Q1 2023 UGI Corp Earnings Call

Turning to release and our most recent annual and quarterly reports for an extensive list of factors that could affect our results.

We assume no duty to update or revise forward looking statements.

Select events or circumstances that are different from expectations.

We will also describe our business using certain non-GAAP financial measures.

Reconciliations of these measures to the comparable GAAP measures are available within our presentation.

Now I'm pleased to turn the call over to Roger.

Thank you tamika and good morning, everyone.

I'll start today by providing an update on the quarter, then Ted will provide an overview of our financial results and our liquidity position.

We had a good start to fiscal 2023 is our reportable segments delivered a $63 million increase in EBIT over the prior year period in totality UGI reported adjusted diluted EPS of $1 14, compared to <unk> 93 in the prior year period.

In fact, our adjusted diluted EPS would have been <unk> <unk> higher without the noncore energy marketing business.

These results reflect the robust performance of our natural gas businesses, including the effect of weather that was colder than the prior year period.

Higher gas base rates at UGI utilities, and continued growth from our UGI Appalachia assets.

In the global LPG businesses, we realized benefits from disciplined margin management and expense control efforts, which helped offset elevated inflationary pressures.

These benefits along with continued growth in national accounts volumes at Amerigas helped to offset the effects of significantly warmer weather in Europe .

In addition to the strong earnings performance in the first quarter I would like to comment on several other key accomplishments across our business.

First we are off to a strong start in our utilities capital expenditure program, and we invested $117 million of capital during the quarter.

We are deploying record levels of capital to support our growth and infrastructure replacement programs and we expect to reinvest roughly $2 4 billion and this area between fiscal 2023 and 2026.

We continue to see attractive customer growth at the utilities with more than 4500, new residential heating and commercial customers added during the quarter.

Our recent acquisitions continue to perform well and we realized increased earnings at mountaineer when compared to the prior year period, as well as incremental margins from our UGI moraine east and pennant acquisitions.

Also at the utilities last week, our UGI utilities Electric Division filed a request with the Pennsylvania public utility commission to increase rates by approximately $11 million.

This increase would fund ongoing system improvements in operations that are necessary to maintain safe and reliable electric service.

Similarly on February one.

Mountain are filed a notice of intent to file a general rate case with the West Virginia Public Service Commission.

We will provide updates as appropriate throughout the process.

In our global LPG businesses, despite elevated inflation levels and driver availability challenges at Amerigas, we were pleased with the positive impact of strong margin management and disciplined expense control actions.

In addition.

National account volumes at Amerigas increased over the prior year period due to our continued focus on customer growth and satisfaction.

As I mentioned during our fiscal 2022 year end earnings call. We have initiated a strategic growth project at Amerigas focused on accelerating customer growth through an enhanced customer experience acquisitions and operational efficiencies.

Through this amerigas operations enhancement for growth project, we will leverage our scale to improve customer satisfaction and retention and optimize pricing.

This was an important strategic focus for Amerigas and UGI as we strive for operational excellence and growth.

Turning to renewables.

During the quarter, we made meaningful progress in executing on our renewable strategy with additional RMG projects announced in New York and South Dakota.

To date, we have committed over $450 million to renewables projects that support our financial commitments of delivering 6% to 10% EPS growth and 4% dividend growth over the long term.

Lastly, I am pleased with the continuous progress we have made in our ESG programs, our efforts to maintain robust governance practices and improve greenhouse gas mitigation strategies continue to be recognized.

And in December UGI was upgraded to AAA rating by MSCI.

This rating positions us among the leading companies worldwide for action across ESG matters.

And now I'll turn the call over to Ted who will provide more details on our financial results.

Thanks Roger.

As Roger mentioned UGI delivered adjusted diluted EPS of $1 14, compared to 93 in the prior fiscal first quarter.

This table lays out our GAAP and adjusted diluted earnings per share for the quarter in the comparable prior period as you can see our adjusted diluted earnings exclude adjustments totaling $5 68 that relate to a number of items, including.

The impact of Mark to market changes in commodity hedging instruments, a loss of $4 73, this year versus $1 37 in the prior year.

The loss of $4 73 for Q1 fiscal 'twenty three is largely attributable to the decline in natural gas and power prices in Europe between September 30, and December 31.

This year, we had 14 loss on foreign currency derivative instruments compared to a gain of <unk> in the prior year.

We also had <unk> for external advisory fees associated with the Amerigas operations enhancement for Carl project that Roger highlighted earlier.

70, <unk> related to the loss on disposal of the UK energy marketing business. In October 2022. This loss was substantially related to the noncash transfer commodity derivative instruments that underpin the customer contracts that were sold with that business.

<unk> for the sale was a net cash payment of $19 million, which includes certain working capital adjustments.

And lastly, <unk> for impairment of certain pp and E and intangible assets and the energy marketing business located in the Netherlands.

