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SJW Corp (SJW) CEO Richard Roth on Q2 2015 Results – Earnings Call Transcript

SJW Corp (NYSE: SJW ) Q2 2015 Earnings Conference Call July 30, 2015 13:00 ET Executives Suzy Papazian – General Counsel Richard Roth – Chairman, President & CEO James Lynch – CFO Analysts Michael Gaugler – Janney Montgomery Operator Welcome to the SJW Corp. Second Quarter 2015 Financial Results Call. [Operator Instructions]. I would now like to introduce your host for today’s conference Suzy Papazian, General Counsel. Please go ahead. Suzy Papazian Thanks Operator. Welcome to the second quarter 2015 financial results conference call for SJW Corp. Presenting today are Richard Roth, Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer; and James Lynch, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin today’s presentation, I would like to remind you that yesterday’s press release and this presentation may contain forward-looking statements. These statements are based on estimates and assumptions made by the company in void [ph] it’s experience, it’s circle trends, current conditions and expected future development as well as other factors that the company believes are appropriate under the circumstances. Many factors could cause the company’s actual results and performance to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. For description of some of the factors that could cause actual results to be different from statements in the presentation, we refer you to the press release and to our most recent Form 10-K and 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, copies of which may be obtained at www.sjwcorp.com All forward-looking statements are made as of today, and SJW Corp. disclaims any duty to update or revise such statements. You will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the presentation. As a reminder, this webcast is being recorded and an archive of the webcast will be available until October 26, 2015. You can access the press release and the webcast at our corporate website. I will now turn the call over to Rich. Richard Roth Thank you, Suzy. Welcome everyone and thank you for joining us. On the call with me today are Jim Lynch, our Chief Financial Officer and our Palle Jensen, our Senior Vice President of Regulatory Affairs. SJWs second quarter performance reflected lower usage as a result of water use restrictions imposed due to the California drought, while San Jose water company continues to provide high quality and reliable water service the company has as required by the California Public Utility Commission implemented a drought contingency plan that includes water allocations and drought surcharges for only the second time in the company’s 149 year history. San Jose, water company drought contingency plan established it’s monthly allocation for residential and landscape customers based upon 2013 average use less 30%. The reduction requested by the Santa Clara Valley Water District, Santa Clara counties water resource management agency. In contrast the drought in Texas is officially over as a result of record rainfall in 2015 that helped refill parched reservoirs and aquifers [ph]. SW, Texas [ph] our Texas water utility continues to experience robust organic customer growth since it’s acquisition in 2006 SJWTX has grown from approximately 7000 to 12000 connections owing to an aggressive acquisition program and strong organic customer growth. The pace of organic growth continues to accelerate with June marking a single month record for new connections with strong customer growth, a robust portfolio water supplies and rates in place at least for 2017, we’re pleased with this small but growing part of our SJW. San Jose Water Company’s 2015 general rate case application continues to be processed by the CPUC. Evidentiary hearings to address all remaining unsettled issues took place in June and we expect the timely decision that will establish new rates for 2016 through 2018. In the event of the timely decision is not received San Jose Water Company has filed to activate the interim rate mechanism that would provide the company with interim rate relief, retroactive to January 1st, 2016. Jim Lynch will now discuss more detail, SJW second quarter and year-to-date results as well as other financial matters. After Jim’s remarks I will provide additional information on our regulatory filings and other key operational and business matters. Jim? James Lynch Net income for the quarter was 7.5 million or $0.36 per diluted share. This compares to 6.8 million and $0.34 per diluted share for the second quarter of 2014, year-to-date net income was 12.2 million or $0.59 per diluted share compared to 7.8 million or $0.38 per diluted share for the same period in 2014. Second quarter revenue increased to $72.4 million, a 3% increase over the second quarter of 2014 and for the first six months of 2015 revenue was a 134.5 million or an 8% increase over the first six months of 2014. Our quarterly and year-to-date results reflect the impact of new rates authored by the California Public Utilities Commission last August. The rate increases contributed $11.8 million in new revenue in the second quarter and 20.8 million year-to-date. In addition year-to-date results include 1.9 million an additional first quarter revenue related to the California Commissions decision on the effective date of our 2014 rates. Second quarter and year-to-date results also reflect the impact of lower usage in our California service area as a result of drought related conservation activities. As Rick mentioned the Santa Clara Valley Water District said it’s 2015 water usage target at 30% below 2013 usage levels. This was followed by the CPUCs authorization in June of 2015 to activate San Jose water companies water shortage contingency plan that includes mandatory usage reductions and drought surcharges. Overall customer usage declined 13% in the second quarter resulting in a $9.3 million reduction in revenue compared to the second quarter of 2014. Year-to-date customer usage declined 10% resulting in a $13.2 million revenue reduction compared to the same period in the prior year. Compared to 2013, our usage in our California service area is down approximately 23% through the first six months of 2015. The water shortage contingency plan provides for the establishment of a drought memorandum account to track drought surcharges. Amounts collected in the account will be used to offset future amounts recorded in the company’s mandatory conservation revenue adjustment account or MCRAM, recall that the MCRAM was established to track revenue shortfalls along with the mandatory conservation memorandum account or MCMA account to track operational and administrative cost associated with implementing the water district 2015 and 2014 conservation goals. In March of 2015, the company filed it’s first filing under the MCRAM for the recovery of approximately 9.6 million in authorized revenue lost due to conservation net of the MCMA accounts. The filing covered amount accumulated in the accounts from March 31st 2014 through December 31, 2014. The company will recognize amounts requested in the filing net of certain supply cost balances once collection is authorized by the CPUC. We anticipate authorization will occur during the second half of the year. Future amounts accumulated in the accounts will be recognized once recovery or refund is determined to be probable. The drought memorandum account MCRAM and MCMA will remain in effect until state order drought water restrictions are lifted. Turning to water production second quarter operating results benefited from the use of approximately 550 million gallons of surface water from San Jose Water Company’s Lake [indiscernible]. This compares to less than 60 million gallons used in the second quarter of 2014. Through the first six months of 2015, we used 1.5 billion gallons compared to 92 million gallons in the same period of 2014. The increased surface water supply resulted in a $1.2 million reduction in water production expenses for the quarter and 3.3 million year-to-date. We do not anticipate any meaningful benefit from surface water supplies through the remainder of 2015. Production cost also benefited from lower usage in both our California and Texas service areas. In California due to the drought and in Texas due to higher than normal rainfall experienced in our service area during the first half of the year. As a result of this drought and usage we experienced lower production cost of 7.4 million for the quarter and 8.9 million year-to-date. This benefit was partially offset by the impact of increases in purchase water expense and ground water production charges of 2.3 million for the quarter and 3.8 million year-to-date. Non-production operating expenses included an 800,000 increase for the quarter and $1.6 million increase year-to-date in pension cost. The increase was driven primarily as a result of the decline in the discount rate from December 31, 2013 to December 31, 2014 and new mortality table is used to calculate the expense. In addition both the quarter and year-to-date include higher cost incurred in connection with our 2015 California general rate case and conservation activities in our California service area. Another point of note in the second quarter of 2014 the company recorded a $2 million gain on the sale of certain investment securities and a $880,000 tax benefit on the recognition of enterprise owned tax credits. No similar amounts were recorded in 2015. Turning to our capital expenditure program we added approximately 21 million in utility plant during the second quarter which brings our 2015 total to $37 million or approximately 30% of our 2015 utility plant capital expenditures including our Montevina plant retrofit project we are on target to add approximately a $125 million in utility plant in 2015 growing rate base in both our California and Texas service areas. From a liquidity perspective year-to-date cash flows from operations increased by approximately $20 million or 80% due in large