Company

Thank you for the explanation.

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

I am Shinya of Mizuho Securities. I have two or three questions.

speaker
Mori - san

Please.

speaker
Mr. Kikuoka
Executive Officer, Office of Accounting and Finance, Kansai Electric Power Company

One by one.

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

So on page five of the financial results presentation, you are showing your guidance for this fiscal year and the

speaker
Mr. Kikuoka
Executive Officer, Office of Accounting and Finance, Kansai Electric Power Company

your management plan, KPI.

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

The President has been saying the next three years is going to be a challenging period. You have been repeating that. So you have been giving us some level of warning. But in terms of recurring ordinary income, the numbers look more challenging than what I had expected. So for the net profit, an ROE of 8% and more, by looking at I think that you are expecting to book the sum of the profit from the sales of assets to achieve a net profit, but in terms of ordinary profit, the target seems to be rather challenging. So as the adjustment of time lag, your profit is going to be lower on a three-year average. So I would like to ask what your assumption is and background is. And toward the later part of the management plan, outside of the non-energy businesses or for real estate, the ICT, you are showing some aggressive, ambitious target for profit at the forefront. international real estate and communication, you are showing us an ambitious profit target. But it seems as if you are taking rather cautious approach for your energy business and your power generation and the sales and T&D.

speaker
Mori - san

By looking at the ROIC target,

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

I don't think your target is that bad, but for the next three years, mainly in your energy business, I get the impression you are expecting rather challenging business environment, and I think you do have some assumptions for the capacity, nuclear capacity factor too, but can you share what your thoughts are? Thank you for the question.

speaker
Mori

Yes, as you mentioned, I have been saying we will be facing some more challenges in our businesses.

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

And this time, if we are going to put that in our language,

speaker
Mori

This comes to the guidance we are showing you now. If I look at the details of various factors, we could not really... Naturally, we came to this kind of conclusion.

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

Of course, I personally wanted to show higher profit target. But as we are seeing the decline in nuclear capacity factor and we are seeing the increase in the energy cost now and with the higher inflation maintenance kind of works we are implementing now. the costs for them are having more negative impact on profit than we had initially expected.

speaker
Mori

So including those factors, we are now showing you this outlook.

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

However, we will be taking necessary measures to achieve growth in the future.

speaker
Mori

So even though we will try to make our business structure more lean, we will be focusing more on balance sheet and we will be focusing on generating more cash.

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

So we will do our best to make improvement as much as possible. And as time goes by, by looking at what kind of progress we will see, if there are revisions or changes needed, we will adjust our plans. But as of now, with certain assumptions, we are showing you this outlook.

speaker
Mr. Kikuoka
Executive Officer, Office of Accounting and Finance, Kansai Electric Power Company

So I can add some more information about some of the numbers.

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

Can you look at the page 23? So this is a comparison against the 2025. As shown here, from 2026 over the next three years, As we will have the seven nuclear reactors, we will try to improve the nuclear capacity factor to improve the profitability. We will implement the work for the next three years, so we will have a concentration of the maintenance work. And for the foreign exchange adjustment prices, it is still uncertain what will happen to the Middle Eastern situation, but until the fuel cost stabilizes 66 billion yen for FY26, we will need to assume that kind of impact. But once it stabilizes, most of that will be seen in time lag, so we should be able to collect that in FY27. And other than that, as Mori-san mentioned, there will be an increase in other cost items and the maintenance-related cost. As you can imagine, we are seeing impact from inflation. But as for our nuclear business, the maintenance work will be a rather long period. So as we implement the thorough maintenance work, we are going to enhance our maintenance, so there will be an increase in the volume of maintenance work. and for our thermal plants. So for coal and LNG thermal plants, in order to avoid long-term operation shutdown, we are also going to enhance our maintenance work too. So as of these cost increases, of course, there will be some impact from inflation, but we are going to make sure that there will be enough maintenance work done over the next three years. And for our T&D business, including our expenses, there will be some impact from higher inflation. but there will be a replacement of a tower. When we were achieving high economic growth, there was a concentration of construction, so there will be a certain level of capacity included there. So we will just make steady progress to implement these plans. Those are all included in our topics.

speaker
Mori - san

And my second question is that you are going to face some difficulty over the next three years.

