Earnings Sentiment

Sentiment Analysis of the earnings transcript to help figure out if there are any bullish or bearish sentiments that could be gathered from it. We're doing ML and AI based analysis on the earnings call to get some more insights.

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Sentiment Distribution

   

Earnings Call Transcript Word Cloud

     

Bullish Statements during Earnings call

Statement
As more and more vehicles and buildings are electrified, the electricity demand will increase by 80% over the next 20 years, which will benefit customer affordability through a 40% decrease in their total energy costs across electricity, gasoline, and natural gas
Excellent and well done
And the early RPS targets helped drive down solar manufacturing costs
This strong performance demonstrates our ability to manage the business and extends our track record of meeting annual EPS guidance over the last two decades, as shown on page 3
This spending will benefit customers and therefore shareholders in the long run
I also reaffirm the strong confidence we have in our long-term EPS growth targets of 5 to 7% for 2021 through 2025, and 2025 through 2028
I feel proud that Edison, I think it's one of the early movers, certainly in our sector
We have a very strong commitment to our balance sheet, and I think you've seen us demonstrate that commitment with the financing decisions we made in the past, but also the balance sheet has been strengthened by all of the wildfire mitigation that we've deployed
These are cost recovery for the 2017 and 2018 events, successfully executing our operational excellence program, the cornerstone for SCE’s cost leadership and lowest system average rate among major IOUs in California, and Incremental CPUC and FERC growth investment opportunities
We are proud of this progress, which, combined with enhanced vegetation management, asset inspections, and other programs, has significantly reduced the need for public safety power shutoffs
Let me conclude by saying our confidence in meeting our 2024 and 2025 EPS targets remains strong
Lastly, we raised our annual dividend by 5.8%, reflecting the board and management’s continued confidence and commitment to delivering on our EPS growth targets
As you can see, rate base earnings growth is strong, though our EPS guidance implies modest growth for the year
This was reflected in better-than-expected SCE operational variances
First, SCE continues to make solid progress and overall claims are settling in line with expectations
I’m also pleased to inform you that our operational excellence initiatives are off to a solid start, and we are seeing this translate into higher operating efficiency throughout the business
I think this is a long-term opportunity, Ryan, and we're really excited about it
But we're focusing on what we are investing in ‘24 and we see that being an investment in systems, processes, or continued work and operational excellence that we think will accrue benefits for customers over the long haul
And so I think that really clarifies sort of the stability and the foundation for our long-term earnings trajectory
Cost recovery obviously creates a benefit because then that interest expense would be offset by authorized revenue
I would now like to address the big increase in 2025 core EPS and share some insight into what makes us confident in delivering on our commitment
The CPUC has consistently approved this type of spending in previous GRCs, reinforcing our confidence in SCE’s request
And so the second thing that they were developing this application with that cost benefit of one, that would not only send it its own two feet, but it was going to create a demand signal that would be very powerful to then help manufacturers go off in scale and capture those economies of scale that you get as you increase the volumes that you're producing
Let me summarize by saying that our confidence is underpinned by these growth drivers, further bolstered by the fact that headwinds in 2024 are expected to moderate going into 2025
So you're seeing us put the money to work in reliability efforts, so grid remediation, generation, as well as the operational excellence initiatives that will provide value over a long-term period
Our team and I are very committed to executing strongly and we will continue to share our progress with you
This marked the 20th consecutive annual increase in Edison International’s dividend
One, identifying a big gap in deployment, and secondly, coming up with a solution that basically had a cost benefit of one, right? So that is actually pretty attractive when you have an emerging technology like heat pumps
First, SCE has a robust and high-quality capital investment plan for 2023 through 2028
As you can see from the year-over-year quarterly variance analysis shown on page 9, core earnings grew by $0.13 primarily due to higher GRC revenue and lower O&M, partially offset by an increase in interest expense
       

Bearish Statements during earnings call

Statement
Second, SCE Operational Variance is $0.15 to $0.34 lower year-over-year
We'd seen a phenomenon with battery cells, right, which have come down in costs dramatically
This is despite the burden of about $325 million of pretax interest, or $0.61 per share, which reduces our core EPS growth by 250 basis points over this period
So there is nothing that would eat into that $0.61 in a negative way
Second, these forecasts do not incorporate substantial additional long-term CapEx opportunities in several areas
So if you recall the previous couple of calls, we've always had this discussion about, is this really incremental to the earnings range for 2025 versus some offsets to that number? And so I'm just wondering if the same is going to be true now with the $0.61 that you guys are showing on slide 14, which is the earnings drag associated with the wild fire claims
And what's ironic about it is that that very same week, actually a few days before the PUC voted out that final decision, the governor unfortunately cut out something like $200 million from his budget proposal for building electrification
You've highlighted that by the end of 2025, you expect 90% of your distribution lines that are located in high-fire risk areas to be hardened and have said that wildfire mitigation spend is stabilizing
I can respectfully disagree with that view
But they felt these near-term pressures, affordability and passing the application
And there has been volatility as we've gone in and refinanced some of the claims
   

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