part to higher income and the collection of a $6 million income tax receivable that was generated at the end of 2014. In addition we experienced a $6 million benefit from the collection of true-up revenue recognized in 2014 in connection with our 2012 California rate case decision. We recall that $46.5 million in net true-up revenue is being collected over a 36 month period that commenced in October of 2014. At the end of the quarter we had $76.8 million available under our bank lines of credit for short term financing of utility plant additions in operating activities. The borrowing rate on credit line advances during the second quarter averaged 1.5%. With that I will stop and turn the call back over to Rich. Richard Roth Thank you, Jim. In response to the governor’s and the state water resources control board’s mandatory state wide reduction of 25% for urban water systems. On May 11, 2015 San Jose Water Company filed with CPUC to activate schedule 14.1, an allocation based “water shortage contingency plan with staged mandatory reductions and drought surcharges.” Based upon a 30% reduction from 2013 usage. The activation of schedule 14.1 allowed San Jose Water Company to comply with current CPUC requirements and align restrictions with those mandated by local government agencies thus achieving greater consistency and limiting customer confusion. Although Governor Brown’s executive order caused for a state-wide 25% water reduction, the 30% requested by the Santa Clara Water District the regions water resource management agency more appropriately reflects local water supply conditions. Schedule 14.1 was approved by the CPUCs water division and became effective on June 14th. Subsequent to the approval the office of [indiscernible] advocates requested a review of San Jose Water Company’s drought contingency plan as they did with other Class A water utilities drought contingency plans. Our review request requires the water division to issue a resolution finding the program just and reasonable and we will be subject to approval by the full commission. CPUC action on RAs request will likely not occur until late August at the earliest and until that time the program remains in place as adopted. As you mentioned we have in place the mandatory conservation revenue adjustment memorandum account or MCRAM to track revenue lost due to reduced customer usage resulting from formal declaration of water conservation requirements. This memorandum account provides a high degree of assurance that any loss of revenue, net of production cost resulting from mandatory conservation rules may be required through an [indiscernible] at such time that the memorandum account balance exceeds 2% of annual authorized revenue requirement. Additionally drought surcharges collected under schedule 14.1 will be credited to the loss revenue memorandum account to offset revenues shortfalls associated with reduced water usage. Drought surcharges in excess of lost sales will ultimately be refunded to customers after the drought in the manner authorized by the CPUC. The net effect of the MCRAM is that servicing water company has a strong revenue protection for sales loss due to the drought and related mandatory conservation rules. Both the California and Texas droughts have increased public awareness of the need for investments necessary to ensure adequate, reliable water supply, as well as the need to replace aging infrastructure. San Jose Water Company and SJW have been industry leader in making necessary and prudent investments in utility plan. SJW’s capital improvement plans is approved by the CPUC and the Public Utility Commission of Texas provided necessary rates to support investments totaling $108 million and rate based capital expenditures in 2015. These prudent capital outlays will replace mains, wells, reservoirs, and other critical infrastructure. To further emphasize this important point, SJW has from 2010 through June 30, 2015, and thus approximately $471 million in utility plan. Furthermore, SJW expects to invest subject to regulatory approval, an additional $662 million as part of our core capital improvement programs for 2015 throughout 2019 to ensure our water systems continue to deliver safe reliable and high quality water service to our customers. These investments directly correlate to an increase in rate base, the earnings for investor owned utilities. Additionally, in July, San Jose Water Company signed a definitive agreement to rebuild the Montevina Water Treatment Plant by employing a progressive design build approach along for operational flexibility. The company will be able to continue to optimize the use of available surface water during construction. Rate recovery is processed via annual advise set of filings and through completion in 2017. This project is on track to add a total of $62 million to utility plan. Structural water supply challenges are requiring SJW to quickly and effectively adapt to new mandates in usage patterns. SJW recognizes the critical need to engage in farm customers and other stakeholders of these mandates, how conservation efforts impact rates and the value of water. To that end, San Jose Water Company is executing a comprehensive customer communications program that speaks to these needs via a variety of communication platforms. Web based communications offer an effective and efficient tool to deliver timely and relevant customer information. San Jose Water Company is now six weeks into its draft contingency plan and we are pleased with the positive impacts our enhanced communication efforts are producing. San Jose Water Company recognizes that it is widely important to deliver exceptional customer service at all times, especially during the drought when we have asked our customers to increase their conservation efforts. Accordingly, we are continually analyzing and refining our business processes to find the resources required to comply with hiding regulatory oversight, address structural water supply challenges and continue to provide excellent water services at a reasonable price. Although there may be some regulatory lag in receiving final authorization to collect revenue due to loss sales, I believe SJW will emerge from the drought a better and stronger company, both financially and operationally. In dealing with the current drought, SJW has been forced to be operationally more flexible and innovative switching between various water supplies adapting to different levels of search water quality and effectively operating our water systems in widely varying conditions. Additionally, SJW recognizes that customer communication must now be a core competency. We are clearly on our way to building a first class customer communications function using multiple communication modalities. We are also making significant progress in increasing the speed and efficiency of customers interactions. Digital transactions now comprise the vast majority of all transactions at SJW. In summary, SJW are much from our experiences dealing with the drought which has furthered our capabilities to succeed and transfer demanding and difficult business and regulatory environments. Our systems are efficient and in good conditions, our investments have been prudent, and our business model is intelligent and durable. Over the long haul, SJW should continue to enjoy sustained growth and profitability, earnings and dividends for our shareholders. With that, I will turn the call back to the operator for questions. Question-and-Answer Session Operator Thank you. [Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from Michael Gaugler from Janney Montgomery. Your line is now open, please go ahead. Michael Gaugler Good morning, everyone. Richard Roth Good morning, Michael. Michael Gaugler Rich, something you didn’t really touch on and I guess it’s probably just because of the drought, is the real estate operations. And I want to appreciate an update there on what you’re thinking in terms of that line of the business? Richard Roth Sure. Michael, we’re in the process of gradually getting out of the business of real estate. We have some properties that are already in the process of being marketed and sold, and other ones for variety of reasons would be sold over the course of time. I think the critical factor here is just when the market is right, we don’t have to sell these assets but we will sell those assets when the market is right and when an attractive offer comes along. So, we think that the proceeds from the real estate will likely be reinvested in utility plan. We think that’s our core competency and so we’ll be gradually moving out of that business. Michael Gaugler Okay. That’s all I have. Thanks, Rich. Richard Roth Thanks. Operator Thank you. [Operator Instructions] And I’m not showing any further questions at this time. I would now turn the call back to management for any closing remarks. Richard Roth Thank you, and thank you everyone for listening. And we look forward to talking to you at the end of the third quarter. 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IDACORP’s (IDA) CEO Darrel Anderson on Q2 2015 Results – Earnings Call Transcript

