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Will Volatility ETFs Rule In May?

The start of May has been tumultuous for the global stock market with volatility levels flaring up once again. The sluggish manufacturing numbers from China and U.S., a bout of softer-than-expected economic readings out of Europe and a weaker-than-expected April ADP jobs report in the U.S. have data cast a pall over the market all over again (read: Manufacturing Churns Out Slow Growth in US–ETFs in Focus ). This is especially true as the major U.S. benchmarks nosedived in last two days (as of May 4, 2016). The S&P 500 has reached the lowest level since April 11 . In fact, the ongoing earnings recession, tepid economic readings along with global growth worries have rattled the faith of investors. They have taken somber economic growth on the chin for long and sent the S&P 500 rallying as much as 15% from a February low. However, investors should note that signs of stability in the oil patch have done a lot to cool jittery investors’ nerves in this timeframe (read: MLP ETFs–Time to Invest on Oil Rebound or Too Risky? ). Now with growth worries back on the table, volatility levels have heightened and exchange-traded products designed to track the market volatility have received a shot in the arm. Volatility level is best represented by the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX). This fear gauge measures investors’ perception of the market’s risk and tends to rise during a downtrend or when investor panic starts to set in. As U.S. equities faltered, the volatility index climbed 9.3% in the past two trading days (as of May 4, 2016), suggesting that risks are rising and investors could definitely benefit from this trend. There are several ETF/ETN options available in the market that can provide some exposure to volatility. These products have proven themselves as short-time winners in chaotic times. Below we have highlighted short-term volatility products that will likely spring higher as long as growth issues continue to unsettle the global markets. As a caveat, investors should note that these products are meant for short-term trading: Regular Volatility ETFs A popular ETN option providing exposure to volatility, the iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN (NYSEARCA: VXX ) . The ETN focuses on the S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures Index Total Return. The index gives exposure to a daily rolling long position in the first and second month VIX futures contracts and replicates ‘ market participants’ views of the future direction of the VIX index at the time of expiration of the VIX futures contracts comprising the Index’. There are other products like the ProShares VIX Short-Term Futures ETF (NYSEARCA: VIXY ) and the VelocityShares Daily Long VIX Short-Term ETN (NASDAQ: VIIX ) . Leveraged Volatility ETFs Investors seeking to earn exorbitant gains in a very short time frame could tap leveraged volatility ETFs. Currently, there are two options available in this category – the ProShares Ultra VIX Short-Term Futures ETF (NYSEARCA: UVXY ) and the VelocityShares Daily 2x VIX Short Term ETN (NASDAQ: TVIX ) . Both products track the S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures Index. Link to the original post on Zacks.com

Atlantic Power’s (AT) CEO Jim Moore on Q1 2016 Results – Earnings Call Transcript

Atlantic Power Corporation (NYSE: AT ) Q1 2016 Earnings Conference Call May 06, 2016 08:30 AM ET Executives Edward Vamenta – Director of Financial Planning and Analysis Jim Moore – President and CEO Terry Ronan – CFO Dan Rorabaugh – SVP of Asset Management Analysts Rupert Merer – National Bank Sean Steuart – TD Securities Ben Pham – BMO Operator Good morning, and welcome to the Atlantic Power Corporation First Quarter 2016 Results Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] Please note, today’s call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Edward Vamenta, Director of Financial Planning and Analysis. Please go ahead. Edward Vamenta Welcome, and thank you for joining us this morning. Our results for the three ended March 31, 2016 were issued by press release yesterday afternoon and are available on our website www.atlanticpower.com and on EDGAR and SEDAR. The accompanying presentation to today’s call and webcast can be found in the Investor Relations section of our website. A replay of today’s call will be available on our website for a period of one year. Financial figures that we’ll be presenting are stated in U.S. dollars and are approximate unless otherwise noted. Please be advised that this conference call and presentation will contain forward-looking statements. As discussed in the company’s Safe Harbor statement on page 2 of today’s presentation, these statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve certain risks and uncertainties that are more fully described in our various securities filings. Actual results may differ materially from such forward-looking statements. In addition, the financial results in yesterday’s press release and today’s presentation include both GAAP and non-GAAP measures including project adjusted EBITDA, adjusted cash flows from operating activities, and adjusted free cash flow. For a reconciliations of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures to the extent they are available without unreasonable effort, please refer to the press release, the appendix of today’s presentation, or our quarterly report on Form 10-Q, all of which are available on our website. Now I will turn the call over to Jim Moore, President and CEO of Atlantic Power. Jim Moore Good morning. With me this morning are Terry Ronan, our CFO; and Dan Rorabaugh, our Senior Vice President of Asset Management, as well as several other members of the Atlantic Power management team. In terms of this morning’s agenda, first I will recap recent progress, then Dan will review plant operating performance and provide an update on our capital expenditures. Terry will review the first quarter financial results, discuss the recent refinancing transaction, and provide an update to our 2016 guidance. I will wrap up the call with additional comments on strategy. As shown on slide 4, so far this year, our plants performed well and financial results for the first quarter were in line with our expectations. We have continued to repay debt using our strong operating cash flow. We also opportunistically repurchased convertible debentures and common shares under the NCIB. Just a little over three weeks ago, we closed a significant refinancing of both our term loan and revolving credit facility, although this a difficult significant market environment in which undertaking this transaction, we are pleased to have completed it. And our view of the positive aspects of this transaction outweigh the higher interest rate. Pro forma for the planned redemptions of our 2017 convertibles later this month, we have no corporate debt maturities prior to 2019. We also have a $105 million of remaining proceeds to further reshape our balance sheet and invest in growth. In addition, our new $200 million corporate revolver provides us with greater flexibility to finance growth or additional debt repurchases. Lastly, the pending shareholder asset in Quebec was dismissed in April with no payments by us consistent with the resolution of the US and Ontario actions earlier. This brings to a close all outstanding shareholder litigation. Now, I will turn the call over to Dan. Dan Rorabaugh Thanks, Jim and good morning everyone. Slide 5 summarizes our operational performance for the first quarter of 2016. This quarter we have added a report on safety to our operations reviews, where safety of our plants and our people is a high priority at Atlantic Power. Although we have a strong track record, we are continually striving for even better performance. This quarter we had one recordable incident in early January, but none in the four months since then. In comparing our results for the industry average, keep in mind that the average includes much larger companies for which the rate tends to be lower. Our loss time injury rate which we’ve not shown in the chart is typically lower than the industry average. I’d also note that we didn’t have any environmental or regulatory violations during the quarter. Our availability factor in the first quarter of 2016 was 96.6% versus 97.5% for the comparable period a year ago. The slight increase was due to maintenance outages at our three Navy plants and a utility requested outage at Naval training center. The impact of these outages on availability was partially offset by improved availability at Mamquam and Piedmont, both of which had scheduled maintenance outages in the prior period. Generation increased 4.4%, primarily due to Frederickson, which had increased dispatch and Curtis Palmer and Mamquam, which had higher water flows as compared to below normal levels in 2015. These