New Jersey Resources Corp (NJR) 2025 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Thank you for standing by and welcome to the New Jersey Resources fiscal 2025 third quarter financial results. (Operator Instructions) Now I would like to turn the call over to Adam Prior, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Adam.

Thank you. Welcome to New Jersey Resources fiscal 2025 third quarter conference call and webcast. I'm joined here today by Steve Westhoven, our President and CEO; Pat Migliaccio, our Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of New Jersey Natural Gas; Roberto Bel, our Senior Vice President Chief Financial Officer, as well as other members of our senior management team.

Certain statements in today's call contain estimates and other forward-looking statements within the meaning of the securities laws. We wish to caution listeners of this call that the current expectations, assumptions and beliefs forming the basis of our forward-looking statements include many factors that are beyond our ability to control or estimate precisely. This could cause results to materially differ from our expectations as found on slide 2.

These items can also be found in the forward-looking statements section of yesterday's earnings release, furnished on Form 8-K and in our most recent Forms 10-K and 10-Q as filed with the SEC. We do not, by including this statement, assume any obligation to review or revise any particular forward-looking statement referenced herein in light of future events.

We will also be referring to certain non-GAAP financial measures such as net financial earnings or NFE. We believe that NFE net financial loss, utility gross margin, financial margin, adjusted funds from operations and adjusted debt provide a more complete understanding of our financial performance.

However, these non-GAAP measures are not intended to be a substitute for GAAP. Our non-GAAP financial measures are discussed more fully in item seven of our 10-K. The slides accompanying today's presentation are available on our website and were furnished on our Form 8-K filed yesterday.

Steve will begin with this quarter's highlights beginning on slide 4, followed by Pat, who will discuss New Jersey Natural Gas highlights Roberto, who will review our financial results, and then we will open the call for your questions.

With that said, I will turn the call over to our President and CEO, Steve Westhoven. Please go ahead, Steve.

Thanks, Adam, and good morning, everyone. Fiscal 2025 continues to be an excellent year for NJR marked by disciplined execution and consistent performance across all segments. This quarter was no exception.

NGR raised the lower end of its full year guidance, increased CapEx projections driven by utility investments, advanced projects through the CEV pipeline, and made regulatory progress while identifying multiple expansion opportunities at S&T.

We reported robust investment at New Jersey Natural gas under our Save Green program. Investments that are delivering near real-time returns while helping customers manage their energy use.

CEV placed 63 megawatts in the service so far this year and will likely finish the year with close to a record amount of capacity placed in the service, while also maintaining a project pipeline of investment options that remains diverse and flexible.

In storage and transportation, we have reached a settlement in principle at the Adelphia Gateway rate case and expect resolution by the end of the year. At Leaf River, we continue to evaluate expansion opportunities to support future growth. Energy services provide stability through fee-based performance from our asset management agreements.

Finally, NJR Home Services was named a top rode pro partner for the ninth consecutive year. This recognition is a testament to our entire team's dedication to service excellence and meeting our customers' home comfort needs with the installation of high quality and reliable equipment.

Turning to slide 5 for more details on our guidance for the year. We are raising the lower end of our fiscal 2025 NFEPS guidance range by $0.05 to $3.20 to $3.30 per share. This reflects strong operating performance across our businesses and greater visibility into full year results. The revised range, which is above our long term 7% to 9% growth target, demonstrates our ability to execute through dynamic environments.

On slide 6, we present our updated NFEPS guidance by segment. New Jersey natural gas remains the strongest contributor to NFEPS, benefiting from our recent rate case settlement and customer growth. CEV is expected to contribute over 20% of our NFEPS this year based on high performing operating assets and the monetization of the residential solar portfolio.

We are slightly narrowing the range of contributions across our business lines consistent with our practice as the year progresses. These updates reflect outperformance and energy services and a modest change in the relative contributions from New Jersey natural gas and CEV.

Roughly 65% of our full year NFEPS is expected to come from utility operations, rising to over 70% when excluding the CEV gain related to the sale of our residential solar business. This shows how our platform is anchored in stable reoccurring earnings.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Pat to discuss New Jersey natural gas on slide 7. Pat?

Thanks, Steve. At New Jersey Natural Gas, customer growth continues to be consistent and reliable contributor to our performance. We now serve approximately 588,000 customers, with over 90% of these customers being residential and the vast majority being located in our core counties, Monmouth, Ocean, and Morris.