IDACORP, Inc. (NYSE: IDA ) Q2 2015 Earnings Conference Call July 30, 2015 4:30 pm ET Executives Lawrence Spencer – Director of Investor Relations Darrel Anderson – President and Chief Executive Officer Steve Keen – Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer Analysts Paul Ridzon – KeyBanc Ashar Khan – Visium Asset Management Brian Russo – Ladenburg Thalmann Operator Welcome to IDACORP’s Second Quarter 2015 Conference Call. Today’s call is being recorded and webcast live. A complete replay will be available from the end of the day for a period of 12 months on the company’s website at www.idacorpinc.com. [Operator Instructions] At this time, I’d like to turn the call over to IDACORP’s Director of Investor Relations, Mr. Lawrence Spencer. Please go ahead. Lawrence Spencer Thank you, Liz, and good afternoon everyone. As you’ve probably seen, we issued our earnings release and Form 10-Q before the markets opened today. They’re both posted to the IDACORP website. We will be using a few slides to supplement today’s call, and you can also find those on our website. We’ll refer to those slides as we work our way through today’s presentation. On today’s call we have Darrel Anderson, IDACORP’s President and Chief Executive Officer, and Steve Keen, IDACORP’s Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. We also have other individuals available to help answer your questions during the Q&A period. Before turning the presentation over to Steve, I’ll cover our Safe Harbor statement on Slide 3. Our presentation today will include forward-looking statements. While these forward-looking statements represent the current judgment or opinion of what the future holds, these statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from statements made today. So we caution you against placing undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Some of the factors and events that could cause future results to differ materially from those included in forward-looking statements are listed on Slide 3 and included in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which we encourage you to review. On Slide 4, we present our quarterly and year-to-date financial results. IDACORP’s second quarter 2015 earnings per diluted share were $1.31, an increase of $0.42 per share from last year’s second quarter. For the first six months of 2015, earnings per diluted share were $1.78, $0.35 greater than the same period in 2014. I’ll now turn it over to Steve to discuss the results in greater detail and review our 2015 key operating metrics. Steve Keen Thanks, Larry, and good afternoon everyone. On Slide 5 we show a reconciliation of earnings from second quarter 2014 to second quarter 2015. As you can see, net income over the period increased $21.6 million. This was largely due to improved retail sales volumes, the impact of the fixed cost adjusted or FCA methodology change and the tax benefit of an income tax deductible make-whole premium from Idaho Power’s recent first mortgage bond redemption. The heat wave in our service territory this June combined with dry spring weather resulted in recorded second quarter energy sales. The hot temperatures increased loads for air conditioning and the dry weather increased irrigation pump usage. As a result, operating income increased by $7.8 million. Changes to the FCA mechanism which were approved by the Idaho Public Utilities Commission in the second quarter were retroactive to January 01, 2015. Idaho Power recorded a $7.4 million benefit in the second quarter for the retroactive application of the FCA mechanism change to the first quarter. The calculations under the revised mechanism use sales associated with actual weather conditions as opposed to normalized weather condition under the prior mechanism. During this year’s second quarter, normal temperatures grow greater sales resulting in a $1.7 million decrease in FCA revenues compared to 2014. To help you understand the operation and potential future impact of the revised FCA mechanism which is now sensitive to weather conditions, we have included a discussion in the MD&A section of the 10-Q that we filed today. Customer growth increased revenues by $2.9 million as our customer account grew by 1.7%, also the $7.2 million decrease in income tax expense benefited this quarter’s earnings. As stated on our first quarter earnings release conference call, this resulted from the flow through tax benefit of the make-whole premium Idaho Power paid for the early redemption of first mortgage bonds originally due in 2018 but redeemed this quarter. The combination of these items resulted in a strong second quarter financial results we believe that positions the company well going into the second half of 2015. Moving now to slide 6, we show IDACORP’s operating cash flows for the first six months of 2015 and the comparable period in 2014 along with the liquidity positions at June 30. Cash flow from operations for this year’s first six months was $171 million, an increase of $8 million over the same period last year. Cash flows increased as a result of an $18 million increase in net income as well as from increased coal sales of Bridger coal company for the first six months of 2015, which resulted in a $6 million increase in distributed cash. Decreases in cash flow of $3 million occurred due to changes in deferred taxes and changes in taxes accrued and receivable and the remaining $10 million reduction in cash flows resulted from changes in working capital items such as unbilled revenues and prepaid expenses. IDACORP and Idaho Power currently have in place credit facilities of $125 million and $300 million respectively to meet short term liquidity and operating requirements. The liquidity available under the credit facilities is shown on the bottom of slide 6. Also, there are 3 million IDACORP common shares available for issuance under IDACORP’s continuous equity program. No shares were issued during the second quarter and we do not expect to issue new equity during the remainder of 2015 except for modest amounts relating to employee compensation plan. Turning now to slide 7, we continue to estimate 2015 O&M between $340 million and $350 million and we do not expect to amortize any additional accumulated deferred investment tax credits this year under the Idaho settlement stipulation. The 2015 capital expenditure range for Idaho Power remains between $300 million and $310 million. With the recent rainfall, we are tightening upward our projected hydro electric generation range from 5 million to 7 million megawatt hours up to a range of 6 million to 7 million megawatt hours. Finally, we are increasing our 2015 IDACORP earnings per share guidance range from $3.65 to $3.80 per diluted share up to the range of $3.75 to $3.90 per diluted share primarily to reflect the earnings drivers I mentioned earlier. The upper end of our guidance range is slightly above the 10% Idaho return on year end equity threshold and reflects the potential that Idaho Power could once again share benefits with Idaho customers under the current Idaho regulatory settlement stipulation, gets that level as it takes. I’ll now turn the presentation over to Darrel. Darrel Anderson Thanks, Steve, and good afternoon. I want to start today by acknowledging the passing of Idaho Public Utilities Commissioner, Mack Redford. As some of you may know, commissioner Redford passed away on June 30 unexpectedly. The Public Utilities Commission and the State of Idaho have lost an outstanding public servant. Commissioner Redford had served on the commission since 2007 and he was a skilled, fair and thoughtful arbiter from the bench. The Governor of Idaho C. L. Butch Otter announced today that Marsha Smith, a long-time Commissioner for the IPUC, will be re-appointed on an interim basis. In his announcement, he noted that her appointment will be effective immediately and will expire on January 15, 2016. At that time, a new commissioner will be appointed to replace her, pending Idaho Senate confirmation. Marsha Smith served as a Commissioner for 24 years before retiring last February. The two sitting commissioners both have a long history with the Idaho Commission and a deep background in utility issues. Commissioner Paul Kjellander has been a Commissioner since 2011 and previously was Commissioner from 1999 until 2007. Commissioner Kristine Raper served seven years as a Deputy Attorney General at the IPUC before her recent appointment. Now I’d like to move on to a discussion of topics related to the quarter. Last month, Idaho Power filed its 2015 Integrated Resource Plan, also known as the IRP. The preferred portfolio continues to include the addition of the 500 kilovolt Boardman to Hemingway or B to H transmission line which is proposed to run from the Hemingway substation near Melba, Idaho to Boardman, Oregon. The IRP provides for completion of B to H by 2025 which is a date based on a number of assumptions we include in the IRP prospects. We continue to advocate for and work towards an earlier in-service date for this critical resource as an earlier date has a number of benefits that might be lessened if the in-service date is delayed to 2025. Those benefits include increased reliability, mitigation of transmission constraint, environmental benefits from the import and export of renewable energy and lower permitting and construction costs and risk. Because of these benefits we are working for an in-service date as early as we can achieve. Additional components of the potential plan for 2025 and beyond are shown on slide eight, and include the possible early retirement of the North Valmy power plant in collaboration with the plant’s co-owner. Demand response programs, ice-based thermal energy storage and a new combined cycle natural gas plant. The IRP also considers the impact of anticipated power purchases from new solar projects. It is also fair to note that the IRP is a long-term planning tool completed every two years and near-term deviations from the assumptions in the plan could result in modifications to our resource needs. As you’ll see on slide nine, June’s very warm weather led us to near record fee customer demand. On June 30, Idaho Power System load reached 3,402 megawatts which is 5 megawatts short of the all-time record of 3,407 megawatts set in July 2013. It is interesting to note that the 2013 record was set at a time when we did not have any active demand response programs. This year, we had two demand response programs that were deployed on the peak demand day for a total of 67 megawatts. Without the programs deployed, we would have exceeded our all-time peak load level. Idaho Power continues to expect strong customer growth in the service area in the near-term and remains supportive of economic development initiatives aimed at sustainable levels of growth. During the first six months of 2015, Idaho Power’s customer count grew by over 4,500 customers and for the 12-month ended June 30, 2015 the customer growth rate was 1.7%. This is shown on slide 10. According to preliminary Idaho Department