Q4 2022 Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc Earnings Call
Good afternoon, and thank you for attending today's Hawaiian Electric Industries earnings Conference call. My name is Danielle and I will be your moderator for today's call.
All lines will be muted during the presentation portion of the call what's the opportunity for questions and answers at the end.
If you would like to ask a question. Please press star followed by one of your telephone keypad.
Now my pleasure to pass the conference over to our host MS. Seo Garcia director of Investor Relations Matteo the floor is yours.
Thank you Danielle.
Welcome everyone to hei, its full year and fourth quarter 2022 earnings call.
Joining me today are Scott few Hei, President and CEO , Paul Ito, Hei's, CFO , Shelly Humira, Hawaiian electric President and CEO , and Sarah Nishi American savings Bank, President and CEO .
Other members of senior management.
Our earnings release and a presentation for this call are available in the Investor Relations section of our website.
As a reminder, forward looking statements will be made on today's call.
Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations can be found in our presentation, our SEC filings and in the Investor Relations section of our website.
Scott will begin with his remarks.
Although her Costco greetings everyone.
Thank you for joining us today.
I'll give an overview of our results and accomplishments over the past year.
You on the Hawaii economy, and then turn the call over to Paul to further discuss our financial results and guidance.
2022 was a year of strong achievement for hei, highlighting the strategic benefits, we continue to see from our combination of companies.
We earned $241 million and net income and $2 20 in earnings per share for the full year.
Reflecting solid performance at both the utility and bank.
Despite an unprecedented combination of macroeconomic challenges occurring in the first full year under our new regulatory framework.
Hawaiian electric grew earnings 6% year over year to $189 million.
This was consistent with our expectations and in line with the improved guidance, we messaged during our third quarter webcast.
ESP had a strong year as well with the strongest loan growth in a decade, reflecting continued solid credit quality and a healthy Hawaii economy.
Bank earnings of $80 million were in line with the increased earnings guidance, we communicated in the third quarter.
As a reminder, the $101 million the bank earned in 2021.
Reflected benefits from unique pandemic recovery related items that Paul will highlight later.
Last week, we raised our annual dividend for the fifth year in a row, reflecting our confidence that our combination of companies will continue to deliver steady results going forward.
Turning to slide three.
2022 was our first full year of performance based regulation or PBR.
Given the unusual convergence of macro headwinds during the year, we saw 2022 as a successful stress test of this new regulatory framework.
Our utility showed an ability to quickly adjust and maintain operational efficiency. Despite multiple challenges from inflation interest rates and fuel costs.
We executed well and delivered earnings growth even in the stress test conditions.
We recognize that 2022 was not an easy year for our customers historically high inflation in oil prices rising borrowing costs and volatile food and commodity prices challenged Hawaii as they did the rest of the nation.
And we responded by finding more ways to care for our customers in need of assistance.
Elevated fuel prices and the resulting customer bill pressures seen in 2022.
Other highlights the importance of our renewable energy transition.
In 2022, we continue to execute on key elements of the utility is climate change action plan.
Which targets, reducing carbon emissions in 2030, 70% below 2005 levels and achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2045.
In September we achieved a major milestone in our climate change action plan with the retirement of Hawaii's last coal plants.
Despite global supply chain challenges that have impacted renewables projects nationwide.
We reached an important milestone last summer when all whose first utility scale solar plus storage project was energized and last month, we brought another of these projects online.
We continue to expand our procurement of renewables and in 2022, we laid the groundwork for our recently launched stage three RFP.
Based on the amount of renewable energy, we're seeking this would be our largest renewables procurement ever.
In 2022, we.
We achieved a renewable portfolio standard or Rps level of 39, 1% up from 38% in 2021.
I'll note here that there is a new definition of Rps now in effect under Hawaii State law.
Going forward, we'll only reference Rps achievement in terms of the new definition.
Which is consistent with the Rps a performance incentive mechanism.
Under the new definition, our 2022 Rps achievement was 31, 8% up from 31% in 2021.