These counties are experiencing solid population growth, steady housing starts, and new commercial development.

Our service territories remain among the most economically vibrant in New Jersey, with stable trends and high demand for affordable, reliable energy. As these customers are integrated into our system, they drive a recurring margin that compounds over time and supports continued capital investment.

I want to take a moment to highlight the importance of CEV as part of our future investment. CEV remains one of the most impactful and unique utility energy efficient programs in the country.

Serves as a model for how regular utilities can simultaneously deliver benefits to customers and shareholders.

This quarter, we are raising our 2025 capital projections for SAVEGREEN by over 30%, bringing the expected range up to $90 million to $95 million which represents another year of record investment.

This increase is driven by growing adoption of more efficient HVAC systems, insulation and weatherization for both residential and commercial customers from a financial standpoint, saving investment benefits from an accelerated cost recovery mechanism. This allows us to begin recovering our investment in real time, eliminating regulatory lag and improving capital efficiency, strategically saving lives like decarbonization goals.

It reduces customer bills, lowers emissions, and positions NJNG as a forward-looking utility committed to sustainability. It's an example of how policy alignment, customer service, and investor returns can coexist within a single program. We expect SAVEGREEN to remain a core element of NJNG capital strategy in the years ahead.

As a third quarter, NJNG has invested approximately $383 million in capital projects, which we highlight on slide 9. More than 47% of these investments are earning near real-time returns through mechanisms such as SAVEGREEN. These programs provide timely recovery and reduced earnings lag traditionally associated with utility CapEx.

Our capital allocation at NJNG is designed to support our three strategic pillars safe and reliable service, customer focused growth, and clean energy leadership.

We maintain clear visibility into our capital plan, supported by a multi-year pipeline of planned work, strong regulatory relationships, and predictable customer demand.

Looking ahead, we expect NJNG to continue driving value through targeted capital deployment that aligns with the liability, safety, decarbonization goals, and providing an appropriate return to our shareholders. With that, I'll turn it back to Steve.

Thanks, Pat. I'll move to a discussion of our other operating businesses beginning on slide 10 with Clean Energy Ventures.

CEV continues to demonstrate the value of a diversified and flexible development model. Year to date, we've placed approximately 63 megawatts in the service, including adding over 30 megawatts since our last conference call.

We've been closely monitoring the implications of the big, beautiful bill on the renewable sector. Our development pipeline is advancing projects through construction, and we are identifying attractive opportunities that will align with our investment criteria.

Our current pipeline includes approximately 131 megawatts of solar projects scheduled to be brought into service in the next two years, representing approximately $350 million of investment with over 800 megawatts of additional investment opportunities in the future.

Our project pipeline includes a range of opportunities varying in size, location, and timeline, and our agreements with developer partners are scheduled to preserve returns. These contracts give NJR the right, but not the obligation to move forward with individual projects at our discretion.

This approach gives CEV the flexibility to advance only those projects that are aligned with our long-term capital plan and offer the most attractive risk adjusted returns. It also allows us to scale investment based on market dynamics, and our connection timing and return profiles, ensuring disciplined capital deployment, and a focus on value creation.

CEV plays a strategic role in NJR's portfolio through disciplined, return-focused investments, aligning with the broader capital plan that remains anchored in our core utility and infrastructure businesses.

The sale of our residential solar portfolio earlier this year not only unlocked value, but demonstrated the strength of our execution and the underlying quality of our assets.

Solar remains one of the fastest and most efficient ways to answer the need for new generating capacity. With a robust pipeline, flexible capital approach, and strong operational capabilities. We believe CEV is well positioned to address this need while contributing to NJR's long-term growth.

Now let's turn to our storage and transportation segment. Our portfolio of midstream assets, Adelphia Gateway and Leaf River, positions us to serve growing energy demand and constrained markets with highly reliable infrastructure. At Adelphia, we reached a settlement in principle with the FERC staff and the customers participating in our Section 4 rate case.

We expect to file an offer of settlement with FERC in the coming weeks and remain optimistic about reaching a resolution this year. At Leaf River, we're advancing our capacity enhancement efforts and evaluating multiple expansion opportunities for both existing and new caverns aimed at delivering attractive long-term returns.

As noted on our last call, we recently completed a non-binding open season for a potential fourth cavern, which drew encouraging interest.