of Labor data for June 2015, total employment in the service area was more than 474,000 compared with around 460,000 at the end of last year, an increase of over 3% in the last six months. The unemployment rate for our service area was 3.9% compared to the June 2015 U.S. unemployment rate of 5.3% according to U.S. Department of Labor data. Another key economic indicator is expected growth in gross area product. Moody’s Analytics has stated that as of June 2015, the anticipated growth in gross area product for Idaho Power service area for 2015 and 2016 is 4.6% and 5.4% respectively. These are up from this year’s first quarter estimate of 3.2% and 3.8% of 2015 and 2016 respectively, representing an increase of over 40% in the estimated growth rate. Further evidence of our economic development potential is found in a six county region known as the Magic Valley located in the South Central Park of our Idaho service area. This area was selected as a top 12 U.S. manufacturing community under the investing and manufacturing communities partnership initiative sponsored by the U.S. Commerce Department. As a result of this federal designation, a number of significant benefits may be available to Southern Idaho including support from 11 federal agencies and more than $1 billion available in federal economic development assistance. Also this month, Idaho is recognized by Kiplinger as number three on the list of 10 states with the fastest job growth in 2015. We view all of these to be positive economic indicators in our service area that we expect will help drive load growth. Finally, I will touch on our weather outlook heading into fall as reflected on slide 11. For August through October, according to Nova, we are looking at a 33% to 40% chance of above normal precipitation and a 40% to 50% chance of above normal temperatures in much of our service area. And with that, I and others on the call will be happy to take your questions. Question-and-Answer Session Operator Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Paul Ridzon with KeyBanc. Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Paul Ridzon Good afternoon, congratulations on the quarter. Darrel Anderson Thanks, Paul. Steve Keen Thanks, Paul. Darrel Anderson Appreciate that. Paul Ridzon Have you booked any provisions for refunds at this point or do you need to get through the quarter behind you? Steve Keen Paul, at this point, we have not booked any provision for sharing that’s what you mean as the sharing component and as we looked at it, as I said at the upper end of our range incorporate that possibility but it’s not sure enough that we booked anything. Looking at this quarter, weather certainly helped and with half the year left, we kind of need to see where that goes. Paul Ridzon How is still our weather? Steve Keen July has not been strong like June. I haven’t seen any reports on where it’s stacked up against normal but certainly it’s not a record month like June was. Darrel Anderson Paul, it’s been a bit of a roller coaster. We started out warm, we got cool and now it’s warm again. So cool, cool relatively speaking but we’re – I think we’re headed into triple digits here in the next couple of days, so we’re headed back into warming trend it looks like so — Paul Ridzon And always kind of surprised to see a little bit of a disparity between kind of the impact of the new FCA mechanism. You had a nice pickup from the first quarter but the impact on the second quarter wasn’t that meaningful relative, is it something symmetry or? Darrel Anderson Right. I would say that compulsive [ph] it was a little surprising to me at first. I asked the same question but as you look at it, first quarter there was much more impacts on the residential component of our revenues, second quarter affected residential again although obviously not as much as it did downward in the first quarter but some of our pickup came out of the irrigation side and irrigation is excluded from the FCA. It’s not included as a component and so that the upside there was not – didn’t get offset with any sort of an FCA reversal. Paul Ridzon Okay. That makes sense. Is this FCA mechanism applicable to commercial and industrial as well? Darrel Anderson No. It’s our commercial, it’s our residential on small commercial, so it applies to both. Paul Ridzon Okay. Thank you very much. Darrel Anderson Thanks, Bob. Operator Our next question comes from the line of Ashar Khan with Visium Asset Management. Your line is now open. Ashar Khan Good afternoon and congratulations on good quarter. Darrel Anderson Thanks, Ashar. Steve Keen Hi, Ashar. Ashar Khan Hi, how are you guys doing? Could you see minus as we getting to that part of the year on the dividend policy if you can just remind us what is the rate of change that you have indicated as we enter into that season? Darrel Anderson Sure. Thanks, Ashar. Thanks for that question. This is Darrel. So as we have stated previously, our target payout ratio is 50% to 60% of sustainable earnings. And so we will be taking out up with the board at the September meeting and what we have stated publicly is that we anticipate an increase of at least 5% from where we are at today. And so we will be taking this discussion up with the board in September with the expectation that we will update all of you once we have a decision on that. And I think what’s important there is we continuing to take a look at the 50% to 60% of sustainable earnings, and that we will look at when we review with the board. Obviously we are having a good year this year, we had some one-off items incorporated into this year. This year, I think you know how our mechanisms work with respect to the ADITC. Those numbers are all based on year end equity and so as our equity grows, which it’s growing as earnings grow then that potentially has an impact for future years. So we will take all of that into consideration when we look at what that dividend recommendation will be in September. Ashar Khan Okay. And can I just ask you this dividend, do you look at I’m assuming the way you described it. You will be looking at like ‘16 earnings? Is that right because the dividend increases like three quarters for next year and then the one quarter this year, is that a fair way to look at it? Darrel Anderson We will look at where we are at this year. We will also take a look at looking forward as to what earnings look like going forward combining with what cash flows would like. So all of that will be taken into consideration in coming up with the recommendation to the board. Ashar Khan Okay. Okay. I haven’t seen your Q, so I apologize but any change in CapEx for ’16 or ’17? Steve Keen There is no change at this point. We are in the middle of reviewing future CapEx right now. We don’t have any update provided externally but that’s what we do this time of the year as we roll through ’15. We are taking a hard look at ’16 and beyond. Ashar Khan Okay. Okay. Thank you so much. Darrel Anderson Thanks, Ashar. Steve Keen Thank you. Operator Our next question comes from the line of Brian Russo with Ladenburg Thalmann. Your line is now open. Brian Russo Good morning, I’m sorry, good afternoon. Darrel Anderson Hi, Brian. It’s probably a busy day for you, so it might still be morning. Brian Russo Just wanted to understand the increased guidance versus the original guidance. Obviously weather wasn’t the strong weather in the second quarter, it wasn’t included in the original guidance and I’m assuming that the make-whole redemption impact on tax, that was included in the guidance but was the FCA adjustment included in the original guidance. Darrel Anderson Brian, in the original guidance, it was not. We knew that there was potential for a change, but we didn’t know what that change would be or when it would be have implication. So it was not there. Brian Russo Okay. Darrel Anderson We are aware of things going on with it but it wasn’t final. They didn’t become final until second quarter. Brian Russo Right. And so was that just weather and the FCA combined, it seems like your guidance – you are increasing guidance, it should have been greater than what it was. But then I guess it’s probably because you then run into the sharing bands and then kind of caps the upside, is that the way to look at it? Darrel Anderson Yeah. The upper end, remember, our sharing mechanism this year is operating from the first dollar. 25% of the company retained, 75% goes back to customers. So it’s a pretty steep hill. We have to earn to keep one once you hit that threshold. And on the FCA, I do want to correct this. There was an FCA competition included but it was basically the old methodology. We did know if there would be a new methodology and if there was what it would be at that point of time. Brian Russo Right. Okay. And can you maybe talk about the scenarios or the mechanics of the FCA in the upcoming third quarter. Could it potentially have a meaningful impact? Steve Keen At the very highest level, what’s it going to tend to do is take a quarter where you have much higher usage and it’s going to moderate that a bit, pull you back down because it will look at that weather impact and give some of that back to customers. Quarter like the first quarter, if it’s very mild, you are not going to see all of what we used to see in terms of a negative impact. You will get the moderation back as the FCA fills that back in. What it’s doing is looking and saying, did you really get the amount of sales that were expected in order to get you that increment of fixed cost or the partner recovery that isn’t purely an energy sale then you would have otherwise been entitled to and it moderates. You could also look at it and say you got too much. You got a big quarter, lot of sales that you didn’t anticipate, it will take a little bit out. So it is really a moderating factor the way it’s designed right now. Darrel Anderson And Brian, just as a reminder in the classes that it covers which is residential and small commercial, and so variations in those classes will have an impact versus the industrials and the irrigation customer type. They