Even with the new definition, we expect to meet the 40% Rps by 2030 milestone ahead of schedule.
Customer on renewable generation remains key to moving Hawaii towards 100% renewable energy.
Our battery bonus program, which provides a cash incentive and bill credits for customers to add storage to existing or new rooftop solar systems.
Great progress in 2022.
This is an innovative program that benefits, both the battery bonus customer and other customers on the broader energy system as the batteries are programmed to discharge to the grid during the.
Period.
Our utility is taking additional steps to ensure our renewables transition benefits the communities we serve.
In November the utility selected seven solar projects across the islands for our community based renewable energy program.
For customers, who meet low and moderate income levels and are unable to install privately owned rooftop solar.
The electrification of transportation is also key to a greener, Hawaii and in 2022, the utility launched the charge of commercial pilot program to help nonresidential customers reduce the upfront investment and complexity of installing EV charging stations.
Turning to the bank.
American savings Bank continued to perform very well through 2022, demonstrating the value of its conservative management approach, good credit quality and low cost funding base.
ASP continues to generate a dividend that provides sufficient capital to support both our consolidated investment grade capital structure, and our growing dividends to shareholders.
S B leveraged its strong customer relationships and best in class customer service to grow loans by 15% in 2022, the strongest growth in over a decade, while maintaining our high standards of loan underwriting.
As Paul will discuss shortly we expect loan growth to return to more normalized levels in 2023.
Excluding the pandemic recovery related items unique to 2021 the bank grew earnings meaningfully in 2022, while continuing to execute on key initiatives such as digital transformation.
For example, ASB implemented zelle in 2020 to providing customers with a secure fast and convenient way to send money digitally to friends and family.
We've continued to see an accelerated pace of digital adoption first brought on by the pandemic and over half of transactions are now executed through digital channels compared to less than 20% pre pandemic.
Turning to the economy.
Hawaii's economy has continued to show signs of strength and resilience and we believe it remains well positioned whether potential economic headwinds.
The University of Hawaii, Economic Research organization Hero, which provides the most frequent forecasts of our state's economy.
Is not expecting a recession in 2023 in part due to continued recovery Japanese tourism and surging public sector construction.
The strength of Hawaii's economy is also evident in the strong loan growth our bank generated this past year in both residential and commercial real estate.
Or is unemployment rate was down to three 2% in December .
<unk> the downward trajectory we saw throughout the year.
Our state's unemployment has been lower than the national average since October and this is notable as we had the highest unemployment in the nation. During the early days of the pandemic.
Employment here has fared comparatively well during downturns and performed better than the national average during the financial crisis.
Or is housing market had a strong year with housing prices remaining near record levels. Despite slower sales activity due to higher interest rates.
The median Oahu single family home price was $1 $1 million for the full year up 11, 6% versus 2021.
Tight supply continues to characterize what used housing market supporting housing prices through downturns and contributing to the strong credit quality of our bank loan portfolio.
Tourism arrivals recovered to over 91% of pre pandemic levels as of December <unk>.
I'm merely due to a strong recovery in domestic travel.
Visitor spending for the full year was up 9% from 2019 levels.
As I hand, the call over to Paul I'm pleased to say that he is now our CFO after serving as our interim CFO since July of last year.
Many of you likely saw our press release last month announcing Paul's appointment effective January one.
I look forward to continuing to work with them in this capacity and we're excited to have them in the CFO seat and with that I'll turn the call over to Paul.
Thank you Scott.
I'll start on slide six with our results for the year. We are pleased with our 2022 performance.
We generated consolidated net income of 241 million and EPS of $2 20.
Compared to 246 million and EPS of $2 25 and 2021.
As a reminder, our 2022 results included a <unk> <unk> gain on sale of the other charge investment recorded at Pacific current.
So as Scott mentioned net income for 2021 reflected bank earnings that were elevated by two pandemic recovery related items, a net benefit from the release of reserves and PPP fee income.
