California Water Service Group (CWT) 2012 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the California Water Service Group Second Quarter 2012 Earnings Results Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mr. Martin Kropelnicki, Vice President and CFO. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Bryan. Good morning everybody and welcome to the second quarter of 2012 earnings conference call for California Water Service Group. With me today is Pete Nelson, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer. I'd like to remind everyone that a replay of today's proceedings will be available from July 26, 2012 through September 23, 2012 at 888-203-1112. The replay code is 4684903. If you need a copy of the press release, you can find it on the Company's website. We announced earnings close of market yesterday.

Before going through the results for the quarter and the corresponding commentary, I'd like to remind everyone about forward-looking statements. In particular, during the course of this conference call, the Company may make certain forward-looking statements. Because these statements deal with future events 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 advises all current stockholders as well as all interested parties to carefully read and understand the Company's disclosures on risk and uncertainties and other import information found on our Form 10-K, Form 10-Q and other reports filed from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Now let's take a brief look at the quarterly financial results, and I'll turn it over to Pete for some commentary and then I'll wrap up with the balance sheet discussion.

During the quarter, the Company recorded $143.6 million of revenue. That was up 9.3% or $12.2 million. Of that amount, new sales, sorry, sales to new customers added $200,000, rate increases added $3 million; production offsets, these are costs associated to purchased power, purchased water, or pump taxes, there's no margin, but we're allowed to true it up or down, added $5.9 million and usage added $3.1 million.

Looking at production costs for the quarter, production costs for the quarter, again this is purchased power, purchased water pump taxes, which is covered by the modified cost balancing account, increased 14% or $11.5 million and $92.6 million.

Let me briefly give you the breakout of those three components. Purchased water increased 20% or $7 million to $41.9 million. Purchased power increased $500,000 or 6.9% to $8 million. And pump taxes increased $400,000 or 18.2% to $2.7 million. Again, all three of those components are covered by a two-way balancing account that will fluctuate up or down and not have an effect on the bottom line.

Mix for the quarter, there was an interesting trend going on in the mix of consumption. The Company produced 95,000 acre feet in the second quarter of 2011, second quarter 2012 it was 100,000 acre feet. So we have been above our historical trend on consumption, at least what we have seen for the last two years. And of that amount, last year, well production was approximately 46% of the mix. This year it's 47%. So we've been pushing on the well production. Again, if we can get our wells to produce more, it'll lower cost for our customers, and we're starting to see a little bit of shift where our well water has been producing more.

Going down the line and looking at A&G expense for the quarter, A&G was $22.2 million, up $1.6 million or 7.9%. That was driven primarily by increases in wages and benefits. Other operations was up $2 million or 12.6% to $17.7 million, driven by water conservation and water treatment cost. Maintenance for the quarter was down $700,000 or 12.9% to $4.6 million. Not that we're doing any less maintenance. It's that we are able to capitalize some of that maintenance. So when we are adding a unit of property, say we have a call on a main leak, we go out there and we physically have to replace part of that unit, replace pipe where we enhance the value of the useful life we can capitalize [at].

Depreciation and amortization for the quarter increased $1.3 million or 10.8% to $13.7 million. That was driven by the 2011 capital program that the Company had in place and completed during 2011. Income taxes for the quarter increased $424,000 or 5% to $9.1 million. Well property taxes and other decreased $500,000 or 11.7% to $4 million. Couple of things happening there. One, property taxes typically go up and add more on taxes then that was partially offset by a $800,000 refund that the Company secured by challenging some property tax assessments in a couple of the counties that we operate in. We challenged them and we won.

Other income expense net was up 20% or $38,000 to $218,000, while interest expense was down $700,000 or 8.9% to $6.9 million. The decrease in interest expense is attributable to two things; one, increased capital spending so we're able to capitalize more of that interest; and two, costs associated from the line of credit that we amended and restated in the second quarter of 2011. And I think as everybody knows, interest rates have been lower so we've been able to effectively use LIBOR locks to help finance the Company's short-term credit needs and that's showing up into the bottom line.

Net income for the quarter was $13 million, up 6.4% or $800,000 from the $2012 million recorded in the second quarter of 2011. And earnings per share on a fully diluted basis was $0.31 a share, up 6% from the $0.29 a share recorded in 2011.

