Earnings Call Transcript - VST Q3 2022

Operator, Operator

Good day, and welcome to the Vistra Third Quarter Earnings Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Ms. Meagan Horn. Please go ahead.

Meagan Horn, Investor Relations

Thank you. Good morning. Welcome to Vistra's investor webcast discussing third quarter 2022 results, which is being broadcast live from the Investor Relations section of our website at www.vistracorp.com. Also available on our website are copies of today's investor presentation, our Form 10-Q, and the related press release. Joining me for today's call are Jim Burke, our President and Chief Executive Officer; and Kris Moldovan, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. We have a few additional senior executives present to address questions during the second part of today's call as necessary. Before we begin our presentation, I would like to note that today's press release, the slide presentation and discussion on this call all include certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are provided in the press release and in the appendix to the investor presentation available on the Investor Relations section of the company's website. Also today's discussion will contain forward-looking statements, which are based on assumptions we believe to be reasonable only as of today's date. Such forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or implied. We assume no obligation to update our forward-looking statements. I encourage all listeners to review the Safe Harbor statements included on slide two in the investor presentation on our website that explain the risks of these forward-looking statements, the limitations of certain industry and market data included in the presentation, and the use of non-GAAP financial measures. Thank you. And I will now turn the call over to our President and CEO, Jim Burke.

Jim Burke, CEO

Thank you, Meagan, and good morning to everyone. We plan to keep this call relatively short. We believe we have a straightforward message to deliver today. In prior calls, we've shared with you our priorities for the year and today, we're here to share how we are successfully executing against those priorities and provide our view regarding 2023. Starting on slide five, we had another strong quarter financially earning $1.038 billion in ongoing operations adjusted EBITDA. Our generation team performed extremely well throughout the summer, but their performance was most on display during the high heat weather events experienced in July in the ERCOT region. For example, on one particular day in July when ERCOT experienced periods of low wind and solar output, we saw our Texas generation fleet operate at its maximum capacity. On this day, we saw prices hit the $5,000 price cap during three different hours. A well-maintained fleet is key to delivering reliable power for our customers and our communities and ensuring value is captured during these weather events, and our generation team delivered. Our retail business similarly performed well, showing its resiliency by demonstrating the ability to serve customers at attractive margins even in light of the higher commodity cost environment. Our retail team responded to our customer's needs, and our performance reflects our deep commitment to our customers. In fact, this commitment was recently acknowledged by the PCT when TXU Energy was recognized as a five-star rated retailer. With three quarters of performance now reported, we are able to narrow our previously announced guidance for ongoing operations adjusted EBITDA and ongoing operations adjusted free cash flow before growth. We now see ongoing operations adjusted EBITDA in a range of $2.96 billion to $3.16 billion and ongoing operations adjusted free cash flow before growth in a range of $2.17 billion to $2.37 billion for 2022. We're reaffirming our original midpoint of $3.06 billion of ongoing operations adjusted EBITDA for 2022. This has been a year with significant volatility in fuel prices and weather, in an environment of rising inflation, and yet our team is performing well and tracking at the original guidance provided last November. Due to our comprehensive