Excluding these items and the arbitrage gain recognized in 2022 earnings grew meaningfully year over year.
Our consolidated ROE for 2022 was 10, 5% an increase of 10 basis points from 2021.
The utility made progress in narrowing the allowed ROE gap, achieving an ROE of eight 2%, which was up from eight 1% in 2021 and bank ROE increased to 14, 1% from 13, 8% in 2021.
On slide seven we show the major variances across our enterprise compared to last year.
Overall, we saw very strong results from the bank in 2022 and results were in line with the increased guidance, we provided in the third quarter.
As mentioned the net income variance compared to 2021 was largely due to pandemic.
Related items.
First the bank returned to a more normalized provision for credit losses of $2 million as we provision for the strong loan growth seen during the year.
In comparison in 2021, the bank recorded a negative provision for credit losses that is a net benefit of $25 8 million due to an improved economic outlook and credit quality improvements coming out of the pandemic.
Second net income in 2021 benefited from over $11 million in higher PPP fee income compared to 2022.
However, the decrease in PPP fee income was more than offset by higher yields on loans and investment securities and strong loan growth across the entire portfolio in 2022.
Notably net interest income grew six 5% as the bank more than made up for the lower PPP fee income.
The banks are lowered noninterest income of $57 million compared to $65 million in 2021.
The decrease was primarily due to lower mortgage banking income lower bank owned life insurance income and lower fees from other financial services, partially offset by higher fee income on deposit liabilities gains on sales of real estate related to branch closures and fee income on other financial products.
Noninterest expense for 2022 was about 4% higher at $205 million compared to $197 million in 2021.
The increase was primarily due to a pension accounting change that resulted in lower pension expense in 2021 and higher occupancy costs in 2022 from the write off of leases related to branch closures.
On the utility side, we saw a 25 million more in ARY revenues 4 million higher fee revenue.
Higher revenue recovered under our major projects interim recovery mechanism.
$1 million in higher <unk>, and 1 million due to the reset of heat rate requirements, leading to lower penalties for fuel efficiency at our Hawaii Island facility.
These items were partially offset by $13 million and higher O&M expenses, which were driven by increased generating station maintenance higher bad debt expense and increased transmission and distribution preventative and corrective maintenance.
$4 million from higher depreciation expense.
$3 million higher interest expense and $2 million and net tax adjustments due to tax credit benefits recognized in 2021.
I would note that the utility managed cost well in 2022.
On a GAAP basis, the utility had a net increase of about four 6%.
However, adjusted O&M, which is a non-GAAP measure and excludes retirement service costs and expenses covered by surcharges and activities built to third parties.
It's up three 7%, reflecting our proactive measures to offset the inflationary pressures we experienced during the year.
For perspective, 2022, GDP Pi was 7%, so we remain well within that level.
As always continuing to manage costs efficiently will remain a central focus under the PBR framework.
On slide eight utility capex for the year with approximately $357 million in line with the guidance range of $350 million $275 million, we communicated during our third quarter earnings call.
Capex in 2022 was lower than originally anticipated due to supply chain disruptions customer work delays project, we scoping resource availability and permitting delays.
Looking ahead to 2023, we are expecting capex to increase to $370 million to $410 million.
Under PV or our ARY revenues cover baseline Capex and O&M and we expect baseline capex of 300 to 330 million annually.
The remainder of our Capex is recovered under separate mechanisms such as our exceptional project recovery mechanism, which provide incremental earnings opportunities.
We already have about $60 million cruise separately recovered capex in our forecast for 2023.
With another 12 million awaiting approval.
As you can see on the slide there is some lumpiness in the forecast, but with projects awaiting PUC approval, our applications to be filed with the PUC capex could increase to $540 million by 2025.
As of December 31, 2022, we had about $472 million of EPR M project applications filed waiting awaiting PUC approval.
Of this total 40% of the capital is forecasted in the 2023 to 2025 timeframe.
But weighted towards the back end with the balance following 2025.