increases were partially offset by reduction at Manchief, due to reduced dispatch, and at the Navy plants, due to reduced availability. Waste heat production in Ontario was down approximately 3.9% from very high levels in 2015. Our 2016 forecast has assumed a reduction from 2015 levels, but results for the quarter were ahead of our expectations. Our Mamquam facility is benefiting from significantly higher snow pack this year than last. In addition, spring has come early and run-off is ahead of schedule. Slide 6 summarizes our 2016 planned optimization investments as well as capital expenditures related to PPA extensions. On the optimization side, we have not made any significant changes since our fourth quarter call in March. At Morris, we are in the process of adding past our capability to one of our boilers with commissioning expected late in the second quarter. The objective it to improve the reliability of steam delivery to the customer. We also plan to upgrade certain components for two of the gas turbines this year during the extended customer outage in late summer and for the third in 2017. This is being done in order to increase output and improve fuel efficiency from the turbines as well as enhance the reliability of steam delivery for the customer. Total optimization investments for this year are expected to be approximately $4 million with most of it for the Morris projects and the balance for spillway upgrade project at Curtis Palmer we have undertaken in late summer. On our March conference call, I indicated that we have budgeted approximately $7 million for CapEx related for repowering and PPA extension related investments at Tunis and Williams Lake, most of which was for Williams Lake. However, it now appears that there may be a delay in the availability of gas transportation for Tunis, which have affected timing of the restart of the project and therefore the timing of the required investment in the project to convert it to simple cycle operation. Accordingly, we have reduced our CapEx budget for this year, which includes the optimization investments to approximately $14 million from $16 million with most of the reduction related to Tunis. I would also note that whether we begin work on a new fuel shredder for Williams Lake this year, it depends on the timing of receipt of an amendment to the air permit currently expected in the third quarter or potentially subject to appeal and the status of discussions with BC Hydro on an extension of the existing contract. Initial outweighs for this project were approximately $6 million of our capital expenditure forecast for this year. We will provide an update on the timing of that investment on our second quarter call. I will close by providing a brief update on our efforts to extend our PPAs. We are continuing to aggressively pursue opportunities to extend or renew our existing PPAs in California. Due to non-disclosure provisions in the more formal processes, we cannot provide any detail on our efforts or specific bids. The PPA market is difficult, but we believe that our assets, particularly those in San Diego are well positioned to continue to provide necessary capacity close [indiscernible]. At Williams Lake, as I mentioned earlier, we expect to provide more of an update on our second quarter call. Now I will turn it over to Terry. Terry Ronan Thanks, Dan, and good morning everyone. I will begin with a review of our first quarter results, then discuss our refinancing transaction and close with an update on our guidance. Turning to slide 7, as Jim mentioned, results for the first quarter were in line with our expectations. We reported project adjusted EBITDA of $62.5 million, up $3.9 million from $58.6 million in the year-ago period. The 2015 results excludes our Wind business, which we sold in June of last year. The increase was primarily attributable to higher water flows in our Curtis Palmer and Mamquam hydro projects and lower expenses in our unallocated corporate segment. This was partially offset by a stronger US dollar, which reduced results by approximately $3 million. Slide 8 shows our cash flow results for the first quarter of 2016. The 2015 numbers are presented excluding the Wind business, which contributed $10.8 million of operating cash flow in the first quarter of last year. On a continuing operations basis, as shown on the slide, operating cash flow increased $5 million to $29 million from $24 million a year ago. The increase was primarily attributable to higher project adjusted EBITDA and lower interest payments resulting from the redemption of our 9% senior unsecured notes last year and continued amortization of the APLP term loan. Adjusted cash flow from operating activities, which excludes changes in working capital and severance and restructuring charges increased $6 million to $37 million from $31 million, again due to higher project adjusted EBITDA and lower interest payments. Adjusted free cash flow, which is after principal payments on the APLP term loan and project level debt increased approximately $8 million to $11.8 million from $3.9 million a year ago. This increase was attributable to higher adjusted cash flows from operating activities and receipt of cost reimbursement for customer-owned construction project, which helped cash flow by $4.7 million. These positive factors were partially offset by higher debt repayments on the term loan and project level debt of $27.5 million versus $23.8 million in the year-ago period. Slide 9 summarizes the key aspects of the refinancing transactions that we completed last month. We refinanced our existing APLP term loan with a new $700 million term loan at APLP Holdings, which has a maturity date of April 2023, two years later then the maturity of the term loan that replaced. We used 112 million of the proceeds to call all of our 2017 convertible debentures. After that redemption closes on the May 13, we will have no remaining corporate debt maturities prior to our next convertible debenture maturity in June 2019. Net proceeds remaining after paying transactional related fees are probably 105 million which are available to us for debt and equity purchases as well as growth investments. Debt reduction remains a very high priority for the company and we plan to use at least 65 million of the proceeds for the repurchase of 2019 convertible debentures. Although the initial impact of the refinancing was to increase our leverage to approximately 6.4 times from 5.8 times at year-end 2050, we expect to drop below 6 times by the end of this year due to the additional convertible repurchases I mentioned and to amortization of new term loan. As shown on slide 10, as part of this transaction, we also closed on a new 200 million revolving credit facility which replaces our previous 210 million revolver. The maturity date of the new facility is April 2021, a three-year maturity extension versus the one it replaced. The new revolver is a more traditional one and we can use it for general corporate purposes subject to certain limitations. It does provide us more flexibility to fund growth both internal and external including acquisitions. Slide 11 provides some additional details of the new term loan, two features of which I’d like to elaborate on. First interest-rate, the spread is 500 basis points over LIBOR as compared to the rate on the previous term loan of L+375. The LIBOR portion of the rate is a minimum of 1%. We’re required to fix a certain portion of our floating rate exposure through interest rate swaps for the 90 days of closing and that’s something we’re working on now. We expect the all-in rate will be approximately 6.25% to 6.50% as compared to slightly less than 5% on the previous term loan. Second, amortization, the term loan has a 1% mandatory annual amortization just as the previous term loan did. Repayments under the cash sweep works somewhat differently however, each quarter the amount of debt repayment is determined by the greater of a 50% cash sweep for the amount of repayment required to achieve the targeted quarter-end debt balances specified in the credit agreement which declined over time. Thus the minimum is 50%. We expect the cash sweep to average at 65% of 70% over the life of the loan, although it is higher in the early years and there was a fair amount of variability year-to-year but that target schedule envisions that approximately 80% of the loan will be paid down by maturity through mandatory and targeted amortization. Although the interest rate and debt repayment terms are less favorable than under our previous term loan, we believe these considerations are far outweighed by the positive aspects of this transaction as Jim indicated. Specifically we’ve extended the maturity of the term loan and revolver to 2023 and 2021 respectively, remove the overhang caused by the near term maturity of 2017 converts and obtain greater flexibility regarding revolver use of proceeds. We view the more aggressive debt repayment