Edited Transcript of AP.PS earnings conference call or presentation 30-Apr-20 8:00am GMT

To keep our team members and facilities safe, the following measures have been implemented in compliance with the protocols and guidelines of the government’s community quarantine. We safeguard and support for mission-critical teams. We provided safety protocols with suppliers and business partners; restricted external access to offices and facilities and strict gate screening for illness symptoms; optimization of digital tools and channels for internal and external meetings; cancelation of group events; regular disinfection and germ-proofing of facilities, buildings and company vehicles; provision of personal protective equipment and other viral prevention items. All of our team members here and abroad are constantly reminded of personal hygiene practices and precautionary measures and are given regular updates by the company’s COVID-19 technical working group.

With our solid digital strategy, our support teams continue to work in the safety of our homes while maintaining a high level of service for our customers and communities. Our operations and maintenance teams are likewise able to operate and monitor some of our plants remotely to ensure efficiency and availability of power supply.

Our current situation has created an unusual business environment but rest assured that we are doing everything in our capacity to deliver business results while protecting our team, partners and all the stakeholders.

For now, allow me to share AboitizPower’s financial performance in the first quarter of 2020.

Our beneficial EBITDA is lower by 8% year-on-year. In the first quarter of last year, we included income from the generation rate adjustment mechanism and incremental currency exchange rate adjustment. If you exclude that, EBITDA would have been higher by 2%. Our performance was also affected by the ongoing outage in Therma South Unit 2 and a forced outage in GMC Mariveles. The TSI outage is covered by business interruption insurance, which we expect settlement by the end of the year latest. EBITDA margins slightly declined from 32% to 31%. The decline in EBITDA, coupled with additional taxes from income tax holiday expirations of TSI and GMCP, the additional interest expense from the parent bond and loan that were taken up late last year, brings core income to a decrease of 49%. Excluding the income related to GRAM and ICERA, core income would have been lower by 37%.

The group recognized unrealized foreign exchange and derivative losses of PHP 27 million, mostly from the dollar-denominated assets and liabilities, versus PHP 440 million in the same period last year. As a result, AboitizPower’s net income for the first quarter was PHP 2.1 billion, 42 — 43% lower year-on-year. Without the income related to GRAM and ICERA, the net income would have been lower by 29%.

Cash and cash equivalents were up 18% versus the end of last year, primarily due to the availment of AP short-term loans. Total liabilities increased by 6% or PHP 15.6 billion. This was due to dividends payable after the company approved the declaration of dividends last March and subsequently paid in April. Additionally, there was an increase in short-term borrowings of the parent company. Investment and advances increased by 3%, mainly due to the equity infusions to GNPower Dinginin. With that, our net debt-to-equity remained at 1.4x.

Capacity sales grew by 17% compared to the same period last year. This was due to higher BCQ contracts driven by the new capacity of Therma Visayas, new contract of Therma Mobile and the newly signed power supply agreements. As you may recall, TMO went into preservation mode in February 2019 following the absence of an improved power supply agreement. We were able to sign a new power supply agreement with Meralco in April 2019.

Our total revenue decreased by 6%, primarily due to the extended outage of TSI Unit 2, lower indices and lower spot revenues. Meanwhile, our total energy sold increased by 6% as a result of capacity additions from TVI, new contract of TMO and the high availability of AP Renewables, Inc. or APRI, a geothermal in MakBan and Tiwi.

Our gross margin increased by 4%, mainly due to contributions from additional contracts and lower cost of purchased power. Last year, we bought replacement power at exceptionally high WESM prices due to contracting in advance for incoming capacities and outages of APRI and Pagbilao Energy Corp. The increase in energy generated resulted from new capacities of TVI and TMO and higher generation from APRI. This was partially offset by outages of TSI and GMCP. Despite higher generated volumes, the total generation cost declined mainly due to lower indices. WESM prices were lower than our marginal costs. Thus, AP opted to purchase power from the spot market as part of our trading strategy. In addition, replacement power contracts were in place to mitigate margin losses from outages. This resulted in higher purchased power volume in the first quarter by 42%.

Our average price decreased from PHP 4.29 per kilowatt-hour to PHP 3.68 per kilowatt-hour. Breaking down the contracts, bilateral contract quantity selling prices decreased by 13% to PHP 4.01 per kilowatt-hour, mainly due to the 1-year extension of Therma Luzon Meralco contract as emergency supply where we have to match the winning CSP prices. The decrease in spot selling prices by 29% to PHP 2.76 per kilowatt-hour was duly — was due to high availability of baseload plants compared to the previous year.

A brief update on WESM. The first 3 months of 2020 had lower LWAP compared to the same period last year. This was due to the higher availability of baseload plants. Last year, there was a high volume of capacity and outage either due to planned or forced outage of plants. Actual average year-to-date LWAP was PHP 2.94 versus PHP 4.43 in 2019. Please note that the LWAP for March was also impacted by COVID-19, which caused a decline in the energy demand in the second half of the month as a result of the enhanced community quarantine. We expect spot prices to continue to be soft for as long as the ECQ is imposed.

On the water levels, Magat ended the first quarter of 2020 at an elevation of 165 meters above sea level compared to the rule curve of 180 meters above sea level. The lower water level was caused by below-normal water inflows and higher irrigation usage especially last February due to the dry conditions in the farm service areas. Normal water inflows are expected to come in the wet months. Thus, we forecast that we will end the year near the rule curve, if not at the rule curve.

Our overall availability performance for the first 3 months of 2020 was slightly lower than our full year 2019 availability. This was primarily due to the higher planned outages in several coal facilities. Forced outages for the first quarter of 2020 were primarily from TSI Unit 2, which is an ongoing outage from last year, which will return to service by today. Latest information we got is by March — by May 19, sorry about that, May 19, outage reliability run in consideration of the Luzon and Davao lockdowns. There have been challenges in mobilizing cargo and personnel into Davao. Despite these challenges, we are working hard to ensure to — we comply with the local regulations, and at the same time, complete the work needed to address the outage.

For our distribution business group, beneficial power sales were up
by 6% to 1,429 gigawatt-hours, which also grew significantly compared to the same period last year. Energy sales to residential and commercial customers grew by 14% and 6%, respectively, due to higher consumption. Meanwhile, energy sales in the industrial segment grew by 4% coming from new customers.

The gross margins increased from PHP 1.53 per kilowatt-hour to PHP 1.58 per kilowatt-hour year-on-year. This was due to the increase in sales mix of residential customers and timing in pass-through charges. All our systems losses were below the regulatory cap of 6% except for Cotabato Light, which ended up — which ended above the regulatory cap due to nontechnical losses with minimal impact to the bottom line. We’re currently working on the 975 megawatts of attributable net sellable capacity.

Allow me to update you in the next 2 slides in that one on the new projects.

GNPD is in the final stages of construction but continues to face numerous challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the imposition of the travel ban on China. Construction has slowed down because of the preventive measures taken to ensure the safety of workers on site. As previously disclosed, the travel ban prevented the return of a number of EPC contractors workers from their Chinese New Year holiday and the arrival of technicians critical to the commissioning of Unit 1. As a result, commissioning works are ongoing only in areas where we do not require technical field assistance from China, although some of the commissioning works are also being done virtually with foreign advisers from their place of work. Due to the said circumstances, Unit 1 will synchronize and earn commissioning revenues by the fourth quarter of 2020 and will commence commercial operations by first quarter of 2021. Unit 2 will synchronize and earn commissioning revenues by the first quarter of 2021 and will commence commercial operations by second quarter of 2021.

For the Naga Power Plant Complex in Cebu, the rehabilitation of the 6 diesel engine units were completed last January and achieved agreed rehabilitation milestones, including successful grid compliance tests by NGCP. The units have demonstrated a combined net capacity of 39 megawatts out of the 400 since one unit still hasn’t been tested by NGCP. The issuance of certificate of compliance and provisional authority to operate are both pending from the Energy Regulatory Commission. The plant is expected to go to commercial operations once the provisional authority to operate or a final COC is obtained from ERC.