Not shown on this slide our potential investments for several utility owned generation projects.
For the next few years, we may be filing applications for these projects, including four critical contingency generation and firm renewable generation facilities under the stage III RFP that are needed for reliability and resilience.
The estimated capital cost for these projects are in the process of being developed at any material investments would begin after this forecast period.
Turning to the next slide recall that there are three key earnings drivers for the utility under our PBR framework.
First the annual revenue adjustment or area, covering baseline O&M and baseline capex through an inflationary adjustment minus a customer dividend.
For 2023. This inflationary adjustment was set in October of last year. According to the Blue Chip GDP forecast for 2023 and is 3.68% net of the customer dividend.
Second the separate recovery mechanisms for eligible capital and O&M projects, providing recovery above the baseline level is covered by the ARY.
And third performance incentive mechanisms rpms, which provide opportunity for additional rewards if we achieve preset goals.
Now I'll cover what we expect from each of these mechanisms in 2023.
The aerie minus the customer dividend provides a net $33 5 million in revenues for 2023.
The accrual for the area started January one.
To the extent, we are able to manage O&M and capital efficiently, we would benefit in the form of additional earnings.
Our current forecast assumes we manage adjusted O&M and capital within the Aerie inflationary adjustment.
With respect to separate recovery will be accruing over $26 million in revenues for projects that have been approved by the PUC. This is under the <unk> and major project interim recovery mechanism.
Additional revenues of about $1 million or possible for separate recovery projects that are expected to be placed in service in 2023 and.
And thus receive a partial year of revenues.
Lastly, we expect about $4 million in pre tax income from net Tim rewards in 2023, primarily coming from the achievement of our PSA and interconnection experienced incentives.
With respect to the fuel cost risk sharing mechanism, we have assumed no penalty or reward.
Turning to the bank on Slide 10, net interest income grew in 2022, with earning asset growth and higher yields.
<unk> net interest margin remained relatively stable in 2022 at 289% compared to $2, 91% 2021.
Higher yields on loans and investment securities strong loan growth and higher balances of investment securities benefited the bank's NIM. Although these items were offset by lower PPP fee income.
And a higher cost of funds.
The average cost of funds was 16 basis points for the full year 2022.
10 basis points higher than the prior year.
We saw larger.
Larger increase in the fourth quarter. Thank you utilize wholesale borrowings to support our strong loan growth.
As a result, we saw an increase in our funding costs in the fourth quarter of $2 38 basis points up 25 basis points from the prior quarter.
We do expect higher funding costs to continue throughout 2023 as market interest rates continue to increase and to the extent our level of wholesale funding remains elevated.
However, we believe the strength of our core deposit base will allow us to maintain our funding cost advantage in comparison to our peers throughout 2023.
On slide 11, we provide further detail on our expectations for ASP this year.
We are expecting our provision for credit losses for the year ranging from zero to $10 million.
This range reflects our expectations for credit quality loan growth and economic conditions.
We continue to maintain our conservative lending practices a loan book that is over 80% in real estate secured at a conservative weighted average loan to value of around 50%.
As a result, we're confident about the strong credit quality of our loan portfolio.
Scott mentioned loan growth in 2022 was at a historically strong level, but we do expect loan growth to return to a more normalized level in 2023.
We currently expect loan growth to be in the low single digit range. This year.
In order to fund the strong loan growth in 2022, given flat deposit growth.
Kris our wholesale borrowings and CD balances, which reduced our balance sheet asset sensitivity to be essentially neutral.
As a result, although additional fed rate increases will continue to benefit us well also have to manage our funding costs to see improved net interest margin.
We are already taking measures to manage our funding costs, including focusing on paying down higher cost wholesale borrowings as those costs have come up considerably as short term rates have risen.
Similar to the utility the bank is very focused on efficiency and that is expected to help keep bank operating expense increases moderate even while investing in the bank's digital transformation.
We expect to see an improvement in the bank's efficiency ratio in 2023.
