Talen Energy Corp Q2 FY2023 Earnings Call

Good morning, and welcome to the Talen Energy Second Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. Operator provided instructions. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Ellen Liu, Senior Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Kate, and welcome, everyone, to Talen Energy's Second Quarter 2023 Conference Call. Participating on today's call are Mac McFarland, Chief Executive Officer; and Terry Nutt, Chief Financial Officer. They are joined by other Talen senior executives to address questions during the second part of today's call as necessary. I'd like to highlight that we have provided slides on the Investor Relations section of our website, www.talenenergy.com. These slides provide additional information about our operations and second quarter results. We have also provided information reconciling our non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures in our earnings materials. Today, we are making some forward-looking statements based on current expectations. Actual results could differ due to risk factors described in our financial disclosures and other periodic public filings. As a reminder, we have allotted additional time for a question-and-answer session at the end of our prepared remarks. We ask participants to please limit their questions to one primary and one follow-up. With that, I will now turn the call over to Mac.

Great. Thank you, Ellen. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. At Talen, we are focused on delivering consistent and predictable free cash flow. Today, Talen reported strong operational and financial performance in the first half of 2023, generating from a diverse fleet anchored by carbon-free nuclear power. With today's release, we are establishing 2023 adjusted EBITDA and adjusted free cash flow guidance. And given our strong first half of the year, the midpoint of our guidance ranges are higher than the last forecasted figures presented on January 27. On May 17, Talen emerged from its financial restructuring after successfully raising roughly $2 billion of funded emergence debt, a $700 million undrawn revolver and $1.4 billion of new equity capital. This, together with the conversion of over $1.4 billion of unsecured debt to common equity allowed us to emerge with modest leverage and a long-dated maturity profile with ample liquidity to run the business. We are and will remain focused on disciplined capital allocation and prioritizing shareholder returns, and we will do so looking to maintain a net leverage ratio of less than 3.5x net debt to EBITDA. In connection with the emergence, we announced management and Board changes to support Talen. I was delighted to join Talen at emergence, and we have since rounded out the management team, including the addition of Terry Nutt as Chief Financial Officer. Terry has more than 20 years of experience in the energy industry, including leadership roles and post-reorganization situations, and you'll hear from him later in this call. We also put in place an independent Board of Directors, each with deep industry expertise, and drawing on this experience and the new management team will allow us to drive value creation for shareholders. Prior to emergence, Talen was a private company for over six years. We are now realigning with regular-way public company practices, including quarterly financial filings and earnings calls. Talen is currently listed on the OTCQX and we anticipate listing on a major national exchange in the future. Management is focused on this initiative, which could be completed as soon as the end of this year. On August 9, we simplified the capital structure further by refinancing our nonrecourse Lower Mount Bethel and Martins Creek debt through the upsizing of our corporate term loan. The transaction brings the Lower Mount Bethel and Martins Creek generation assets into the Talen Group, and it frees up previously trapped cash flows that were amortizing the project-level term loan. Overall, this simplifies our capital structure and extends our debt maturity profile further. Additionally, on August 10, Talen reached an agreement with Riverstone to acquire its roughly 14% interest in Cumulus Digital Holdings and to retire its 3.1 million warrants in Talen Energy for a total cash consideration of $60 million. By doing so, we are eliminating $49 million of liabilities associated with these warrants and their potential common equity dilution risk. We are also concluding all of Riverstone's equity and governance interest in Cumulus Digital and its economic rights and related intercompany PPA agreements. This transaction is expected to close in September and again further simplifies the ownership structure of Talen and Cumulus Digital, and it enables increased flexibility as the company continues to unlock value across its platform. Turning now to our results. We performed reliably and safely. We are proud of our safety record with an OSHA total recordable incident rate of 0.6 on a year-to-date basis and we continue to emphasize safety across the fleet. Our TRIR is one of the best among peers. Our fleet ran well, generating 13.5 terawatt hours with an equivalent forced outage factor of 2.6% in the first half of the year. Approximately 60% of that generation was carbon-free from our Susquehanna nuclear facility. Furthermore, our ERCOT plants performed consistently and profitably during the Texas summer heat wave. This strong operational foundation and a robust commercial strategy delivered $774 million of adjusted EBITDA year-to-date. And after funding our maintenance capital expenditures, we generated $464 million of adjusted free cash flow on a year-to-date basis. I'd like to take this opportunity to recognize and thank all of our employees across the fleet. They have worked safely to deliver excellent operational results from Montana to Texas to the Mid-Atlantic. Without their efforts and resolve, none of this would have been possible. While the majority of our generation is already produced through zero-carbon nuclear and lower carbon gas-fired facilities, we are reducing the carbon profile of our wholly owned coal fleet through the conversion to lower carbon fuels. The 1.5 gigawatt Montour gas conversion is nearly complete and final testing will conclude this quarter. Montour Unit 2 became fully operational on natural gas in early August and Unit 1 will be fully operational on gas by the end of August. The Wagner Unit 3 coal to oil conversion is also well underway with expected completion before year-end. As an update on Cumulus, we are near full electrification on Substation 3, which will provide fully redundant power to Phase 1 of our data center campus. Going forward, we will have minimal growth investment in Cumulus Data, as we need only $5 million or so of incremental spend for the final transformer that will give us an electrical infrastructure capability for up to 240 megawatts of data centers. As Terry and I have been on the road meeting with investors, many have asked about our plans for Cumulus Data and when we will announce a deal. The answer is, frankly, when we have the right deal. Talen has invested significant capital in Cumulus, and we are keenly focused on realizing the value of these prior investments through a sale or joint venture. The data center market is very active because of increased demand from AI and low availability of data center capacity. And we are uniquely positioned with a ready-to-go shell, abundant zero-carbon power, the ability to offer attractive long-term rates relative to other tariff rates, and a scalable campus with the potential capacity for up to 1 gigawatt of data centers. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Terry. Terry?