hedging program to capture higher earnings in future periods, we have incurred some higher interest charges, which is reflected in our modestly lower midpoint for ongoing operations adjusted free cash flow before growth. This midpoint is now $2.27 billion. As we have discussed in the past, we took on additional short-term debt to fund the liquidity needed for our comprehensive hedging program. The hedges are locking in significant out-year earnings potential. That higher earnings power is reflected on slide six. Today we are initiating guidance for ongoing operations adjusted EBITDA in a range of $3.4 billion to $4 billion and ongoing operations adjusted free cash flow before growth in a range of $1.75 billion to $2.35 billion for 2023. Our 2023 guidance midpoint of ongoing operations adjusted EBITDA is $3.7 billion. This is at the top end of the midpoint opportunity range we estimated for 2023 during our first quarter call, as we saw the dramatic increase in gas and power forward curves. Given the higher EBITDA figures and the volatility we have seen in the market, our range is larger on an absolute basis, but has a similar percentage of the midpoint as we have had in recent years. We are confident in our ability to deliver on this value proposition for 2023, and as you know, our comprehensive hedging program extends into future years. With that I wanted to take a moment to reiterate Vistra's strategic priorities as we summarized on slide seven. We believe these priorities are delivering and are expected to continue to deliver significant value for investors. We previously stated that we saw annual ongoing operations adjusted EBITDA potential of around $3 billion going forward. As forward power curves increased, we announced in Q1 2022 that we saw ongoing operations adjusted EBITDA midpoint potential in a $3.5 billion to $3.7 billion range for years 2023 through 2025. We're now approximately 70% hedged on average across 2023 through 2025. Accordingly, we continue to believe in that range of earnings potential. And in turn, we're using significant cash flows to return value to the shareholders. Vistra continues to execute on our previously announced capital allocation plan and Chris will speak to those details momentarily. But notably, our capital allocation plan offers robust returns per share. Looking forward to the target share repurchases and dividends under the capital allocation plan, between now and year-end 2023, we have $1.2 billion of remaining authorization for share repurchases that we expect to utilize by year-end 2023, plus $375 million in dividends targeted for payment from Q4 2022 through Q4 2023. That capital distributed across our current shareholder base delivers an equivalent of approximately $4 per share of capital being returned. I recognize this is a simple illustration. I only point this out to underscore the incredible value proposition we believe Vistra currently offers. As a reminder, these expected cash returns are achieved even after we make the planned maintenance capital investments to ensure our fleet is well-positioned for the winter and the summer. This is also after we execute on our expected debt reduction to ensure a strong balance sheet. Lastly, we expect Vistra Zero to be financed primarily with third-party capital, enabling us to continue to transition aspects of our fleet, primarily some of our older coal assets in a capital-efficient manner. Vistra Zero will also benefit from the Inflation Reduction Act, including setting a price floor for our nuclear asset Comanche Peak. You may have seen we recently submitted the relicensing application that would extend our licenses by 20 additional years for each of the two units to 2050 and 2053. We continue to see how important a role our diverse set of assets play throughout the U.S. in ensuring reliable, affordable, and sustainable power. Our integrated model of delivering the service that our customers and communities depend upon, and we are excited to be able to share our expectations with you, our owners, that the future is bright for our company. I will now hand the call over to Kris to discuss this quarter's financial performance in more detail.