And I will turn it over to Pete now for some commentary on our operations. Pete?

Good morning all. Thank you, Marty. I will cover a couple rate-making issues and then quickly comment on the second-quarter results, and then will go back to Marty for a couple of other issues.

Our big rate news since our last quarter call really are two rare cases. One is now active and the other is put to bed. And although both of these are [public knowledge] at this point I think it's worthy to talk through them. First issue or first rate case is the active one, and that's our 2012 General Rate Case filed the first week of July this year, and we're asking for $93 million in new revenue in year one, which is year 2014. An additional $17 million in year two, which is 2015 and then an additional $17 million in 2016. This is the beginning of a long, long process.

The next few months we're going to see data requests coming from the Commission. We respond to those, they go back and forth between the staff and the Company. There will be visits by the Commission staff members working on the case to all of our field operations locations to get familiar with what we're asking for in the operations. Really the next milestone we expect in February next year, which is when the Commission staff releases their report. So there won't be much information until the first quarter of 2013 as this process grinds ahead.

The second rate making item is our cost to capital case which took much longer than we expected to get to the process. The case was approved by the Commission. In fact, they approved the all-party settlement and it's retroactive to January 1 of this year and this is a three-year effective cost to capital decision. We've been reporting data as if it was retroactive to the first of the year. So you won't see any changes in our numbers. But as you all know, the Commission granted us and adopted 9.99% return on equity and 53.4% equity structure.

The case, interestingly and importantly also, continued our water cost of capital adjustment mechanism which can change the adopted ROE each year as it's tied to the Moody's AA Utility Bond Index. And we measure that number from September to September, so we will know for sure this October if that mechanism will trigger for 2013. And if there is a change in the adopted ROE, it will affect the three water companies. The large water companies are in that cost to capital case and that's Golden State, which is American States Water, SJW and Cal Water also.

Going back to earnings, second quarter came in as we expected. EPS is beginning to pick up as we enter the summer months when we collect the bulk of our margin. As a reminder to us and everyone, this is year two of a three-year rate case cycle. We did not expect a lot of rate relief, and we didn't get much rate relief. In fact, the attrition increase for 2012 was a little less than $9 million or between 1% and 2%. That puts pressure on our budgets and they are tight, and we're progressing through those, and I'm feeling good about how people are staying on budget and really watching costs and running efficient operations.

So in summary, a solid second quarter, cost of capital is behind us. We're focused on the 2012 General Rate Case to give us a good outcome there late next year and keeping pressure on financial management.

So now I'll go back to Marty. I think he wants to give a couple more details about the General Rate Case and some mechanisms we are requesting in there and then maybe a thought or two about financial management before we go to the balance sheet and then take questions. So back to Marty.

Great. Thanks, Steve. Yes, a couple of things to point out on the rate case that was recently filed, one, the capital budget that we're requesting for years 2013 to 2016 is approximately $480 million. That's about $160 million a year of new capital. In addition, we are asking for a -- or added into the rate case a sales reconciliation mechanism. As many of you recall, as we talked about my favorite accounting topic EITF 92-7 deferred revenue accounting.

One of the drivers of that was that there wasn't a true-up for the sales forecast mechanism, and we've requested that we add a mechanism that basically puts a debt band of about 5% or collars of sales mechanism. And if it goes up or down that 5%, we would request that we change about 50% of the change -- of the swing, so within the band.

In addition, we're requesting a health care balancing account to offsets changes in the health care cost as part of preparing for the rate case. We did an actuarial study with two different firms looking at our health care costs compared to a fully insured plan, and it looks like we run about 10% to 16% cheaper than a fully insured plan and that's the right answer for the ratepayers. That's the right answers -- right answer for the stockholders. But if there's any swings in medical costs it puts the risk on the stockholders, and we want to try to mitigate that risk. And then lastly, we're asking for a Chromium 6 Memorandum Account. And as those regulations come out with Chromium 6, we want to make sure that we are ready for that.