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

So that means when do you think will be the time where you can pursue to improve your profit or grow your profit? So I think you will be preparing yourself to improve your profitability data on, and there will be a 2.5 trillion yen of investment, including replacement and the growth investment altogether, including the returns coming from those investments. you will be going back to your profitability and try to further improve your profitability with investment. When do you think that can happen? So on page 25, your management plan, I think Tanaka-san had explained about this. So the profitability and the returns from the investment in each sector, I think you are giving us some hint of what kind of returns you are expecting. But beyond medium-term plan, in 2028 or 2930 with the higher capacity utilization, you are going to see an increase in the profit. And in the early 2030s, are you expecting to benefit from the returns from the investment? Is that the kind of time frame you have in mind? When do you or does Mori-san think when you can achieve the growth in your profit? Thank you for the question.

speaker
Mori

So for the next three years, in terms of the profit, the numbers will look quite challenging.

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

So if we look at the numbers, they remain sluggish.

speaker
Mori

We call it the plateau situation internally. We may

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

say these numbers are not meeting your expectation. But beyond next three years, we will start to generate more return with the better turnover. As for large-scale power generation investment, that will take place further out in the future. But there will be some of the investment that can generate the more profit before that. So we will start to make investment for those over the next three years.

speaker
Mori

As there are so many essential factors, next three years can be the only visibility we can show

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

But beyond the next three years, we are expecting to present some returns from these investments. From the past, everybody has been asking us what our normalized profit level is. So our intention is to bring our profit level back to a normalized level. that should happen over the next three years.

speaker
Mr. Kikuoka
Executive Officer, Office of Accounting and Finance, Kansai Electric Power Company

Thank you. And my third question is about the dividend and shareholder returns.

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

I understand the profit situation is challenging, but as of your dividend, you may send us a clear message, and you are expecting to increase your dividend per share.

speaker
Mori - san

So, do I understand

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

you are more catered toward increasing your dividend. You are saying you will either maintain or increase dividend, but what is your intention?

speaker
Mori

Yes, what you are saying is correct. So the profit outlook we can show is as it is. But in order to achieve our vision for the future, And as we try to get understanding from our shareholders of what we are going to do to achieve that, so now we are going to increase our dividend per share to 80 yen.

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

We think it's appropriate to increase our dividend per share to 80 yen.

speaker
Mori

Okay.

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

There are different perspectives, but as of our dividend policy, we have been presenting our policies, and if we think about our policy, we would like to show ATM per share to be a start line.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

Next, Yamasaki-san, please. My name is Yamazaki from Nomura Securities, and I have two questions I would like to ask you.

speaker
spk10

First, That investment timing, this time, you are planning to make 1 trillion yen of investment for growth.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

Is this evenly distributed, or is there going to be more weight on the latter years? Is it going to increase year after year?

speaker
spk10

And also, the asset replacement initiative, And you will be taking initiatives here to generate more cash. And what is the timing you're assuming? Asset replacement, asset recycle, you'll be doing that in the beginning and then generate cash and then make investments later.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

That's what I assume. But how should I think about the timing? So this is my first question. So I would like to give a response.

speaker
Mori

As for the timing or the schedule of investment, the forecast of investment, already for thermal power replacement, this is a large-scale investment that is required. And we have already started taking initiatives here. We are doing this already in Nanko. And after that, there will be another replacement. And So large-scale growth investment will start one by one. And nuclear power, as of now, we need to change the steamer.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

We are doing a major investment, and this is a maintenance investment that we need.

speaker
Mori

And this is a current need. Going forward, the investment in power source we have multiple ones coming up, and that's what we are assuming. Therefore, in that sense, it's very big in the beginning too, but it will increase and that trend will continue. And as for asset recycle, so it's not a question of which comes first but at each timing we will do what we can so we will capture the best timing to do the asset recycle so there is a kinden case as well this time and including this we will take the opportunity and it's not that we have the order in place already

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

in our mind, but we will take the opportunity as they arise. And as for the investment amount, it's a significant amount. Thinking about gas turbine alone, it's like for multiple hundreds of billions of yen. So with a difference in a few months, it could go into the next fiscal year or so. And that has happened in the past as well. So it's not something that we can control in a stable manner. There's inflation as well.