Kris Moldovan, CFO

Thank you, Jim. Starting on slide nine, as Jim mentioned, Vistra delivered strong financial results during the third quarter with ongoing operations adjusted EBITDA of approximately $1.038 billion, including negative $2 million for retail and $1.04 billion for generation. It is important to note that Vistra's full-year 2022 guidance contemplated that retail would deliver negative ongoing operations adjusted EBITDA this quarter. Despite rapidly rising power prices this year, retail's results this quarter and year-to-date are bolstered by continued strong margins and customer counts in ERCOT, along with robust large business market sales performance, partially offset by higher bad debt expense and ex-ERCOT headwinds. Moving now to generation, the results of the generation segment this quarter and year-to-date have benefited from higher prices in the summer months coupled with outstanding performance of the fleet to be available to capture those higher prices, offset by lower prices in Q1 2022, lower generation volumes from coal plants due to industry-wide fuel delivery challenges, and higher than expected migration of customers to default service providers. With our financial results tracking consistently with our expectations, we continue to execute on our capital allocation plan, as described on slide 10. As of November 1st, we had completed approximately $2.05 billion of share repurchases. We expect to utilize the remaining approximately $1.2 billion of authorization under the upsized $3.25 billion program by year-end 2023. Notably, as of November 1st, our outstanding share count had fallen to approximately 398 million shares outstanding, which represents an approximately 18% reduction from the aggregate number of shares that were outstanding as of a year ago. We also remain committed to paying $300 million in dividends to our common stockholders each year. To that end, our Board recently approved a quarterly dividend to be paid on Vistra's common stock in the amount of $0.193 per share, or approximately $75 million in the aggregate payable on December 29th, 2022. This is an approximately 29% growth in dividend per share compared to the dividend paid in the fourth quarter of 2021. While returning cash directly to our shareholders remains a priority, we will continue to focus on maintaining a strong balance sheet. Importantly, we have not deviated from our long-term net leverage target, excluding any non-recourse debt at Vistra Zero of less than three times. On our second-quarter call, we noted that we expected to repay at least $2.5 billion in the second half of the year and we made significant progress this quarter, repaying approximately $1.4 billion of debt. We expect to repay an additional $1.1 billion of debt by year-end. Finally, as we look to grow Vistra Zero, it is important to emphasize that we anticipate financing that growth by using primarily third-party capital. As Jim mentioned earlier, we have initiated guidance for ongoing operations adjusted EBITDA with a $3.7 billion midpoint for 2023. On slide 11, we're presenting the forward power price in gas curves as of October 31st, 2022. As you can see, while there has been noticeable volatility, prices are still up materially as compared to the prior year. Not only do these curves support our 2023 guidance range, but they also continue to give us confidence in the $3.5 billion to $3.7 billion of potential ongoing operations adjusted EBITDA midpoint for each of the years 2024 and 2025. As you would expect, the commercial team has continued its execution of the comprehensive hedging program that we discussed initially on the first-quarter earnings call, significantly derisking and locking in our future earnings potential for these out years. As of the end of the quarter, we were approximately 70% hedged on average across all markets for 2023 through 2025, with 2023 being approximately 90% hedged. On slide 12, we are providing a bit more detail around our 2023 guidance among our retail and generation segments. You may recall that last year, we also separately broke out our Sunset generation segment with several plants closing in 2022 and the very beginning of 2023 and moving from our Sunset segment to our asset closure segment, together with the growth of Vistra Zero, we are currently reevaluating the appropriate segments for our businesses. In light of that ongoing process, we have combined this Sunset segment with our other generation segments for 2023 guidance purposes only. We currently expect to finalize any segment changes by the time we share our first quarter 2023 results. I think it is worth reiterating execution has been and will continue to be our focus in 2022 and into 2023. Our first nine months have delivered strong results and we see our full-year 2022 on track. We look forward to discussing our full-year results on the next call.

Operator, Operator

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. And the first question will come from Michael Sullivan with Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

Michael Sullivan, Analyst

Hey everyone. Good morning.

Jim Burke, CEO

Good morning.

Michael Sullivan, Analyst

Hey Jim, Hey, Chris, I was just hoping maybe you could start with some color on some of the moving pieces relative to the last call. It seemed like 2022, you were tracking a little better than the midpoint, now at the midpoint; 2023, you're kind of at the higher end of that range. So, maybe just a little more color on what kind of move between the two years from the last call is just commodity prices or anything else going on?

Jim Burke, CEO

Yes, for 2022, we were previously tracking slightly above the midpoint, but now we are closer to it. We have encountered some challenges related to coal supply constraints that we anticipated earlier in the year and during the summer. There were indications that coal deliveries would improve, but the process has been slower than expected across the industry. Another challenge we faced was an increase in default service mode that we had implemented last year and even into early this year before prices rose. As the market increased in the spring and summer, some customers chose to switch to default service. Additionally, there was a media aggregation within OPEC that moved all its customers to default service, which we were unsure was accounted for in the default service structure, but it was sanctioned by the Commission in Ohio. Despite these challenges, we've been able to manage them effectively. Our retail business performed well, especially during the summer, and we leveraged that strength to mitigate the headwinds we faced. Our integrated model proved beneficial for diversification. Originally, we were tracking above the midpoint, but now we see ourselves at the midpoint. The operational performance of the retail fleet has been strong. Looking ahead to 2023, some of the default service will continue into May, and we acknowledge that coal constraints remain an ongoing issue. We are only planning for modest improvements in coal deliveries for 2023, and we still won't be able to operate our coal fleet at full capacity. This reflects a cautious approach, as we've learned that the market is quite challenging in terms of freeing up the supply chain and managing train operations effectively. We have factored this into our projections. We anticipate reaching the upper range of $3.5 billion to $3.7 billion that we mentioned earlier, and we feel confident in our ability to navigate this volatility, despite the ongoing challenges and a few positive factors we've included in our guidance.