schedule into the new term loan as consistent with our goal of further deleveraging. In addition, we completed a tax restructuring concurrent with the closing of the refinancing moving both Atlantic Power Generation and Atlantic Power Transmission into the APLT structure which we believe will help us make more efficient use of our NOLs going forward. On the bottom of slide 11, we presented our current debt maturity profile split between both maturities on the left and amortizing debt on the right. Pro forma for the transaction and redemption of the 2017 convertible debentures approximately 67% of our debt is now amortizing rather than bullet maturities. Slide 12 provides details on each of our debt instruments and preferred securities including where in the organization they reside maturity date and interest rate. The changes arriving from the refinancing transaction are highlighted in yellow, separately I would note that during the quarter we repurchased 18.8 million principal amount of convertible debentures, primarily those with 2019 maturities under our normal course issuer bid. Slide 13 presents our liquidity at March 31 2016, both on an actual and pro-forma basis, several items of note. As I mentioned on the year-end call in March, we received approximately 6 million in cash in February representing a reimbursement for a customer owned construction project that we undertook on their behalf. We’re also able to reduce our letters of credit posted by 10 million following S&P’s upgrade of our corporate credit rate into B+ in February. During the quarter we used cash to repurchase convertible debentures and common shares under the NCIB. Thus we ended the quarter with 178 million of liquidity including 64 million of unrestricted cash. The pro forma column in slide 13 adjust for the refinancing transaction. Cash is increased by 105 million of net proceeds. However this is partially offset by the 10 million reduction in capacity under the new revolver and increased letters of credit associated with their larger debt service reserve requirement because of the large size of the term loan. On balance, our liquidity is approximately 86 million higher at 263.5 million including 169 million of cash. As we previously indicated, we believe that a base cash reserve of 50 million to 60 million is adequate for our business. Slide 14 presents our 2016 guidance updated to incorporate the impact of the refinancing transactions to our cash flow metrics. There is no impact on our project adjusted EBITDA guidance and we still expect to be in the range of 200 million to 220 million. Relative to our previous guidance, we expect cash interest to be higher as a result of a wider spread and the larger side of the new term loan partially offset by interest savings associated with the redemption of the 2017 convertibles and other debt reduction. Accordingly, we’ve lowered our guidance for adjusted cash flows from operating activities by 15 million, most of which is attributable to higher cash interest payments. The revised range is 95 million to 115 million. The other impact of the refinancing is on our adjusted free cash flow metric which is after debt repayment. We expect the higher level of amortization under the new term loan. In the first quarter, we amortized 25 million of the previous term loan and we expected to be amortize approximately 57 million to 60 million for the full year. In contrast, under the targeted sweep positions of a new term loan, we expect to repay through mandatory amortization the sweep approximately 60 million in the remaining nine months of this year representing an increase of approximately 25 million relative to previous expectations. Accordingly, we have reduced our adjusted free cash flow guidance by 40 million driven by higher interest payments and higher debt repayment. Our revised guidance is a range of negative 20 million to zero. Our adjusted cash flow from operating activities is what we focus on when we think of cash flow metrics. The guidance for adjusted free cash flow is based on us paying off 96 million of principal which helps us meet our deleveraging priorities. As Jim discussed elsewhere in his remarks, the refinancing leave us in a position we have more liquidity to debt repurchases, equity repurchases and capitalize opportunities we are pursuing. Slide 15 is an update of the guidance bridge that we typically provide for project adjusted EBITDA to our cash adjusted cash flow metrics. As I just discussed, the primary changes are higher interest payments and higher debt amortization partially offset by a slightly lower CapEx forecast. Now I will turn the call back to Jim. Jim Moore Thanks, Terry. We are an important turning point for Atlantic Power Corporation. In the past two years, we have one, paying executive management, two, refresh the board, three cut corporate overhead in half, a reduction of $27 million, four reduce debt by $879 million and interest expense by $65 million prior to the impact of the term loan financing, five resolve all pending shareholder litigation without having to make any cash payments to plaintiffs, six, sold off one quarter of our assets at a good price and use the proceeds to redeem our most expensive debt thereby removing our exposure to volatile win results and the overhand of a 2018 maturity, while still realizing a slight benefit from our ongoing cash flow. Seven, we eliminated common dividend to free up cash for uses such as debt repurchases, equity repurchases and investments in our fleet. Eight, invested $22 million in discretionary capital upgrade to the fleet, which we expect will generate approximately $10 million this year in tax returns. Nine, we brought an EVP of Commercial Development with power and energy storage expertise. Ten, we closed four of our offices and consolidated the corporate staff into one office. We moved that office from Boston’s financial district to that of Massachusetts. We also reduced corporate staff from 109 to 48. Eleven, we negotiated 11-year extension of our PPA at Morris. The first PPA extension in more than two years. The changes to that PPA are modestly accretive to expected projected adjusted EBITDA, project adjusted EBITDA. Twelve, refinanced our term loan and corporate revolver despite very difficult markets for energy companies, which resulted in longer terms for both, increased liquidity and additional flexibility. Although, additionally this will result in increased debt and interest expense, we expect both the decline over time as a result of debt repayment using our cash flow. Thirteen, we restarted our external growth efforts. Fourteen, insiders have been making significant equity purchases in these open market. As a result of these efforts, we are in a very different place than we were two years ago. On the defensive side, we have a much improved balance sheet in terms of leverage ratios and maturity profile. Our leverage ratio has improved from 8.9 times at year end 2013 to 6.4 times on a pro-forma basis for the refinancing transaction. We received $645 million of debt maturing in 2017 and 2018, leaving us with a manageable medium-term maturity in 2019 and the longer term maturity at 2036. As a result, our corporate credit rating has been upgraded by both Moody’s and S&P. We expect to further de-lever by amortizing debt from our strong operating cash flows. Our guidance is midpoint $105 million and using a portion of our liquidity to further redeem or repurchase debt. The power business is in the midst of a downcycle today. We can’t predict how low or how long it will go. So our best defense has been to reduce debt, reduce interest payments and overheads and extend our debt maturities. We expect our improved balance sheet and maturity profile will put us in a much stronger position to ride through the downcycles in energy and power markets. This allows us to be patient and disciplined on PPA renewals or asset sales. On the PPA front, we’re engaged in discussions across the fleet, particularly for those projects for which PPAs are scheduled to expire in the next several years. It is a difficult pricing environment, so we are being disciplined. We’ve had a poor outcome on Selkirk at a disappointing one at Tunis, but a good result at Morris. Although we can’t provide much guidance on PPA renewals in advance of reaching agreements, we are cautiously optimistic. We expect this to play out over the coming quarters and years. On the offensive side, we remain focused on growth in intrinsic value per share. That’s growth in absolute terms. We have approximately $700 million of debt and equity securities that we view as attractively priced. Repurchase of these at or near current levels carries more certain returns than those available on M&A markets. The refinancing transaction puts us in better position to undertake these repurchases. In addition, we see the potential for growth through internal investments in our own fleet. As we ramp down on discretionary