will not have an impact. But as we go into third quarter obviously depending on the makeup of our sales between those classes also have an impact on what FCA might look like. Steve Keen Right. And just to add to Darrel’s comment, those two – the items that were excluded, the industrial and irrigation, they weren’t included in the old FCA either. It’s never been applied to them. That’s not new. Brian Russo Okay, good. And then just to understand the base case and the RFP, it seems like you can bridge the gap between now and when board men [ph] align, it is commercially available with energy efficiency and demand response. There is no need for new capacity or new generation. Steve Keen That’s right, Brian. I mean that’s the way this last round of the IRP set up is. We are sufficient and we don’t have a need really until 2025. Brian, you have to factor in and Darrel mentioned it in his comments that there are assumptions that go into that including the growth assumption. And if those deviate, then the plan will move away from what the IRP is projecting. One thing I know we’ve talked about with you before is our IRP used to include a large load component and add for potential large load, where current IRP does not. And those kind of factors if those things change, you just have to be ready to be nimble around what the IRP says. It’s designed as a document to lay the foundation and as you move past your point of projection into actual, you have to moderate based on what we really experience. So what happens in our service territory over the next couple of years could change what the next IRP might project. Darrel Anderson And Brian, I’m going to add, there is still also the wildcard of 111D. We don’t know – we think that’s coming out soon. We will have to assess that and how that impacts. What’s in our current IRP and so while we don’t have a lot of near term action plans with respect to what’s in the IRP, we will have a chance as we put a new plan together over the next two years to digest all of those variables and see kind of where we land. But as you know, there is a lot of moving pieces right now especially with 111D might not end up, so that could have an impact also. Brian Russo And just it looked like according to the Q, the tax rate was 15% in the second quarter. What’s the assumption built into your EPS guidance? Steve Keen Brian, if you pull the impact of the redemption, it’s isolated in this quarter. So if you go to note 2 and pull that number out, you will see that the effective rate jumps up back above 20% which is kind of where it was last quarter. It’s actually in and around that, so for the full year it’s going to be a number closer to that range. Brian Russo Okay. And then lastly, are there any other tax studies or triggers for gains or losses for the remainder of the year that we should be aware of? Steve Keen Right now, Brian, I don’t believe we have anything. I’m looking at [indiscernible]. We do have our normal – there is an annual process of filing returns, getting our – and we are very current in how we get reviewed by the IRS. There is typically – once you get your returns done, we will look at that and there could be some impact out of that in the third quarter but there is no change in direction or new type of deduction or loss of deduction that we are anticipating right now. It would just be the fact that what actually happen might be slightly different than what got filed in the return as you get a reconcile with the IRS, but that’s the only thing I am aware of, now typically third quarter. Brian Russo Alright. Thank you very much. Steve Keen Thanks, Brian. Operator [Operator Instructions] That concludes the question-and-answer session for today. Mr. Anderson, I’ll turn the conference back to you. Darrel Anderson We know that you all had a fairly busy day. I think there is a lot of you had stacked up calls, so we appreciate you guys taking the time, participating in our call this afternoon. We appreciate your continued interest in our company and look forward to talk to you guys in the future. Thanks a lot. Operator That concludes today’s conference. Thank you for your participation. 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.) 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California Water Service Group’s (CWT) CEO Martin Kropelnicki on Q2 2015 Results – Earnings Call Transcript

California Water Service Group (NYSE: CWT ) Q2 2015 Earnings Conference Call July 30, 2015 07:30 ET Executives Thomas Smegal – VP & CFO Martin Kropelnicki – President & CEO Paul Townsley – VP, Regulatory Matters Analysts Spencer Joyce – Hilliard Lyons Jonathan Reeder – Wells Fargo Operator Welcome to the California Water Service Group Second Quarter 2015 Earnings Results Teleconference. Today call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mr. Thomas Smegal, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead, sir. Thomas Smegal Thank you, Kim. Welcome everyone to the second quarter earnings call for California Water Service Group. With me today is Martin Kropelnicki, our President and CEO and Paul Townsley, our Vice President of Regulatory Matters. A replay of today’s proceedings will be available beginning today July 30, 2015 through September 30, 2015, at 1-888-203-1112 or at 1-719-457-0820, with a replay passcode of 1770876. Before looking at this quarter’s results, we would like to take a few moments to cover forward-looking statements. During the course of the call, the company may make certain forward-looking statements. Because these statements deal with future events, they are subject to various risks and uncertainties, and actual results could differ materially from the company’s current expectations. Because of this, the company strongly advices all current shareholders, as well as interested parties to carefully read and understand the company’s disclosures on risks and uncertainties found in our Form 10-K, Form 10-Q and other reports filed from time-to-time with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Now, let’s look at the quarterly results. I’m going to go through the income statement and then turn it over to Paul for an update on our regulatory activity for the quarter. So for the second quarter our financial results, our revenue was a 144.4 million that’s down 8.8% or 14 million and that’s two things going on there, the MCBA, the modified cost balancing account which tracks our production cost that’s reflected an entry of 6.7 million and then unbuilt revenue adjustment which we will talk about in a little bit more detail later reduced revenue by 10 million and those both result really from decreased consumption in the quarter and at the end of the quarter. Our production cost for the quarter 53.0 million that’s down 14.4%, 8.9 million and again that water production volume is down 21% for the quarter. So we see that conservation is having effect on our production cost. Our production mix, well production within the quarter was 52% of total water production, while purchased water represented 45% and surface water accounted for the remaining 3%. In 2014 in the same quarter, 51% of water production was from wells, 46% from purchase sources and 3% was surface water. Our administrative and general expenses for the quarter were up 11.9% or 2.8 million and that’s really driven by pension expenses which were higher by 2.6 million. For our other operations expense, that was 17.5 million for the quarter up 9.4% or 1.5 million. Conservation expense increased to 0.5 million and expenses recorded to the drought memorandum account for future recovery was 0.9 million during the quarter and just as a reminder in our past calls we are confirming that the company still expects to spend $4 million to $6 million on drought response this year and Marty will talk more about our drought response. And maintenance, we got 5.3 million for the quarter up 6.8% or 0.3 million driven by maintenance in services maintenance within the quarter. Depreciation and amortization was 15.4 million, a decrease of 4.6% that’s driven as it was last quarter by lower depreciation rates that were adopted with the DRC [ph] decision late in 2014. Our net other income was a loss for the quarter of $15,000 that’s down about 800,000 from the second quarter of 2014 and the biggest driver there is a change in the value of the company’s non-qualified benefit plans which are mark to market each quarter. For income taxes during the quarter they decreased 2.1 million to 5.1 million and that’s due primarily to a decrease in pretax income and partially offset by changes in tax benefits. During the second quarter of 2014 the company has realized tax benefit of 2.5 million associated with implementation of the tangible property regulations. No similar benefit was achieved in the second quarter of 2015. Consequently the effective tax rate for 2015 is estimated to be 38%. So our net income for the quarter was 9.8 million, compared to net income of 17.2 million in the same period last year for a decrease of 7.3 million and talk about two main factors there of course is the unbuilt revenue and the tax benefit that we had received in the prior year. Earnings per share $0.21 and earnings per share on a fully diluted basis for the quarter is compared to earnings per share of $0.36 in the second quarter of 2014. Please go through the year-to-date results, revenue 266.4 million for the year down 1% or 2.5 m. Production costs are down 8.5% or 9.1 million over the first six months and that is reflecting of course decrease in volume. Our production mix was 51% for the first six months was well production as compared to 49% in the first six months of 2014 and purchased water decreased from 48% to 46%. This reflects a scarcity of surface water during the drought and more pumping from our groundwater wells. Our administrative and general expenses for the first six months of the year were up 11% or 5.4 million again that’s pension expense which was 5 million of 5.4 million. Other operations, 33.4 million for the year up 3% for 1 million and that’s to be driven primarily by wages. Maintenance