speaker
Tanaka

So we are thinking three to four years time span.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

Otherwise, it's very difficult. It's difficult for us to say specifically which year we will be making investment. As for overseas energy business,

speaker
Tanaka

There's bidding, and it's a few tens of billions of yen. So we have no intention to not be able to secure a spread.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

So, of course, there have been cases where we had to give up in participating, and that may happen in the future as well. So I think it's very difficult for us. to be able to control cash every year for something like policy shareholding. If we are to negotiate or discuss with the counterpart, or even if we are not, we will offer shareholders that own within the three years.

speaker
Tanaka

So this is where we have better control. But debt financing, a significant amount, as shown in that chart, and that may be erasing everything.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

So this is my answer, but did this answer your question?

speaker
Mori

So in terms of the level for the coming three years, growth, investment, maintenance... Investment?

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

So there's not much fluctuation between the three different years. We are seeing similar level of investments for the coming three years, roughly. Okay.

speaker
spk10

And my second question is, so Shinya-san just asked the question, and expenses and maintenance costs are increasing.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

So putting aside maintenance, there's impact coming from inflation, I think. It's the same for every company. And against such a backdrop, passing on the price, what are the measures you are going to take in some of the companies?

speaker
spk10

They are doing it in a different form, but they are reviewing the electricity. fee, and they are trying to cover that inflation with that.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

So if the profitability is difficult, it's challenging in the coming three years, maybe you need to take such actions. And what is your thought on the inflation?

speaker
spk10

And also, This is an issue that has existed from before, but Iranian situation, because of that, the regulatory price ceiling, as a result, every few years, some issue like this happens. So, what are your thoughts.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

Maybe you need to make improvements or revise prices. So what is your thought on this topic?

speaker
Mori

So impact of inflation, first of all, we need to analyze the impact of inflation.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

We have a rough image, but we need to understand much more in detail to be able to decide what we can do. So we'd like to continue to reduce costs. with whatever we can and also the services we are offering in many ways including value add by delivering the value to customers we will be the one to be chosen by customers and I think it's important for us to create such a cycle and so we do believe that we will be able to increase profits

speaker
Mori

as a result and price hike so this is a regulated price and I understand that this is being deliberated in the national committee so of course demand is very important but putting that aside this temporary measure by when

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

price act should be implemented this should continue to be deliberated with the liberalization the system is established and this price is remaining still so at some point in time discussion should be held thoroughly and the policy should be decided by the government I think at some point in time

speaker
spk10

Thank you very much.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

I understood. Next, please.

speaker
Mori - san

Thank you.

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

Nishikawa of Daiwa Securities asking two questions. So my question is an extension of what Yamazaki-san mentioned. So I understand that there's a regulated data charges, and you're not able to increase the price for low voltage, but for high voltage and auto high voltage, are they... Kyushu electric power is already increasing yet. And because you have the high mix of the nuclear power, then that's the situation with Kyushu nuclear power. And you're also facing inflation. So including the standard, the other menu, I do understand you are planning to increase the prices for the high voltage or the auto high voltage, the charges, to improve your margin. I should not be using the word price increases, but rebalancing the charges for the high voltage and auto high voltage. What kind of measures are you expecting to implement, and what kind of improvement can I expect? I talked about the QC electric power, but when we look at the total electric power and true electric power, They are also talking about the shrinkage of a slide time lag on top of the high voltage and the auto high voltage. And because we are talking about slide time lag, we cannot ignore it because it should have certain impact to your accounting numbers. So the time lag to pass through the fuel surcharges adjustment. So are you thinking of revising that?

speaker
Mori

Thank you. So for liberated prices, each EPCO company are developing other schemes so that they can address the changes of the business environment.

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

I understand that. But how are we going to set a liberated price? We do need to have a good way to think about those prices. We cannot really specify what directions we will head to, but I think it's important. As we will monitor what the other EPCO companies do, we will compare where we stand, and we will try to determine what kind of choices we should take.

speaker
Mori - san

And please allow me, I cannot say when and what we will do.