optimization investments, we will be increasing our focus on PPA related investments or repowering projects. Some of these internal investments can be funded with operating cash flow pre-sweep and other larger projects at some of our plants can be funded by borrowings under the revolver. Between repurchasing securities and making internal investments in the fleet, we have more traffic uses than we had discretionary capital. We are reviewing the best options for deploying the $105 million in net proceeds from the refinancing. We are targeting the use of the leased $65 million for repurchase of 2019 convertibles. Further deleveraging of the balance sheet is an important priority. As always, our capital allocation decisions will be made with price to value relationships being the determining factor. Now, looking at external growth, given the returns in risks of external M&A markets for power generation versus what we see for internal investments, we’re still highly focused on growing intrinsic value per share organically. However, power asset markets tend to be volatile. This management team has had its strong record of investing and selling at a counter cyclical manner. The management team members also have had success in building IPP businesses in early mover ways since the 1980s with the most recent being a wind energy growth strategy at another company in 2001 through 2008. We are looking for undervalued assets that are too small for the average or large size M&A players, but are significant enough to move the needle for us. We will be disciplined, patient and optimistic in that effort — opportunistic in that effort. We are also looking at capital light early mover opportunities such as energy storage, but we have nothing specific to report yet. We also now have improved liquidity to capitalize on the growth opportunities that we identify, including proceeds from the recent refinancings that are available to us for security repurchases, internal and external growth. The new $200 million revolver is also more flexible with respect to financing debt repurchases for growth investments as Terry discussed. As I began my remarks by saying we have reached the turning point, we have taken the key steps necessary to strengthen our financial position, reduce near-term maturity risk and remove the overhang of litigation. We believe that we are now not only in a much stronger defensive position, but we are credibly positioned to allocate capital to debt reduction, share repurchases, internal capital expenditures and capital light external investments. The refinancing provides us with the dry powder we need for those purposes. As we have for three decades, and as we did at Atlantic Power with the timely sale of or wind business and the redemption of our high yield notes, we will be disciplined and patient, punctuated by occasional bold moves and a sense of urgency when the math is compelling for our shareholders. We won’t try to make genius decisions, as the management team to tell you genius is well outside my circle of competence, but our goal is to make rational decisions, even in unpopular and patiently build value over the long haul. If you are a patient, value oriented investor, the management team is likeminded. From here, it is all about continued execution. That concludes my prepared remarks. We are now pleased to take any questions you may have. Question-and-Answer Session Operator [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Rupert Merer of National bank. Please go ahead. Rupert Merer Good morning, everyone and thanks for all the detail so far. On the PPA renewals, you touched on that briefly and I realize there is probably not much more information you can give us, but can you provide some thoughts on the outlook for your Ontario projects, the Kapuskasing and North Bay projects. I think those are your next contract expires in December later this year? Dan Rorabaugh Sure. This is Dan Rorabaugh. Happy to. You are right, they do expire at the end of next year. And as we’ve discussed in past calls, there was a report on non-utility generators that came out last year that was essentially very negative to the idea of renewing these PPAs, but these projects do have value in particular, Kapuskasing and Calstock were called out as being important to local reliability. We’ve approached the idea, so and the OEFC and we are actually in discussions right now with alternatives to extract some of that value and get some value back to them and to us in terms of sending those PPAs. Rupert Merer And is it likely that they would need some sort of capital reinvestment before you would get a contract expiry and is that something you consider in your long-term capital plans? Dan Rorabaugh We do consider the kinds of investments that we would be looking at are more in the course of the normal gas turbine maintenance kind of investments and not large capital expenditures. Rupert Merer Okay, great. And then secondly, you’ve talked a little bit about the M&A market and your focus on organic growth and deleveraging. I understand it may not be the best market for an asset seller. Are you still contemplating select asset sales for debt reduction or capital recycling? Dan Rorabaugh It’s not a great market for an asset buyer. So we look at the returns that are clearing the market when you go out and buy assets and then we’d look at the returns we can get on our old balance sheet and/or investing in our old fleet. And even the returns on the debt are pretty closer to returns you could get in investing in external M&A markets and of course the returns are a lot more certain. And then the returns we’ve gotten from our discretionary CapEx is much better than what’s available on the external M&A markets. We sold a quarter of the business last year and this management team has sold large counts of businesses and demerge businesses and sold entire companies before. So we’re always actively looking at buy and sell opportunities and we’re happy to do those when it makes sense. We ended any large-scale book set, selling assets when we sold off the wind projects, but we do look at individual offers on individual assets as things come up and we consider that as part of our long-term planning, but we don’t have anything we can update you on today. Operator And our next question comes from Sean Steuart of TD Securities. Please go ahead. Sean Steuart Thanks. Good morning, everyone and thanks for all the detail. Question on the revolver, I know there is a lot more flexibility post the refinancing activity, but you mentioned some limitations on use, can you go into detail on what that would pertain to? Terry Ronan Sure. I can give you a couple of things, Sean. First of all, the biggest qualifier is we can use the revolver which were in the covenant compliance which is always the case I guess. Secondly, we are able to use the revolver for debt purchases of the converts. However, there is cap on that usage of $100 million and that we are not able to buy back equity or preferred using the revolver proceeds. And then finally, we can use the revolver for growth purposes. Sean Steuart Okay, thanks. Terry Ronan On a general corporate basis. Sean Steuart Got it. And of the $105 million of net proceeds you said $65 million towards convert repurchases I presume that’s all the December 2019 that you’d be focused on correct? Terry Ronan I would say that we haven’t completely determined what that’s going to be, the number will be at least $65 million. We will be looking at both series potentially a combination of both, but we haven’t fully made that decision yet. Sean Steuart Okay. Rest of my questions were addressed. Thanks very much. Terry Ronan Thanks, Sean. Operator And our next question comes from Ben Pham of BMO. Please go ahead. Ben Pham Okay, thanks and good morning everybody. I may have missed this at the beginning some of the commentary. On the credit facility, the new credit facility, it seems like there’s quite a dramatic interest rate and even size relative to maybe some of your initial commentary on that and I’m wondering from your side in your discussions with the debt investors and the credit, what was kind of the main issues they had. I mean you secured more assets on the debt and you spent like you said a good job of paying down debt over time. I am just wondering what were folks concern about your discussions with them as you move through your process? Terry Ronan Well, there is lot of questions there. Let me try and walk through that here, Ben. One, the interest rate is obviously higher. We can’t call the market, we wish it was lower, but that’s the market where it is today. We talked about the reasons why we think that that this is a good transaction for us because it expands the maturities, it also allows us more flexibility. It removes the 2017 overhang. So those are the good things. If you look at where the lenders were coming from if I had to step into their shoes for a