expense is 9.8 million for the year to-date down 2.1% or 200,000. So there is a decrease in well and pumping equipment maintenance for the year-to-date. So net income for the first six months of the year 11.4 million, that’s down 2.3% or 300,000. The earnings per share is $0.24 on a fully diluted basis for 2015 and that’s the same $0.24 as we achieved in the first six months of 2014. So now I would like to turn it over Paul for an update on regulatory activity during the quarter. Paul Townsley Thank you, Tom. Good morning everybody. I would like to provide you with an update on our regulatory activity in both California and our subsidiaries. Let me start with Hawaii, our subsidiary Hawaii Water Service Company received three decisions from the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission during the second quarter of this year. These three decisions will provide the company with an additional revenue of $2 million annually. The three decisions conclude general rate cases for our Waikoloa Water Company, the Waikoloa Sewer Company and the [indiscernible] water Service Company, all of which are located on the Big Island of Hawaii. In addition to revenue increases to offset changes in operating expenses and to provide a return on our invested capital, these decisions also authorize the company to establish power cost pass through mechanisms so that energy cost are shown directly on customer’s bills and cost saves are pass through rather than eroding range [ph]. These three decisions conclude a series of Hawaii Water Service Company rate cases that is being working their way through the regulatory process since 2011 and 2012. Our net rate cases in Hawaii are for our Maui based, [indiscernible] service areas which we plan to file early next year. In California we filed our 2015 general rate case application in early July of this year. The application was covered of three year forward looking period request California Public Utility commission approval to increase revenue by $94.8 million in 2017, $23 million in 2018 and $22.6 million in 2019. The application also requests commission approval for Cal Water to invest $693 million in capital over the three year period of 2016 through 2018. The main driver for the requested revenue increase in this rate case application is investment and infrastructure. About 80% of the requested revenue increase in the rate case is attributable to capital investment and of the $693 million in requested capital investment over 40% or about $280 million of it is because of our stepping up of our pipeline replacement program. By stepping up our pipeline replacement program we can ensure that we’re replacing older pipeline in a systematic and timely manner which will reduce failure and leakage rates over the long term and the balance of the capital request that we have made to the commission is for other types of normal utility investments wells, pumps, tanks, treatment plants and water meters and service lines and technology, the usual bread and butter of our water utility investments. The rate case filing also reflects Cal Water’s aggressive cost control measures which include reduced benefit costs and increasing employee head count for all positions except for those that are required and make water supply improvements. We also want to point out some other important elements of the rate case application. In this case we’re proposing to consolidate a number of our service areas, our application details proposals to combine for rate making purposes 16 of our service areas in the five regions. We believe that proposed consolidation will help with a customer affordability concerns and also improve administrative efficiency. We have also requested that the commission continued the company’s sales reconciliation mechanism also known as SRM that was approved in our last rate case and to further enhance it to make it better reflect annual changes in customer sales. And finally we’re proposing to improve construction work and progress also known as [indiscernible] in rate base rather than including capitalized interest in our project announced. This last change will make Cal Water’s approach to construction accounting more consistent with other California Public Utility commission regulated water companies. The commission has not yet established a schedule for our rate case. However in accordance with the commissions established rate case plan new rates should go into effect on January 1, 2017. That’s my update, Tom. I will give it back to you. Thomas Smegal Thanks, Paul. Now I would like to cover some highlights on the balance sheet. So our plant balance at the end of the period net utility plant grew to 1.64 billion as of June 30 of 2015. The work in progress as Paul was talking about, construction work in progress increased to a 135 million. Our capital investments from both company funded and developer funded activities were 75.8 million on a year-to-date basis, it’s a 32% increase from the same time in 2014. This increase is primarily driven by increased activity on projects approved in the 2012 California General rate case application which went into effect last year. And as we have mentioned earlier the company expects to spend between a 125 million and a 145 million on company funded improvements in 2015, so we’re well on our way to meeting our target goals there. Cash on hand was 24.5 million. We did have a 126.6 million outstanding on our revolving credit facilities as of June 30th. I wanted to talk a little bit about our accrued unbilled accounts receivable what we call unbilled revenue and because that was the main driver of the change in earnings for the period. Unbilled revenue accrual represents water which has been used but not built for at the end of the period. The unbilled revenue is not reflected in the RAM decoupling mechanism which is recorded on a cash basis. Once built of course the revenue is recorded in the RAM and it flows through the normal decoupling process. The accrual we do this every quarter and it is very seasonally and very with REIT changes typically as in 2014 the accrual is higher at the end of the second quarter as compared to the end of first quarter. This year we asked our customers to conserve 25% to 30% state wide and they really came through as Marty will talk about in the discussion of the drought, our customers in June conserve 30% based upon their usage in 2013. With that consumption our unbilled revenue accrual is down as compared to 2014 and that’s what’s really driving the change in earnings this year. This has the seasonal effect, this is a transitory effect. We’re going to be doing this accrual every quarter and it’s just a natural part of us doing it. And of course the company cannot predict the future effects on net income due unbilled revenue accruals but we will see how it goes throughout the rest of the year. And just a final update from me on the balance sheet net RAM and MCBA balance actually decreased 0.3 million during the quarter to 47.9 million from 48.2 million at the end of the first quarter. The balance is up 2.7 million for the year from 45.2 million at the year-end. So now I’m going to turn it over to Marty for some comments on the drought and the quarter’s results. Martin Kropelnicki Thanks, Tom. Good morning everyone. If we sound like we’re a little off because Tom and I are in Boston after our board meeting yesterday we flew out east and we will be meeting with investors in Boston today to talk about the rate case we just filed. So it’s really early in the morning our time and we struggled to find Tom coffee this morning and me a cold diet coke but we got the first shot. I think we’re warming up here. So I want to cover really five things, one talk a little bit about the operating results for the quarter. Two, spend most of my time giving you kind of detailed drought update and what’s being going over the last really 60 days in the State of California. Three, give some thoughts on the GRC and highlight some of the things in what we’re doing that Paul talked about. Four, talk about the [indiscernible] workplace which we won for the fourth year in a row and then lastly talk about our plans as we move into the second half of the year what are our priorities as we move into the last part of the year and one of our goals for the company. So first and foremost, as Tom mentioned we saw significant decline in demand, our consumption laid in the quarter. So if you remember, Jerry Brown, Governor of California signed the executive order by extending the Emergency Drought Declaration in April that was ultimately put into place about May end of the first week in May and then we had to ramp up to be in compliance with that role start in June 1st. So it’s interesting that we did see the consumption prior that declaration being extended if you recall the medium wasn’t very good and in most places the consumption was down anywhere from 0% to 7% and that was really driven by the fact we had a very long dry winter. So people continue to use water. Once we did the public participation meetings, we communicated the drought plans. We sort of implemented our customer first approach. It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that we saw a significant decrease in consumption that really hit in the month of June and Tom kind of hit the bad news with that and it does affect the revenue accrual which is outside the regulatory accounting mechanism. That’s a good news in that and that most of our districts hitting or exceeding the conservation targets, what are the major step from where they were 60 days ago. So while that’s create a little bit of short term volatility the fact that is it’s step in the right direction for the company being able to hit it’s required targets as prescribed by that emergency declaration by the governor. Tom, you might want to take a quick minute if you can just to go through kind of the surcharge accounting and now that we’re into the penalty phase where people are charged a surcharged regarding their allocation how their accounting is going to work for that, because they