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

And my another question is the ROE of 8% that we are showing for your management plan. Can you tell me why you set that price and how committed you are? And you are now saying 8% of ROE or more for a three-year average. Why did you determine 8% should be the three-year average? What kind of discussion did you have? And you are saying that the three-year average of 8% or more. So are you saying after three years, the average should be 8%? Or are you aiming to achieve more than 8% every year? Or on a cumulative basis, if you are not able to achieve 8%, are you? because of your profit level. By looking at your shareholder return policy, I don't think you will have other options to improve your ROE. So should I understand that you are going to implement some other capital, the measures or policies, and that you are committed to achieve 8% ROE as a three-year average?

speaker
Mori

Well,

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

So for our target, if you are asking if this is a committed target, as we are facing various uncertainties, so many uncertain factors, I cannot say we are committed to achieve this target. What we are saying is this is an aimed target.

speaker
Mori

We will take on our challenges to get there. We wanted to present our intention with this target.

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

Including our capital policies, we will try to improve our profit first to achieve our ROE target. That will be the basic principle. But we will always consider taking some kind of measures in our capital policy to improve ROE. So when we think about the next three years, I said that we only have intention to accelerate our investment, and we will sell our kingdom shares and strategic shareholdings. Even with that, we need to accelerate our investment. And on top of that, we don't think there will be a case that we will lose our debt capacity. So we are not going to think about changing the equity side. But if we don't have any opportunities to make investment, and then we will think about... what we need to do because we need to be aware of our share price too. But the fact that we prepared this plan this time, With the investment we will implement, we are going to achieve growth in the future. So by lifting our profit, we aim to achieve ROE of 8%. And you are asking me, why 8%? I thought 8% will be the minimum level that everybody or investors and shareholders can be satisfied with. This is the kind of discussions we have.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

Thank you very much. Any other questions? Kamichika-san, please.

speaker
Kamichika - san

Hello.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

My name is Kamichika from SMBC Niko. I have two questions.

speaker
Kamichika - san

First, about the profit during the three years. I'd like to deep dive into this. Profit-wise,

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

You mentioned it's in a plateau, but on the other hand, you would like to aim for higher, and you also mentioned that.

speaker
Kamichika - san

What kind of upside can we expect from the capital market? So could you elaborate on this?

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

So from before, rebalancing is an option maybe? And other than that, what kind of potential upside could there be? This is my first question. And on top of that, and related to this, ROE 8%.

speaker
Kamichika - san

In order to achieve this, and also net profit, 270 billion yen in average.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

So looking at equity capital, equity ratio, maybe your ROE is not enough. It's not the level you can achieve, I think. So could you explain this?

speaker
Mori

First of all, basically, we want to improve our profitability. This is something we have been doing, and this will become more important going forward. What we can do right away is to reduce cost and improve efficiency of our business operation.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

So we'd like to be able to generate higher profits.

speaker
Mori

As was mentioned earlier, passing on the cost increase to the price, this is not something we are thinking of. Rather than that, we would like to make efforts ourselves to improve profitability. And the specifics, could you add anything?

speaker
Tanaka

So after calculation, maybe it's not sufficient.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

So I understand what you're saying.

speaker
Tanaka

We understand that. But still, we'd like to aim for ROE 8%.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

And we'd like to accumulate profits. to be able to achieve ROE of 8%. And Nishikawa-san's question earlier, or it's related to what President Mori has mentioned, in the coming three years,

speaker
Tanaka

we don't have the intention to stay in a plateau and just sit and wait. So TND, ICT, real estate, energy, all the businesses, for the investors, as well as debt investors as well,

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

We'd like to make the businesses investable. That's what we are keeping in mind, and based on that concept, we'd like to take action.

speaker
Tanaka

So this is the prerequisite for growth, I think.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

This is abstract answer, and it's very difficult for me to say anything concrete, but we'd like to make our business investable, and this is our intention.

speaker
Kamichika - san

Thank you. I have one more question. This is about the forecast for next year, page 23 of financial results. So minus 16 billion yen decrease in electricity sales. Could you explain about this?

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

So it's negative, so maybe competition is severe. But in the previous page, so total electricity sales is expected to increase.

speaker
Kamichika - san

So what is the breakdown of negative 16 billion?