The other thing I'd like to comment on is really the cost of capital adjustment mechanism. As Pete mentioned, it is in place and we do track the Moody's AA Utility Bond Index. At September 30 last year that index, the 12-month average, was at 5.04. As of last week, the 12-month average has been between about 3.9 to 3.95. So at this point, I would fully expect that we will have to reset our ROE, probably about 50 to 55 basis points, effective January 1, 2013.

Just to remind everyone that is a two-way mechanism. I think one of the analysts named Michael Roomberg mentioned in his note. So a year ago when we were talking about this, we thought there is no way to hack interest rates will go any lower. And then lo and behold, Mr. Bernanke made some comments in May about the FED being ready and interest rates started to drop again, and here we are. So it's a two-way mechanism. So as interest rates start to rise, we can swing it back the other way, but for now we are telling people that they should expect at least a 50% basis point ROE come January 1, 2013.

Having said that, a quick comment on cost savings. As Pete said, it's absolutely critical for the Company to really manage the cost in the second and third year of the rate case cycle. Accordingly, we've had a couple of projects underway to make sure we're maximizing the value for the stockholders and minimizing costs for the rate payers, and as a result we've had some savings. We achieved approximately $500,000 savings just by trimming the outside services and tightly managing the legal budgets as well as travel.

As I mentioned in the financial analysis, the cost savings associated with the amended and restated line of credit, the property tax adjustments that I mentioned earlier that was achieved by challenging the county that has been taxing us for some time and going through an audit process with them where we believe they were wrong and it was affirmed that our calculations were correct and [there was a] refund on that.

So we're going to continue to looking at these things on a day-to-day basis. Items such as maintenance, some companies talk about capital maintenance and expense maintenance. We've always just talked about maintenance because we try to budget our capital projects. But we are taking a very close look at all our maintenance activities and to the extent we are replacing any element or a unit of profit that enhances the value of the asset and its useful life, we will capitalize it. So we are going to stay tightly focused on cost control through 2012 and well into 2013. 2013 will be tight as well.

And for those of you that know Pete, he is a great boss, but he can be a tough boss. And it's a lot easier to go in there, showing him the results of our efforts versus cost overruns. And so it's my goal to stay on the good side of that discussion with my boss.

Looking at the balance sheet, a couple of things to point out that are relevant. Net utility plant was up 6.9% or $91 million to $1.419 billion. So we're happy to see the continued growth in net utility plant.

CapEx for the quarter was up 20% or $10 million to $57 million. So, we spent $10 million more in the second quarter of 2012 compared to 2011. Cash flow from operations was a positive $32.1 million. But as you can see that's short of what we need to finance our capital programs. So we've been utilizing our line to fund our CapEx programs. So overall, the balance sheet continues to be strong during the quarter. S&P reiterated and reaffirmed our A+ rating as well as A- rating on our first mortgage bonds.

And so, we're clearly going into our busy season where we spend a lot of cash on capital. The Company has plenty of room on the balance sheet to finance that capital. And with the RAM amortization issue behind us, we anticipate that we will see about a 15% pickup in cash flow during the third and fourth quarter from amortizing those ramp balances that previously were not being amortized.

So, Bryan with that, we will open it up for questions, please.

(Operator Instructions) Michael Roomberg, Ladenburg Thalmann.

Hey. Good morning, guys.

Good morning, Michael.

Good morning, Michael.

Marty, just a quick question on the cash from ops. You said $32.1 million in the quarter. Why the big jump from the second quarter of 2011. Was that just a timing-related issue or can you elaborate on that a little bit?

Sure. There's a couple of things that kind of go into that. One, don't underestimate the collectability of the RAM issue and what the new amortization schedules. We got about 1.5 month's collection with the new amortization schedules. So I would have liked to see a bigger pop on that but really we had to file the applications with the Commission and then we start amortizing that 30 days later.

The second thing that kind of flow through cash flow for the quarter is we have a long term receivable on the RAM as well a short term. And the short term is anything 12 months or less, long term is anything greater than 12 months. What the new amortization schedules associated with the RAM you had about a $6 million swing that moved the receivable from the short term to the long term. So that's flowing through it as well. So between increased CapEx, some stuff movement around on the RAM receivable and getting about half of the faster amortization with the quarter, those are all things that affected the cash flow.

Gotcha. Okay. What was the life insurance mark-to-market in the quarter? I didn't hear that mentioned in the prepared remarks.