moment, I think their concern was ensuring that the overall outstandings were amortized down by maturity to somewhere in the $125 million range which would be approximately 80% of the principal amount of the $700 million. Thus we have the introduction of the greater of 50% sweep for these targeted debt levels which is the equivalent of a 65% to 70% sweep. It’s a little lumpy as we go over time with that. And that’s just a market. That was the market that we faced. It was a difficult market. The market has been difficult since last summer, but it was important to us when the window opened and there was an opportunity to do this that we do it particularly with the first of the 17s coming due in March of 2017. And it has also allowed us to extend the revolver into a five-year facility out to 21. So from our perspective it’s a very good transaction. The positives outweigh the negatives. Jim Moore This is Jim Moore. I think I heard you ask something too, I will try to add answer maybe you didn’t ask it, but I will answer it anyhow. But so we got done with the sale and then high yield redemption and in that case I think we really kind of [indiscernible] the market, but that kind of timing is usually locked, not prescience and we went right to work on the TLB side of it. It takes a while to get everything and put together. So we weren’t making a market judgment call at that point. We were going as fast as we could. When we were ready to go market things had gotten very dicey in the energy markets, so our advice was to – from our financial advisors was to deposit that and when we saw the market opening up a bit, we went back out with this transaction. The feedback we got was very good. The fact that we were able to raise $700 million in this kind of environment I think was every good. But some of the people on the debt side felt very good about the credit that they were looking at although we were facing a market where across-the-board people are trying to reduce high yield energy and power market exposure. So we were – I think the clean insured and a bunch dirty shirts sectors so we didn’t make a judgment to try to play games with the market. We got ready to go as quickly as we could. And then we had opportunity we went. The rates obviously have moved up since the last refinancing and we didn’t touch the bottom of the rate cycle, but we think overall the rates not a bad rate on a historical basis. We do have the higher sweep, but with the 17s fast approaching we didn’t want to make the perfect enemy of the good. So instead of sitting near and waiting for the opportune time or trying to play to markets a bit on rates, we decided let’s go ahead and do this deal because it eliminates the 17s. When I showed up in January, the big concern I had about this company was we had three walls of debt coming at us, we had a wall of debt in 17, we had a wall of high yield. That cost us 9%, that was coming at 18 and then we had to convert to 19. With the completion of this refinancing we’ve now once we redeem the ’17 to May eliminated the 17 wall, eliminated the 18 wall, as Terry pointed out we are on a good path for 19 wall. So all of that was important to us that we not get too cute on trying to play the rates. We were viewed as the strong credit which enabled us to go get this $700 million with increased flexibility. Another important thing in addition to avoiding the 17 by getting too cute was that the revolvers are difficult to replace in any market particularly this market and we came out with a very good outcome on the revolver. So in addition we extended the term of the revolver, we extended the term for the TLB and even after the higher suite with this $105 million to allocate to debt, equity and internal uses, so we would have preferred to have gotten more rates or hit the bottom of a market, but I think we were very well received which allowed us to raise a total of $900 million of debt in debt revolver in a very difficult market. And I’m actually very optimistic at this point about being able to get off our back foot and as a theme of my remarks was go from a – completely defensive mode to where we can play a little bit of offense. And we don’t need tons of liquidity. I mean our market cap is $310 million or so, so we don’t need tons of liquidity to make meaningful debt repurchases or common repurchases or investments in capital. And if you look at our $105 million with the new more flexible $200 million revolver and a cap that we already have on the balance sheet for working capital, we think our liquidity positions is now very strong relative to the opportunity sizes that we see in front of us. Ben Pham Okay, thanks for the color. And the only other thing I want to check on looking through the slides, the covenants in slide 27 specifically and it looks like you expected to I guess get down to 4.25 times leverage here at about 6 today, does that contemplate any change in PPA re-contracting rates or you feel like you are factoring that in, but maybe there’s some positive offsets that looks like you think the 80% debt profit today look likes it’s [indiscernible] what you are seeing in this year. You can add bit more color there. Terry Ronan So it does assume that in those numbers, but at a very conservative re-contracting assumption. Ben Pham Okay, so you are assuming some decline, but is that what you said? Terry Ronan Yes, that’s exactly what I said. Ben Pham Okay, all right. Thanks everybody. Terry Ronan Thank you. Operator [Operator Instructions] Showing no further questions, I would like to turn the conference back over to the management team for any closing remarks. Jim Moore Okay. Well, thank you for your time and attention today and your continued it interest in Atlantic Power. We look forward to updating you on our progress on our next conference call in August. Thank you. Operator Thank you. And everyone have a – today’s conference has now concluded. We thank you all for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect your lines and have a wonderful day. Copyright policy: All transcripts on this site are the copyright of Seeking Alpha. However, we view them as an important resource for bloggers and journalists, and are excited to contribute to the democratization of financial information on the Internet. (Until now investors have had to pay thousands of dollars in subscription fees for transcripts.) So our reproduction policy is as follows: You may quote up to 400 words of any transcript on the condition that you attribute the transcript to Seeking Alpha and either link to the original transcript or to www.SeekingAlpha.com. All other use is prohibited. THE INFORMATION CONTAINED HERE IS A TEXTUAL REPRESENTATION OF THE APPLICABLE COMPANY’S CONFERENCE CALL, CONFERENCE PRESENTATION OR OTHER AUDIO PRESENTATION, AND WHILE EFFORTS ARE MADE TO PROVIDE AN ACCURATE TRANSCRIPTION, THERE MAY BE MATERIAL ERRORS, OMISSIONS, OR INACCURACIES IN THE REPORTING OF THE SUBSTANCE OF THE AUDIO PRESENTATIONS. IN NO WAY DOES SEEKING ALPHA ASSUME ANY RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY INVESTMENT OR OTHER DECISIONS MADE BASED UPON THE INFORMATION PROVIDED ON THIS WEB SITE OR IN ANY TRANSCRIPT. 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American States Water’s (AWR) CEO Robert Sprowls on Q1 2016 Results – Earnings Call Transcript

American States Water Co. (NYSE: AWR ) Q1 2016 Earnings Conference Call May 5, 2016 2:00 PM ET Executives Eva Tang – Senior Vice President, Finance, Chief Financial Officer, Corporate Secretary and Treasurer Robert Sprowls – President and Chief Executive Officer Analysts Jonathan Reeder – Wells Fargo Richard Verdi – Ladenburg Thalmann Operator Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the American States Water Company Conference Call, discussing the company’s First Quarter 2016 Results. This call is being recorded. If you would like to listen to the replay of this call, it will begin this afternoon at approximately 5 PM Eastern Time and run through Thursday, May 12, 2016 on the company’s website, www.aswater.com. Besides that the company will be referring to are also available on the website. [Operator Instructions] After today’s presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. [Operator Instructions] This call will be limited to an hour. Presenting today from American States Water Company is Bob Sprowls, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Eva Tang, Chief Financial Officer. As a reminder, certain matters discussed during this conference call may be forward-looking statements intended to qualify for the Safe Harbor from liability established by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Please review a description of the company’s risks and uncertainties in our most recent Form 10-K and Form 10-Q on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, this conference call will include a discussion of certain measures that are not prepared in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles or GAAP in the United States and constitute non-GAAP financial measures under SEC rules. These non-GAAP financial measures are derived from consolidated financial information but are not presented in our financial statements that are prepared in accordance with GAAP. For more details, please refer to the press release. At this time, I will turn the call over to Eva Tang, Chief Financial Officer of American States Water Company. Eva Tang Thank you, Terry. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. In today’s call, I’ll review the company’s financial results for the first quarter, and Bob will discuss the liquidity and capital resources. Golden State Water’s pending rate case, California drought-related matters, and our contracted services business segment at American States Utility Services or ASUS. I’ll begin with an overview of our financial results. For the first quarter, diluted earnings were $0.28 per share, compared to $0.32 per share for the same period in 2015. Of the $0.28 per share earnings for the first quarter, $0.22 was from our water segment and our electric and contracted services segment each contributed $0.03. Net income for the quarter was $10.2 million compared to $12.1 million for the first quarter last year. I’ll discuss major items that impacted our revenues and expenses for the quarter. In the first quarter of 2016, water revenues decreased by $5.2 million to $66.3 million, as compared to the same period in 2015. As of today, Golden State Water has now received a decision on its pending water general rate case, which will set new rates for 2016 through 2018. The revenue requirements for 2016, once the CPUC issues a final decision on the current GRC are expected to be lower than the 2015 adopted levels. Major items impact – impacting the decrease in revenue requirements for 2016, includes a significant increase in supply costs caused by lower consumption, much lower depreciation expense resulting from an updated depreciation study filed with the rate case, and decreases in other operating expenses, due to the company’s improvement in operating efficiency. As a result of anticipated reduction in the 2016 revenue level, we adjusted our water revenues downward by $5.8 million for the three months ended March 31, 2016, with corresponding decreases to supply cost, depreciation, and other operating expenses to reflect the sale of the position with with CPUC’s Office of Ratepayer Advocates. The adjustments to 2016 recorded while revenue also reflects Golden State Water’s position on litigate the capital budget and compensation-related issue in the pending GRC. These adjustment did not have a significant impact to pre-tax operating income for the first quarter of 2016. As the overall reduction in the water gross margin is mostly offset by the lower depreciation and other operating expenses, partially offsetting this decrease in water revenue, where rate increases generated by advice letter filing for capital projects approved by the CPUC in 2015. Revenue for electric operations for the quarter were $10.6 million as compared to $11 million for the same period in 2015. The decrease was primarily due to determination July 2015, of a supply surcharge to recover previously incurred energy costs. The decrease in revenues from this surcharge totaled approximately $700,000 for the quarter and was offset by corresponding decrease in supply costs, resulting a no impact to pre-tax operating income. The decrease in electric revenue were partially offset by CPUC approved fourth year rate increases for 2016, and the rate increases generated from advice letters for capital projects approved by the CPUC during 2015. Revenues for our contracted services business, ASUS decreased $1.8 million to $16.6 million for the quarter. The decrease in revenue was due to lower construction work in the first quarter of this year, driven largely by the timing of engineering and bidding activities. Construction activity is expected to increase in the remainder of 2016, as compared to the first quarter of 2016. The decrease in construction work was partially offset by increase in management fee revenues, as a result of successful resolutions on price redetermination received during the third quarter of 2015. As mentioned previously for the first quarter of 2016, the water segments gross margin was adjusted for both lower revenue and lower supply costs in articulated position in the pending water rate case. Our water and electric supply costs were $17.6 million, a decrease of $4.4 million for the first quarter of 2016. Any changes in supply costs for both the water and electric segments as compared to this office supply costs are tracked in balancing account, which will be recovered from always subject to our customers in the future. Other operating expenses increased by $806,000 for the first quarter of 2016, due primarily to outside service costs at electric segment, in response to power outages caused by severe winter storm experienced in January. In addition, there was an increase in conservation and drought-related costs and higher wages. Administrative and general expenses for the first quarter of 2016 were $20.8 million, as compared to $19.5 million for the same period in 2015. The increase was mainly due to higher legal and outside service costs at water segment incurred on the condemnation matters due to this first quarter. Depreciation and amortization expense decreased by $757,000, due primarily to the reduction in composite rate is related [ph] in the pending water GRC resulting from updated depreciation study. As discussed earlier, the lower depreciation had also been reflected in the lower water revenue. The decrease was partially offset by an increase at both the water and the electric segments due to additions to utility plant during 2015. Maintenance expense increased by $593,000, due to a higher level of maintenance performed in 2016 at a water segment. ASUS’s construction expense decreased by $1.3 million to $8.7 million during the first quarter of 2016, as compared to the same period in 2015, due primarily to a reduction in construction activity, as mentioned previously, again, we expect the construction activity will increase during the remainder of 2016 as compared to the first quarter of 2016. Interest expense increased to $5.6 million for the first quarter of 2016, as compared to the $5.2 million for the same period in 2015. This was due largely to capitalize the interest recorded at water segment during Q1 of 2015, resulting from the approval of an additional allowance for funds used during construction from advice letter filings. There was no similar filing during the first quarter of 2016. Income tax expense decreased by – $2.1 million to $5.8 million, driven by a decrease in pretax income, and lower overall effective income tax rate. This slide show the ETS bridge by business segment, comparing the first quarter of this year with the first quarter of 2015. For more details, please refer to the press release. With that, I’ll turn the call over to Bob. Robert Sprowls Thank you, Eva. I appreciate everyone joining us today. Moving on to Liquidity and Capital Resources, net cash provided by operating activities for the quarter, decreased by $10.9 million to $27.6 million as compared to the first quarter of 2015. The decrease in operating cash flow was primarily due to a reduction in cash generated by contracted services, due to the timing of billing and cash receipts for construction work at military basis during the three months ended March 31, 2016. There was also a decrease in customer water usage for Golden State Water, increasing the Water Revenue Adjustment Mechanism or WRAM regulatory assets. We implemented surcharges in March to recover our net WRAM balances for 2015. In addition, tax payments during the three months ended March 31, 2015 were lower, due enlarge part to the implementation of the tax repair regulation. In regard to Golden State Water’s capital expenditures, we are pleased with our first quarter spending of $29 million on company funded capital work. Our water and electric utilities continue to invest and maintain and improve the reliability of our systems. Our capital investment program in the critical factor in delivering consistent high quality services to our customers. We are on track to invest $85 million to $95 million in capital projects during 2016, which may change somewhat once the decision issued by the CPUC on the pending water rate case. In addition, Standard & Poor’s rating services recently affirmed an eight plus credit rating on both American States Water Company and Golden State Water Company. S&P also affirm the stable reading outlook on both companies. You were pleased with the affirmation as these ratings are some of the highest in the U.S. Water Utility Industry. While we continue to produce solid financial results in the first quarter performance was impacted by