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

How should I understand the image of the breakdown?

speaker
Mr. Kikuoka
Executive Officer, Office of Accounting and Finance, Kansai Electric Power Company

So I would like to talk about the numbers.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

As Kamichika-san mentioned, page 22, please take a look.

speaker
Mr. Kikuoka
Executive Officer, Office of Accounting and Finance, Kansai Electric Power Company

look at page 22, retail is minus 2, and impact of temperature, fiscal 2025, comparing to that, it's minus 1.4 billion kilowatt hour decline. An increase due to customer acquisition, it's positive, increased by 1.5 billion.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

And also inspection time lag, negative 200 million yen, and that is the result.

speaker
Mr. Kikuoka
Executive Officer, Office of Accounting and Finance, Kansai Electric Power Company

So that is the intention. And also sales to other companies, it's plus 108.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

It's a significant increase.

speaker
Mr. Kikuoka
Executive Officer, Office of Accounting and Finance, Kansai Electric Power Company

And we have discussed about this internally, but it's difficult to explain the details because of competition. But JPX transaction volume is expected to increase going forward. And that is where the increase is coming from. But in terms of profit and loss, page 23, retail decline in hour, that is generating impact.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

Thank you. Understood.

speaker
Andrew - san

Are there any other questions?

speaker
Mori - san

I am promoting studying of aging.

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

So I have three questions.

speaker
Mori - san

So for 2040, just like what the energy agency to plan the shows.

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

I don't think it's trustworthy because you cannot really foresee what will happen by 2040. I understand it's the same situation for you. I didn't expect that this media management plan to be such a long duration period. So what we need to do is to see what your vision is for 2030 rather.

speaker
Kamichika - san

you are now saying you are in the plateau situation.

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

If we assume the plateau situation will continue for three years beyond the plateau, after you normalize the profit bubble going down, and without your growth investment, you can expect your profit to go back, but then, if you say your profit will be in the plateau situation for three years. So by 2030, I understand that there will be several years where you will need to implement some invest works for the nuclear power plant.

speaker
Kamichika - san

And then,

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

If you are showing us what your assumption will be for 2030, and if you can present your expected ROE for 2030, I will have a better understanding of what I am about to ask. So you're saying next several years you're going to face challenges as you are in the plateau, and you said 15 years later you are going to improve your profit. I don't think that is trustworthy or that's meaningful. If we have a vision for 2030, we will be sharing that today. But after going through various internal discussions, and we also discussed what we are going to achieve, and then we are presenting what we have concluded. So as we look at what we will do in the future, we decided to show what our vision for 2040 will be. And if you are not satisfied with that, we can only share what our outlook is for the next three years. I don't think that's sufficient. So because you are now in the plateau situation, and we don't really know what will happen after that. We are not sure if you're okay. So if you're going to see the recovery after you get out of the battle, you are not saying at what level of the increase you are going to see, and you are saying that is a right way of presenting your outlook. I'm not saying that this is right. I know that you can show the number by the time you announce your first half result. It should be your task to do your analysis, okay? So as a company, you should be dispatching information. So you should be sharing what the results of the analysis is for you. investors, it's not really a task of the sell-side analysts. So, as Ogino-san said, what you are saying and what other investors and shareholders are saying really are meaningful to us. We do listen to what everybody is saying. So what I am asking is please show us as a reference what your outlook for 2030 is and what you are going to do to get there over the next three years. That is my first request. And the second part of the question is your outlook for the next three years. So in your management plan, you said you are going to use your cash for investment and the shareholdings and the kingdom share. Even without your growth investment, these are things you should be doing. That should be the message of the equity market. But I get the impression you are going to do this because you are going to implement the growth investment. Even without the growth investment, The equity market thinks that you should do that because there could be an issue of apparent subsidiary at the listed companies.

speaker
Kamichika - san

Okay, so for the next three years, can you share what your assumption is for next three years? Especially ours. For the next three years, what is your assumption?

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

In case of a three-year medium-term plan, if you assume crude oil price to be $70, or if you can share the assumption for foreign exchanges, If you are going to share, I look for next three years, not the average, but I will appreciate if you can show us in breakdown. So on average, if average is going to be 780, and at this time, the recurring profit will be at 2%. and this year it's going to be 340, and the average will be 270. It seems like you will see your ordinary profit to decline over time. Because you are in the plateau situation, this is the kind of image I want to show. That's okay.

speaker
Kamichika - san

But for the next three years, against this platform, plateau situation, as you will implement a certain growth investment, Under normal situation, you will see your recurring income to decline.