I am very happy to say it was zero. That has not happened in a long time. We spend a lot of time looking at the investments that were behind the life insurance, and we rebalance those to significantly and hopefully bring down the volatility associated with it. So for 2012 Q2 it was essentially zero. That compares to a loss of [400,000] in the second quarter of last year.

Okay.

And just going forward as everyone knows, to the extent there are big swings we will obviously report those and there will be more details on that on our Q as well. So we try to be very transparent with that.

Okay, okay. And then lastly, I know you did speak to the A&G expenses in the prepared remarks. It was encouraging from our end to see the deceleration from kind of a low double-digit growth rate in the first quarter to mid-to-high single digits in the second quarter. As we look towards the second half of the year, where do you expect that to shake out from a growth rate? It looks like third quarter 2011, it was up about 25%. So I am not sure if there were some timing issues with respect to that and the growth rate would be in the lower end of that range for the rest of the year. What are your thoughts with that?

Our goal is to keep it in the lower end of the range, but frankly the biggest risk factor there there are two things really feed into that. One, if we have a lot of overtime, and we've had a fairly warm summer so far this year, over time if things go wrong, over time the bulk that becomes an expense. That's one item. That's not the big item.

The real big item, frankly, is healthcare and being self-insured. If we have a surge in claims and hence -- and we've talked about this in previous quarters, we have had a couple of years where in a quarter you'll have a number of terminal illnesses show up in the healthcare plan. Our premature babies or there -- events start to happen and that drive up those healthcare costs.

Now, we do have a self-insured retention level, but it's basically $250,000 per employee before that level kicks in. So really you got to watch your healthcare claims. That's the big thing to really watch. Before the last General Rate Case, I'd say the pension, you got to watch the pension, but we do have a two-way pension balancing account. And so you do see incremental costs flowing through the income statement right now associated with the pension, but it's offset by the balancing account. And so with interest rates that have continued to go down, the present value of the liability associated with the pension plan goes up and as a result that increases your pension expense in the next period.

So not only does the low interest rate affect the cost of capital, adjustment mechanism but it potentially means higher pension expense for a lot of companies. The good news is for us that pension balancing account. So it does flow through A&G, but it nets to zero on the bottom line.

Gotcha, gotcha. And with respect to the medical costs, I mean my understanding is that it reduces your overall long-term costs for medical benefits but increase kind of the short-term volatility. Is that the right way of thinking about it?

Yes, that's right. And essentially the risk is really put on the shareholder because we've done a really good job at saving the ratepayer money. But as you've seen and we've had, I think, two quarters in the last five years where we've had a significant spike in claims that were associated with major medical events. And medical costs being so high, you only need that to happen to three or four people in your population and you can really spike your premiums or your reserves that you have to set for that self-insured plan. So, yes, I think the Company has done a fabulous job.

I was very happy with what the actual study. In fact, the first one looks so good. I had a separate firm coming and do one just to make sure it was right. But on average, it looks like we save about 14% to 16% a year being self-insured. But the risk of that is all on the stockholder.

And ultimately, we want to keep rates low for the customer, but we don't want to unduly burden the stockholder. In this case getting, we think, it in a balancing account would be the right answer for both parties. We want to continue with our plan, keep cost low, but we want to try to minimize the risk and make it more predictable.

Okay. Thank you very much.

All right. Thanks, Michael.

(Operator Instructions)

Good morning, Marty and Pete.

Hey, Jonathan.

Hey, Jonathan.

Quick question. Can you remind us the filing and the GRC, is that based on a [10-2 or the 999] ROE?

It's based on the [999] ROE.

Okay. And then what would the sensitivity to your request be based on a 50 basis point change in that embedded ROE? Do you know?

The request doesn't change because we're asking for capital and an expense. So the rate case doesn't change. It just will drop the adopted -- could drop the adopted ROE which will reduce rates next year. That makes sense?

Right. But do you know like, I guess, how that changes your revenue requirement?

Yes, with the cost of capital adjustment trigger, Jonathan, it triggers -- let's say, it's 55 basis points. If we had to adjust right now -- we had to file, that sort of would be -- that would probably be about $0.405 a share going into 2013 that our earnings would go down.