Thank you, Mac, and good morning to everyone on the call. Moving to financial results. During the second quarter of 2023, Talen continued to build on its strong first quarter financial results to deliver $774 million in year-to-date adjusted EBITDA. We achieved one of our best first half of the year performances since 2018, driven primarily by higher energy margins realized through our disciplined hedging strategy. Our commercial team took advantage of elevated forward pricing in 2022 to lock in 2023 power prices across our fleet, which resulted in strong revenues through realized hedge gains during periods of less favorable pricing in the first half of 2023. For the second quarter of 2023, Talen reported adjusted EBITDA of $114 million and adjusted free cash flow of negative $30 million. Once again, earnings for the quarter benefited from realized hedging gains that offset lower real-time power prices. Below average temperatures in the PJM market during the quarter resulted in lower demand for cooling needs, which contributed to reduced power load when compared to the second quarter of 2022. That said, Talen did benefit from a slight offset from our ERCOT generation fleet, due to higher ERCOT spark spreads during the period. Those plants have performed well and continue to perform well during the current heat wave in Texas. Turning to adjusted free cash flow, for the second quarter, we did operate under our legacy capital structure for over half of the quarter, until emerging from restructuring on May 17. This included incurring interest expense on our prior capital structure for 47 days. At emergence, we used approximately $1.1 billion of cash on the balance sheet to pay off debt and claims, exiting with $170 million of unrestricted cash and a fully undrawn $700 million revolver. Since completing our restructuring on May 17, we have achieved strong operating and financial performance and have made substantial progress on our strategic realignment to a regular-way public company. As the next step in that process, we're establishing 2023 financial guidance ranges for adjusted EBITDA and adjusted free cash flow today with higher expected midpoints than the 2023 EBITDA and free cash flow previously disclosed in January of this year. The range for 2023 adjusted EBITDA is $1.07 billion to $1.245 billion, and the range for adjusted free cash flow is $550 million to $595 million. Further, as we continue to reintroduce Talen to the investing public, we anticipate providing 2024 guidance during our Q3 earnings call. Moving on, I'd like to discuss current gas and power market dynamics briefly before providing an update on our hedging activities. During the last nine months, tight domestic and international natural gas supply and demand conditions have reversed due to several factors. Those factors include a milder-than-normal 2022 to 2023 winter, both domestically and abroad, and substantial year-on-year growth in North American gas production. These factors have driven down domestic and international gas pricing relative to the elevated pricing seen in 2021 and 2022. PJM forward power price dynamics have reflected the underlying drivers of the natural gas market. With the added impact of the recent announcement around the Mountain Valley Pipeline project becoming much more likely, we believe that project will relieve some of the scarcity premium normally seen in winter pricing in PJM gas markets. The ERCOT forward power market has also been impacted by gas market dynamics, but we've seen added scarcity premium values and an expansion in spark spreads and forward prices due to elevated demand conditions from the prolonged summer heatwave that we're currently experiencing. Now for a brief update on our risk management activities. As of June 30, Talen has hedged approximately 64% of its expected generation volumes for the second half of 2023 and 76% of expected generation in 2024. The 2024 positions do include the impact of the production tax credit on our nuclear fleet. Talen's hedging program is a key component of the company's comprehensive fiscal policy and supports the objective of locking in future earnings and cash flows. It is important to note that while our hedge percentages for the balance of this year are at the low end of our previously targeted range of 60% to 80%, the overall gross margin at risk during this period is relatively low and that is reflected in our 2023 guidance range. Finally, I want to provide a brief update on our nuclear fuel supply activities. Over the last few months, we have executed on several measures including eliminating all of our exposure to Russian-related uranium suppliers and further hedging our uranium and uranium conversion positions. As of now, we have hedged 100% of our fuel through the 2025 fuel load as well as all of our conversion and fabrication needs through 2029. Turning now to the balance sheet. As Mac noted earlier, on August 9 Talen successfully refinanced our nonrecourse Lower Mount Bethel-Martins Creek subsidiary debt through upsizing our existing Term Loan B that matures in 2030. This simplifies our capital structure, reducing the number of credit facilities and eliminating non-recourse debt related to our generation fleet. It also moves a high-quality set of operating assets into our primary credit structure, frees up the cash flows produced from these assets for broader utilization, and clears all debt maturities until 2028. We view this transaction as an endorsement by the capital markets of our performance, strength and strategic focus. We saw robust demand from new and existing investors that allowed us to tighten pricing relative to our emergence debt that was raised back in May. As Mac noted earlier, we will maintain a strong balance sheet and utilize our free cash flow strategically to achieve the highest returns for our stakeholders. This includes the deployment of a net leverage target of less than 3.5x net debt to EBITDA, along with maintaining ample liquidity. As of August 11, Talen had total available liquidity of approximately $840 million, comprised of $140 million of unrestricted cash and a fully undrawn revolving credit facility of $700 million. With that, I'll now turn the call back over to Mac.