I've discussed the drivers behind our expectations for utility and bank performance in 2023 and on Slide Slide 12, we bring this all together for our 2023 guidance.
We are initiating our 2023 consolidated earnings guidance of $2 15 to $2 35 per share or.
Our midpoint of $2 25.
Represents 5% growth over our 2022 EPS, excluding the onetime <unk> gain on sale for <unk> charge, we recorded in the first quarter of 2022.
Our utility EPS guidance of $1 75 to $1 85 assumes recovery of COVID-19 related deferred expenses, the vast majority of which was related to bad debt.
The amount to be recovered has been reduced significantly to approximately $11 million due to payments received and we expect a PUC decision in the second half of 2023.
We expect adjusted O&M, excluding pension to increase at a rate that is below the ore inflation adjustment.
This reflects the utilities continued focus on cost efficiency.
I already covered our expectations for 2023 regarding capex and contributions from pins, but I'll add that beyond 2023.
We expect our long term utility earnings compound annual growth rate of 5% through 2025 off a 2022 base, including an average of $4 million to $5 million pretax annually from tier.
Last year, we projected long term utility earnings growth guidance of 5% through 2024 with upside from Tien.
Our current guidance reflects continued higher generating station maintenance moderating in the coming years, as we bring new generation and storage resources online and as units are retired.
Higher O&M expenses due to inflationary environment and higher bad debt expense uptick.
Updated timelines for placing EPR M recovered projects and service and finally higher interest expense related to higher rates.
Our bank guidance of 75 to 85 per share reflects continued solid profitability and earnings growth in.
It accounts for inflationary impacts to expenses, which we continue to manage through cost efficiencies, including our branch optimization strategy.
It gets back to low single digit loan growth and net interest margin of 3% to three 5%.
We expect holding company expenses to be higher than 2022 levels due to higher interest rates and debt balances leading to increased holding company interest expense and we expect a holding company net loss of 34 to 36 cents in 2023.
We do not anticipate any equity issuances for 2023.
I'll now turn the call back to Scott, who will provide closing remarks.
Mahalo, Paul and Mahalo to all of you for joining us today.
In summary, we had a great year characterized by strong performance from both the utility and bank and our investors benefited from our unique combination of operating companies during a challenging macro economic period.
There were no surprises in our results and we executed well to the higher revised guidance given in the third quarter.
Our new regulatory framework at the utility is showing that it provides us with stability and predictability and as macroeconomic and operational headwinds ease up.
We expect to see growing performance as we execute our strategies of investing in our system and running the business efficiently for our customers.
Our bank will continue to be run conservatively and is well situated to respond to changes in the economy and interest rate environment.
We are confident that we will again deliver solid results in 2023.
With that let's open up the call for questions.
If you would like to ask a question. Please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If for any reason you would like to remove that question. Please press star followed by two again to ask a question. Please press star one as a reminder, if you are using a speaker phone. Please remember to pick up your handset before asking your question.
We will pause here briefly as questions are registered.
The first question comes from the line of Shar poor is of Guggenheim Partners. Please proceed.
Alright, good afternoon team, it's actually Constantine here for Shar, Congrats on a great quarter and to Paul on the new position.
Thanks sure appreciate it.
Maybe starting off on the utility can you help elaborate on the O&M targets that you're setting prospectively in conditions that youre seeing across the business any constraints on labor and materials in many parts of normalized just to get a sense of kind of a percentage of O&M that subject to external factors.
And maybe what would cause you to rethink kind of any levels of regulatory relief.
Well, maybe I can start.
You know, what we have baked into our forecast or still some elevated O&M expenses, especially with respect to our power plant.
Generation station maintenance.
We are expecting that to continue into 2023, but albeit it will start to taper off as we start to get more new generation resources online and later on of course is we're able to retire some of our order power plant units. So we've taken that into account and our.
Look ahead.
Like we experienced in 2022, I think the utility was able to respond fairly well to managing overall expenses in other areas of the company. So we're going to continue to be able to do that in 2023 and beyond.