Okay. And then, Marty, can you go into that sales reconciliation mechanism just a little more, like how that differs, I guess, from your current RAM?

Sure. So the current RAM you have an adopted forecast and then you have actuals, and to the extent you're over or under we're always booking back to that adopted number. That's how the basics of the RAM mechanism works. But one of the problems we experienced going into this kind of first full cycle with decoupling is that consumption was going down and our adopted numbers were going out at or slightly above where they were in previous years because the way that -- [it looks at] the averaging of the previous year's consumptions.

So, essentially we're always booking it up or down, but there was never a reset on that adjustment mechanism. So that receivable continued to grow. So by the end of 2011 the Company went from about $28 million of receivables to about $100 million of receivables and off the $100 million of AR the current portion based on the current billing was about $28 million. That was turning fine. With the DSO of about 27 days, we turned that receivable over. But the long-term receivables just continued to build. So there was no true-up mechanism that would allow us to collect that cash which ultimately brought down our cash flow from operations which was making our rating agencies very upset.

So the idea is to have a mechanism that trues up the sales forecast annually based on any significant swing in consumption. And so just like the cost of capital adjustment mechanism if there's a swing in interest rates, we can go up or down, kind of same concept with the sales adjustment mechanism. If we see greater than a 50% swing, we want to build and true that up on an annual basis which is very much like the electric and gas companies in the State of California. They true up every January 1.

Okay. So it'd be an annual mechanism and then the goal is to essentially just reduce the receivables then the collectible under RAM?

Yes. And the threshold is 5%. If there is a 5% swing in consumption then we would apply to change of sales forecast. So, think of it this way, what happened to us in the last couple of years was that receivable continued to grow. We were recording revenue but we weren't getting the cash flow, right. And basically that can suffocate us pretty quick. So we got to be able to record the revenue and collect the cash within a two-year period in order to account for us as current revenue.

And the way you are requesting, would the adjustment be on a one-for-one kind of basis once it hits up 5% swing in consumption?

It'd be 50%.

Okay, so it is 50%. Okay.

Yes, and so that's like you think it almost like the cost to capital adjustment mechanism. It gives us the ability to true it up or true it down based on swings and that will allow us to kind of fully achieve the benefits of decoupling and promote conservation without choking ourselves off from our cash flow.

Sure. And then lastly, Marty, I missed it right up front. What was the size of the property tax refund that you received in the quarter?

It's about $800,000.

Okay. And that, I mean, would be viewed as something that's non-recurring then?

I think so, but from a personal perspective, there's the ballot initiative in California to raise sales tax. I don't know if that's going to pass. The point I've seen has been pretty spotty about that. Cities and counties are hurting for cash and so from a from a Company perspective and from a shareholder perspective, we're scrutinizing all the tax bills that come in. And if we think they're wrong we're going to challenge them. And our goal is to be a good corporate citizen. We want to pay the amount tax that were owed, but we don't want to be incorrectly charged and in this case we were incorrectly charged.

So are you saying -- do you think there may be some opportunities in some of your other jurisdictions or something similar?

Yes, I mean if you look at how many properties that we have -- I think if you look at the situation the cities and counties are in, I think they are being a little bit more aggressive. It's kind of like next time here in California don't speed because they are writing a lot of speeding tickets right now.

Need to take heed of that advice.

So I am not saying they are doing it deliberately, but physically speaking things are tight in the State of California. And again, our job is to make sure that the stockholder interests are protected accordingly and that the ratepayers are not unduly charged.

I appreciate you taking my questions today.

All right. Thanks, Jonathan.

Thanks.

Tim Winter, Gabelli & Company.

Good morning, Marty and Pete.

Hey, Tim.

Good morning, Tim.

I just want to follow up on Jonathan's question, just to clarify the reconciliation request is really a cash flow issue and much less of an earnings issue.

Yes, I mean from an earnings perspective decoupling shields us from both big swings and changes in consumption. The problem is if you can't collect the cash then you trigger this alternative revenue recognition which is EITF 92-7. If you cannot collect that cash within 24 months of the end of the first period in which it was build, you have deferred revenue accounting and that's what we triggered at the end of 2011.