Great. Thanks, Terry. To reiterate our value position, first, Talen offers diverse and stable cash flows with limited nonmaintenance CapEx going forward. Our capital investments in the data center campus are largely complete, the Montour conversion is nearly complete and the Wagner conversion will be completed by year-end. Additionally, Talen owns the industry-leading carbon-free Susquehanna nuclear plant, backed by the nuclear production tax credit. Our gas and peaking fleet is well positioned to capture upside from market dynamics in ERCOT and PJM. Our zero-carbon digital infrastructure campus is optimally positioned for monetization and value creation and we have a strong balance sheet, as Terry mentioned, underpinned by modest leverage and ample liquidity. We look forward to engaging with our stakeholders at multiple upcoming industry events and we will be holding an Investor Day at the Susquehanna Nuclear site and Cumulus Digital Campus on October 24. Look for additional information on this event in the near future, but please save the date. Thank you for your interest in Talen and for joining us on the call today. We will now open the line for questions, and I'll turn it back to the operator, Kate.

The first question is from Julien Dumoulin-Smith of Bank of America.

Congratulations again on everything. Appreciate it. I just wanted to kick in here on the JV or strategic efforts you have going on the data center front. You said you're waiting for the best deal here. Just setting expectations, what could that deal look like structure-wise? And any initial expectations on how you would think about the financial ramifications of that, again, knowing that there are numerous caveats likely embedded?