In closing, I would like to share a landmark development in the energy sector amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Energy Regulations 1-94, or ER 1-94, is a program of the Department of Energy which stipulates that host communities of generation companies will get a share of PHP 0.01 for every kilowatt-hour of generated power plants operating in their areas. The ER 1-94 funds can be used by the host beneficiaries for the electrification of areas or households that have no access to power, development and livelihood programs as well as reforestation, watershed management, health and environmental enhancement initiatives. DOE recently issued a new department circular that now allows the use of these funds to help the host local government units manage the effects of COVID-19 in accordance with the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act. These include the facilitation of mass testing by providing and constructing facilities as well as acquiring proper medical kits. AboitizPower fully supports this proactive move of DOE to continue its fight against COVID-19. We’re currently downloading about PHP 0.5 billion worth of ER 1-94 funds to around 130 host beneficiaries across Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. This is our contribution to the government’s efforts to ensure that all LGUs have enough resources to help contain, mitigate an
d eventually eliminate the spread of COVID-19 in their areas.

Tough times indeed, but we have prepared for this. Our businesses remain operational. Our team members and partners are connected, engaged, and most importantly, changed. As a result, we continue to deliver a high level of service to our customers and communities. We have trust in our business continuity and recovery plans and we remain positive about our growth strategy in the coming years. (foreign language) Good afternoon.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [3]

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Thank you very much, sir. For — to report for UnionBank, may I please now call on Mr. Toto Hilado.

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Jose Emmanuel Uytiepo Hilado, Union Bank of the Philippines – CFO, Treasurer & Senior EVP [4]

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Good afternoon.

Shall we go to the — okay. Let me start with the income performance of the bank in the first quarter of 2020.

So UnionBank [quoted] a net income of PHP 2.6 billion for the first 3 months of the year, which is about 22% higher than last year. This was driven by strong growth of higher-yielding consumer loans, SME loans and commercial loans, including a substantial increase in the net interest margin and higher trading gains for the year.

In light of the COVID-19 crisis and its potential impact on the bank’s credit portfolio, the bank deemed it prudent to set aside higher provisions for loan losses during the quarter. With this provision for loan losses, provision for loan loans increased to PHP 1.3 billion, which is 7.6x higher compared to last year. The bank’s earnings performance also continues to be above industry average with an ROE of 10.8%.

As for the net interest income, it increased by 47% to PHP 6.8 billion due to the substantial increase in margins as well as higher earning assets year-on-year. Net interest margins increased by 114 basis points to 4.5% from 3.4% last year. The higher NIM was largely driven by the drop in funding costs by about 105 basis points, which can be attributed to the impact of rate cuts and reserve requirement cuts as well as the bank’s continuous efforts to shift funding to cost-efficient insurance. Yields also increased 9 basis points year-on-year. Earning assets also grew by 8% year-on-year, driven by a strong 15% growth in loans. Securities, on the other hand, dropped by 17% as the bank reduced its holdings of dollar securities.

Next slide, please.

As for the credit portfolio, total loans were up 13% year-on-year to PHP 340 billion. This was primarily driven by double-digit growth in commercial banking loans, which grew 35%. SME banking increased 25%. Consumer loans, which includes mortgages and salary loans, went up 34%. And credit card receivables grew by 15%.

Next slide.

Deposits were up 9% year-on-year to PHP 470 billion,
attributable to the double-digit growth in CASA, which increased 16%. This also increased our CASA ratio to 41%.

This slide shows how our CASA has grown or has moved from year-end 2019 to April. So compared to year-end numbers, the CASA as of April 15 grew 13%. So this double-digit increase in CASA, we attribute to clients who prefer to do more deals with UnionBank because of our digital platform.

Next slide, please.

Noninterest income increased 17% year-on-year due to higher security saving gains amounting to PHP 1.8 billion. Fee income grew 5% to PHP 555 million, driven by higher service charges and corporate fees from the parent bank.

Next slide, please.

Operating expenses were up 17% to PHP 5.1 billion from PHP 4.3 billion last year, mainly due to the impact of higher gross receipt taxes from revenue growth, an increase in our advertising and marketing expenses given the push to ramp up awareness of our digital channels, and higher depreciation costs attributed to investment properties. But if we normalize operating expenses by netting out the substantial one-off OpEx, OpEx is only up by about 4% year-on-year.

Next slide, please.

To summarize, UnionBank’s net income grew 22% to PHP 2.6 billion. Our higher earnings was driven by the robust expansion of our lending business, higher margins due to lower interest rates and strong CASA growth and trading gains. All this resulted to our solid performance in the first quarter that allowed us to recognize higher provisions in anticipation of the potential impact of COVID-19.

Next slide, please. Let me now go to our expectations for the year and how we have coped with the COVID crisis.

As I presented earlier, we aggressively added to our loan loss provisions as we expect a more-than-usual deterioration in our credit portfolio because of the COVID crisis. As with any recession, we think that it will initially happen in the consumer financing side of the business, which is the most cyclical. But as we put aside higher provisions, it is also difficult to foresee how this would materialize. For one, we have to get through the Bayanihan Act loan reprieves and the ECQ, but we are confident that we have enough balance sheet strength to face the headwinds. We started the year with strong capitalization coming from our record net income result in 2019. Our CAR ratio is at 15.4%, and our CET1 is at 13.4% compared to the minimum of 8.5%. Also, our net NPL ratio has been lower compared to the previous year.

Next slide, please. Let me go to what has happened or what we have done during the ECQ.

Our digital transformation strategy enabled the bank to quickly transition during the disruption in banking operations caused by the ECQ. On day 1 of ECQ, which was March 16, we were able to enforce 85% to 90% work from home for our employees while performing all the critical banking operations. 100% of our call center agents are off-site, working from home, and are able to maintain 24/7 operations. Our salespeople also continued to do client calls from home or from branches to address client inquiries or needs. In short, we were business as usual despite the ECQ.

However, as we need to make sure that support — that we support the cash and liquidity requirements of our customers, we had to ensure that our
branches remain open, and so we were able to achieve a 93% availability of our branches in the first week of the ECQ. More importantly, our Ark branches are configured in such a way that physical contact or face-to-face interactions are minimized. So for example, partition layouts in Arks conducive for social distancing, self-service machines and digital queuing machines.

Next, please.

Moreover, we rolled out our Bank on Wheels and deployed them to areas with large transaction needs. The trucks allow customers to do cash withdrawals, deposits, fund transfer, bills payment and even account opening. We also saw the need to restore the ability of people or the unbanked areas through the likes of Cebuana Lhuillier, Palawan and LBC as the ECQ prevented people from going out. This is common for household help and Manila-based workers with dependents in the provinces. With our agile capability, we were able to quickly connect to the various remittance partners like LBC, Palawan, and Lhuillier and PERA HUB and launched the Send Money to Remittance Centers in our UnionBank app in 2 weeks’ time. Now customers can send money online to the 10,000 locations of our remittance partners. We were also one of the first to offer free fund transfer services via InstaPay and PESONet. The ECQ also highlighted a very neat feature of our app, which is the ability to deposit checks off-site in the comfort of your home simply by taking a picture of the check.

Let me end this presentation with this slide.

It shows that our digital account opening has surged during the ECQ. We averaged 1,000 accounts opened during the ECQ and we reached a peak of 4,000 in 1 day during this period. The same was true for our online corporate platform, which we call The Portal. Migration of existing clients and enrollment of new ones soared to record levels. Migration increased by 4x compared to January while enrollment of new bank corporate clients increased by 2.5x from the start of the year.

As you know, the bank embarked on a digital transformation strategy 3 years ago. It has been an ongoing journey for the bank. The thesis of our strategy was based on the financial industry getting disrupted and the disappearance of the brick-and-mortar approach to branch banking. We did not think that it would happen overnight, but we expected that soon, an inflection point will be reached. The COVID crisis may very well be the precursor of this inflection point. So despite the ECQ, it has been shown that banking can continue digitally, that a bank can be run from home, that business can operate on a cashless environment, that we don’t have to go to a branch to transact, that even if we go to a branch, the transaction can be done with machines.

We think that the next few months will be challenging for the bank and the country in general, but we believe that UnionBank and its employees are prepared for it. As workers in an essential service, we are committed to do our share and see this health crisis come to an end. Thank you.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [5]

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Thank you very much, Toto. And now for our next presentation, let me speak — may I please call on Mr. Roquefeuil.

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Hubert de Roquefeuil, [6]

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Okay. Thank you, Judd.

Food Group, Pilmico Feeds, Gold Coin revenue jumped 15% year-on-year to PHP 20 billion on the positive contribution of all division except farm and trading. EBITDA increased 24% to PHP 1.2 billion following the improvement in revenue. EBITDA margin improved 42 basis point due to the increase in margin of all division except farm. Overall, Food Group operating NIAT improved 27% year-on-year to PHP 332 million due to the full quarter 100% NIAT contribution of Gold Coin from 75% ownership in Q1 2019 and 63% EBITDA growth despite decline in Philippine operation.

