CPL - CPFL Energia S.A. (CPL) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript
2023-03-17 16:01:06 ET
CPFL Energia S.A. (CPL)
Q4 2022 Earnings Conference Call
March 17, 2023 01:00 PM ET
Company Participants
Carlos Victor Cyrino - Director of Investor Relations
Gustavo Estrella - Chief Executive Officer
Yuehui Pan - Chief Financial and Investor Relations Officer
Conference Call Participants
Guilherme Lima - Santander Bank
Marcelo Sa - Itau BBA
Antonio Junqueira - Citibank
Presentation
Operator
Good afternoon to everyone. You are very welcome to one more presentation of the results of CPFL Energy. We're going to talk about the fourth quarter results. I'm Cyrino, Director of Investor Relations of CPFL. And today I will be the master ceremonies of our event. Today, we have Gustavo Estrella, who's our CEO; Mr. Pan, CFO and the other executives of the company. The whole presentation will be carried out in Portuguese with interpretation to English. All you have to do is click on the button that appears at the bottom part of the screen. For those who want to see the presentation in English, it is on the website of CPFL Energia.
I would like to inform everyone that at the end of the presentation, we will start the Q&A session. All the questions will be done live. To do this, all you have to do is click on the button, raise your hands, which is at the bottom part of the screen. I remind you also that this event is being recorded.
I give the floor now to Gustavo Estrella first to begin our event.
Gustavo Estrella
I'm now going to talk about the results of the fourth quarter. It was very positive. The results that we're going to show you here, the financial results, we had a lot of good things happening, a lot of achievements. So first of all, we have the EBITDA growth of 49% in relation to the fourth quarter of 2021. In the year EBITDA of BRL12.263 million, a growth of 33.9%. The profit BRL1.375 and in the year BRL5.219, that means a very good profit for CPFL.
The CapEx also, I think this is an important number. We have the closing of the cycle here. And we have Paulista in April, we have RGE in June, Piratininga in October, an important year of base closure, and we had an investment of BRL5.800 million, obviously, very much concentrated in the Distribution segment. So this is already part of our base of remuneration. Our net debt is BRL23.7 billion with 1.88 times net. This is the criteria. The dividends we are going to announce here a proposal for assembly. A payment of BRL2.4 to BRL2 million, which gives about BRL2.10 per share, this represents 50% payout of distributable IFRS net income.
Now let's move to the next slide. We have an important highlight in the Transmission segment. We started two important projects: CPFL South 1, CPFL South 2 with an PAR of BRL77 million in the cycle 2022-2023. It's important to remember the challenge that we have during these last years with the pandemic, with the increase of the cost of equipment, materials, and we were able to deliver these two transmission lines in our group. We also did preference with the hydraulic of Enercan. So we have now control of the Enercan. We have 52.12% shares and we now have a higher participation due to exercising our preference after the privatization.
As I mentioned, Paulista, the first company that has gone through the tariff revision. And here an important number, this is the size of our base and nominal values. We double the space from BRL5 billion to BRL10.6 billion. This is a very important execution of our investment and, of course, the importance of having this value recognized in the tariff revision. Another important number are the indicators, the deck and the pack, we have a series of challenges to improve our indicators. And we highlight here RGE with a very strong program. And for the first time, they have a number lower. And this is an important mark for the investment plan and the optimization of our assets.
Now, I think in general, when we compare in indicators with the market. Paulista, Piratininga and Santa Cruz among the three best in the country, the volume of investment and the way that it's been executed, we start seeing the reflexes of this in our operation. Another important thing is our fintech. We started offering financial services to the Piratininga clients. We advanced the Santa Cruz. More recently, CPFL Paulista and the expectation is to expand our activities up to the middle of this year to RGE as well when we will offer all the financial services, installment -- payment of installments for bills, et cetera.
Now as to our ESG. We have some other good news. I think we are -- we actually are in the third place here with a portfolio that's more and more challenging. Everyone has an ambitious and clear agenda in terms of ESG. Even so we were all -- we were able to reach the third place, which represents a lot of what we've been doing with ESG projects, with the social, environmental and government impact, which is very important for our business. We publicized at the end of our year, the plan ISG -- ESG 2030 with 23 public commitments based on four pillars and we take over these targets that we're going to deliver in the next few years, remembering that the strength of this plan is the connectivity that it has with our business strategy. That is why it has been so well executed with clear results and important results for our business.