Julien, it's Mac. I hope you're well. You're asking a question about commercial negotiations that are ongoing, and so it's difficult for us to get into those. I think what we've said is that we're open to multiple different structures, whether it be a sale or a joint venture, whichever we find to be the most economic. When it comes to the financial implications of those, as we've said right now, and as I included in my remarks, we have limited growth CapEx going forward, and that includes Cumulus. We have to buy one additional transformer, which we're in the process of doing for around $5 million, as I mentioned. And once that's done, we have the ability for up to 240 megawatts, and we have a building that is a 50-megawatt to 65-megawatt shell building. So in either structure, what we're looking to do is find the right JV partner by which to deploy capital with, or an outright sale that uses that electrical infrastructure and hopefully has line of sight to the additional electrical infrastructure that would get us to 1 gigawatt.

Yes, indeed. Fair enough. I know it's still coming here. And then if I can, just following up on the uranium commentary and the procurement cycle. How do you think about that 2025 through 2029 procurement decision here, and obviously nicely done on what you've layered in already. But I'm just curious, given what you know about the marketplace availability of fuel, how do you think about setting expectations financially? And also how do you think about that procurement itself on filling it through the decade?

One thing Terry highlighted, and I'll have him jump in as well, is that we've locked up conversion because there's a potential bottleneck by the end of the decade going into 2029 and 2030. As we said, we've got our position hedged for the next several fuel loads and hedged 100% through conversion and fabrication through the end of the decade. We felt that was a prudent measure to do. The last forecast we provided of CapEx is out there; it's the January 27 refresh. There's a chart in the back about the amount of CapEx being spent. What we've been able to do is hedge within or below those numbers. We are tracking, as we've said before, we have a $22 all-in cost at Susquehanna for 2022. If you looked at that profile, we show that we're adding about $1 a megawatt hour because of fuel costs over time each year, and we're still on that trajectory.

The next question is from Agnieszka Storozynski of Seaport Research Partners.

So maybe just finishing up on the nuclear fuel. You mentioned conversion and fabrication, but it seems like enrichment is the real bottleneck. Have you locked in the enrichment capacity?

We've locked in all of our conversion and all of our enrichment. The main piece that we have still outstanding is a modest piece of physical commodity left in the near term. We don't think that's an area of the market that is a huge concern right now. It's really the enrichment and conversion that's very tight.

Yes. And we have the commodity locked in through the 2026 fuel load. The other step I should have mentioned earlier that we've done is we have eliminated all exposure to Russia as well through several of the transactions that we've completed.

Okay. So moving on to the capital allocation. You mentioned that you have very limited non-maintenance CapEx going forward. I understand that 2023 is for now a peak earnings year, so there's a degradation in earnings going forward. What is the plan for how you would allocate any excess cash above that 3.5x net debt to EBITDA?

You're right, Angie, that the maintenance part of our capital program is behind us after 2023. In other words, all of our growth CapEx will have been spent, and that included the conversion projects—Wagner, Montour—as well as the infrastructure needed at Cumulus. Going forward, provided we maintain the liquidity position and net debt to EBITDA of less than 3.5x, we are going to prioritize shareholder returns.

When you look at your existing portfolio, do you think you have sufficient scale as a public company? Power generation is a business of economies of scale, and I'm just wondering how you see the current size of your portfolio.

We're roughly 12.5 gigawatts and generate approximately 40 terawatt hours a year. I think that is of scale. There's an opportunity in the space to be a public company that can attract investors. We've seen it on our non-deal roadshows with interest from new shareholders and existing ones. We continue to see public appetite for the credit as well. The Lower Mount Bethel refinancing into the corporate term loan and the upsizing were received very positively. So we do think there's an opportunity in this space as a public company.

Lastly, post restructuring, you don't have any electric retail. How do you see that business as a way to hedge generation output, perhaps?

The retail business can have robust margins for residential in ERCOT and C&I is often described as an efficient way to hedge megawatts with limited credit support. But margins aren't necessarily that strong in C&I relative to Texas retail. Given our hedge position—76% for 2024 which includes the production tax credit—we have a way to hedge the downside very credit-efficiently with a backstop being the federal government through the PTC. So we like our position and don't feel there's a need to add retail at this point.