Michael Sullivan, Analyst

Okay. That's super helpful. And then my next question was just as we look out to 2024, 2025, it seemed like previously given a bigger unhedged position, you might help maybe even better out there and just latest thoughts on how you're feeling since the Q2 call?

Jim Burke, CEO

Yeah. On slide 11, you see the direction of the curves, and we've tried to, we knew when we put this out, the first week we made that we'd be asked for continuous updates on this. So we added potentially our disclosure on a more consistent basis now for the third call. But you see the run-up late spring and summer, and then you see it coming back off pretty hard, we had been hedging through that period. And I think that's the value of the comprehensive hedging program. So, we were a little bit more bullish about where we saw things. Obviously, when you're in the middle of the summer and the curves were peaking and you had the unhedged position. We were able to hedge through some of that, but the curves have come off, and we are actually still through this chart showing that through October 31 curves, which is certainly much lower than where they were at the peak of the summer, because we've increased our hedge percentage now to 70% across the years, we still feel good about the $3.5 billion to $3.7 billion. So, again, it's a predictable set of cash flows as far as we can see. We obviously aren't fully hedged. But I think we haven't been trying to time the high and the low. We've been working through this and I think showing that $3.5 billion to $3.7 billion is still there and our expectations for 2024 and 2025 is a sign of that integrated model working.

Michael Sullivan, Analyst

Okay. That's great. And just real quick, the last one, again, kind of back to the bridge to 2023, what are the positives on the retail side, if I just look at kind of where you are year-to-date, something like $564 million and then the range for next year, it's kind of close to $1 billion. Yeah. What are the tailwinds there that could be up for next year?

Jim Burke, CEO

We have made significant progress this year that has benefited our customers, particularly by securing forward purchases in our retail business to maintain predictable pricing. As a result, we've seen an average rate increase of about 10% for our existing customers this year. Despite the inflationary pressures and commodity price increases, we've effectively managed to stabilize pricing for our customer base. Looking ahead, we expect to continue optimizing how we balance prices for customers, which will further enhance our margins moving forward. Our margin management has been strong this year, and we anticipate that trend to persist. The situation in ERCOT has been positive, and although our Midwest and Northeast operations have faced challenges due to default service pricing lag, we expect improvements there next year. Overall, our retail business is thriving this year, and we foresee continued growth. Additionally, we have experienced fewer retail bill credits this year compared to last, which has contributed to the improvement in our business.

Michael Sullivan, Analyst

Thanks, Jim. Appreciate all the color.

Operator, Operator

The next question will come from Paul Zimbardo with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Jim Burke, CEO

Hi, Paul.

Paul Zimbardo, Analyst

Hi. Good morning. Thanks for the update. A lot to pick through. To start out with, could you discuss the drivers on the 2023 free cash flow conversion? I know you had a 65% target at the Analyst Day in the past. So just curious is kind of 2023 a blip, and do we get back there in the future?