As we assess the economics and refine the design criteria at the site, our due diligence has identified several organic growth opportunities. We expect to advance a subset of these projects and begin the regulatory process at FERC in the coming months.

Market conditions for storage remain favourable, and the site's structural and geographic advantages reinforce its long-term value.

As part of NJR's broader strategy, our S&T business complements both our utility and clean energy platforms, contributing stable fee-based cash flows and offering a creative reinvestment potential.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Roberto for a review of our financial results. Roberto.

Thank you, Steve, and good morning, everyone. Slide 13 shows the main drivers of our NFE for that third quarter and year to date period of fiscal 2025. In the third quarter, we reported an FPS of $0.06 per share compared with a net financial loss of $0.09 per share last year. Year to date NFE is $313.4 million or $3.13 per share, an increase of nearly 55% year over year.

Drivers include higher utility margins at New Jersey natural gas post-rate case, a net benefit of approximately $0.30 per share for the sale of our residential solar portfolio during our fiscal first quarter, improved performance in our storage and transportation business, and strong results from energy services during the winter period.

These results show the resiliency and balance of our business model. Now let's move to slide 14, where we will discuss in your capital plan.

For fiscal 2025 and fiscal 2026, we're planning capital expenditures ranging from $1.3 billion to $1.6 billion which aligns with our long-term and SAPS growth target of 7% to 9%.

We increased the lower end of our capital plan from our prior disclosures, driven by better than expected safe deployment at the utility. We now expect spending between $650 million and $770 million in capital investments during fiscal 2025. We plan to update our fiscal 2026 capital plan in November, consistent with our typical timeline.

This update may include several areas of potential incremental lab site, including safe screen. These investments align with our long-term strategy to enhance utility infrastructure, expand clean energy investments, and optimize our storage and transportation capabilities.

As highlighted on slide 15, our strong balance sheet and discipline financial management remain foundational to endures long-term strategy and our ability to invest through various economic or market conditions.

We're projecting an adjusted SFO to adjusted debt ratio of 19% to 21%, reflecting our conservative approach to balance sheet management and ensuring ongoing access to low-cost capital.

For fiscal 2025, we project cash flow from operations between $460 million and $500 million. This robust cash generation is supported by stable utility earnings and contributions from CV, S&T, and energy services.

In terms of liquidity, we have $825 million of credit capacity across our facilities. This flexibility positions us to fund our capital plan and manage working capital needs.

Our debt maturity profile is well laddered, with no outsized refinancing risks in the near term, limiting interest rate exposure. Our casual strength, liquidity position, and prudent financial policy support NDR's ability to fund growth, maintain flexibility, and preserve shareholder value across a variety of market conditions.

With that, I'll turn the call back to Steve for concluding remarks on slide 16.

Thanks, Roberto.

Fiscal 2025 has been an excellent year for NJR. In the third quarter, we delivered solid operational and financial results, raised the lower end of our full year earnings guidance, and advanced key strategic investments across all of our core business lines.

These businesses work together to form a well-balanced enterprise that generates predictable earnings and a peer leading long-term growth rate, supports consistent capital deployment with the ability for incremental upside and creates meaningful value for customers and shareholders alike.

Just as important, our success this year has been supported by a healthy balance sheet, ample liquidity, and disciplined capital allocation. That financial strength allows us to maintain flexibility in how we fund growth, manage risk, and respond to changing market conditions.

And at the core of all this is a team of dedicated employees who show up every day to serve our customers and communities.

I want to give a special thank you to our employees out in the field working through 95 degree heat this summer to ensure our customers are safe and comfortable. Your hard work does not go unnoticed.

To conclude, we believe NJR is well positioned to deliver attractive long-term risk adjusted returns. Our track record reflects not only the ability to navigate changing environments, but also to allocate capital to where it matters most, serving the evolving needs of our customers. So, with that, we'll now open the line for questions.

(Operator Instructions) Richard Sunderland, JP Morgan.

Hi, good morning. Thank you for the time today. For the Adelphia rate case, what would be the year over year impact of the settlement in 2026? And are there any other key considerations here?

Rich. So right now, we're still in the, I guess, the middle of the settlement and none of those details have been made public at this time. So negotiations been constructive, I think we're nearing an end. But we're not going to divulge any more information around that at this point. We'll reach out and obviously we'll share what we can.