higher outside services and legal costs at our water segment, encouraged to defend ourselves against condemnation related actions and lower construction activity at our contracted services segment. However, we do expect construction activity at ASUS to increase during the next few quarters. In addition, we still wait to CPUC decision on our water rate case for years 2016 through 2018. As we discussed in previous quarters, we filed our general rate case in mid 2014 for all of our water regions and general office. The application will determine in rates charge to customers for the years 2016, 2017 and 2018. Golden State Water has settled with the CPUC’s Office of Ratepayer Advocates and nearly all of the company’s operating expenses, as well as the consumption levels used to calculate rates for 2016 through 2018, which reflect the State mandated in conservation targets. The primary litigated issues relate to our capital budget requests and compensation for managerial level employees. There are not certain win in 2016, the final decision will be issued. Once issued, rates will be retroactive to January 1, 2016. As Eva mentioned earlier, adopted revenues for 2016 are expected to be lower then the 2015 adopted levels. As you may know, a big part of the utilities revenue requirement is the recovery of projected expenses. By projected expenses for 2016 in the rate case were lower than the 2015 adopted expense levels. In particular, there was a decrease in supply costs, resulting from lower consumption projected, lower depreciation expense resulting from a new study and decreased in other operating expenses in 2016 through 2018 rate case cycle, due to our cost control efforts and improvement in operation efficiency. Because of the company’s efforts, we were able to propose significant increases in our capital investment with little to know effect on rates. As a reminder, we have also received approval by the CPUC to defer our electric general rate case and the cost of capital proceeding by one additional year. Both will now be filed in 2017. In regard to the drought situation in California, in February, the State Water Resources Control Board extended the governor of California’s executive order in possessing mandatory restrictions through October 31, 2016. In addition, the State Board amended the required reductions allowing limited allowances or warmer climate regions increased population growth as well as credit for certain drought resilient water supply investment. Currently all, but one of our water systems has met the revised conservation standards. Based on our drought response actions and customers conservation efforts to-date, we do not believe we will be subject to the State Board’s penalties for failure to implement a water shortage contingency plan. Golden State Water has been authorized by the CPUC to track incremental drought related costs, incurred in a memorandum account for possible future recovery. We are in the process of preparing to file for recovery of drought related items of $1.3 million incurred mostly in 2015. Incremental of drought related costs expensed until recovery is approved by the CPUC. Lastly as of April 26 of this year, the U.S. drought monitor estimate 70% – 74% of California in the rank of severe drought. This is down from 86% reported at the end of February. Increased rainfall and higher snow pack levels over the last few months that help the drought situation. Turning to our contracted services business that ASUS, construction activity in the first quarter, a year was lower due largely to the timing of engineering and bidding activity on both renewal and replacement and new capital upgrade work. We believe construction activity will pickup during the next few quarters. We are still projecting an EPS contribution from ASUS of $0.28 to $0.32 per share for 2016. As discussed with you during our year end call. We continue to work closely with U.S. government on outstanding price redeterminations. We expect the fourth quarter price redetermination for forklift to be finalize in the second quarter of 2016 and the third price redetermination for the brag to be finalized during the third quarter of 2016. Filings for these price redeterminations requests for equitable adjustment and contract modifications awarded for new projects provide ASUS with additional revenues and margin and the opportunity to consistently generate positive earnings. We also continue to work closely with the U.S. government or contract modifications we are waiting to potential capital upgrade work as deemed necessary for improvement of the water and waste water infrastructure at military basis. In additional we are actively engaged in new proposals and expect the U.S. government to release additional bases for bidding over the next several years. We’ve remain optimistic about the future of our contracted services business. Finally, I would like to turn our attention to dividends. On Monday of this week, our Board of Directors approved the second quarter dividend of $0.224 per share on the Common Shares of the company. Dividends on the Common Shares will be payable on June 1, to shareholders of record at the close of business on May 18. American States Water Company has paid dividends every year since 1931, increasing the dividends received by shareholders each calendar year for 61 consecutive years. We are among less than a handful of companies on the New York Stock Exchange that can both of such a level of dividend increase. For the five years ended December 31, 2015, our calendar year dividend has grown at a compound annual growth rate of about a 11%, given American States current low payout ratio compared to our peers and our earnings growth prospects, there is room to grow the dividend in the future. I’d like to thank you for your interest in American States Water, and we’ll now turn the call over to the operator for questions. Question-and-Answer Session Operator We will now take your questions. [Operator Instructions] We will begin with Jonathan Reeder with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead. Jonathan Reeder Hey, good morning, Bob and Eva. I guess, on the West Coast, it’s still the morning. But I know, Bob, in your prepared ASUS remarks, you didn’t seem to indicate that this is the case, however, your main competitor indicated, they expect the slowdown on construction projects during the remainder of the year, due to military budget constraints. Is this anything that you’re seeing or expecting? Robert Sprowls It is not. We – our projects are funded. The slowdown in the first quarter was largely due to the fact that we have to do the engineering and the bidding on the work that we have lined up. So, we’re expecting to really get the construction activity going here in the last three quarters of the year. Jonathan Reeder Okay. And I guess in the same vein you aren’t seen anything that would perhaps put downward pressure on the – the construction projects you would be awarded for the next one-year period in the fall this year? Robert Sprowls We haven’t seen that. I will tell you we have a lot of projects in front of the government for the upcoming year. We’ve done our – but I think there’s a really good job of scoping out a lot of projects and getting that in front of the decision-makers at the military. So far we haven’t got the indication that we’re going to see a slowdown. Jonathan Reeder Okay. And then, I think, previously you said final GRC decision was likely in Q2. Are you implying that it slips further into the year now or just not really sure? Robert Sprowls Yes, we’re just –we’re not really sure. We do know that the judge that’s on our case has a couple of cases ahead of this. And hopefully, you will get through those. I think is on the simper case and you probably know. Jonathan Reeder Okay. That’s fair enough. Robert Sprowls We’re confident on it, maybe, but our sense is that that may come out before ours does. And so, we don’t want to get everyone’s sort of hopes up. And so, I understand the ALJs are a bit understaffed at this point. And so, they’re being challenged to do a lot of decisions. So we’re trying to be patient with them. Jonathan Reeder Sure. Okay. And then I don’t know, if you can go into a little more detail, but what do you think Golden State Water and ORA weren’t able to see eye-to-eye on CapEx levels, because it kind of looks like, the request of about $90 million a year of annual spend wasn’t all that different from the amount that you’ve expanded over the 2013 to 2015 period? Robert Sprowls Yes, we were quite surprised that, particularly given the situation where we weren’t asking for, in fact, in many rate making areas, it was a revenue requirement – small revenue requirement decrease. As you know, that’s ORA’s role is to work hard to kind of reduce your request and that’s what they are doing in this case. So I understand other – some of our other colleagues at other companies are having similar