California Water Service Group (NYSE:CWT) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Angie Storozynski: Thank you. So I wanted to start with the fact that the decoupling mechanism went away, but you are still under the conservation mandate. So, again, I’m just trying to understand where the exposure is, right? Because under the conservation mandate, the sales volume or changes in sales forecasts is not something that should impact your earnings. Again, I’m just trying to understand where is the sensitivity here, given that conservation mandate is still in place?

Tom Smegal: Sure, Angie. This is Tom Smegal. And, Greg, if you could fill in, when I get to the end of my knowledge here. We do have a filed account — one of the accounts that Greg mentioned, that’s called the DRMA, which is the drought lost decision lost revenue memorandum account. And that is something for the for the non-decoupled companies like an SJW, or some of the other smaller companies that’s been in place with them for some years. It does allow us to track and record lost sales during a declared drought. And so we are in a declared drought right now. The Governor Newsom declared the drought a couple of years ago. And obviously, we’ve mentioned that we’re tracking the costs associated with that. So if you’re not decoupled, you do get to track loss revenue, and potentially recover that later.

There’s a couple things about that. One is that it’s subject to a little bit of an earnings haircut, I think a 20 basis point reduction in ROE associated with that. And then, the thing that is unknown at this time, because we’ve had such a wet winter to-date, is whether or when the Governor might declare that the drought is over. Now, there’s obviously as Marty mentioned, major water supply challenges in California, particularly in Southern California at the moment with the Colorado River supply, we’re not sure if and when the Governor might to declare the drought over. But if and when that happens, that account would no longer track the lost revenue. Greg, do you have anything to add to that?

Greg Milleman: No. You hit all the relevant points, Tom.

Angie Storozynski: Okay, I understand. So previously, I looked at the fourth quarter slides from previous years, you guys had this slide where you showed us, I would call it a simplified math for your earnings. And I understand that this year, it’s difficult given that you’re waiting for at least two major decisions. But can you actually, please give us a sense, for example, what is the non-California rate base? How should we think about those other drivers, as you typically have? Yes, well, I know that a lot is unknown, but at least what would help us estimate the earnings power for this year?

Tom Smegal: Yes. I think that we don’t report in segments. And so from our filed documents, it’s a little bit difficult to get the non-California rate base. We’ve described the company as being somewhere between 90% and 92% of our revenue and our businesses in California. And so that would tend to be about true with rate base as well. But I don’t have the numbers in front of me. And I don’t know that we describe them publicly. There is — somebody’s calculations that are embedded in that number on Slide 19, which is the rate base. And I want to say that that follows that pattern as well, where about 90% of that rate base that’s being shown there is projected rate base for ’23, ’24, ’25 is the California rate base. But I can’t get into much more detail than that.

There are a lot of systems and unfortunately, the regulations are different in all states. And so in some cases, we have predicted rate base, in some cases, we have reported rate case. It gets a little complicated. But California is fairly obvious because it’ll be written in the decision with the rate base in California.

Angie Storozynski: Okay. And then, lastly, on the financing side, so you’ve been very active with acquisitions of assets. So how are you financing those acquisitions? So that’s one and number two is what was the actual equity ratio at the California utility at the end of 2022?