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

But you will be making effort to achieve certain growth. Apart from the rebalancing, I would like to hear what you are going to do to improve your ordinary income level for the next three years. So I would like to receive here your assumptions and the sensitivity

speaker
Kamichika - san

for three years and for this fiscal year.

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

And my third question, I don't really want to get into details, but for energy business, for power generation and retail, I would like to see the breakdown, what the situation is for each businesses, either on the power generation side or on the retail side, what kind of challenges you are identifying and what kind of measures you are taking to improve that. I want to see that I understand core business of energy is important for you. So for power generation and retail, I would like to see more quantitative data for that. Okay, so for assumption, we can share some assumptions. So from secretariat, we can communicate what the assumption is.

speaker
Tanaka

So we understand under the Iranian situation over the next three years, on the note says we are not including the Iranian situation or the situation in the Middle East.

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

So without that, we are assuming some of the assumptions. Is that the kind of document you can share on the website? No, we can only share it on Q&A. I don't really want to share this information to all the non-Japanese investors from me. So can you share that information on the website? No. We are able to share the information. If necessary, we can provide the information through Q&A. separate and individual communication.

speaker
Mori

And for power generation and the retail business, breakdown. We understand we should be aware of that perspective too.

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

Internally, we are

speaker
Mori

taking those approaches, implementing our businesses.

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

And for our results for FY25 and our forecast for FY26, internally, we are doing analysis of what kind of progress we are making. And how much we can disclose is something we need to discuss, but we do have our internal analysis already.

speaker
Andrew - san

Are there any other questions?

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

Okay, the third row, the person sitting in the middle, in the third row.

speaker
Mori - san

Thank you for the briefing. My name is Tamada. And two questions first. Your capital equity ratio in fiscal 2026, you are forecasting 37% equity ratio. And related to that, the mid-term plan, when I look at the numbers, net profit, forecast, and assuming the debt,

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

I believe the capital equity ratio is expected to increase. So from mid-30%, there might be some deviation and difference.

speaker
Mori - san

And how are you going to control your equity? So you have described about doing buyback as well.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

Are you going to take more aggressive measures?

speaker
Mori

First of all, for this question, for equity ratio, we have a relatively high equity ratio. And this is to prepare for future investments. Whether it will be maintained at a high level, we don't. That might not be the case. And naturally, buyback. It's not that we are eliminating the possibility of buyback. This is something we are thinking of as one of the options, but as we have been mentioning from before, we have significant amount of investment for growth and maintenance, so we will use both equity and debt.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

to make investments. That is our stance.

speaker
Mori - san

Thank you. My second question is related to page 24 of the midterm plan. This capital allocation chart operating cash flow and asset recycled. This is cash in and cash out. is shareholder returns. And based on that, so passing on the cost increase and profitability increase upside, so upside from the cash out would be the shareholder returns.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

And is that the right way to look at things?

speaker
Mori

Well, or each so higher or it might be blurry at the bottom and growth investment maintenance we are assuming 1.5 trillion yen. And as the bar graph has made blurry, it's not that there's already a line-up of growth investments and that we have things decided already. Each there might be some changes, some might increase or decrease for each one of them. So it's not necessarily the case that operating cash flow increase will lead to increase in shareholder returns.

speaker
Tanaka

So we have discussed about sharing the details of everything.

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

So 270 billion yen or more of shareholder returns, it is described in the second

speaker
Tanaka

page, and we want to make efforts to increase shareholder returns. And operating cash flow, when it increases, would it be requested straight away into shareholder returns? But I would think I want to reduce that because the free cash flow is very bad. So we need to start a balance.

speaker
Mori - san

Thank you very much.

speaker
Andrew - san

Do we have any other questions from participants at the venue?

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

We are going to take questions from participants on Zoom. Andrew-san, over to you.

speaker
Andrew - san

So I have a couple of questions.

speaker
spk00

So the first slide 22 of the annual results, so I just wondered How have you managed to reduce your earnings sensitivity to changes in the oil price? And do those assumptions still hold, even in such a volatile market as today? So I think it's 0.2 billion earnings impact per dollar. Is that still valid even with oil at $100 per barrel?