will start showing us really in the Q3 numbers. Thomas Smegal Sure, Marty. The commission adopted our what’s called schedule 14.1 which is our drought plan and our drought water budget plan. In it there is two types of monetary penalties, one is a surcharge on excessive use over the budget that the customer has, each of our customers is given a specific budget that’s based upon their past usage in 2013 in the similar period. That surcharge money that comes is going to be put in the RAM of decoupling account, so that goes offset the deficit that might occur in the RAM with reduced sales. So that’s something that are going to be looking at very carefully to see where that goes. There are also penalties that would be associated with customers that misuse water or use water against the rules that have been established by ourselves, by the state and by local ordinances such as washing their car at an inappropriate time or watering at an inappropriate time or wasting water down the side walk. Those penalties, those fines really will be put into the drought memorandum account. That drought memorandum account I mentioned has we recorded 900,000 for the quarter and as we go forward that will be collected on a future basis so that’s drought memorandum account, it’s not something that we will recover immediately it will be something we recover probably in 2017. Martin Kropelnicki Right, so the end build revenue versus the ramp kind of creates a timing difference and the ramp balances for the quarter really went down actually slightly from where they were at the beginning of the year, so now you will start, we believe we believe you will start to see as the RAM balances start to grow as we move into the summer month and it’s kind of the change in consumption is being recorded now in June. It will start moving through the regulatory accounts going forward. As Tom we spent about a $1 million incrementally on our drought response and we’re still stand at the 4 million to 6 million is about the right amount. About 40 people dedicated full time in our drought centers working in each of our regions and through a dedicated call center to assist our customers and help high volume users in each of our districts. In addition on the numbers for the quarter, the 75.8 million and the capital program that the company has recorded that’s really good news. So we’re actually ahead of plan on a year-to-date basis, our goal is a 125 million to 145 million the significance in why I’m pushing this number and I want to highlight this number a little bit is because of the rate case numbers that Paul mentioned. We [indiscernible] $700 million of new capital and that is a significant increase what we asked for in the last rate case, the largest components of that being made and then pumps treatment, water supply, water [indiscernible] items. So this is kind of a transition here in terms of our ability to execute a $200 million year capital program. So we have been very focused internally looking at our capital processes and making sure we have the ability to implement a significantly larger capital program in the coming years and as we said before we don’t see the capital slowing down as Tom and I have mentioned before, you know our mains are getting older. We need to start changing out those mains. Obviously water supply and scarcity is playing in the California so we have a lot of projects to bring new water supply on board and also make sure as the water level has dropped in California while the quality issues become more difficult to deal with. So we’re dealing — we’re spending more money on purification for our programs. By the way we know that it’s very complicated on the RAM accounting and all everything gets involved in it. So when we look to our 10Q there will be a lot of disclosure around this and we try to highlight the changes in the MD&A so people can really follow in our 10Q that we plan to file shortly. Now moving on to the drought, so bad news is out of the way, the decline in consumption now let’s stick to the good news and that’s really the customers and our footprint within the State of California has done an outstanding job at the first month of required mandatory conservation. To give you an idea how our districts faired, we had six districts that achieved greater than a 40% reduction, and the water consumption we had 15 districts that achieved greater than 30% reduction and 19 out of our 24 districts were in compliance that means 80% of our districts were in compliance. The ones that were out of compliance most of them was the exception of one district which I will come back were a stone throw away from hitting the targets. So that’s first month of reporting that’s required and the penalties are rolling in, I’ve been very, very happy with the drought response and our customers’ ability to hit their conservation target. Call center volumes have leveled off from a higher 45,000 calls per week down to approximately 20,000 calls per week and in total we have received approximately 4000 customer applications for appeals are requesting changes to their water budget. If you put that into perspective of how many meters we have in the State of California that’s less than 1% of their customers are coming back saying they need a little bit more out of their water budget. So we have an approved approximately 1600 applications and adjusted water budget and those are remodeled or we just had twins or my in-laws has just moved in with me and so we go and we verify all that and we will adjust their water budgets based on the supporting documentation that’s put in. But nonetheless, it’s less than 1% of the customers coming and asking for a change in the water budget and to me it speaks the fact that the message of the drought in what we need to do is really clearly being understood by our customers. In addition towards the end of the quarter we did a few customer focused groups, and the feedback has been mainly positive. What we try to do is get customers in a room and ask them what’s working, what’s not working, what is it going to take them to help conserve and overall it’s been a very supportive environment with the customers and the communities that we serve. In addition to the focus groups about 82% of the media coverage in our service areas has been neutral to positive versus 18% which is negative and again we believe that’s reinforces, that’s the message is getting out and it fits nicely with decline that we have seen in consumption at our customers understand that we need to hit these targets. [Indiscernible] supply standpoint our water supply conditions have been steady and we’re in the process of launching five new conservation programs that will bring us upto 12 conservation programs that have been launched over the last 60 days, the new programs will drive our outreach and continued success, and allow us to continue to target high end users, high volume users and the water that they use. In addition, we started rolling out a new report. This new report was traded with an application called BEACON. We have partnered Badger Meter to design and build an application to produce easy to read graphical reports for customers to help them track and understand their water usage compared to people in their neighborhood so it doesn’t identify who your neighbors are but it’s basically a graphical report that we produced and give to the customers, that shows their trends and how they are trending compared to people in their neighborhood. And so that was a good project that we partnered with Badger Meter and we’re in the process that we’re rolling it out. We’re rolling it out to the high volume districts first and then we will roll out to the districts that aren’t as hard hit with the drought, what the idea that is being fully rolled out here during the third quarter. So overall I’m very pleased with the progress that we have made on the drought, I think we’re off to an outstanding start, it has been a lot of work for the team but all this indications are heading in the right way. Customer usage is down, customer understanding is up, media coverage has been good and we’re hitting our targets and I think that’s the most important story here. In addition as Paul mentioned you know the rate case, the rate case we’re moving into the next stage so it’s being filed. We start our tours with the regulators here in next month and we start notifying our customers. I believe this week with build notifications of the rate case process. We get what’s called an exception report from the — we file a prelim rate case and then give us a deficiency report and then we have to correct those deficiencies before make the final filing. Our deficiencies in this rate case were down about 65% from where they were with the last rate case, I think that speaks to the companies extra care and timing is put into preparing this rate case, in particular the capital work and the capital program across the state. So as we move into the rate case space here and continue to deal with the drought those are our two priorities as we go into the end of the year. Droughts number one, rate cases number two. Lastly I want to take a couple of minutes to talk about the award we announced a couple of weeks ago, the Bay Area Top 100 Workplace so this effects our employees in the Bay Area which is about — it’s about 25% to 35% of the company. For the fourth year in a row we have been named a Top 100 Workplace in the Bay Area and once again we’re the only utility to win this award and we take great pride in being an 89 year old water utility located in the heart of Silicon Valley competing with 1000 of tech companies that are around us. It’s nice to be a winner and I believe that the award shows the type of company that we’re, the type of employees that we have and I sincerely believe that happy employees help create good customer service and that good customer service also helps [indiscernible] response. So we’re very happy to have won that award for the fourth year in a row. We did take a small moment to have lunch with the employees to celebrate their success