The next question is from Kevin Kwan of JPMorgan.

I wanted to focus on the capacity market. It's a smaller and smaller part of the story now. What are the next milestones you're most focused on? I noticed some of your assumptions in the January materials show a bit of an uptick in pricing. What are your assumptions overall and expectations?

We have not provided specific assumptions because we intend to provide guidance as is typical for the industry with third quarter earnings. With the auction being postponed, we're not providing guidance on what we think the capacity clears will be in the out years at this point.

Okay. Maybe then we move on to some of your coal assets in the portfolio. It's a smaller part of your portfolio, but given that Brandon Shores is undergoing retirement, how should we think about the longer-term viability of some of your minority-owned fleet there? Any opportunities for the remainder of that portfolio?

We have a stated objective to be out of non-wholly owned coal toward the mid part of this decade. Brandon Shores is retiring; Wagner and Brunner have been converted; Montour has been converted, all running on gas or oil going forward. Brandon is a different situation—it's electrically constrained in the BGE territory. PJM has suggested the unit is still necessary for the next several years. We're working through that with PJM. We want to be constructive but we are under a formal agreement with the Sierra Club to shut down in 2025, and we're making good on that. We are focused on being out of coal at those units and expect to be out sometime in the next several years.

We still have minority positions in Keystone and Conemaugh, and we're the operator of Colstrip in Montana, but those are jointly owned facilities and there are no plans right now to convert them.

Got it. And then my last question: we see a fair amount of free cash flow forecasted, and you are targeting 3.5x net leverage. Any consideration on debt reduction? Will you be focused on managing EBITDA or actively reducing debt as you approach that marker in 2024–2025?

When we think about debt reduction, we evaluate it in the context of our overall cost of capital. Looking across the debt stack and where debt has been trading, we don't see immediate reduction opportunities right now. That said, we'll continue to look at options as we move forward. When we do a debt transaction, we'll take a hard look at our cost of equity and cost of debt and be very disciplined about how we proceed.

Great. Look forward to seeing you guys at the Investor Day.

The next question is from Steven Fleishman of Wolfe Research.

Thanks for the investor call. On the potential options for the Cumulus plans, any sense on timeline for that? Is that something that could be done by the Investor Day you're hosting?

Steve, that's always at the top of investors' minds. Because these are commercial negotiations, we have not put a time frame on it nor stated a preferred structure. We're open to multiple structures. We are focused on it and it will get done when it gets done. There are formal contracts and commercial negotiations ahead; there's a lot that needs to be done to finalize any transaction.

Understood. On the debt-to-EBITDA target, how should we think about that relative to hedged EBITDA versus market EBITDA, i.e., as hedges roll off, particularly if they end up being above market. How are you thinking about managing that?

We'll continue to deploy our hedging program. As we've mentioned, we'll target 60% to 80% hedging for the next 12 months and 40% to 60% for months 13 through 24. That will help maintain overall margin and EBITDA. Additionally, the implementation of the production tax credits provides an implicit hedge within the nuclear asset and acts as a floor. When we see price opportunities above the production tax credit level, we'll capture upside to enhance overall value. That's how we view our hedging strategy as we work to maintain our leverage ratio.

To add, we're in that position for 2024. When we state 76% hedged, Terry mentioned that includes the PTC; think of it as a put option with an underlying position. It effectively is included in that 76%, but there is upside if markets trend up because we have not necessarily sold away the upside.

So the 76% includes the PTC as a kind of hedge?

Yes. Think of it this way: it includes the PTC as if it's sold megawatts at those dollars.

But you still have upside capture, correct?

Yes. For example, if PJM went to $55, we would have exposure to that increment above the PTC level.

Of the 76%, how much would you say is captured by the PTC part of it? Is that most of it or a big piece?

I'd say probably 30% to 40%.

Thanks, everyone, for joining. We appreciate your interest and look forward to seeing everybody at the October 24 Investor Day.

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.