Understood. Fair enough. And then turning to CEV, the 131 megawatt target over the next two years, how have you sized that relative to initial expectations last fall when you rolled out your '25 and '26 capital plan and then I guess similarly has OBBV changed your expectations at all around CEV?

So, I'll take that in a few different parts. One, we're trying to improve the way that we report the future capital that we're going to invest in CEV. So, the 131 megawatts are really, what's under construction or really nearing construction at this point in time. So we've got some good visibility on the investments that we'll make, there, over the next two years and you'll see those, come into service.

Addressing, OBBV and all the other questions that are around that, we just talked about, our capital plans and, the clarity of that over the next few years we've got high confidence in the projections that we're sharing with you and that really drives your 79% growth rate.

So when you look at OBBV and you look at its potential impact, on our total CapEx, you'll notice the majority of our infrastructure, our assets that deliver natural gas are natural gas related, and that's reflected in our earnings mix. In fact, over 80% of our CapEx in the past five years has come from natural gas business, and we expect the majority of our growth, still to continue in that space.

So you know we heard Pat talk today about the energy efficiency program and the growth that's there. We talked a little bit about the potential expansion at Leaf River and the organic growth of our core businesses, and we feel that this is going to drive the value across all of NJR's assets.

So, to put it into context, the of the dollars that we're going to spend, are going to be in our gas related businesses.

So regardless of how OBBV, turns out, we remain confident that we're going to hit our capital targets over the next few years, through our portfolio and businesses and through the examples that I just had shared with you. So obviously that flexibility and our ability to invest in multiple platforms is going to drive, our growth going forward and you know of course that's driven by the fact that you've got some really, some very real growth coming in the electric side of the market that, we've all talked about all this time so.

All our infrastructure, is going to be able to participate in that, we still think Solar’s important, it's the quickest, capacity that you can bring to the market. But, overall, just to put it in context, we feel good about, our businesses moving forward in our ability to invest and grow.

Great, thank you for the thoughts there. I'll leave it there. Thank you.

Chris Ellinghaus, Seibert Williams Shank.

Hey guys, how are you? Steve, the expansion of Leaf River, do you have any sense after the open season, when a decision timeline might look or what a what a decision timeline might look like?

Yeah, we're, we said during the call, that we expect that in the coming months to be making, filing at FERC, and right now we have another open season, a binding open season that's taking place at the River. So, we're narrowing in on it.

Exactly what you know the expansion looks like and certainly you know the scope customers and things like that so to me you know this is something that you know hopefully will take place over the next you know few months, depending on, how these processes turn out and is there.

Any incremental color you can add on S&T's relative strength this quarter?

I think it's just that it's a strong natural gas market, you saw weather certainly has contributed, quite a bit. If you look at, transportation demands and storage demands, balancing, extremely hot days. You know it's the things that we talk about all the time. This is real growth in the energy markets, and you need infrastructure to be able to supply that. And natural gas is a flexible, fuel that's able to supply, those needs when it's called upon.

Okay, going back to the Adelphia case, it's certainly a really big catalyst for 2026. When you make your filing, do you anticipate you'll do a release for that?

When we you say when we complete the, I guess the settlement in the Ray case and everything goes into effect, yeah, I mean there'll be, they'll definitely be a public disclosure at that point in time, we'll have to update tariffs. There'll be a number of things that will be required, to do, but certainly we'll talk about it.

Roberto, the utility gross margin for the quarter was a little bit bigger than I was expecting. I'm guessing that that just has to do with some variant in my seasonality expectation for the Ray case, but can you break out at all that 25 million case versus sort of organic growth?

Yeah, so maybe what I would say on that price is you have benefits certainly from the new rate case, but then also we have been making a lot of progress on the OpEx side, so it's a combination of the two.

Yeah, and lastly, I think you sort of, intimated this the vis a vis the tax bill and what the outlook for CEV might be going forward, but A The pricing in PJM is pretty was very strong, so are you kind of thinking, part of your thought processes, you have fungibility of CapEx across the board, but are you also thinking that. Sort of the pricing for solar is going to equalize to a certain extent where power prices are headed and solar project economics will also adjust over time.

And there's certainly going to be a re-rationalization in this market on what, costs are, and you're right, prices have been moving up in the electric side of the market, and that's driven, kind of the value of all infrastructure and this really, plays into our general premise that, infrastructures can become more valuable and NJR owns a lot of infrastructure that you're able to organically expand and participate in those markets, so.