and it was back to our come back to dealing with the drought. So in closing while the drought is creating a little bit of volatility on the unbuild of revenue side which is outside the regulatory mechanism, the fact is there is a lot of great things are happening in Cal Water. We’re off to a great start with the drought and we’re hitting our targets and really because we’re in the emergency declaration, it’s about doing the right thing right now and dealing with the short term volatility and so I’m very pleased to where we ended the quarter in terms of the products with drought and think we’re off to a great start. So, Tom with that I will turn it back to you. Thomas Smegal Okay, great Marty and Kim that is the end of our presentation and we’re happy to take questions. Question-and-Answer Session Operator [Operator Instructions]. Our first question is from Spencer Joyce from Hilliard Lyons. Spencer Joyce Couple of quick ones for me here, first I think you briefly touched on, did you say the CapEx spend so far this year has been about 75 million? Thomas Smegal Yes 75.8 million so almost 76 million. Spencer Joyce Okay, so we’re over half way to kind of the full year goal here. Thomas Smegal Spencer that does include a little bit of developer contributions so that’s not all what we call company funded CapEx and when we’re targeting we’re targeting the company funded CapEx. So we’re right about half way there little bit better than half of our goal right now. Spencer Joyce In any case tracking well may be at least if we think about last year where we kind of undershot a little bit. Thomas Smegal I think Spencer, one think to look at is the company funded over the last 12 rolling last 12 months, half of last year we really accelerated and then this has continued that trend. So I think that shows a good track record of what we can spend in the future. Spencer Joyce Separately with the drought kind of dominating the conversations here over the last year or two, I want to ask about acquisition potential. Has the drought or any other external factors perhaps brought any potential targets kind of to the forefront or have any opportunities maybe percolated on that front? Martin Kropelnicki What’s the drought done, I think is really highlighted kind of some of the weakness in the State of California around the long term planning for water supply and Spencer you’re right, NAWC Financial forum I shared with the people of the financial forum what the population growth curve was for California versus kind of the water supply and the demand curve and the supply curve are growing apart right now, they are not going together which is highlighting a lot of need for a lot of capital infrastructure both for new water supply but also upgrading existing water supply and that’s start with the state and goes all the way through to companies like us. So [indiscernible] covers a lot of stones and when that babbling brook [ph] goes down you start to see the rocks that usually lie under the water. So we’ve seen some of the rocks, just some of the weakness in the system right now. Having said that, our water supply has been fine that we have a few cities that were trucking water to help get them through the summer months because they have just run-out of supply. I also mentioned at the conference that none of the investor-owned utilities have run out of water, it’s been more a small kind of undercapitalized city or meeting systems have been the ones that have been strained and run out of water. So it hasn’t popped into any type of M&A market, in California it’s hard to buy a muni system because it requires a vote of the local taxpayers to approve it but clearly you’re seeing the stress on the smaller systems and the inability to meet water quality standards or add adequate supply for their customers. So I think the jury is still out on that. I think part of it’s going to depend on what happens over the next 12 to 18 months, it’s drought, if it continues. I will say it’s fascinating to me that we are focused on California but Oregon declared a drought here in the month of June, Washington declared a drought in I believe it was late April, early May and I was recently talking to somebody who is from Vancouver, British Columbia who was telling me how horrible the drought conditions are in Vancouver. In fact their water restrictions are worse than ours. So the drought is really a whole west coast item right now and I think it’s going to be changing some behaviors and changing how capital is directed within the state and whether that leads more M&A I think the jury is still out on that. Spencer Joyce So it sounds like maybe nothing eminent but at least you guys are kind of keeping your ear to the ground there. One final, one from here. I know if we think back to last year Q3 was a pretty strong quarter, Q3 ’14 that is as we recouped a little bit of benefit via the rate case or the generate rate case that may have been otherwise earned during the first half of 2014. Correct me if I’m wrong there first off and then second if you could, what is roughly the kind of net revenue benefit that might come out of Q3 this year in order to maybe get a more fair comp looking at Q3. Thomas Smegal I would have to go back to our communications in Q3 of last year and unfortunately don’t have that open in front of me. We did recognize the benefit of the rate case and the interim rates associated with the rate case in the third quarter but I think that was fully disclosed in the press release so that number is pretty quantifiable. As far as on a go forward basis I think you would look to that adjustment to get to your comp. As far as the rate changes and the way to think about our the profitability of the company from last year to this year we have identified that we had step, what’s called the escalation step increases of about 5 million, a little less than 5 million. We did at the beginning of July, get approval from the CPUC on $5 million revenue requirement worth of these [indiscernible] letter capital projects that they have been approved in the prior rate cases, this all on an annual revenue basis and of course what’s going on in Hawaii we will start to see in August the revenue coming in from those rate changes that we got at the end of June. And so those are just some of the things that are going on and obviously the drought response is another factor that we have identified it could be a change as we go forward. Operator [Operator Instructions]. We will move on to Jonathan Reeder from Wells Fargo. Jonathan Reeder Couple of questions, first on the revenue, since this will essentially get captured by the RAM in Q3 it’s about $0.30 headwind for Q2, should we view that as something that’s just going to reverse and add $0.13 of incremental earnings in Q3? Thomas Smegal Jonathan, I think that this is the line on the balance sheet, you can go back and then anybody can pick this up out of the Qs and the Ks. We see a variability in the accrued revenue, from anywhere from 15 million to 30 million at the end of every quarter. Right now we are at — I think it’s 26 million, at the end of the year last year we were 23 million so this is a very small increment. If you follow that, it’s really — it’s kind of a sea level change or it’s the tide going in and out. If it happens that in the third quarter we get that popped in and what we mean by that not that it’s going to up higher but that is not going to fall like it fell in the third quarter in the prior year. So always going to vary, it varies a lot less the second quarter because of the conservation whether it comes back to a normal level at the end of year. I think it’s dependent upon a couple of factors both the customer conservation, the effect of the surcharges that will be calculated in the end bill and also the effect of the rate design that we have seen over the last couple of quarters where more service charge revenue less quantity charge revenue. So it will come back it’s a question of timing really, will it come back in the third quarter, fourth quarter when the droughts over-rise I can’t say at this point. Martin Kropelnicki Yes I think it was interesting to know Jonathan that typically in the second quarter we see a really big step in that number and in this quarter we see that down because of the consumption, that consumption really had in June and that’s what it relates on that calculation as the 21 day average of what people consumer. So it — when you flipping in the context of what the swing was that we typically see this time the year, it’s a pretty big swing. Jonathan Reeder And then on the mark to market life insurance in Q2, what was the absolute like benefit or loss, I mean you said it was 800,000 quarter to quarter. Thomas Smegal So the loss in that area was about 200,000 so that’s made the rest of that category includes benefits from other unregulated activities. Jonathan Reeder So anything else that we should be thinking about in terms of ongoing earnings number for you all in Q2? Thomas Smegal No just the things that we mention the drivers on the rate changes that are going to hit in Q3 from Hawaii and from the rate base offsets. Martin Kropelnicki Yes. And again when the Q comes out you will see in the rate section we have that identifying what those increases were both the escalation in steps and the Hawaii changes and for this quarter John it really comes down to those three items, the changes and the end build revenue, the non-recurring tax credit and now I’m blank on the third item because it’s early but it’s really the [indiscernible] that we talked about, those are called out in the press release and also in the Q that will be filed. Operator [Operator Instructions]. And it appears there are no further questions today. Gentlemen I will turn the conference back over to you. Thomas Smegal Great. Well I want to thank all of you for your continued interest in California water service group and we look forward to talking with you again after the third quarter. Thanks. Operator And that does conclude our conference today. Thank you all for your participation.