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

Yes, my first question is on the 22nd page of the budget description. It's about sensitivity to fuel costs. Now that the situation has changed so much, this sensitivity, $1 per dollar, $1 change is $0.2 billion. I'm showing you the sensitivity. So the Kikoka will be answering to your question. So the impact from this is that when we see the fuel cost increase, with the time lag, there will be a fuel adjustment, and we do the calculation based on the two factors. So as we are showing, we believe this can be the sensitivity we can achieve.

speaker
Mr. Kikuoka
Executive Officer, Office of Accounting and Finance, Kansai Electric Power Company

Therefore, at this moment, if I can add some information, even though we have seen a deterioration of the situation in the Middle East in early March,

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

So in the month of February and March, if we take the average of the future price, we use that as the annual assumption. So to answer your question, going forward, if the situation continues to deteriorate or the deteriorated situation prolongs, negative impact of 0.2 billion yen per can that be adjusted or changed going forward?

speaker
Andrew - san

Andrew-san, did I answer your question?

speaker
spk00

Yes. So, it was just following on that. Are you knowing what I'm talking about? Because the impact of the change in the numbers has been quite dramatic over the last few years.

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

Yes, I have an additional question. In the past few months, there has been a significant change in the exchange rate, so have you been increasing the ratio of hedging?

speaker
Mr. Kikuoka
Executive Officer, Office of Accounting and Finance, Kansai Electric Power Company

Yes, I would like to answer to your question. So how much we hedge, we do not have the answer to give you the details.

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

But because we have the fuel adjustment system, so for the fuel required for power generation, we are not making a major change in our policy to change our hedging.

speaker
spk00

And some follow-up questions related to the mid-term plan, YY266. So just let me add the name of the researchers from the

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

For each of the businesses, the amount of investment

speaker
Mori

allocation, the policy of allocation.

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

We don't really start our process by thinking about allocation, but that we will try to identify the investment opportunity which will allow us to achieve the growth. So over the next three years, we came to the conclusion this will be the amount of investment for each region. It's not like we prioritize at a certain business segment, but in order to maximize our profit, we determine what the growth investment opportunities will be.

speaker
Tanaka

And if I can add some more, when we determine the allocation, that is a critical part of our punishment.

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

So over the last several years, before we prepared this plan, we have been focusing on our discussion. Mori-san said profit is, of course, what we need to achieve, but we also need to consider what the spread will be at the total group level, what the level of spread we can achieve at the ROIC level or ROE level, as we have gone through the various discussions of what the spread we can achieve. by using a project financing or a co-development project scheme. Basically, we are showing the ROIC number as the ROIC we will achieve by just engaging our business on our own, but obviously, we can like the sale, our asset to read, or they will take the various actions and we will make necessary adjustment to achieve our target. So Mori is answering to your question. I said that the profit, and so that's important, but as Tanaka mentioned, we need to evaluate our returns from various other measures. So on page 45 of the appendix, so the policy of the allocation, Tanaka-san always said we will just thoroughly and aggressively discuss. We did have a very detailed discussion. So we will not simply look at the ROIC and WAC, but we will look at the expected growth and the business-related risks and how much time will require to generate a return. By looking at the various aspects, we will also determine what the investment should be prioritized. And we will need to continue to brush up these other plans. We understand that's important.

speaker
Andrew - san

One final question.

speaker
spk00

So just in relation to those investments, our targets, to what extent do they include new nuclear and a new transmission investment or is that additional and very much dependent on the permitted returns?

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

Yes, that's right. Yes, your understanding is correct. It is included.

speaker
spk00

Thank you very much.

speaker
Mr. Mori
CEO, Kansai Electric Power Company

Congratulations, Tanaka-san, on your promotion. Thank you.

speaker
Andrew - san

Do we have any other questions? If you have any other questions, please let us know. How about that?

speaker
Mr. Tanaka
Executive Vice President, Kansai Electric Power Company

So there seems to be no more questions from anybody on Zoom or in the venue. And therefore, with this, we would like to close the briefing for today. Thank you very much.

Disclaimer

This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.

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