We all also have the ISO 37.001, which is the anti-bribery management certification. Very good for the governance practices. We also inaugurated our first desalination project. This project impacts the state of Rio Grande do Norte, where a lot of our wind farms are located. So it's -- the largest desalination project in [indiscernible], 10 times larger than the second one. So it's very relevant with over 80,000 liters of clean water per day. Desalinated attending to three communities that have -- 3000 communities they've never had this water. So it is a self-sustainable project. And it's a -- we know that it's a huge challenge, the operational cost, especially for the high consumption of power. So this desalination project together with the solar panels is self-sufficient. So the expectation is that, we have long term benefit impacting very positively the communities that are close to our wind farms. Here, we had a TOP Employer and also the WDI award. Two important awards and recognition.
Now let's go to the next slide. Here we have the sales energy. We've had a drop of 1.3% in the load of our concessions and 1.5% in our sales. And it's a challenge for the industrial class, a drop of 0.2% compared to 2021, the industrial -- the manufactured fields, the de acceleration of the economical activity with a performance, the same as 2021. The performance of the residential has grown 1.5% besides -- in spite of the impact that we had last year with implementation. We can see in the chart on the right side, 3.7%, without this, we would have had over 5% in the residential. This has the reflex of what happened last year, especially at the end of the year when we had a per capita positive impact in the consumption of energy.
Let's move to the next slide. Let's talk a little bit about the sales of energy for the whole year. We see a drop of 0.9% in comparison to 2021, 0.6% in sales. Once more here, we have the residential class with a distributed generation with a high impact, without this, we would have growth of a little bit over 20% and once more the industrial class in the same line as 2021.
Now let's go to the next slide where we'll talk about delinquency. We've had a drop here. We reached 0.73%, the same levels of delinquency that we had before the pandemic. I think this is good news. We've been carrying out a series of actions to fight delinquency and we're having effects, the number of cuts, the intelligence and the process of controlling delinquencies, so we've reached the 0.73% and 0.91%. We know all the effort that we've been making, we can see here in the bottom part of this slide, we still have a high volume of energy cuts 2.4 million, 2.5 million cuts per year. It's still a high number, but with good results. In this year of 2022, we had some important impacts that affected the cost of energy to our final client. The reduction of the ICMS, the tariffs that -- the models that pressured a lot the tariffs. And as I said, the increase of the revenue, especially at the end of the year. About losses, we have an important program of reduction in losses and this has been happening in a recurring manner. Year after year, we deliver lower losses. It's still a challenge, but we're close to the regulatory losses. And the expectation is that, we continue advancing in this agenda with intelligence, with technology to be able to reduce even more losses during the years.
On the right side of our slide, we can see the installing of the Armored Boxes in high delinquency area. This is a program. We doubled the number of units of clients with Armored Boxes over 60,000. This project continues and we're going to continue investing due to the good impact that we've had with this measure to fight delinquency.
Well, here generation, we have an important drop of PLD in 2022. We can see the year in general, the effect of hydrology, which is very positive last year. And this brought this base almost all the year of 2022, it's not very different to the scenario of 2023. The expectation is during the year, we will have the same thing of relation to the PLD GSF from 73% to 85% and in the case of generation -- wind generation, a drop of 5.2%, we have an impact to the performance of the wind, especially in 2022, below what was 2021. And this reflects the less gigabytes hour produced. Now on the positive side, we -- the availability of the parks is 96%. This is also long term work, and some wind parks have their own labor. So we've had good results in relation to availability.
Now I'm going to give the floor to Gustavo. He's going to talk about the financial results. Sorry, Mr. Pan is going to talk about the financial results.
Yuehui Pan
Good afternoon. We reached an EBITDA of BRL3.8 billion. It was an increase of almost 50%. In the segment of distribution that accounted an EBITDA of $1.8 billion, we had an increase of 2.8% with some extraordinary effects. Like the accounting of the finance active line of the concession, BRL622 million due to the CPFL Paulista and the RGE, the was also a market gain and a tariff of BRL203 million, especially due to the IGP-M which was passed over on the tariffs. The PDD was lower BRL23 million as Gustavo has already shown us. Another important effect is the margin of other revenues that had a gain of BRL18 million with contracts adjusted by the IGP-M.