Total Food Group revenue grew 15% year-on-year to PHP 20 billion on the positive contribution of all division except farm and trading. Flour revenue rose 4% year-on-year to PHP 2 billion due to the 7% growth in volume, slightly tempered by the 3% drop in average selling price.

Pilmico Feed Philippine and Vietnam together remain at PHP 5 billion on the offsetting effect of higher volume and lower average selling price. Gold Coin revenue increased 31% year-on-year due to the 7% improvement in volume and 43% higher average selling price.

Meanwhile, farm business average selling price and volume plummeted 17% and 51%, respectively, due to the spread of ASF in the northern part of Luzon. The plunge in both selling price and volume dragged the farm revenue down by 54% year-on-year to PHP 340 million this year.

Following the growth in revenue, Food Group EBITDA soared 24% year-on-year to PHP 1.2 billion on the better performance of all division except farm. Starting with the flour business, EBITDA soared 70% year-on-year following the 37% increase in gross profit per bag. This was further improved by the increase in the by-product contribution. The combined Feed Philippine and Feed Vietnam EBITDA grew 83% year-on-year on the 33% improvement in margin following better selling price and reduction in raw material cost. Gold Coin EBITDA grew 63% year-on-year following the increase in volume and decrease in operating expense. However, improvement in total Food Group EBITDA was slightly offset by the lackluster performance of the farm division. Farm division went down by 305% following the challenged margin and volume due to the spread of ASF in Northern Luzon.

Food Group Q1 2020 operating NIAT improved 27% year-on-year due to the positive contribution of all division except farm. Flour NIAT surged 69% year-on-year following the 70% growth in EBITDA. The upswing in EBITDA was softened by the 5x jump in interest expense due to higher working capital requirement. Feed Philippine and Vietnam NIAT contributes 193% (sic) [183%] more year-on-year following the 83% increase in EBITDA coupled with a 29% reduction in interest expense year-on-year. Gold Coin NIAT contributed 3.8x more than the PHP 71 million reported NIAT on the same period last year due to: one, 63% improvement in EBITDA; and two, 100% ownership in the first quarter of 2020 versus 75% ownership in the corresponding period last year. However, farms closed the first quarter of 2020 with a loss of PHP 345 million from PHP 4 million NIAT last year of the same period. The spread of ASF in Luzon drive the profitability down.

The spread of COVID-19 around the world has caused several challenge in the country we are operating in. However, the Food Group has set the following measure to keep o
ur operation and strategic plan intact. We have always been prepared especially at time like this. We have ensured that we have sufficient raw material to cover our full operation until July, August and maintain good relationship with our supplier. Customer demand is still high in the midst of a pandemic as food is a necessity. The government of all countries that we are operating in allows free movement of skeletal workforce as our businesses are deemed essential during COVID-19 disruption.

On the logistics side, we have modified our supply chain to adapt to the change in delivering and transporting our goods. We have boosted our collection facility and ensure that each customer is being actively managed by our retail personnel and collecting agents. We were also granted with reasonable credit extension by our top local supplier. Our central purchasing arm, Abacá, has provided flexible intercompany payment to effectively manage the cash requirement in all country where we do business. Lastly, we are making sure that we prioritize vital capital expenditure to protect our bottom line. The status of all our ongoing project will be touched in the succeeding slide.

We have completely activated our business continuity planning, BCP, in all the country that we are operating in. This prepare our people and operation to mitigate the risk of having a plant shutdown or lockdown due to the limitation of people movement. We have done skeletal workforce to continue our operation and production. Alongside with this, we ensure and prioritize the health and safety of our employees by providing shuttle services, PPEs, meals and lodging. Our commitment in prioritizing the health and welfare of our partner remain above all. We keep on updating our BCP inventory tracker for pandemic, which includes status of each facility during the ECQ, extended community quarantine. Part of the review process that we have done is really identifying the critical function and use that as a basis in allocating the resource that we have.

Go to the project now. For the 2020 project pipeline, we would like to give update on our plans and strategy growing the Food Group.

In the first quarter of 2020, a depot was commissioned in Bangka, Indonesia and now service as a channel that actively distributes our feed product in the area.

For the upcoming project, the completion of the new floating fish line is still on track. It will be completed in Dongguan, Southern China this April 2020 with an incremental capacity to cater to the increasing demand for fish feed in the region. Meanwhile, the completion of the fish feed line in Ha Nam, North Vietnam, previously expected to finish last February 2020, was moved to April 2020 due to ECQ and some technical issue with the Chinese contractor. Once finished, it will have a capacity of 5 ton per hour designed to capture the increase in demand for fish feed in the region.

For the farm business, we are expecting to fully commission our meat fabrication plant in June 2020. It was initially foreseen to be finished in May. But due to the implementation of ECQ in the entire Luzon, full completion and installation of system were deferred. The fabrication plant has a capacity of 346,000 heads per annum, equivalent to 2.75x our current hogs production. This is a big step we are undertaking to integrate the business toward the value chain. On the other hand, Feeds Philippine third feed mill line in Iligan is expected to commission in July 2020. This is a delay by 4 months from the original plan due to the effect of ECQ. The Chinese contractor involved in the construction of the plant were restricted on the site, hence interrupted the construction of the plant. Once completed, it will be an incremental capacity of 20 tons per hour to support the growing demand for livestock feed in the VisMin region.

By the end of this year, the last growing finish farms of the breeder 2 expansion will be completed. It was originally planned to finish in June 2020. But due to the risk of the spread of ASF and the implementation for ECQ in the entire Luzon, the project was deferred and expected to commission in December 2020. Growth in Farm XII is the last growing finishing farm to be constructed for the 14,000 sow level expansion. It has a capacity of 9,460 head. Lastly, also in December 2020, we are expecting to finish 3 out of 6 additional laying house for the layer business. This has a capacity to house 260,000 ready-to-lay hen, which has an ability to increase our egg production by additional 6 million eggs a month once all completed.

These are all for the Food Group. Thank you.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [7]

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(technical difficulty) the presentation, Hubert. Now to present for infra, may I please call on Cosette.

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Cosette Canilao, Aboitiz InfraCapital, Inc., – COO & Senior VP [8]

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I hope you and your family are safe and in good health.

COVID-19 has upended our lives in so many levels, and it is likewise evident in our various businesses.

I’ll start my presentation with our business units — with our water business units.

For Lima Water, the production volume for the first 3 months of 2020 registered at 0.62 million cubic meters, which is at par with our budget despite the Taal Volcano eruption. We also saw a 7% improvement in EBITDA versus budget for the first quarter of the year. With COVID-19, we immediately implemented our BCP in Lima Water to address the — its impact and ensure the continuity of operations given the Luzon-wide ECQ. Lima Water continues to operate but with a skeleton workforce who are provided with lodging and accommodations within the park. The company also ensured sufficient stock of critical supplies and provided alternate billings and payment options to the locators.

For Apo Agua, construction was suspended upon the declaration of Davao City’s ECQ effective April 4. The pandemic has already impacted key components of our construction value chain, our suppliers, our subcontractors and our labor force. As we are still in the middle of the evolving COVID-19 crisis, we are regularly meeting with our EPC contractor to assess the pandemic’s full impact to our project time lines and to formulate a recovery plan that can be implemented once ECQ is lifted. In parallel, the Davao City Water District is planning to implement interim solutions to ensure that sufficient supply of groundwater can be tapped to meet the needs of the consumers in the event if the pandemic were to persist over a longer period of time.

Now we go to our other projects.

Prior to ECQ, we were in the process of finalizing the terms of our proposal for Bohol-Panglao International Airport as well as for the NAIA project. We stand ready to continue discussions with the government for these proposals once the ECQ has been lifted. As to our Laguindingan Airport proposal, we were awaiting NEDA Board approval of the project prior to ECQ. We look forward to the resumption of the approval process once government operations normalize. We remain keen to pursue our airport proposals as we believe that these are vital infrastructure projects that the country needs and that these projects will play a huge role in reviving the economy post the ECQ and post COVID.

For our tower projects — for our towers project, we continue to discuss the commercial and technical requirements with the 3 mobile network operators during ECQ. We are working towards finalizing the terms, the commercial terms for the first batch of tower orders.

For RCBM, cement demand declined in quarter 1 as construction activities slowed down in March due to the Luzon-wide ECQ. In the meantime, Republic Cement’s new mills are undergoing commissioning. Despite the ECQ though, RCBM contributed PHP 61 million to AEV for the first 3 months of 2020 versus the PHP 32 million loss for the same period last year.