So, no one asked this question, but let me point out as this is important. So of the amount that we had deferred at 12/31/2011 there was $0.04 of earnings there, $0.03 have reversed. There is still another $0.01 of earnings or $700,000 hanging out there that we anticipate will reverse here in the third and fourth quarters and remember it's plus the interest cost too. So these balances earned would be money market rate of interest which is -- it's not much, but it flows both ways. If we owe it, it's an accruing interest. If we [are doing it] it's accruing interest as well. So it's the collection of the interest.

Okay, okay. And then is there any sort of response from the staff or any other parties on this request?

No, in fact if you to read the cost of capital or RAM application where we file for clarity on this, it punted it to the General Rate Case, and so it was included in our General Rate Case on how to handle it going forward.

Okay. And then can you talk a little bit about water consumption trends and maybe if you just start say five years ago? I guess, I am just trying to figure out what the positive consumption this particular quarter and how that compares to what would you expect going forward?

Yes, let me kind of talk average consumption compared to the adopted revenue number. So up through 12/31/11, we have been running about 80% to 86% of our adopted number which meant we were booking at that 14% differential between the adopted and the actual was being booked in the RAM. So far this year, we've been running about 90% to 91% of our adopted number. So we have seen in the last six months consumption increase from where it has been over the last couple of years.

Now, the offset to that is we had a very dry winter, January and February were really dry months. In fact, [haven't got] any rain in the Bay Area for the first four weeks of the year, which I don't think has ever happened before or maybe there was one other time since they've been keeping weather records.

So you had more consumption kind of in the first quarter and then we kind of had late rains, and so we had rains through the kind of the middle of May, some of which were fairly heavy, one to two inches, I know in my neighborhood during May is very uncommon. And we had in one week about two inches of rain. So it's been kind of bouncing around. I would say on average -- I don't have the average temperature in front of me, but I would say it has been slightly warmer this summer as well. So we're seeing the actual usage higher than what it has been compared to the adopted numbers. And so assuming that continues that RAM balance we think we will be down below the balance at 12/31/11 because we're collecting more of it.

So, I mean just from a purely unit change, you saw roughly 15% annual declines for a couple of years, and now you're -- it's tough to tell in just a couple of quarters, but maybe bottomed out?

Yes, I mean, I think so. That's why we've been giving quantities on the last few calls so people can see that. But yes, the second quarter of 2012 we produced 5,000 more acre of feet of water that was put into our system and consumed.

Okay. Final question, you talked a little bit about the well number, when you look at your, say, longer-term planning process CapEx, are there any major water supply projects or anything on the drawing board?

Sure. I'll tell you right now we have seven wells that we're trying to [procure] property for down in the Southern California region. We think the real opportunity here for both ratepayers and for shareholders is where we can invest capital to reduce purchased water cost. So, we would like to put more wells in place in Southern California. So we do have a number of open projects down there.

For those of you that have been to Southern California and where we operate East LA, Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach, PV, Westlake, those are very high real estate areas. And I have personally been involved with negotiating a land for some of these areas and it is very, very expensive. And real estate is at a premium and scarce down in Southern California. So, the hard part is is really finding the property. But once you find the property then the processing -- again the permits, the process to put the well in, testing the well and putting into production it takes a couple of years, but that's really what we're focused on in Southern California.

Okay.

So where we can invest capital, reduce purchased water cost we're going to do it.

Okay. Thank you.

Thanks, Tim.

And there are no further questions at this time.

Great. Thanks, Bryan. Just closing remarks, I want to thank everybody for joining the call this morning and hanging with Cal Water as we went through a couple of regulatory issues getting resolved. It's very nice to have the RAM amortization issue resolved as well as the cost of capital [now that] General Rate Case filing.

As Pete mentioned, we are going to stay keenly focused on kind of cost management throughout 2012 and 2013, and then keenly focused on the General Rate Case efforts that the Company is putting in. It's a very big rate case. The team worked very hard to pull that rate case together and we will be going into the process of reviewing our costs with the Commission. And as Pete said, it's a very long process, it's a lot of work, but we will start that process here shortly.

So that's it for Q2 2012. Thanks for joining us. And any questions feel free to give us a call. Have a good day.

And ladies and gentlemen that concludes today's conference. We appreciate your participation.