On the other hand, the financial asset of concession, which is recurrent, drop BRL310 million due to a lower IPCA, which was plus 3.40%. We also had another extraordinary effect related to the fiscal agreement with the pension plan that generated an expense of BRL270 million. Also, the reflects of the option of some collaborators to change the lifelong model -- financial model, and their pension plans, which took this to an increase of expenses of around BRL121 million. Also in the PMSO, we had an increase of $110 million, affected by the high inflation passed -- which was passed over in the salary adjustment besides legal expenses and assets. And the EBITDA, the generation increased BRL1.7 billion, an increase of 1.35%. The main factor was the evaluation of Enercan at a fair value. A noncash effect that generated a gain of BRL670 million and the accounting of this project that increased the EBITDA in BRL101 million.
Since now, we are in control. The updating of the prices of the contracts helped with BRL149 million. A reduction of BRL46 million in the expenses with PMSO and Sectorial taxes, other effects added up to the loss of BRL37 million. The lowest GSF of 2022 also contributed with a gain of BRL18 million. On the other hand, we had a negative impact of BRL23 million in wind generation due to weaker winds.
Let's go to the next slide. The Transmission segment had an EBITDA of BRL248 million. And relative variation of CPFL Transmission was BRL105 million. The other transmissions projects had a positive impact of BRL55 million remembering that in 2021, we had a negative effect due to the CapEx increase and some delays in our works. These effects took place in the accounting of the IFRS. The trading services and other, they had an EBITDA of BRL8 million, an improvement of BRL53 million, especially due to the recovery of the CPFL Brazil margin with a gain of BRL54 million. Other effects added a gain of BRL8 million. The segment of service had a reduction of BRL9 million during this period.
In the next slide, we show you the performance of the net profit, which was BRL1.4 billion in the period, with a small increase of 3.3% in relation to last year. We also had worsening of BRL878 million, especially due to the transaction for the fiscal process of the pension plan of CPFL Paulista according to a relevant fact publicized at the end of 2022, which generated an impact of BRL911 million. The other effects added BRL33 million positive. The depreciation increased BRL107 million and the taxes BRL231 million.
In the next slide, we are going to show the performance in the accumulated of the year. We reached an EBITDA of BRL12.3 billion, this was a hike of 33.9%. Our biggest highlight is distribution with an increase of 20.5%, especially favored by the tariff readjustments between 2021 and 2022. In the Transmission segment, we added BRL971 million, especially due to the consolidation of CPFL transmission that is part now of the Group CPFL in October 2021. In Generation, we had an increase of 28.5% due to the remensuration of Enercan at a fair amount and the contract readjustments.
In the chart below, we show the performance of the net profit, which was BRL5.2 billion in the period, an increase of 7.5% in relation to 2021. The hike of the EBITDA was partially compensated by the worsening of BRL2.1 billion in the financial results, impacted by the higher costs of the debt, and by the fiscal agreement of the pension plan, the depreciation increase in BRL280 million and the taxes BRL339 million.
In the next slide, we have net debt in the covenant criteria, which reached BRL23.7 billion. The EBITDA of the last 12 months was of BRL12.6 billion. Therefore, the leverage measured by the net debt to EBITDA was 1.88 times. We also highlight the administration proposal for the payment of dividends. The value was BRL2.4 billion, ratio payout of 50% of the IFRS profit of 2022, equivalent to BRL2.10 per share. This decision is aligned with our strategy to guarantee the balance between growth and dividends to our shareholders. Once we will have the possibility to evaluate assets, expressive assets in 2023, if this possibility does not happen, we will pay the rest of the dividends, excluding only the effects non cash.
In the next slide, we have the cash amount at the end of the quarter, which was BRL46billion with enough coverage for the short term amortizations. The average term of amortization is a bit over 3.4 years. At the bottom part on the left, we have the debt cost, which is 13.16% below the third quarter of 2022 due to the lower IPCA. In the comparison with 2021, the increase is due to a higher CDI in the period. On the right side, we have the gross debt profile, a larger exposure with CDI, 72%, then 26% IPCA and 2% TJLP. Finally, I would like to talk about the issuing of the most recent debentures at the end of the year, which add up to BRL4.6 billion with an average term of four years and average cost of more or less CDI plus 1.2%.
Now let's move to slide number 15. The CapEx was BRL1.6 billion, an increase of 21.3% in relation to last year. We had in distribution the main destination of the CapEx, a total investment of BRL1.3 billion, reinforcing the assets for the tariff revisions that we will have this year. In the Generation segment, we invested BRL96 million with maintenance of the projects that are already in operation and also the construction of Cherobim. We also invested BRL280 million in reinforcements, improvements and ending building of the transmission products, which began operating in the last days.