In summary, we have adjusted our operations to mitigate impact of the pandemic. We have robust BCPs that prioritizes safety, which we continuously review. We have also undertaken several CSR activities and donations in coordination with Aboitiz Foundation not only to host — to our host communities in Davao but also to Bohol and Cagayan de Oro.

During this time, when government is prioritizing COVID-19 response funding and implementation, the role of the private sector in ensuring development and construction of key infrastructure facilities has been highlighted. Through PPP, the private sector could take up the void that the reallocation has created. Increasing infrastructure spending whether funded by government or private sector will play a significant role in helping rebuild our economy. Aboitiz InfraCapital stand ready to support the government in reviving the economy through infrastructure.

That’s all from me. Thank you.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [9]

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Thank you very much, Cosette. Now to present for our land division, may I please call on Dave.

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David L. Rafael, AboitizLand, Inc. – President & CEO [10]

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Good afternoon, everyone. I hope that all of you and your family are all safe and sound.

So first slide, please. Okay.

The decline in AboitizLand’s first quarter performance versus the same period last year was due solely to the weak performance of our residential business. Revenue was at PHP 508 million, 25% — 24% below the same period. Gross profit was at PHP 177 million, down by 30% versus same period. Because of these declines, coupled with an increase in operating costs, we reported a NIAT of a loss of PHP 110 million, 152% drop versus the same period last year.

Next slide, please.

The Taal Volcano eruption in January plus the COVID pandemic in March had adversely impacted our residential business. In addition, construction slowed down that caused delays in project completion and revenue recognition. Lastly, we suffered several unexpected and untimely forfeitures in several projects, specifically Seafront, Amoa and Pristina North in Cebu. All of these caused residential revenues to fall by 49% versus the same period last year. Revenues from our industrial and commercial businesses during this period however have not yet felt the full impact of the pandemic, thus registering positive growth versus the same period last year.

Next slide.

Taking into account residential sales generated in late 2019 and carried over to first quarter 2020, sales in Q1 of PHP 732 million is 100% more than the sales for the same period last year.

Next slide.

So despite the subdued business environment, we remain confident about our residential business moving forward. Anticipating our buyers’ changing needs, we have implemented a contactless, end-to-end home buying system. Dubbed Better at Home, the system guides buyers, starting with virtual tours of our developments, to payment and submission of requirements, all from the comfort of their homes.

Next slide.

Similarly, we are optimistic that The Outlets format of our commercial development is well suited to address shoppers’ needs post ECQ. In contrast with additional big-box stores, the more sprawling footprint of our Outlet malls will put shoppers at ease in a world where social distancing is the norm.

Next slide.

Meanwhile, we believe our industrial business will suffer the least adverse effects from the current pandemic. With the global supply chain likely decreasing its concentration in China paired with available inventory of PEZA-accredited lots, our industrial parks are in a good position to capitalize on market opportunities.

Thank you, and that’s it for land.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [11]

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Thank you very much for that, Dave. And now to walk us through the consolidated financials of AEV, may I please call on Dmi.

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Manuel R. Lozano, Aboitiz Equity Ventures, Inc. – CFO, Corporate Information Officer & Senior VP [12]

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Hi. Good afternoon, everyone. I hope everyone here is healthy and continue to stay safe.

I’d like to start off by showing a summary of our key performance highlights.

AEV recorded consolidated revenues of PHP 47 billion for the first quarter of 2020. This is relatively flat compared to the same period last year. However, our consolidated
EBITDA and net income were showing downward signs versus first quarter of 2019, and I’ll get deeper into that in the next few slides.

Next slide.

One of our most important KPIs is beneficial EBITDA, and we look at this very closely. And in the first quarter, our beneficial EBITDA was just slightly above last year. The strong performance of financial services and food groups were offset by the power business, and mainly really due to the absence of the one-off income from GRAM and ICERA that was recorded in 2019. If we exclude the income from GRAM and ICERA, beneficial EBITDA would have been higher by 8%.

On a consolidated basis, EBITDA declined by 5%. Again, after excluding the income related to GRAM and ICERA, consolidated EBITDA would have been higher by 3% despite already feeling some of the impact of COVID in March.

On a core net income basis, the group’s core — this decreased by 41% mainly due to the increase in interest expense, depreciation and amortization. Interest expense increased by 26% due to the following: retail bond issuances for both AP and AEV plus additional project loans for food, infra and the power business. Depreciation and amortization also increased in 2020 because of the full take-up of Therma Visayas, which wasn’t yet being depreciated in the first quarter of 2019.

Next slide, please.

AEV recognized lower nonrecurring losses of PHP 262 million versus PHP 334 million compared to the same period last year. So as a result, net income for the first quarter was a little over PHP 2 billion, translating to an EPS of PHP 0.36 per share.

On to the balance sheet.

On a consolidated level, cash and cash equivalent increased by 65%, primarily due to the new dollar bond that we issued earlier this year. Consolidated assets increased by 6%, mainly due to the previously mentioned increase in cash. And total liabilities were higher by 11% due to the dollar bond of AEV and dividends payable after the company approved the declaration of dividends last March. These were the ones paid in early April. With that, our net debt-to-equity remained flat at 1.2x.

Post payment of dividends, AEV currently has approximately PHP 23 billion in cash and short-term bank deposits and PHP 30 billion in available short-term loan facilities with its relationship banks. Combined with the PHP 10 billion long-term facility signed with Metrobank earlier this month, the company is projected to have more than sufficient liquidity to sustain a prolonged lockdown.

Right now, we have focused our teams on conserving cash and doing away with unnecessary expenses and just managing the balance sheet overall as we look into the future and prepare ourselves for emergence from the ECQ.

At present, we have seen how our teams have risen to the challenge of COVID-19. And using, as you’ve heard from many of our presenters, digital infrastructure to make work from home doable and make us — and make our processes as seamless as possible despite the lockdown.

Our business continuity plans have been effective, and our cash flows and balance sheet are exhibiting resilience despite the challenges that have been faced by our units. We are prepared to emerge quickly once the ECQ has been relaxed.

And that’s it. That’s the last slide for me. Judd, I think we can move on now to the Q&A session.

=================
===============================================================

Questions and Answers

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [1]

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All right. Okay. Thank you very much for that, Dmi. And now so we’re going to — going on into our Q&A. So we’ve had here a number of questions that we’ve received. And I do know that in the presentations that we just went through today, that a number of these have already been answered. So why don’t I just raise the questions again, and then if there’s anything more that our panel here would like to add to this question or repeat from the presentations, then they can do so.

So I think our first question asked by a number of people is, how was your business affected by COVID-19 in terms of demand, volume, price and maybe perhaps your collections? And how have your plans been affected by COVID-19? So we can begin with power, and then banking, and then food, land, infrastructure and then if Republic Cement wants to add to that now. If there’s anything else that you want to repeat from your presentation or add to your current presentation. Yes, can we begin with you, EVR?

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Emmanuel V. Rubio, Aboitiz Power Corporation – President, CEO & Director [2]

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Economic activity brought about by the ECQ have resulted to, of course, lower volume, drops in demand as some manufacturing and a lot of activities have rapidly slowed down or even stopped, which in turn affected the revenue targets of AboitizPower, both in generation, distribution and retail electricity supply. But the good news though is that we’re seeing an increase in demand of the — compared to the first week of the ECQ, well, mainly due to temperature. The temperature is actually increased by 4 degrees. And we’ve seen the increased demand from at peak. It was lowest, around 7,100. Now we’re seeing it breaking at 8,000 megawatts. In terms of drops in demand, Luzon, they experienced, on the average, 22% in drop in demand versus the first week, right? The lowest was around 30. And while in Visayas and Mindanao, the mean at anywhere from 18% to 20% drop level. But the biggest drop really is in the contactable because most of them are manufacturing, the drop is around 40% to 50%. On collection, we — our collections actually guided by the circulars issued by ERC and DOE, we’re complying with those directives as well as our customers and suppliers.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [3]

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Yes. Thank you for that. Can we hear from you, Toto? Toto? I think Toto is on mute.

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Jose Emmanuel Uytiepo Hilado, Union Bank
of the Philippines – CFO, Treasurer & Senior EVP [4]

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I’m okay now.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [5]

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Yes, okay. You’re okay now.