We're off to a good start in fiscal 2023 with a 21 increase in adjusted diluted EPS on a year over year basis at a high level of global LPG was up <unk> <unk> due to effective margin management and strong expense control efforts, which offset the effects of significantly warm.

Our weather in Europe , and continued inflationary pressure, particularly in personnel related costs.

Our natural gas businesses were up 20, as both businesses benefited from colder weather conditions in the U S. In addition, higher gas base rates in Pennsylvania and increased throughput on our midstream systems contributed to this strong performance.

Turning to the individual businesses.

Amerigas reported EBIT of $110 million versus $86 million in the prior year period.

Retail volume declined 2%, reflecting staffing shortages in key delivery related positions, which also limited customer growth as well as some continuation of customer attrition and structural conservation.

Subsequent to the quarter, we have made significant progress in addressing the staffing shortages in order to increase our distribution capacity.

Total margin increased by $20 million, which was primarily attributable to higher retail propane margins and this was partially offset by the effect of lower volumes.

Operating and administrative expenses decreased $5 million, reflecting lower employee compensation and benefits as we saw the carryover impact of workforce reductions made during fiscal 2022.

This benefit was partially offset by higher overtime and contractor costs for distribution activity given the staffing shortages in key delivery related positions increased vehicle expenses as well as the effects of sustained inflationary pressures.

UGI International reported EBIT of $66 million compared to $82 million in the prior year period, the decline of $16 million at the EBIT level is attributable to lower volume in the European LPG business.

For the quarter weather was significantly warmer than prior year with the ongoing geopolitical situation in Europe . We also saw the effect of energy conservation efforts on retail volumes, primarily for our residential customers.

The total effect of warmer weather energy conservation and reduced crop drying volume was an 18% decline in retail LPG volumes year over year.

Total margin decreased $41 million, reflecting the translation effect of weaker foreign currencies and lower LPG volumes.

Turning to operating and administrative expenses, there was an $18 million decline due to the translation effects of the weaker foreign currencies, which was partially offset by the impact of the global inflationary cost environment and the underlying distribution personnel and maintenance costs.

Individually, while revenues costs and expenses were impacted by the translation effects of foreign currencies ultimately the net effect to EBIT was immaterial and when combined with the impact of our multiyear currency hedging strategy resulted in a nominal impact.

Lastly for the European Energy marketing business, EBIT was relatively flat year over year and <unk> <unk> impact in both years as we've previously shared we've been managing volumes as we exit this noncore portion of our business based on warmer weather in our exit strategy. There was a significant reduction.

And year over year volumes, particularly in natural gas marketing, where volumes were down close to 50%.

However, the benefits from lower volumes were offset by the effects of increased intra month and intra quarter volatility in European natural gas and power prices.

Moving to the natural gas business is midstream and marketing had a strong quarter reporting EBIT of $107 million, an increase of $25 million over the prior year.

With the 13% colder than prior year weather the business experienced increased margins from natural gas marketing activities. This also included roughly <unk> of opportunistic margins from peaking and capacity management activities due to the cold weather at the end of December .

Our build out of the UGI Appalachia systems continue to enhance our earnings capability and during the quarter, we had incremental margin of $14 million in total from the UGI Moraine East that was acquired in January 2022, and pennant midstream, where we acquired the remaining interest in.

<unk> 2022.

These increases were partially offset by a $6 million reduction in margin from renewable energy marketing activities as they were lower volumes of environmental credits sold.

Lastly, the $25 million increase in EBIT was due to higher operating income partially offset by lower other operating income as our buy in of the pennant assets allowed for discontinuation of equity method of accounting given that the assets are now fully owned by UGI.

Our utility segment also had a robust first quarter with EBIT of $128 million $30 million higher than the prior year period.

Core market volume was up 17% on whether those colder than the prior year as well as from continued growth in residential and large delivery service customers. This.

This increase in core market volume, along with higher gas base rates at UGI utilities, which went into effect at the end of October 2022 were the primary drivers for the $43 million increase in total margin when compared to the prior year.

With weather being close to normal in this quarter the effect of our new weather normalization mechanism was minimal as a reminder, weather in Q1 of FY 'twenty two was warmer than normal and at the time, we had no weather normalization provision in our tariffs.

Operating and administrative expenses increased by $11 million largely due to higher uncollectible account expenses.

Increased sales and use tax expenses and higher compensation and benefits expense.

In summary, we're pleased with the strong results across the business units, which is the product of our attractive diversified portfolio sound strategic investments and disciplined capital deployment approach.

Turning to liquidity as of the end of the quarter UGI had available liquidity of $1 $2 billion cash collateral previously held was largely returned as commodity prices declined between September 30, and December 31.

The business continues to generate strong cash flows and we're pleased with our current liquidity position since we typically experienced higher seasonal working capital requirements in the first quarter <unk>.

And with that I'll turn the call back over to Roger.

Thanks, Dan.

As we've been reminded over the past several years, we are living and operating in an ever evolving economic environment with sustained inflationary pressures and geopolitical tension.

