Boralex Inc.

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the telephone conference on the financial results of the fourth quarter and exercise 2023 of Boralex. Please note that all readings are in listening mode only. At the end of the presentation, there will be a question and answer period during which financial analysts, shareholders and investors will be invited to ask their questions by pressing star 1 and 1 on your phone. Please also note that this conference is recorded. Pour les participants à la webdiffusion, vous pouvez également poser des questions au cours de la conférence, mais celles-ci obtiendront réponse par courriel après l'appel. Enfin, les représentants des médias qui ont des questions sont invités à contacter directement Camille Laventure, conseillère affaires publiques et communications externes chez Boralex, aux coordonnées indiquées à la fin du communiqué trimestriel. J'aimerais maintenant passer la parole à Stéphane Milot, vice-président relations avec les investisseurs de Boralex. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Boralec's fourth quarter and fiscal 2023 financial results conference call. Note that all lines are in listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session in which financial analysts, shareholders, and investors will be invited to ask their questions by pressing star 1 and 1 on the telephone. Also note that the conference is being recorded. For webcast participants, you can also ask questions during the conference, but they will be answered by email after the call. Finally, media representatives are invited to contact Camille Aventure, Advisor, Public Affairs and External Communications at Boralex. Her contact information is provided at the end of the quarterly press release. I would now like to turn the conference over to Stéphane Milot, Vice President, Investor Relations for Boralex. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. So, welcome to Bar-LX's fourth quarter and year-end results conference call. So, joining me today on the call, Patrick Dacoste, our president and chief executive officer, Bruno Guilmette, executive vice president and chief financial officer, and other members of our management and finance teams. So, Mr. Dacoste will begin with comments about market conditions and the highlights of the quarter. Afterwards, Mr. Guilmette will carry on with financial highlights, and then we'll be available to answer your questions. So as you know, during this call, we'll discuss historical as well as forward-looking information. So when talking about the future, there's a variety of risk factors that have been listed on our different filings with securities regulators, which can materially change our estimated results. So these documents are available for consultation at cdarplus.ca. So in our webcast presentation document, the disclosed results are presented both on a consolidated basis and on a combined basis. So when talking about the results, we generally refer to combined numbers, and when referring to cash flow and balance sheet, we generally refer to consolidated numbers. So please note that the combined is a non-GAAP financial measure and does not have standardized meaning under the IFRS. Accordingly, combined may not be comparable to similarly named measures used by other companies. For more details, see the Non-IFRS and Other Financial Measures section in the MDNA. So the press release, the MDNA, the Consolidated Financial Statement, and a copy of today's presentations are all posted on the Boralex website at boralex.com under the Investors section. If you wish to receive a copy of these documents, please contact me. So Mr. Dacoste will now start with his comment. Please go ahead, Patrick.

Thank you, Stéphane, and good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure for me to present our results and achievements for the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2023. 2023 was a record year for Boralex on several parameters. Combined EBITDA of 675 million, up 22% on 2022. Net income of 115 million, AFFO of 179 million, and EFFO per share of $1.75. We also added 1.5 gigawatts of project to our pipeline, now representing 6.8 gigawatts of solar, wind, and storage project. In a challenging environment, we demonstrated that our agility, disciplined approach, and sound management has consistently proven effective. resulting in improved financial results and making good progress on our strategic plan execution. Looking ahead, we're in a solid financial position with close to $550 million in available cash resources and authorized financing facilities, providing significant flexibility to fund our growth. This last quarter, we continue to focus on our main projects under construction and ready to build. They are progressing according to plan with our wind project in Quebec and Lime Kiln in Scotland expected to start operation at the end of 2024, as well as our two battery storage projects in Ontario expected to be commissioned in 2025. In the fourth quarter, we have also been very active in the development of our project in North America. We're very proud that our two projects, our Tabasca and Monoir, totaling 315 megawatts, were selected in the Hydro-Québec's RFP. It shows both our competitiveness in this market and our ability to work closely with local partners. Our team is working full steam ahead to further develop projects in Quebec. Ontario is also a very promising market for Boralex with strong clean energy needs identified in the coming years. Ontario's ISO is projecting energy shortfalls before 2030 and is planning a series of procurements to meet demand. After 2030, Ontario intends to mitigate the growing shortfall by building small modular reactors, SMRs, and refurbishing Pequing B nuclear power station and other measures. Even under SMRs and Pequing refurbishment scenario, with all associated cost and schedule risk, demand gap still exists. We are therefore rapidly developing cost-effective solutions to meet demand in Ontario. In December, we submitted bids for 525 MW of storage projects and our team is working on a diversified array of wind, solar and storage projects to pursue our growth in this region. Finally, we submitted 240 MW of solar projects in New York expedited RFP in January 2024. Results should be announced in April and another RFP is expected in the fall. Given our experience and the strengths of our balance sheet, we're confident that we can successfully complete these various projects which are well spread over time. Before covering markets conditions, I would like to highlight our achievement in the past five years for some key metrics. First, our installed capacity went from 1.9 GW in 2018 to 3.1 GW at the end of 2023, a 10% KGAR, while our pipeline of projects increased significantly and more than double in the last three years. This growth was achieved while maintaining our debt level almost flat at 3.3 billion. Our AFFO and AFFO per share grew by a CAGR of respectively 25% and 19% during this five-year period. I'm very proud of these results and would like to take this opportunity to thank all Boralex employees for their commitment and hard work during these years. I also take this opportunity to thank our partners in our different projects. I won't go into all the details of market conditions, but in general, I would say the demand for renewable energy remains high in all our core markets, with strong commitments from the government to reduce their carbon footprint, leading to investment in renewable energy sources. Even if some political parties are not highly favorable to the development of renewable energy, one thing is sure, the transition will continue. It's based on strong demand forecast with a clear lack of supply in the short to medium term. In Canada, we still expect legislation around ITC to get final approval sometime in the first half of 2024 in france we had positive news from the 2024 budget act with the price cap raised to 105 euro per megawatt hour and the level of revenue shared with the government and above this threshold is which is increased for to 50 percent versus 10 percent in 2022 and 2023. Even if merchant prices are lower than 105 euro a megawatt hour right now, we still have some upside in 2024 coming from our short-term contract signed in 2022 for periods between Q4 2022 and 2026. I will now rapidly review the main variances in our portfolio of projects and growth paths. The increase in the early stage was mainly due to, first, the addition of one new wind project and one storage project in North America, as well as two wind power projects and five solar power projects in Europe for a total of 454 MW. Then, the transition to the mid-stage phase of five wind projects and five solar projects in Europe for a reduction of 126 MW. In the mid-stage, the progression of these 126 MW of projects was offset by the transition to the advanced stage of three wind projects in North America and three wind projects and two solar projects in Europe for a reduction of 500 megawatts. In the advanced stage, the change were mainly due to the progression of these 500 megawatts, but also the transition to the secured phase of one wind power project in North America for a reduction of 133 megawatts and the inclusion of two wind projects in Europe in the under construction stage for a reduction of 29 MW. In total, our pipeline now comprises project totaling 5.9 GW of wind, solar and storage project. In the growth path, the secured stage increase with the progression of one wind project in North America for an increase of 133 MW. The construction and ready-to-build stage increased by 2 MW with the progression of the wind project Fontaine-les-Boulons and Febvin-Palphar in France, and the commissioning of two other wind projects in France, totaling 27 MW. I won't cover in detail the progress made in our four strategic directions, as I have already talked about the major highlights. but you can find all the details in the slide of the webcast and in our MD&E. This completes my part. I will now let Bruno cover the financial portion in more detail, and we'll be back later for the question period.