Jim Burke, CEO

Yeah. Paul, the free cash flow conversion from a historical standpoint, we've obviously seen revenues go up because we have inflation that's affected some of the raw commodities. Some of that also affects our cost of doing business, including our CapEx assumption. So we have more outages next year. It's actually just a function of the starts of the units and the run hours. So we have more outages planned for actually '23 and '24, and that's predictable. We can see that peak in 2023 and 2024, and then it comes off for the next three to four years. So we have higher CapEx, and some of the CapEx is more expensive because of the inflation drivers. We also have more interest expense that's a function of our comprehensive hedging program. You can see some of those drivers, obviously, in the back of the release in terms of some of the reconciliations between our EBITDA and our free cash flow. Obviously, the inflation does affect the revenue line, but it does affect some of the cost drivers as I just mentioned, interest rates. We have more borrowings at this point, and we have slightly higher interest that's unhedged that we have. But we do have some interest rate swaps in place as well. But those are the key drivers. And Kris, if there's something you'd like to add there, please?

Kris Moldovan, CFO

No, Jim, I think you've covered the driver as well.

Paul Zimbardo, Analyst

Thanks. Okay. Great. And then separately, I know you're running a lot of promotions in Texas over the summer. Could you just discuss what you've seen on kind of retail customer attrition? And just unpacking a little bit. It looks like customer count was down quarter-over-quarter and you talked about like value-accretive exits, if you could just elaborate a little bit there? Thank you.

Jim Burke, CEO

Thank you, Paul. The retail market in Texas is thriving, and we've experienced significant success this year. This success can be attributed in part to the innovations we've implemented, such as the recent launch of an EV miles program. Texas offers us various flexibilities since the retailer handles the billing, allowing us to create products that meet customer needs and differentiate ourselves. Our accounts in ERCOT have been strong, maintaining our reputation as a trusted brand, which is one of the positives we carry from 2022 into 2023. The exits we've seen in other markets stem from their design, which restricts retailers from handling billing while forcing us to compete with default rates. When those rates lag, as they have this year, remaining in certain markets becomes unprofitable, leading to boom-bust cycles. It’s possible that default markets will experience peak pricing, prompting retailers to return and draw customers away from defaults. Specifically in New York, we exited the market due to regulatory requirements that mandated discounts to default rates, which became unsustainable when those rates weren't changing. This was unfortunate because we had a strong customer base there, but we need to recognize when market conditions don't allow for cost recovery, necessitating an exit. In Connecticut, prior to acquiring Crius, the regulatory body raised concerns about bill disclosures and contract terminations, requiring us to resolve those issues before we could operate. This led to a settlement that included giving up our licenses in Connecticut. Even though our customer impact wasn't definitively negative, it was seen as a short-sighted move focused on disclosure clarity. Competing against default rates without differentiating our product reduces us to merely another line item on a bill, making competition solely about price, which is challenging. We must work to shift the perspective in these markets to enable differentiation. The entry of other brands like Tesla, Shell, and BP could introduce new dynamics. This situation partially reflects the aftermath of the polar vortex in 2014, which raised concerns about how retailers could recover their costs amid rapidly changing prices. It is essential to rebuild confidence in markets beyond Texas so we can achieve differentiation similar to what we have here.

Paul Zimbardo, Analyst

Okay. Thank you very much.

Jim Burke, CEO

Thank you, Paul.

Operator, Operator

And the final question for today will come from Angie Storozynski with Seaport. Please go ahead.

Angie Storozynski, Analyst

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. So just, first, one follow-up on the free cash flow projections. It's actually for both 2022 and 2023. I think I'm a little bit confused about working capital changes and new collateral postings. I'm assuming that collateral is coming back. So I was actually hoping for some boost to free cash flow in 2023. So again, maybe if you could talk about both collateral postings and the free cash flow projection?

Kris Moldovan, CFO

Yes, thank you for the question, Angie. We do anticipate that the collateral will be posted as you mentioned. As of September 30, we still have just over $3 billion of cash posted. We expect a significant portion of that to return over the remainder of this year and into 2023. It's important to note that the margin deposits and working capital are not reflected in our adjusted free cash flow figure, so that's below that line. However, we do expect to receive a substantial amount of that $3 billion back over the next 14 months. This expectation is part of our discussions around capital allocation, including the amounts for share repurchases, dividends, and debt repayments.

Angie Storozynski, Analyst

Okay. So what's the reason why there is this big positive from a working capital perspective this year and basically offsetting negative next year?