I am pleased with our teams who have worked tirelessly to manage through these headwinds.

I also believe that our <unk> strategy, which is to deliver reliable earnings growth invest in renewables and rebalance our portfolio provides the framework that we need to drive continued success.

With an unwavering commitment to safety, creating operational efficiencies customer focus and embracing a diverse and inclusive culture, we are well positioned for growth.

I am grateful for our dedicated and committed employees and remain confident in our ability to generate attractive value for our customers employees and shareholders.

We thank you for your interest in UGI and your participation in today's call and with that we will open the line for your questions.

As a reminder to ask a question. Please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to BMS to be announced to withdraw your question. Please press star one again.

Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster.

Our first question comes from Mark <unk> Szeto with Barclays. Your line is now open.

Hi, good morning, congrats on the quarter.

Maybe just to start I was wondering if you could give some context around how <unk> shaped up relative to your guidance expectations coming into the year that obviously youre still February and March still to go but with warm weather in January or any color on the trajectory of the business. Thus.

Thus far into the quarter second quarter would be helpful as well.

Yes, good morning, Mark. Thank you for your question.

So so as we stated that Q1 was a solid quarter, one where we saw some weather here in North America offset of course with some very warm weather in Europe .

However, very pleased with how our teams delivered margin management efficiencies, which led to the solid first quarter. So I would say.

Solid first quarter, not a huge surprise, but robust right one without we certainly saw some some upsides given some of the volumes in some of the activities that we talked about.

Moving on to the second quarter as usual, we're going to provide an updated guidance at the end of the quarter. So we.

We're not going to talk about guidance now however, as you pointed out in your report this morning, as well, which I noticed Mark January as has been a warm month. So we have started the quarter with some some warm theres still a lot of heating degree days ahead of us. So we certainly continue to look forward to what February March will do and as I mentioned.

At the end of the quarter, we'll be happy to talk about guidance and the impact that we will see after the first two quarters.

Got it I appreciate the color there and then in the midstream marketing segment, you referenced the benefit from our commodity marketing and capacity management could you talk about some of the dynamics there and if you'd expect that to carry forward into <unk> or is that mostly just a function of the weather volatility in December .

Yes, and also a very good question Mark.

We did see in December we saw some spikes we saw some some pretty severe weather volatility.

One period of time, so we did see some additional benefit that we highlighted for that period very difficult to know and say that's going to carry through.

I think we'll wait and see.

Got it I appreciate the time.

Thank you Mark.

Please standby for our next question.

At this time I am showing no further questions.

One moment for our next question.

Our next question comes from Michael Gaugler with Janney. Your line is now open.

Good morning, everyone.

Good morning, Michael.

Well I guess I'll start first with the U.

You had mentioned the mountain air gas rate case.

Looking for that to be effective for fiscal 2024 or calendar 2024.

Yes, so as we as we mentioned in the in the earnings release.

Our planning on doing a rate case filing with for mountaineer.

What I'll do is I'll ask Bob to comment a little more on some of the detail of what we expect to be filing and it's in the period that we're going to be covering sure. Good morning, Michael.

What we've.

You said so far is that we have filed the necessary.

Paperwork to notify the commission that we will be filing a rate case.

Not too distant future.

We're not going to predict whether we're going to get it in FY2023 or calendar year 'twenty three since this is really under <unk> ownership. The first first case that we will execute in West Virginia.

I will tell you and I'll reiterate as I have in the past.

We find so far that the West Virginia Commission is very reasonable and very pragmatic.

But we don't want to get out ahead of the process. So we will have more in the coming months on that.

Okay.

And then.

Next question and last.

Given where you are right now with the R&D projects that are already announced.

Are you pretty much have the scale that you want or should we expect more.

Yes.

As we highlighted Michael we're making good progress with our <unk> strategy and more specifically the renewables portion of that strategy. So we've now committed over $450 million in and RMG projects. I think we have a very healthy pipeline right. So we have a pipeline of opportunities but.

As we always stress we are very very disciplined looking at these projects. So we are targeting double digit rates of return, we take conservative assumptions with random El CFS values. When we're looking at these projects.

So I certainly expect for us to continue to build on the very solid platform. We've now built with the amount of capital we've invested and also we'd like to highlight that we certainly continue to work on bio LPG projects and we certainly continue to work on renewable dimethyl ether as other.

Renewable solutions to the products we serve.

So overall I think we can you can expect and we certainly expect to continue to see some momentum in this area.

Yeah.

Alright, that's all I had gentlemen, thank you.

Thank you very much Michael appreciate the questions.

At this time I am showing.

No further questions in the queue.

I would now like to turn the conference back to Roger Perrault, President and CEO for closing remarks.

Thank you Michelle and I would like to thank everybody for joining us today and your continued interest in UGI. We look forward to our next earnings call. Thank you.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating you may now disconnect.

Okay.

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