E.ON SE (PNK:EONGY) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

E.ON SE (PNK:EONGY) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript March 13, 2024

E.ON SE  isn't one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here).

Iris Eveleigh: Good morning, everyone. Dear analysts, the investors, a warm welcome from my side to our Full Year 2023 Results Call. I'm here with Leo and Marc, who will present our results to you. As always, we will leave enough room for your questions afterwards. And also, as always, please stick to the 2 questions through each. With that, I hand over to you, Leo.

Leonhard Birnbaum: Yes. Thanks, Iris. Good morning also from my side. I am here with Marc. Today, he's still my CFO, and he will remain that until the 1st of June, but I'm very proud before I get to the 2023 numbers and our revised outlook that also we have been able to very smoothly figure out a great succession for Patrick Lammers with Marc, who happily will take over the new challenges, which a new job we'll offer to him, but as I said, he will stay around for a few more months to come. So where are we today? Maybe 2 words. Today, we are actually talking to you from our brand-new testing lab in Essen. So for once, we have actually decided not to broadcast from a conference room, but rather from a real-life facility in which you see where all the investments are going to -- which we are going to announce today and explain to you today.

This is one of the examples how E.ON is driving the energy transition forward. So let me now turn to my 4 key messages. First, 2023, we have seen a strong delivery, the strongest company performance since I took over as CEO, actually 3 years ago. And it makes me proud that we have not only delivered great financials, but also that we are able -- and shown that we are able to grow. Second, we will emphasize today that this is the right time to step up to the next big investment cycle. And we will continue to deliver on a unique once in a lifetime, once in a generation growth opportunity. And for E.ON, this means that we are upping our investment plan to €42 billion by 2028, as you have seen. Third, I want to emphasize that we are not only delivering against financials, not only growing, but we are also delivering against our aspirational and sustainability targets, as well as against our claim to pioneer the digitization in the energy sector.

A worker on a ladder, repairing the electrical power transmission lines.

And fourth, we will actually fund this growth from a strong balance sheet and create significant shareholder value. I'll touch on all these points a little bit, but Marc will then detail some of them more later. On my first message, 2023 was again a year full of challenges. War in Ukraine, interest rate turnaround, economic downward trend in Europe, a continuous rise of geopolitical risks. Nothing of that has changed the continued delivery, the continued performance of E.ON. With an adjusted group EBITDA of €9.4 billion, we delivered results that have significantly exceeded our expectations for the 2023 financial year. And actually, in both our segments, Energy Networks and Customer Solutions grew in most of our market's year-on-year. Finally, our investment rose by around €1.7 billion to €6.4 billion from a starting base of €4.7 billion.

And this accelerated growth momentum underpins the validity of our strategy. This growth momentum I just mentioned stems from a supportive political environment for E.ON. And this environment becomes evident in the grid action plan of the European Commission. This grid action plan has put grid expansion at the top of the energy transition agenda, something that was unthinkable just a few years ago. The growth momentum also becomes evident in the constructive reform of the European electricity market design. All calls for more government interventions were met with a pretty clear signal. The key to a new energy future is actually more private investments. And all of that has translated into even more aspirational targets. And all of that, again, strongly supports E.ON's investment case.

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