TC Energy Corporation (NYSE:TRP) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Patrick Kenny: Joel, just a follow up on the hybrids question. sorry if I missed it, but after the write-down of CGL, if you could just confirm how much room you still have today within the cap structure to issue additional hybrids? And then I guess whether or not upsizing the asset sale program beyond $5 billion might limit your capacity to issue additional hybrids at least over the next year or so?

Joel Hunter: Yes, Pat. So today, we’re around 14% of our capital structure following the impairment charge with regard to CGL. As we go forward, though, yes, as we divest assets, but we’re still growing, right? So if you think about, for example, we expect to have about $6 billion of assets into commercial and service this year. So you have that coming in and then, obviously, you’re going to have some asset sales. So overall, we see the capacity continuing to increase here over time. But again, the way to think of it for every $1 billion, it’s around $150 million of additional capacity that you get as the balance sheet grows. So again, this will be a tool that we’ll use going forward to fund ourselves. We like the product. And again, we’ll look for opportunities going forward here to issue in that market.

Patrick Kenny: And then, I guess, with respect to the negative outlooks on the BBB plus credit rating. I know in the past, the A rating was very much touted as a competitive advantage for the company, at least up until when the goalposts removed on you. So obviously, a lot has changed since that last downgrade, but I’m just curious how important it is to protect the BBB plus rating going forward even if the goalposts are moved on you again for whatever reason?

Joel Hunter: Yes. We can never factor how the agencies are going to move the goalposts around as you’ve noted, Pat, we had that happen a few years ago where the key metrics to adhere to the A minus rating were moved to the point where it just didn’t make any sense. We value our ratings, and we have a finance plan in place here that we believe gets us to maintain our BBB plus ratings. Again, the key point of this is our leverage — as I’ve stated earlier, that we want to get to the 5 times in the next 12 months and then ultimately down to that 4.75 times. You’ve heard Francois mentioned that we’re not going to compromise our business risk because the left-hand side of the balance sheet is here with our ratings as well. And so again, with the portfolio management, we don’t see any change to our business risk profile nor our value proposition.

So again, it’s very important for us. And again, the capital program that we have in place — capital rotation program that is, we view that we can get to that 5 times leverage market — leverage target. So that’s our objective right now. And again, the BBB plus rating is very, very important to us.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the question-and-answer session. If there are any further questions, please contact Investor Relations at TC Energy. I will now turn the call over to Gavin Wylie. Please go ahead.

Gavin Wylie: Yes. Thank you, operator, and thanks, everyone, for your participation this morning. We always appreciate your time and interest in TC Energy. And we look forward to our next update in a few months. Thanks again.

Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.

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