Maybe Paul if you have any further comment specifically about.
Our management of our expenses within the Aerie.
Yes, so we are committed to managing O&M.
And looking at efficiencies to further.
Ensure their O&M stays within the ore recovery levels I will just provide a data point in terms of how successfully the utility has been over the past few years in managing O&M efficiently. So if you take a look at O&M.
And referencing adjusted O&M, which strips out some of the pension and other costs that are recovered from other parties.
From 2019 through 2022, if you look at a compounded annual growth rate of O&M, it's been less than half a percent. So the utility has done very well in managing those costs.
The low hanging fruit has probably been harvested so it does get a little bit harder over time, but I think the utility has shown that it.
It has the ability to manage O&M well within this PBR framework, which again, we feel there is a good framework because we we know what.
It adds stability and predictability, we know what revenues, we're getting and so our task as a management team is to ensure that we conducted business such that our expenses come in within that area allowance.
Okay.
Excellent that's very helpful and you kind of mentioned a part of my second question just on the revenue side and kind of since the kind of or a portion of the revenue formulas for 'twenty three is fairly well defined.
GDP Pi.
Just a question on what level of visibility do you have on the other PBR elements, namely the non rps related ones.
Energy efficiency as those good kind of impact earnings and how is the most recent fuel cost trajectory.
Impacting your risk sharing calculations.
Yeah I'll start.
You know I think with respect to the full slate of performance incentive mechanisms or pins.
We now have a track record of a full year of operating under the PBR and experiencing how those pimm's perform.
So the utility is able to put their focus on the pins that they have pretty good line of sight on controlling perhaps a good example is the interconnection, Tim which the utility performed fairly well last year, earning a reward there.
Those are the types of pins that provide the utility with the ability to manage their work how they plan and execute the work.
And ultimately achieve on the on the pin rewards.
That's going to continue to be the focus of our utility team.
There are admittedly some other pens that are a little bit more challenging to have direct control over and one example of that is probably the fuel cost risk sharing Tim.
We did receive a penalty based on overall fuel prices last year.
As best we can we're going to continue to focus on the pins that we do have control over and Meanwhile, on the other pimm's will just.
As we see how they play out during the course of the year that will just be a signal on how we need to adjust in other areas of the business.
And I'll just add there are there are a good number of pins, but what we focus on it at least in terms of providing guidance.
Guidance that we'd initiated here on the <unk> is really the RP assay and some of the <unk> related patents because those are the ones that are more meaningful a lot of the other ones. One is more difficult to predict but smaller amounts and so those tend to have puts and takes that generally offsetting what where at least what were forecast.
Senior.
So the again the most important ones that we focus on would be the Rps APM, which we see overtime growing as additional projects come online.
Okay that makes sense.
One last one if I may really quick.
Just on what's embedded in guidance on the bank side for repricing of earnings assets.
And that's been kind of tracking I believe since June so raise from.
Roughly 175 to 475 months.
Beyond that and kind of what are you embedding in terms of repricing kind of as we look at.
The guidance today.
Yeah, So if you're referring to our NIM, we are expecting that to increase in 2023% to 3% to three 5%.
That increase is.
A large part based on managing the funding funding side, so paying down higher cost wholesale borrowings.
Debt.
The margin has those costs have increased quite significantly as the fed has increased rates.
So we see an opportunity as our investment portfolio.
Pays down those proceeds are used to.
Some of those higher cost borrowings and that will help us increase our net interest margin.
And the.
Revenue sides of the adjustable rate assets those are kind of in plan marked as of the last.
Fed data any assumptions around increase of $4 23 or.
Just holding flat.
Yes, so in terms of our adjustable rate assets.
As we mentioned before.
The strong loan growth that we had in 2022, we did have to supplement on the funding side. Some of these higher cost sources of funds.
FH lb and some Cds.
And so are our balance sheet is a little bit more asset neutral, meaning additional fed fund rate increases doesn't.
Is not accretive to NIM. It does is accretive to net interest income.