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Jose Emmanuel Uytiepo Hilado, Union Bank of the Philippines – CFO, Treasurer & Senior EVP [6]

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Well, as presented earlier, our deposits are actually up 13% in terms of our CASA from year-end. And on the loan side, it’s more or less flat. And in terms of income, so far, it’s still good but of course, we had to provide additional loan provisions, but that’s more of expectations moving forward. Where we have been having difficulty is maintaining 100% opening of our branches. It’s more because of public transport. And in some areas, there’s really not much volume. So right now, we’re down to about 70%, which is a big reduction compared to the 93% that we had in the first 2, 3 weeks. But we think that the 70% is a good balance between an actual need to be there and the logistical requirements of moving people. But in general, new accounts are being opened, deposits are increasing. So so far, so good for the bank.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [7]

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Yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much, Toto. For our Food, Hubert?

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Hubert de Roquefeuil, [8]

——————————————————————————–

Yes. For the Food, it’s important to notice that we have 3 business: flour, which is food, feed business for animals and farm business. This is to give resilience to the business model. And in top of that, we are international. So in the flour business, because it’s a product from first necessity, we are not worried about the demand of flour in the coming months. And ECQ and COVID has not interfere in the flour business. Regarding the feed business, which is over 7, 8 country, we have been able to do skeletal workforce to run our plants, but all our plants are running because we are just before food. So we were authorized to produce, which is a good news. And the only thing we have to mention is the differ of our CapEx through the next 4 or 5 or 6 months due to the ECQ. And most of our engineers come from China, so we have a blockage here. And then we have farm. And in the farm, the COVID-19 has interfered with big disease we have in farm, which is the African swine fever. And we are not allowed to move
from farm to farm. And the farm business has been affected by COVID-19 and by African swine fever, both. That’s it for food.

——————————————————————————–

Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [9]

——————————————————————————–

Yes. Thank you very much, Hubert. And after Hubert, what about Cosette? Do you have anything to add for infrastructure?

——————————————————————————–

Cosette Canilao, Aboitiz InfraCapital, Inc., – COO & Senior VP [10]

——————————————————————————–

Well, in terms of timelines, for Lima Water, I think we have an attractive working solution in place to adjust to the reduced demands, and we can actually scale it up once demand goes to normal levels. But of course, the biggest impact will be in Apo Agua. We need to be able — we need to have a full understanding of how — what we can do or if we can go full blast on the construction activities. So that depends on the post ECQ conditions, and we are hoping and working closely with the Davao city government to ensure that we can go back to normal construction activities. But putting in place the new protocols to ensure health and safety of the workers. For our other projects, as I’ve mentioned, it depends on — once ECQ is lifted, on how we negotiate or move forward with the government. That’s it. Yes.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [11]

——————————————————————————–

Yes. Yes. Then Nabil, I know that you’re with us right now here in the audience. So if there’s anything at all that you want to add for Republic.

——————————————————————————–

Nabil Francis, Republic Cement & Building Materials, Inc. – CEO [12]

——————————————————————————–

Well, for us, the main impacts, that we have had to shut down 4 of our 6 production units in Luzon. But, the good news is that we are still running the 2 other plants in Cebu and in Mindanao. Of course, we are running those plant with the strict precaution measures in terms of social distancing. When it comes to Luzon, we are ready to restart. What has happened is the — I mean construction has not been authorized during the ECQ, so that the demand is basically dropping down to 0 in Luzon. However, we strongly believe that the fundamentals of the cement market are good in the Philippines. They remain good. So in our view, the future is not canceled. It’s just postponed.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [13]

————————————-
——————————————-

Okay. Well, that’s a good point. Thank you very much, Nabil. And Dave, is there something that you’d like to add?

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David L. Rafael, AboitizLand, Inc. – President & CEO [14]

——————————————————————————–

Okay. Well, in the case of AboitizLand, we basically are into 3 types of real estate, right? Residential, industrial and commercial. For the residential, I think I’ve mentioned that it has been adversely affected and will continue to be adversely affected. The kind of residential unit products that we have cater mostly to the mid-market, low horizontal developments. So this is really our — one of our biggest target markets, OFWs. We all know how OFWs have been affected by this COVID. So we expect sales to be slow. We also expect that there could be maybe a higher incidence on forfeitures. People who are now still on the equity stage might not — because of the uncertainty of their income, might not be able to complete it. Construction will also be affected. And when construction is delayed, that also delays revenue recognition for real estate. So all of those factors, I think, will prove to be very challenging for the residential business. Now for the industrial, we’re quite optimistic about industrial. We really feel that global developments, as I mentioned earlier, that maybe some of these global companies that have been concentrating their operations in China will now maybe not put all their eggs in one basket and start dispersing and going to other locations to avoid getting locked up there. So we think that we will be able to benefit a little bit from that dispersion with our industrial assets. Our commercial is a very small part of our business. Fortunately, we don’t have big box malls like other developers. So we think that when post COVID, I think we — the retail format that we have will be maybe not as adversely affected with all the social distancing requirements. So again, just like Nabil, we’ve — I have a very — I’ve been in the real estate business for a long time, and I know that real estate is a very resilient industry. And this is a bump. It’s a very deep bump. But I know that in the end, we’ll get out of it, and we’ll continue to prosper.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [15]

——————————————————————————–

Yes. Okay. Thanks for that, Dave. And before we go to the second round of questions, I just wanted to acknowledge the presence of our group CEO, Mr. Sabin Aboitiz. So he’s joined us in this Zoom meeting today. Hi, sir. Good afternoon. Welcome to this Zoom meeting. If there’s anything at all that you want to add in the course of the conversations that we have here today, please just chime in anytime, sir. We have a second round of questions.

——————————————————————————–

Sabin Mendieta Aboitiz, Aboitiz Equity Ventures, Inc. – President, CEO & Director [16]

——————————————————————————–

Good afternoon. Good afternoon.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [17]

——————————————————————————–

Hi, sir. Good afternoon. So we have a second round of questions here. So I know that this has been addressed in varying degrees in the presentations that we have. So if there’s anything that you want to add at all to this second set, I’d like to ask all of our presenters today if — how have your plans been affected by COVID-19? If there has been any change in direction or priorities for the year and in the coming years. So we can do our round robin again. Perhaps we could start with Mr. Manny Rubio for power.

——————————————————————————–

Emmanuel V. Rubio, Aboitiz Power Corporation – President, CEO & Director [18]

——————————————————————————–

Well, I’d like to first mention that the — we have a very strong business continuity plan, and I think that’s how we are allowed to operate in an unusual business environment. As far as our plans are concerned, we have — we’re working on a 10-year plan. It’s a quite long term. At least in my appointment as CEO, we started our 10-year planning horizon. But on the short term, right, we have — we are on a cash preservation mode, considering the uncertainties, right, that the pandemic has brought upon the industry and the country and the world in general. We have identified CapEx that we are — that we have decided to defer. And then some of this will have an impact in the short term, but that will delay some of the projects. One of the more obvious ones, of course, is the one that we have spoke just recently, Mekong Wind, where the counterparty wasn’t able to deliver the condition precedent, and we decided to — well, the only recourse was actually cancel the transaction. But both parties are agreed to continue the discussions if the opportunity remains open once things have improved. But yes, I think the only thing that has affected our plans are the short-term CapEx that we have budgeted for 2020. That will probably have an impact on 2021, but not on our 10-year planning horizon.

——————————————————————————–

Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [19]

——————————————————————————–

Yes. Thank for that, Manny. What about for the bank, Toto?

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Jose Emmanuel Uytiepo Hilado, Union Bank of the Philippines – CFO, Treasurer & Senior EVP [20]

——————————————————————————–

Yes. So for the bank, [one of the talks I see in] we’re thinking of reducing our CapEx because we were actually planning to convert more of our branches to The Ark mode. So now we’re reviewing which of these branches will still require the conversion. Not to mention that, as I mentioned earlier, if there is any less for branches going forward, then maybe we don’t need as much branches. The other thing is we’ve realized that we have an edge on the digital banking side. So the plan here really is to accelerate the products that we have, to push more products on the digital platform. So basically shifting all these forces to that. Now in terms of the loans, the way things are going (inaudible) certainly, maybe the loan side will not grow as fast or maybe should be flat or a slight reduction, especially on the consumer side. But we think that we can compensate for that if we are able to maximize the online platforms we have for lending. But as of this time, it’s too soon to say whether that will really grow. So in summary, we think that we will be pushing hard on the digital platform side. We think that credit might be a bit slow this year. And that if we can reduce CapEx, then we would reduce it substantially. Thank you. That’s all, Judd.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [21]

——————————————————————————–

Sorry, I was on mute. Hubert, do you have anything to add on how your plans have been affected by COVID-19?