issues though. So we are – we went to litigation on our entire capital budget and we think we put in a – put on a very good chase and hopefully the judge will recognize that. Jonathan Reeder Was there, I mean, were there any projects in there that were kind of unusual or different than the spend that you’ve been, I guess, undertaken in the past few years, or was it all similar type of spend? Robert Sprowls Yes, really there weren’t really any out of the ordinary type project. So I think our spend historically had been, I wanted to say, $70 million to $75 million range. And so, we came in and asked for 90 and thought that was a reasonable request, particularly given the need to do pipe replacement and reduce unaccounted for in the State, so we’re – the company’s decision was to take our risk with the ALJ and the commission. So it was quite surprising to us to be honest, because for a company to come in with a flat rate request and then to have ORA push back on it is substantially just a little bit of a head scratcher. But sometimes either a function of the analyst you get at ORA on your capital projects. Eva Tang It’s not unusual, I think the differences between the company and ORA’s position. Robert Sprowls Yes, sure. Eva Tang The rate case we experienced before. So we’ll say that we’ve made a good showing of the need for the project and provide the solid support, as Bob mentioned. So we will see hopefully judge will see that. Jonathan Reeder Okay. And then last question, I’ll hop out. What do you expect 2016 drought expenses will be in? Robert Sprowls Just for the calendar year 2016? Jonathan Reeder Yes. Yes, just trying to get an idea of, I mean, I think you said you’re going to be filing for a little over million dollars of recovery from previous expenses. And our understanding is those, I guess, get turned around pretty quickly, kind of, like a 90-day period. So how that would, if that’s going to offset whatever your drought expenses would be this year? Robert Sprowls I definitely expect it to offset whatever drought expenses we have this year. Jonathan Reeder Okay. Robert Sprowls These are – we are not adding to the account as much as we did in 2015, as we are getting our arms around the whole thing, so… Jonathan Reeder Okay. So the heavy lifting is kind of over on that and just stay in the course, I guess? Robert Sprowls Yes, I know we still have additional costs associated with notifying customers and making sure that everybody is completely up to speed. But I wouldn’t expect the expense to be – I would expect them to be less than they were in 2015. Eva Tang And, Jonathan, Bob mentioned that we are going to file about $1.3 million scholars job for all related costs for 2014 and 2015 pretty shortly. So once that got approved, for accounting we have a reason to book our drought-related costs to a balance sheet as a regulatory act on that point on. So not only will get recover reverse expense we booked before and also we will probably reverse what we booked to-date to the reg act, so that’s a point. Robert Sprowls Yes, good point, Eva. Eva Tang Yes. Robert Sprowls Once you’ve done it, once you’ve then can – you’ve convinced the accountants that it’s going to happen again. Eva Tang Yes, it’s a probable [Multiple Speakers] Robert Sprowls Programs recurring [ph.] Jonathan Reeder All right. Well, I appreciate the additional clarity. Robert Sprowls Yes, thank you, Jonathan. Operator Our next question comes from Richard Verdi of Ladenburg. Please go ahead. Richard Verdi Hi, Bob and Eva, how are you guys doing? Robert Sprowls We’re doing good. Eva Tang Good, good. Thank, Verdi. Richard Verdi Good, here you go. I just wanted to focus a real quick on ASUS here. At least in my view that $0.28 to $0.38 or $0.32 guidance is kind of wide. Bob, can you give me some sort of idea of what you see maybe swinging closer to the top versus to the bottom? And also, is there any chance that that figure could be outperformed on the outside? Robert Sprowls Sure. Yes, so the amount of construction that we do will dictate how well we do within that range. Additionally, we do have some price redetermination request and there is – though nothing like we’ve had in the past, there is some retroactivity to that, which could push us more to the upper end or slightly above the upper end. So it’s – that’s about as good – good a range as we can give at this point. I know you would like to see it a little tighter, but that that’s as good as we can do. Richard Verdi Okay, sure. And then on the proceeded new contracts, and I understand that for competition sake you need to keep the commentary somewhat limited, but we’ve been pursuing contracts here for a few years and of course there is going to be as you mentioned some new contracts or I should say new basis being option to you in the next few years? I’m wondering can you give us a sense of maybe how deep you are in negotiations on maybe some of these contracts that you’ve been pursuing for so many years. Robert Sprowls Well, I will tell you and it probably doesn’t completely speak to your question. But we view this business as a real important part of our business going forward. We’ve institutionalized our response to RFPs and we’re working through the process. But I will tell, Richard, there was one contract that – then I took five years. So it’s something you have to have a lot of patience for and our company does and so you got to hang in there until you can get it across the finish line. So we are at various stages I would say on some of the contracts. Richard Verdi Okay, that’s great color. It’s actually great, thank you. And then the last question is this, if you look at some of the legislation, it’s been past couple of years as I say, it’s been very favorable for the privatization movement and you guys obviously do a good job, managing the company there. Any thought about pursuing a growth acquisition strategy and really trying to move outside account one year. Robert Sprowls Are you talking about from the utilities – on the utility side… Richard Verdi Yes, for the water side. Yes, for the water side. Robert Sprowls Yes, sure. We look at that and of course the things that we look at is that a favorable regulatory environment and to the degree there are businesses for sale in those particular states, we of course will look at that. And I’ll tell you though when those things due come up for sales. There is lot of folks that like that business. So it becomes a pretty competitive process and we’re not afraid of that. It’s just – you’ve got a look at these situations and make sure there is enough scale to attract you. You recall, Rich and this may have been a little bit before your time we sold our business in Arizona. That was largely because of the commission in Arizona. And it didn’t make sense for us to continue to spend all the time that we had on a 13,000 customer business there. However, if there is other businesses for sales and other states that have fair regulatory environment, we’re definitely considered those. Richard Verdi Okay, that’s great. Okay. I guess that’s it for me, thank you. I appreciate the time guys. Robert Sprowls Thanks, Rich. Eva Tang Thank you. Operator And this concludes our question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Bob Sprowls for any closing remarks. Robert Sprowls Yes, I just want to close today by thanking everyone for their continued interest in American States Water and wish you everybody a good. Operator This concludes today’s American States Water Company conference call. You may now disconnect your lines. Have a great day. Copyright policy: All transcripts on this site are the copyright of Seeking Alpha. However, we view them as an important resource for bloggers and journalists, and are excited to contribute to the democratization of financial information on the Internet. (Until now investors have had to pay thousands of dollars in subscription fees for transcripts.) So our reproduction policy is as follows: You may quote up to 400 words of any transcript on the condition that you attribute the transcript to Seeking Alpha and either link to the original transcript or to www.SeekingAlpha.com. All other use is prohibited. THE INFORMATION CONTAINED HERE IS A TEXTUAL REPRESENTATION OF THE APPLICABLE COMPANY’S CONFERENCE CALL, CONFERENCE PRESENTATION OR OTHER AUDIO PRESENTATION, AND WHILE EFFORTS ARE MADE TO PROVIDE AN ACCURATE TRANSCRIPTION, THERE MAY BE MATERIAL ERRORS, OMISSIONS, OR INACCURACIES IN THE REPORTING OF THE SUBSTANCE OF THE AUDIO PRESENTATIONS. IN NO WAY DOES SEEKING ALPHA ASSUME ANY RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY INVESTMENT OR OTHER DECISIONS MADE BASED UPON THE INFORMATION PROVIDED ON THIS WEB SITE OR IN ANY TRANSCRIPT. USERS ARE ADVISED TO REVIEW THE APPLICABLE COMPANY’S AUDIO PRESENTATION ITSELF AND THE APPLICABLE COMPANY’S SEC FILINGS BEFORE MAKING ANY INVESTMENT OR OTHER DECISIONS. 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