AC ENERGY ASM SPEECH
2020 ANNUAL STOCKHOLDERS’ MEETING
MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT JOHN ERIC T. FRANCIA
20 APRIL 2020

 

Fellow shareholders, colleagues from board and management, ladies and gentlemen. Good morning.

It has just been under a year since your new board and management assumed leadership roles in your Company, though we spared no time to transform the company with significant corporate decisions and swift outcomes in relation to development, commercial and operational matters. The rapid pace of progress strengthened the Company’s fundamentals, allowing us to be more resilient amidst the current global health and socio economic crisis that we are all confronted with.

I am pleased to report that there are no known COVID cases among the Company’s 700 employees.

The Company is fully supportive of the government efforts to address the challenges by ensuring the health and safety of our employees and their families, providing support to immediate communities where we operate, and supporting broader efforts such as feeding programs via Project Ugnayan, creation of additional health facilities such as the WTC We Heal as One Center, and the provision of medical supplies and PPEs. While we have seen over 30% of drop in customer demand, all our power plants continue to operate as we maintain skeletal crew to keep the plants running.

Notwithstanding the current challenges, the company continues to execute against our turnaround plan and establish a sustainable growth path.

I’m very pleased to share the significant progress we have made across three important areas:

  • Strengthening the company’s balance sheet
  • Expanding generation capacity
  • Increasing long term customer relationships

The company shored up its balance sheet through a series of actions.

As part of its entry in June 2019, AC Energy infused 2.6 billion pesos of cash in the Company through a subscription of primary shares.

Soon thereafter, AC Energy infused power generation assets valued at more than 14 billion pesos, through an asset for share swap. [The transaction is currently awaiting regulatory approval.]

The board of directors also approved the issuance of stock rights, where we are targeting to raise over 5 billion pesos in cash from the offering.

Upon completion of all these initiatives, the company would have increased its balance sheet by well over 20 billion pesos. This represents a tripling of the company’s balance sheet.


Expanding generation capacity 

With a bigger balance sheet, the company expanded its generation capacity from 416MW to well over 1100MW.

Around 700MW of new capacity has been added to the company’s portfolio, of which 60% was from renewable sources.

The 700MW of additional capacity came from a combination of:

(1) infusion of generation assets from AC Energy parent (176MW)

(2) acquisition of brownfield power generation assets (196MW), and

(3) starting the construction of new power projects (330MW)


Increasing long term customer relationships  

With an expanded generation capacity and diversified portfolio, the company is able to provide compelling offers and build a strong customer base.


Increasing long term customer relationships  

Last September, the Company won two Meralco contracts worth 310 MW through a competitive selection process, also known as CSP. The contracts were based on a five year and ten year tenor, providing steady and predictable cash flows to the company.

The groundbreaking CSP required suppliers to offer fixed pricing and 100% guaranteed availability — making this a highly customer centric approach.

The innovative structure was made possible by allowing generators to supply from multiple power plants and the electricity spot market.

As a result, AC Energy Philippines was able to leverage its portfolio of power plants and deliver a compelling and winning proposition to the customer.


2019 Results 

All the positive developments throughout 2019 resulted in an improvement of short term performance, and more importantly, a positive long term outlook.

From a first half loss of [P550 mn], the company improved its performance in the second half, thereby reducing the full year loss to [P417 mn] by the end of 2019.

We expect the turnaround initiative to prosper and are aiming for a positive bottom line by 2020.

Given the positive developments and outlook, the company’s share price has more than doubled in 2019, delivering significant value to our shareholders.


Outlook

While we are facing significant challenges amidst the current crisis, the Company remains solid and steadfast in its commitment to a sustainable future.

We will continue to expand and diversify our generation capacity and will target to exceed 1500MW of capacity by 2020 and significantly increase our renewables capacity.

We will also enhance the operating efficiencies especially of our thermal power plants, where we aim to improve availability by over 20%

We will also continue to add to and nurture our customer base, and develop long term relationships.


Summary

On behalf of the company’s board and management, I would like to thank the entire AC Energy Philippines team for the full dedication, hard work, and significant results delivered in such a short span of time.

Thank you to our shareholders and our board for the continuing trust and support.

We are all highly committed to work towards our aspiration of becoming the leading renewables company in the country. Thank you.