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Hubert de Roquefeuil, [22]

——————————————————————————–

Yes. I mean, on one side, we have decreased our CapEx by 70%, so it’s really something substantial. We have our collection to be slightly raised. Our farm business, as I was mentioning, is affected by the ECQ. And we expect to have a slow demand for the months to come by the effect of the COVID-19 because we were able to produce lots of poultry in Malaysia and Indonesia. And due to the curfew, there is no more restaurants, hotel and catering open to distribute this product like chicken, eggs and things like that. So that has affected our — that will affect our business in the coming months.

——————————————————————————–

Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [23]

——————————————————————————–

Thank you, Hubert. Can we have Cosette? Do you have any other plans that have been changed or affected by COVID-19?

——————————————————————————–

Cosette Canilao, Aboitiz InfraCapital, Inc., – COO & Senior VP [24]

——————————————————————————–

Yes. For our CapEx program for Lima Water, we’re now prioritizing the mandatory and efficiency-related CapEx. So that’s for Lima. For Apo Agua, no change there. We go full blast with the construction as much as we are allowed by the city. And then for our other projects, that depends on how soon we can start the discussions with the government. So as mentioned by Nabil, plans have been — most of the plans have been postponed but not canceled.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [25]

——————————————————————————–

All right. Thanks for that, Cosette. What about you, Dave? Any change in plans?

——————————————————————————–

David L. Rafael, AboitizLand, Inc. – President & CEO [26]

——————————————————————————–

Okay. So 2 things. So I guess, #1, just like everybody else, all of my colleagues, substantial reduction in our CapEx for 2020 in line with prioritizing liquidity and conserving cash. #2 is really the way we do business. Now selling real estate has really been — one of the challenges in selling real estate is you’re selling a very tangible product. People want to see the property. They want to go there. They want a trip. But that — and that’s usually the time that you actually get to convince and close the deal, but that’s not available, right? So you have to do it online. So that has been the biggest challenge for us, really trying to sell market, close sales on a purely contactless online basis. We’ve had some success. I mean we’re doing about 50% of our normal sales. But of course, that’s still half. But I think that — because we sort of invested in this digital platform and digital tools quite early. When this happened, we weren’t caught completely off guard. So we’re not starting from 0. But we’ve got a long ways to go. But this is, I think, one major change that we have adopted. And we know we’ll continue to adopt, this whole mode of digital operation, digital selling, which is really very new in the real estate industry.

——————————————————————————–

Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [27]

——————————————————————————–

Yes. Okay. Got that. Thank you very much, Dave. Nabil, is there anything that you want to add in terms of change of plans for Republic Cement?

——————————————————————————–

Nabil Francis, Republic Cement & Building Materials, Inc. – CEO [28]

——————————————————————————–

Well, basically, on our side, the same actions as the ones taken by the colleagues are in place. I think we need to remain prudent. We are currently in uncharted territory. This crisis is unprecedented. So until we see the light in the tunnel, we’ll remain prudent and we’ll keep some projects on hold. If you allow me, one of the questions was whether the cement demand is about to recover post ECQ and during the ECQ. And I think ther
e, cautious optimism should prevail. The good thing is that cement is part of the businesses that will be allowed during GCQ. So answer is, yes, demand is going to recover. Now to give you a forecast, it’s extremely difficult to forecast those days, but I can give you some pointers. The total impact on the demand for Q1 on the total cement demand is roughly minus 10%. And during the ECQ, it would be closer to 35% to 40% negative. Now the good thing or the silver lining of the cloud is that when we look at such crisis, what’s happening in general is that most government will have to trigger a kind of a plan Marshall of a recovery plan just to boost the economy. And in general, what we see is some infrastructure spending. So this is a good news for our business.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [29]

——————————————————————————–

Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much for that, Nabil. I think we have actually quite a bit of questions here. We have here — sorry. You have here a question addressed to Pilmico. Sorry. We have a question here addressed to Pilmico. And the question is, could we have more color on how COVID has affected the food units regional supply chains? Also how has ASF affected farms performance in April? So I — who shall we address this question to? Anyway, we have both Hubert and Gayle on the line so.

——————————————————————————–

Krystel Gayle Guzman, [30]

——————————————————————————–

Hi. Hi, Judd. So this is Gayle. Just to add to what Hubert elaborated on early, right? So for COVID-19, the food unit was actually very resilient in terms of securing our raw materials way ahead of time and at a great price. So we are now pricing up to September. And we have so far already in our plants our raw materials for our June to July to August in terms of raw materials. China is already up and running in terms of the country being a huge source for our micro ingredients. So that was one of the biggest hiccup for feed millers like us in the region. So that’s already returning back to normal. In terms of ASF, so our farms are largely hit in terms of logistics, largely driven by the LGUs in Northern Luzon, which has really hampered the movement of animals in relation to ASF and COVID-19. So including the impact of the closures of hotel, restaurants and then theater, theater goers, which is a huge part of our revenue mix, we’ve really seen a significant impact in the way our volumes are moving. So that’s it for the question. Thank you.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [31]

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Yes. Thank you for that, Gayle. And we go to the next question here on our system. We have addressed the AboitizPower. The question is how is AP’s balance sheet and liquidity position? How much are its debt service obligations? And can current cash cover these expenses amid COVID-19 crisis? Sir, I think you’re on mute.

——————————————————————————–

Emmanuel V. Rubio, Aboitiz Power Corporation – President, CEO & Director [32]

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Judd, I’ll ask Liza to answer this and address the details. Go ahead, Liza.

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Liza Luv L. Tajanlangit-Montelibano, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Senior VP, CFO & Corporate Information Officer [33]

——————————————————————————–

Okay. Good afternoon, everybody. So to answer this question, I’ll at least first describe to you what least we’ve assumed for this year. So what we’ve originally assumed that the ECQ would really last until the end of May and that there’s almost nil collections after that. And then after that, there’s very gradual collections over the next 4 to 6 months that will follow demand, also from what Manny has mentioned earlier. From those drops, we also forecasted only very minimal or gradual increases, whereas you end up reaching levels that are similar to last year only towards the fourth quarter. Given that scenario, our cash will be sufficient to allow us to cover for all debt obligations for the year. Given that scenario, our balance sheet will prove to be resilient. Now again, as Nabil also mentioned earlier, this is unchartered territory. Now as to what happens after that 4 to 6 months, will there be another ECQ? Will there be another wave? So we are all — we are running different simulations. And what I can share with you is that for each picture in mind, we’re trying to already come up with options of what we will adjust in terms of our spending, in terms of our cash management to allow us to manage at least the scenarios that we’ve already painted.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [34]

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Yes. Thank you for that, Liza. Our next question is addressed to Union Bank. And the Union Bank question is, what is Union Bank’s outlook on potential nonperforming loan formation? How is management planning to manage higher credit risk?

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Jose Emmanuel Uytiepo Hilado, Union Bank of the Philippines – CFO, Treasurer & Senior EVP [35]

——————————————————————————–

So far, it’s been difficult to project how this will all pan out, primarily because we’re on the loan debrief part of the Bayanihan Act. But as I mentioned earlier, normally, it would be the consumer financing side that would be adversely affected. So our initial estimate is that maybe NPL ratios could increase by, let’s say, 0.7% to about 1%. Now how to manage that, of course, we have essentially slowed down on the consumer financing side and then our account officers are currently doing an account-by-account review for all the existing borrowers. And on new accounts, I guess as with all other banks, credit standards would definitely be tighter than usual.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [36]

——————————————————————————–

Yes. Thank you.

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Emmanuel V. Rubio, Aboitiz Power Corporation – President, CEO & Director [37]

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Toto. Sorry, Judd. Toto, and also, what about on the provisioning? Maybe we could — you’d like to add on that.

——————————————————————————–

Jose Emmanuel Uytiepo Hilado, Union Bank of the Philippines – CFO, Treasurer & Senior EVP [38]

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On the provisioning, as presented earlier, we provided that for about PHP 1.17 billion for the first quarter. Last year, it was only about PHP 170 million, so it’s about 7x. Moving forward, we think that we should be adding another PHP 800 million to reach about PHP 2 billion, which we think is a good buffer for the potential credit losses.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [39]

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We have a second question for you, Toto, so please stay on. What is their outlook on NIMs? And if you think there will be a significant contraction considering the aggressive cuts from [BFB.]