So in terms of further fed rate increases, we wouldn't expect a significant impact to our NIM, but again as I mentioned, if we are able to manage the funding side and pay down those higher cost borrowings our balance sheet will become more asset sensitive in which case.
Further fed fund rate increases would be accretive to NIM.
So that's the plan currently is again to focus on paying down some of those higher cost funding sources and we expect to have more capacity to do that as we see the loan activity.
Get back more towards normal levels, yes, we just saw a very unusually high.
More than a decade of high loan growth in which we had to tap.
Some of these other sources of funding let me, let me ask answer Nishi Our bank President She has any other comments, yes, and maybe just specific to the question about our adjustable rate portfolio of about $1 billion of our loan book is in the adjustable rate.
Categories, though that that does change as the rates go up also all of our new origination all the new loans coming on are at.
A higher rate than what's on our books.
You know the rate environment and that helps us, but I think what Colin Scott are referencing is what all banks are experiencing is just increasing funding cost. The one thing I would add to that though is a hawaii traditionally has a fairly sticky deposit base. So our betas are low our deposit betas are low and our funding cost while they are.
Increasing they are lower relative to our mainland peers. So that's something that should help us weather. This particular portion of the rate cycle.
That's very helpful and comprehensive as always thank you for taking our questions.
Best of luck.
Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Paul Patterson of <unk> Associates. Please proceed.
Hey, good.
Good morning.
Hey, Paul.
So just for you.
Apologize just one follow up on <unk> question, I guess from a different angle when we're looking at the NIM.
Just.
I guess it sounds like you could you just walk through a little bit for me I guess I'm a little slow on what.
What's driving your expected lower quality thing that paying down wholesale cost wholesale book.
Wholesale funding.
Are you going to be increasing deposits or is this.
Just walk me through in terms of.
What's leading to because it seems that you're calling for going up.
I'm not clear.
On the NIM what.
What are you projecting to decrease that exactly I mean, youre going to be using less wholesale.
Where is that coming from them.
Or is the source of funding coming from deposits.
So in terms of the funding right. So we expect loan growth to normalize from the high growth rates that we had in 2022. So in 2022, we had to find additional funding beyond sort of the.
The investment portfolio run off and because deposit growth was relatively flat in 2022, we had to take on these higher cost wholesale borrowings.
Looking forward to 2023, we expect loan growth to moderate and so we expect the runoff from the investment portfolio as well as retained earnings to to provide the funding to pay down some of these wholesale borrowings and so thats what allows us to.
<unk>.
The funding mix on the balance sheet I understand so.
The load growth you see going down to what.
What level.
Loan growth of.
Low to mid single digits.
Which is which is the normal sort of right in the Hawaii market.
Okay and Theres no pressure at all in the on deposits in terms of.
In terms of.
Increased costs there at all the market just doesn't it.
There just isn't any competition from online banking or anything like that or without seeing any I guess is what you're what you're expecting at least of what you've been seeing.
Well as rates rise I mean, we are seeing.
Some some pressure is more on the commercial side versus our core deposit base, but over time, we do expect.
Rates too to follow kind of the <unk>.
Fed fund rate increases.
I would say, we still believe we have a low deposit beta relative to the mainland much lower.
To date, our deposit beta is in the single digit range. So we expect that too to kind of remain as we go through this rate cycle.
But again it is a.
Faster.
Increase in rates versus versus in prior rate cycles. So we could be a little bit higher than that but again in the context of.
Betas across across the nation I think we're in a pretty good position here.
Mark just to add to what you just said Paul in terms of most of the pressure coming from the commercial side.
Of our of our deposits are core deposits, 75% of our retail 25% of our commercial so the large part of our base is retail with a little bit less pressure.
Okay.
Most of my questions have been answered. Thanks, so much guys have a great one.
Thanks, Bob.
Yeah.
Thank you. The next question comes from Julien.
Jim Lynn Smith from Bank of America. Please proceed.