Jim Burke, CEO

I think, Angie, what we're seeing in the disclosures from the EBITDA to free cash flow is that we are seeing obviously, from EBITDA to free cash flow, we see some drivers through CapEx and interest expense. We are expecting the return of working capital and margin deposits net through 2023 and we'll see that as part of our capital allocation, as Kris mentioned, with our share buybacks or dividends and obviously, our debt pay down.

Angie Storozynski, Analyst

Okay. Okay. And then secondly, on the guidance, right, for 2023. So you were 90% hedged, and I appreciate all the volatility that you're seeing in energy markets. But that's quite a wide range. So can you just give me a sense, for example, what is it that you're trying to hedge against? Is it, as you mentioned, some issues with the coal supplies, is the performance issues of your power plants? Again, just what can take me to the high end versus the low end?

Jim Burke, CEO

Yes. Sure. Well, there's a number of things. Even the 90% still has quite a bit at elevated prices that unhedged part is still a meaningful part of the various drivers. We also assume that there's volatility in the marketplace, and that volatility is something we can capture, and that's what we did over the month of July when we had higher prices and tighter supply demand. We saw that some in PJM. We obviously saw it a little bit in CAISO. So we assume that there's an element of volatility in the marketplace and that we can capture some of that, either because prices move up and we're able to capture that incremental output at a higher margin. Or if prices actually move down, we can actually not run the assets and buy back in the marketplace. And that's sort of what we call extrinsic value is part of the value that we anticipate when we set guidance. So that's part of the expectations that we had when we put the $3.7 billion out in the market. We also have some assumption. I said it's modest of coal being able to be delivered slight improvement over 2022 actuals. It could still move south from here. I mean, we do not know how all of this is going to get resolved. They're still in negotiation. They're trying to get the rail agreement that would work for all of the unions involved. But we don't have perfect foresight into how that will play out. That also could be a positive. We can actually get past that and get to the sense that we already have security to get the cycle times where they need to be; that would be upside potentially to our guidance. And then lastly, we still have weather variance even in retail. We do hedge retail conservatively and have paid off for our customer base this year. It's paid off for our retail performance. But if you had mild weather, you could actually find yourself long power in the retail business and having to sell that back in the market at reduced prices. And so when prices get elevated, then the variances around and volumetrically become bigger on a dollar basis. That's why we kept about an 8% band around the midpoint, similar to prior years, just larger on an absolute basis.

Angie Storozynski, Analyst

Okay. And then lastly, again, I might have missed it in your slides. I was hoping for more disclosures on cash available for distributions and drivers year-over-year. I appreciate some of the comments you have made in your prepared remarks. But should we expect something like that cash available for distribution so we have a better sense of how much can be deployed into either additional buybacks and/or dividends?

Kris Moldovan, CFO

Yes, thank you, Angie. We are positioned to allocate $300 million annually for dividends and at least $1 billion each year for share buybacks, while also reducing debt to achieve a leverage ratio of three times. We can reach this goal as our working capital and margins improve, allowing us to use available funds to pay down debt. Additionally, we still have some proceeds from the green preferred that we can allocate. We are on track with our cash allocation plans as projected last November. We increased the share repurchase amount by $250 million, reflecting our confidence in the additional free cash flow. We will continue to assess the best use of our cash as we move forward, but we remain committed to at least $1 billion in share repurchases, a $300 million dividend, and reducing our leverage to just under three times.

Angie Storozynski, Analyst

Okay. Thank you. Thanks for taking my questions.

Operator, Operator

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Jim Burke for any closing remarks. Please go ahead, sir.

Jim Burke, CEO

Yes, I want to thank you again for joining us this morning. We're excited about Vistra's continued value proposition, and we appreciate your continued interest as investors, and we look forward to speaking to you again in a few months when we will discuss our fourth quarter and our full-year performance. Have a good morning. Thank you.

Operator, Operator

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