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Jose Emmanuel Uytiepo Hilado, Union Bank of the Philippines – CFO, Treasurer & Senior EVP [40]

——————————————————————————–

Well, NIMs would actually be better for the bank because — for 2 reasons. One, we have term loans in the book. So our portfolio will benefit with lower funding costs. And the other thing is we don’t have much branches. And so we would normally be paying on the time deposit side. So as your marginal funding goes down, then margins also improve. So in the case of the bank, a lower interest rate environment benefits us, both from the peso side and the dollar side.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [41]

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So AboitizPower, and the question is, what is the status of Therma South Unit 2? And how has it returned to service? I think EVR is on mute?

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Emmanuel V. Rubio, Aboitiz Power Corporation – President, CEO & Director [42]

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Okay.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [43]

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Yes, yes.

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Emmanuel V. Rubio, Aboitiz Power Corporation – President, CEO & Director [44]

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Can you hear me now? Okay.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [45]

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Yes, sir. Thank you.

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Emmanuel V. Rubio, Aboitiz Power Corporation – President, CEO & Director [46]

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Sorry. Well, TSI Unit 2 went down last year. I’ll have to say July. We were able to make it run. In December, it ran for about a week or a few days after a week, and then we decided to bring it down again as we’re experiencing the same problems as when — after we brought it down. And then we decided to really do the work on based on the new design also of the OEM, which, after this unit, they actually disclosed that they have changed already the design, and we’ve adopted that. So with all the work needed, we were expecting that, that should be online around March or April. But because of the enhanced quarantine, we really have to follow the strict protocols that are mandated by the RITM. The foreigners were able to get to Manila. We had 7 foreign advisers. They had to do quarantine in Manila for 14 days. And when they are — when they got to Davao, there again — they were again required to do another 14 days, right? So to cut the long story short, all the parts are actually now in TSI. All the required technical advisers, foreign advisers are in the site. We’re expecting return to service May 19.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [47]

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Okay. Got that, sir. Sir, a follow-up question here. This is also for AboitizPower. What is the status of GNPower Dinginin project? And when does the company expect this to commercially operate, sir?

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Emmanuel V. Rubio, Aboitiz Power Corporation – President, CEO & Director [48]

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Okay. I think in the last briefing, we — or previous to that, the forecast or the way — our estimate of when the synchronization will happen will be around July, with the commercial operations declared August 2020. But again, because of the ECQ, post Chinese New Year, only about less than 50 Chinese workers were able to get back to the site from more than 200 that left. But we were able to address that already, beefing the capacity coming from local contractors. What we are in need now are foreign — technical foreign advisers, mostly, again, from China, but subcontractors of the EPC. And we are going — we’re expecting them to be at site probably within the next 3 weeks. So that caused us to actually move our target from July synchronization to September synchronization and expecting to have a — or to declare commercial operations, hopefully, earliest around December. But I would think that we’ll be able to declare course operations by January of 2021 for the first unit.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [49]

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Yes. Yes. Thank you very much. Thanks for that. Our next question is addressed to Republic Cement. I think that’s Nabil. Nabil, what is the growth in terms of volume and average selling price for the first quarter? What is your outlook on volumes and average selling prices for the year?

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Nabil Francis, Republic Cement & Building Materials, Inc. – CEO [50]

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Well, in terms of volume at market level for the first quarter, the market is printing a minus 10%. It was — let’s say, was a sluggish growth for January, February, hovering around 3% to 5%, but then a drastic drop due to the ECQ in March. Price — level of prices are stable for the time being. When it comes to the yearly growth, I just said that — I’ve just given you some pointers about what it could be. It’s — we were anticipating an 8% growth prior to the virus. Now definitely, we — it’s going to be in the negative territory. But very, very difficult to give you an accurate forecast as of now.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [51]

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Yes. That’s okay. Well, we have here a second one for you. So just a follow-up, maybe you can add from what you’ve already previously stated. Has COVID-19 affected your plans to build any new capacity in the next few years?

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Nabil Francis, Republic Cement & Building Materials, Inc. – CEO [52
]

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Well, the — as a matter of fact, we are just fine-tuning and finalizing the commissioning of 2 brand-new finished mills state-of-the-art in terms of technology, and those mills are up and running. So those are already installed. For the other project, as I said, we are keeping some of the investments on hold until we see the recovery coming, until we see the light in the tunnel, because for the time being, we want to remain prudent, especially when it comes to cash.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [53]

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Okay.

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Nabil Francis, Republic Cement & Building Materials, Inc. – CEO [54]

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But maybe if the question is that it’s — what I said is it’s just the fundamentals of the cement demand of the market of the Philippines are remaining extremely good, so we’ll have — it’s going to take some time for the recovery. Construction is not going to restart like this. Most of the — for instance, most of the workers, they have left the construction site. They went back to their provinces. So by the time we restart the sites, we need to mobilize the workers again. So it will take a little bit of time, but step-by-step, we will come back to a good and reasonable level of growth.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [55]

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Okay. Thank you for that. Thanks, Nabil. And our next question is for AboitizPower. Thanks, Nabil. Sorry. For AboitizPower, has AP recovered the losses arising from the plant outages via insurance already?

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Emmanuel V. Rubio, Aboitiz Power Corporation – President, CEO & Director [56]

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(technical difficulty) CFO of Power Generation group, I’ll ask her to answer that because she got details. Racquel?

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Ma. Racquel J. Bustamante, Aboitiz Power Corporation – First VP & CFO for Generation Business Group [57]

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Hi. Good afternoo
n. Okay. For TSI, we haven’t recovered the business interruption claim for TSI yet. We’re hoping that to be able to recover that in the latter part of this year. I think I’ll answer the — go ahead, Judd.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [58]

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Okay. And then I have a second question here. What would be the generation EBITDA had been and year-on-year change in first quarter 2020 without the TSI Unit 2 plant outage?

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Ma. Racquel J. Bustamante, Aboitiz Power Corporation – First VP & CFO for Generation Business Group [59]

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Okay. So if you take out the effect of the outage of TSI for first quarter of 2020, generation EBITDA would have been about PHP 8 billion. That’s about 5% decline only quarter-on-quarter instead of 11%. At the 80 level, the EBITDA would have been PHP 9.6 billion. That’s only 3% decline quarter-on-quarter instead of 8%. However, if you take out the GRAM and ICERA income that we recognized last year, EBITDA for generation and AboitizPower would have been higher by 8% quarter-on-quarter.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [60]

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Okay. Thanks. Thank you for that. Our next set of questions we have here is addressed to AIC. So I think these are for you, Cosette. Regarding the NAIA project, may I know if the issues delaying the Swiss challenge have been resolved? So referring to real property tax, bus rapid transit system, current jobs of airport employees. So they’re asking if these issues have been resolved.

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Cosette Canilao, Aboitiz InfraCapital, Inc., – COO & Senior VP [61]

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Yes. Pre ECQ, most of the issues were actually resolved except for the (inaudible) [cable mover] system. But of course, we are hoping. We are going to have another round of discussion with government, with the (technical difficulty) issues that (technical difficulty).

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [62]

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Hello, Cosette?

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Cosette Canilao, Aboitiz InfraCapital, Inc., – COO & Senior VP [63]

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Judd?

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [64]

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Yes. Sorry. You were choppy. Okay. Sorry. Here, I have a second question for you. In the NAIA rehabilitation proposal, there are 3 airport terminals that can be rehabilitated and expanded. May I know why the NAIA Terminal 4 is not included in the proposal?

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Cosette Canilao, Aboitiz InfraCapital, Inc., – COO & Senior VP [65]

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Yes. For NAIA terminal, we’re still studying what we can do optimize that area. But for now, the (inaudible) of the development or rehabilitation (inaudible) 1, 2 and 3 were immediate rehabilitation plans and upgrade plans are needed.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [66]

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And after that, we have the — aside from the rehabilitation of NAIA, is there a plan to improve the handling capacity of the cargo terminal?

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Cosette Canilao, Aboitiz InfraCapital, Inc., – COO & Senior VP [67]

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Yes. The cargo terminal, that’s included in our proposal, and the details are in the scope of [proposal.]

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [68]

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Okay. Cosette, one last for you. Sorry. Is the proposed IT system for the NAIA rehab the same as the one of Singapore’s Changi airport is using? And will the services such as self-check in kiosks and auto bag drops be available?