Hey, guys. Thank you very much for the time I appreciate the opportunity and good morning, If you guys maybe.
Maybe just coming back to the question is on costs from a moment ago and just talking about the earnings trajectory I see the 5% figure rolled forward here can you talk a little bit about the utility earnings growth and sort of the cadence of that inflation playing itself out I mean, effectively maybe let me ask this directly.
Given the fact that inflation at least from from.
Near term perspective seems acute are we expecting there for there to be a linear trajectory to the 5% growth or do you think actually the 24% to 25 timeframe to see something of an uptick as you deal with it.
Effectively absorb some of these inflationary items.
As well as some of the commentary you made on Capex in the remarks as well.
Yes, I can start and then I can ask Jane to kind of jump in here.
In terms of the inflationary question.
We do expect that to moderate over time.
So that has been built into our forecast I would say that because of the inflationary adjustment. We received in 2022 versus what actually happened there is a little bit of the <unk>.
Leakage, if you will where we do have some catch up and so that's part of kind of our forecast right because the error was at 2.78% I believe in the inflation that we actually realized was higher than that and so.
Again going forward, though we expect to manage within the aerie and we expect to catch up over time.
With respect to your question on linear growth.
I do believe we're expecting.
Relatively.
Consistent growth as opposed to.
Variations between the years.
Because under the PBR framework right. It provides more predictability and stability and so we're forecasting kind of the area of inflationary adjustment to sort of normalize as we go out here and then it's just a matter of then.
Planning or artwork in our O&M to be within that level. So the so the growth would be a little bit more linear now having said that I think where there could be.
Earnings debt.
Not as be as linear would be EPRI, because thats really based on.
When we filed the applications when we start work et cetera.
Can you have any and to add to that.
Echo what Paul said, because if you look at our Capex trajectory there we do have.
Some projects that are awaiting PUC approval under the PRN mechanism.
And the timing of those projects are slowly coming in in the 2023 and 2024 period. So I mean, there is slight opportunity there.
But as Paul mentioned in his prepared comments.
For those projects that are waiting a PRN recovery.
40% of those projects, 40% of those costs are within this 23% to 25 forecast period, but a large part of those expenses and the completion of those projects are expected in the sort of back ended.
This forecast.
Got it so if I'm hearing you there's.
Maybe some degree of upside as you see these programs play themselves out, but perhaps just as you look at the outlook for as much as it is perhaps a near term impact or a pressure point.
You are managing this to arrow more linear trajectory.
Yes, that's right Julien.
Alright fair enough excellent and actually how does that fit with just our regulatory recovery timeline. If you can speak to that just quickly through the 25 timeline.
In terms of managing these pressures.
Sorry, Julien you're asking for how is our outlook in terms of regulatory lag.
Yes, just how do you think about this aligning against your regulatory lag expectations obviously.
Some degree of under earning there that obviously gyrates by the year could you talk a little bit about how that fits again. This inflationary narrative in terms of managing the pain points and keeping it linear through the forecast.
Well I'll speak generally just to begin with and Paul if you want to jump in routine, but I think one of the nice things about the PBR regulatory framework is that it actually has removed a lot of the regulatory lag.
<unk> effective January one that's when the new <unk> the adjustment kicked in for US. So we are seeing higher revenues provided by the <unk> adjustment.
The net 368% so what at least on our core capex in our core O&M spin that gives us the line of sight. So that we can manage within that going forward.
And then with respect to the larger projects, whether they're <unk> or EPR in projects.
Again, those are large typically large projects that we plan accordingly.
And we will reduce the risk by not making major commitments until we actually have the commission's approval.
Okay.
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you guys very much Oh Im sorry, yeah, absolutely. Thank you guys very much.
Okay.
Thanks Julien.
Thank you there are currently no additional questions registered at this time, so I'd like to pass the conference back over to the management team for closing remarks.
Thank you for joining US everyone have a good rest of your day.
Thank you everyone.
That concludes the conference call. Thank you for your participation you may now disconnect your lines.
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