It's been a thesis that that, we've been talking about for a while and we continue to make investments and grow the company, basically feeding into that real market demand. So long-winded way of saying yes, the demands of the market, the pricing has to support new investment, and that's occurring in real time.

Okay, great, thanks for the details, appreciate it.

Travis Miller, Morningstar.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you. Thanks guys.

And just following up on the Leaf River conversation and the expansion, are there a series of discrete steps that have to be done for the expansion versus it sounds like you're also doing an open season for some of the existing capacity. What are the steps in terms of the expansion that you're looking at that would be next, the for filing and then is it up to you to decide an FID?

Yeah, I mean, really, we'll get the customers lined up and, what services that they need, run through your feed studies to see what equipment and what construction needs to take place. That's all, in motion right now. And then there'll be a FERC filing, that approval, and then they'll set in motion the construction to be able to build the services and then go into commercial operation to meet the customer's needs.

Okay, and at what point in that process would you know around the CapEx number that you'd either be willing to share or be putting explicitly into your CapEx forecast at what point in this process for the expansion would you expect to have some kind of number?

Yeah, I think that's, that'll be in the coming months, but, we hope to have it done, we normally update our CapEx schedule, in November, and I would expect, that would take place then, if everything lines up the way that we're expecting at this point.

Okay, great. Then different topic, the dividends traditionally the board's considered the dividend increase here in the next couple of months. Given the EPS that you've had over the last few years, how do you think the board is going to look at not necessarily the payout ratio, but just generally capital allocated to the dividends given. Again, your pay ratio would be pretty low on this year's earnings, but then you also talk about the base earnings number. How's the board thinking about that base versus actual.

Yeah, Travis, we typically view that, related to our historical growth rate, right? So, in years of outperformance that payout ratio would become, a little bit less. I think history is a good guide, for the future.

In this case, we typically stay pretty tight to, how we're growing the company, longer term, and the dividend all that and you see, we've increased the dividends, for the past, 23, 24 years and we expect to continue to do so. So, I think, historical performance would indicate, how we'd act in the future.

Okay, great. Well, that's all I had. Thanks so much.

Alright, thanks, Travis.

Robert Mosca, Mizuho Securities.

Hey morning everyone just wondering if you could speak. Hey guys, just wondering if you guys could speak to the higher CapEx and SAVEGREEN. Just wondering what's driving the stronger demand for that program and early days here but could this portend anything around the size of future iterations of this program as far as what gets approved?

And thanks, Robert. I'm going to ask Pat to take that question.

Hey Rob, good morning. Yeah, so January marks the start of the new triennium as we refer to it in the energy efficacies program, and it's a combination of both strong demand for the market on the residential side for more efficient HVAC systems, but also on the commercial side, a direct install program which is a newer feature of the Savior program.

And combined with candidly our team's really strong execution of the program led to the guidance's this year and as we've already indicated, we typically update CapEx's guidance in 2026, so won't make any indications about any future seeing increases at that point in time, but just more broadly as we think about.

The strategic advantage of the program and at the risk of repeating my remarks, it really is a win, right? We're able to lower customers' bills, which is particularly important and appeared we're focused on affordability, while at the same time reducing emissions, it is a strong decarbonization tool. We have a tool kit, and, as we pointed out a couple of different times, this is one of the real-time recovery mechanisms that we have at our disposal.

Got it, thanks for that, Pat. And for my follow up, it seems like the permitting environment for gas infrastructure in the Northeast might be easing a little bit. Is there anything NGR would be interested in, be it growth projects or trying to secure system or supply redundancy to support some of the customer growth you guys are experiencing and maybe improve reliability?

I mean, those are programs that we, have continued to make investments, reliability, expanding the system, making sure you hit customer growth numbers, that have been great, over the past few years, so I would expect you know. It's kind of more of the same kind of permitting and conversations around it, at times it's been difficult in the past, but we've always been able to achieve, that investment in in the building infrastructure that we need, so I just expect it to continue.

Got it, appreciate the time everyone.

That concludes our question and answer session. I will now turn the call over to Adam Prior for closing remarks, Adam?

Well, thank you and thank you all of you for joining us this morning. As always, we appreciate your interest and investment in JR and have a good rest of your day that.

That concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.