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Cosette Canilao, Aboitiz InfraCapital, Inc., – COO & Senior VP [69]

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The IT system is definitely part of our scope. Now I don’t think that it will be as — it will be very similar to what Changi is using. And we’re also looking at the possibilities of — we’re looking at the possibility of putting up self-check in kiosks as well as auto bag drops. But again, a lot of these things will change based on, of course, the new protocols that we will have to put in place to comply with physical distancing and other COVID protocols.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [70]

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All right. Yes. Thank you for that, Cosette. Our next question is for Republic Cement, so this for Nabil. Nabil, what is the status of your imports?

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Nabil Francis, Republic Cement & Building Materials, Inc. – CEO [71]

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Well, when it comes to import, we have seen a radical, what, a radical decrease for the first quarter. We still have — well, in terms of market share, imported cement should [recur,] let’s say, roughly 12% of the market. So it’s way below the 17%, 18% that we have witnessed previous year. However, with the effect of the ECQ in Luzon and taking into account that the vast majority of imported cement goes to VisMin, we will see a surge in — during the month of March. And our internal estimate would be a market share for imported cement in March hovering around 18%. That is quite significant.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [72]

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All right. Thanks for that, Nabil. Our next question is for AboitizPower. And the question here is, EBITDA is still falling despite capacity sold is growing. Could you explain what is going on? Is this based on new contracts? Or is there a cyclical element here?

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Emmanuel V. Rubio, Aboitiz Power Corporation – President, CEO & Director [73]

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I’ll ask Racquel to provide the details.

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Ma. Racquel J. Bustamante, Aboitiz Power Corporation – First VP & CFO for Generation Business Group [74]

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Our first quarter performance in terms of EBITDA was really affected by outages from both TSI and GMCP. So that’s one. Agree, we have new capacities coming from TVI. But then again, we were able to renew our contracts with Meralco for this y
ear at a lower rate. But if we did not renew Meralco, the gross margin or the rates would have been significantly lower. That’s basically it.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [75]

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Yes. Thank you very much, Racquel. There’s another question here, also for AboitizPower, liquidity. Cash is PHP 44 billion. Are you able to say what your undrawn credit lines are currently? And what amount of debt needs to be refinanced this year?

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Emmanuel V. Rubio, Aboitiz Power Corporation – President, CEO & Director [76]

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Liza?

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Liza Luv L. Tajanlangit-Montelibano, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Senior VP, CFO & Corporate Information Officer [77]

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Okay. So for our cash, so we ended first quarter at PHP 44 billion. As you know, we did our dividend declaration — our dividend payments the first week of April. So at the second week of April, we were at PHP 35 billion. Across the whole group, there’s undrawn credit lines of around PHP 30 billion to PHP 35 billion. For AP, as you know, originally, there was a third — the last tranche of the shelf that we had for the bond which we wanted to do before it expired at the middle of the year. So first, we’ve done infusions into GNPD using short-term loans, and we would have actually reimbursed ourselves for that using the bond. So currently, there are short-term loans for that. So that is actually what we wanted to actually refinance to reimburse us for the GNPD inclusions. Now as to whether the market will allow us to be able to do that last shelf for the year is something that we are closely monitoring at the moment, and we are preparing for contingencies if ever that gets delayed.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [78]

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Yes. Thank you, Liza. Well, one more for AboitizPower. What’s the minimum energy quota, MEQ, for AP’s RES contracts on average as a percentage to contracted megawatts?

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Emmanuel V. Rubio, Aboitiz Power Corporation – President, CEO & Director [79]

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I don’t have the — Racquel, do you have the details? Yes.

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Ma. Racquel J. Bustamante, Aboitiz Power Corporation – First VP & CFO for Generation Business Group [80]

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Yes, yes. Most of our contracts are still paid on a consumed basis. But 14% of our total RES contracts or about 25% of our total contracts still have minimum energy quota. But then again, the minimum energy still varies per contract and still depends on the consumer consumption behavior. But in terms of energy quotas, maybe about 70% to 80% of the total demand is still coming from minimum energy quantities.

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Emmanuel V. Rubio, Aboitiz Power Corporation – President, CEO & Director [81]

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For the contestable customers, yes.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [82]

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Yes. Okay. Thank you for that, Racquel. Our next question is for AIC. AIC, this is for Cosette. So do you have any updates on timetables for Apo Aqua cell towers and the airport projects?

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Cosette Canilao, Aboitiz InfraCapital, Inc., – COO & Senior VP [83]

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Yes. I think that’s part of my presentation earlier that, for Apo Aqua, definitely, there could be some delays in the project completion, and we’re still ascertaining that depending on the conditions of the (inaudible) post ECQ in Davao City. Now for the towers, discussions are still ongoing despite the fact that we are in ECQ. And we’re hoping that we would be able to finalize the commercial terms in the next few months. And then for the airport projects, once ECQ is lifted, we will resume discussions with the government.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [84]

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Yes. Thank you for that update, Cosette. Our next question is for land. So this is for you, Dave. Have you received any advice — have you received advice? And whether construction activities for residential projects can resume under GCQ.

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David L. Rafael, AboitizLand, Inc. – President & CEO [85]

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Okay. Based on what’s been announced so far, housing is one of the sectors that will be allowed partial to full operation under GCQ. But we will still await further guidelines to ensure that we are compliant and to ensure the safety of our contractors and community.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [86]

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Thank you. Thank you for that, Dave. Our next question is for AboitizPower. And how should we think about dividends trend going forward?

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Emmanuel V. Rubio, Aboitiz Power Corporation – President, CEO & Director [87]

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Excuse me. Well, we just have to follow our policy of — for now, that’s the — that policy still exists, that we will dividend 50% of previous year’s net income.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [88]

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Yes. Okay. Thank you for that. We are — I think we have time for 1 last question. And this is addressed to AEV. This is for Dmi. Will the Aboitiz Group be pursuing any capital debt or equity raising exercise this year?

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Manuel R. Lozano, Aboitiz Equity Ventures, Inc. – CFO, Corporate Information Officer & Senior VP [89]

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We haven’t had any discussions of equity raising this year. But we had programmed several key debt raising. One of the major ones for AEV was the dollar bond offering that we did earlier this year. And we’ve also secured all of our major business unit fundraising, except for the retail bonds, right? So Liza mentioned that AP, we had programmed one for the middle of the year and possibly towards the end of the year. And then AEV also, we had programmed one which is PHP 5 billion to PHP 10 billion towards the end of the year. We already — AEV has a couple of bonds that are maturing on November, and we already have the funding in place to cover that. But what’s happened also is because of lower CapEx from our subsidiaries, the demand for cash also has been reduced. So we basically have enough funding already for the rest of the year. So the only things really up in the air there are AP, hopefully, to be able to use their last tranche or the last part of their shelf. And then again, towards the end of the year, if the markets are open, we might do PHP 5 billion to PHP 10 billion for AEV as well. But that’s — those are basically the only 2 remaining fundraising exercises that have not yet been completed or secured.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [90]

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Yes. Thank you for that, Dmi. Well, before we close this Q&A, I just wanted to check if from our panel there is anything else that you want to add to the guests that we have into this briefing.

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Emmanuel V. Rubio, Aboitiz Power Corporation – President, CEO & Director [91]

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Nothing more from me.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [92]

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From anyone? From Toto?

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Jose Emmanuel Uytiepo Hilado, Union Bank of the Philippines – CFO, Treasurer & Senior EVP [93]

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None. Okay.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [94]

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All right then. So if that’s the case, I’d like to thank everyone who joined our briefing for today. We have received quite a number of questions, and we are going to respond to all of them. We apologize that we’re not able to take up all of the questions that we received here today as we had prioritized those that we received in advance. So thank you very much for this. We will respond to all of you right after this briefing. And then we hope to see you again during our quarterly briefing. So thank you all and keep safe. Thank you very much.

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Emmanuel V. Rubio, Aboitiz Power Corporation – President, CEO & Director [95]

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Happy long weekend.

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Francisco Victor G. Salas, Aboitiz Power Corporation – Investors Relations Officer [96]

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Happy long weekend.

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Emmanuel V. Rubio, Aboitiz Power Corporation – President, CEO & Director [97]

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Yes. Yes. Stay safe, everyone.

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Cosette Canilao, Aboitiz InfraCapital, Inc., – COO & Senior VP [98]

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Bye, guys. Bye.

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Jose Emmanuel Uytiepo Hilado, Union Bank of the Philippines – CFO, Treasurer & Senior EVP [99]

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Thank you. Bye-bye.