And finally, we designated BRL25 million to commercialization and services. Therefore, in the year 2022 we invested BRL5.8 billion, which represents an increase of 45.1% in relation to 2021. Highlighting the investments in the segments of Distribution and Transmission.
Slide 16, we have CapEx production for the cycle of 2023-2027, this is being discussed approximately BRL25.4 billion for all the CPFL Group. In Distribution, we'll invest approximately BRL20.6 billion destined to improve, maintain and reinforce the network besides increase of capacity in the substations. For transmission, we have a forecast of 3.2% with reinforcement work and improvement of CPFL Transmission and Generation, we are going to invest BRL1.2 billion for the conclusion of SHPP, Cherobim and the maintenance of the plants that are already in operation. We will destined BRL412 million for the segments of Commercialization and Services.
I thank you very much for your attention and I give the floor back to Mr. Gustavo Estrella. Thank you very much.
Gustavo Estrella
Thank you, Mr. Pan. I think to end last slide, we're going to talk about fintech, which is Alesta. Here, we can see the number of the contracts, the growth of 185%, reaching a high number of closed contracts. This number starts the beginning of the operations with Paulista at the end of the year. And I think we'll have a huge increase in 2023 because of the entering of RGE and probably this financial numbers also from [indiscernible] million and the expectation of the maturation. The growth, I think, this is bringing good results, especially the capillarity and the capacity that our fintech has shown with new contracts and new clients for our base. Always remembering that this process of installment of payments of bills, the financial services include insurance and other things. So it invites a very positive perspective of launching new products and the expectation that we have is that, this will be a more and more robust business and that will represent more and more business portfolio.
So the idea is that, this company is well structured so that we can benefit from these opportunities in the next few years. Basically, these were in the information that we had to give you, and now we can move over to the session of questions-and-answers.
Question-and-Answer Session
Carlos Victor Cyrino
Thank you, Gustavo. Thank you, Mr. Pan, for the presentation. Thank you very much. So now we have questions-and-answers. And we will follow the order in which they're asked. The questions can be asked loud. You should use the button raise your hands, which is located in the toolbar at the bottom part of the platform. So let's start.
The first question comes from Guilherme Lima from Santander Bank. Hello, Guilherme, good afternoon. Welcome to the call. You can ask your question.
Guilherme Lima
Good afternoon, people. I have two questions. First of all, about the leveraging of the company. We've noticed the payout of 50% of dividends. I imagine that you're preparing the company for allocations of capital this year? And we know that the asset is in -- given this scenario of more challenging, which is the highest leverage that the company will be able to operate after an acquisition, what would be an interval -- a healthy interval to operate after acquisition?
The second question about the renewal of the concession. We've seen that this causes more and more concern. So I'd like to know what is your perspective about this slowness? Have you talked to [indiscernible]? What do you think could happen? Any payment, any type of -- any regulatory aspect? So this is my second question.
Gustavo Estrella
Guilherme, thank you for your question. Well, first about our leverage. As we demonstrated here, we closed below 3.7% with a space -- very comfortable space. So I think it's what we always reinforce here. Our strategy of balancing dividends with growth and every time we see an opportunity as is now the growth it's prudent for us to reduce the payout so that we can, in fact, deliver not only the dividends, but growth. So I think we have a good perspective of opportunity in this year. So I think we have a very challenging scenario of financing, CPFL always has -- is a bit more comfortable. So we have the capacity of access to the markets, then the majority of companies not only for the rating, but because of the support that we have of state grid. So we have a different access to the market. And we're one of the leaders in the challenging scenario that we have today.
So I think this is an important point. I think planning the financing of the company, I would say that it is always done in a more preventive way. So all our policy and strategy Pan has just showed here of BRL4.5 billion of refinancing that we did here in the last months and any more challenging scenario of access to the market, I would say, that all the needs of financing already are dealt with. So this reduces our exposure to this more challenging market that we have now. So we continue our strategy, which is more conservative and more preventive. And I think this shows the value. And for sure, if we go to access the market today, we would access it with a higher cost than what we did a few months ago.
And about the concession, this is a topic that's on the table. The first concession, the renewing after that 2015, this has to be dealt with during this year of 2023. And I think our role here is to contribute to the debate. We have a lot of clarity that everything that we've discussed in 2015 and that ended up renewing the concession without costs makes sense, so we continue to defend. The concession of the distribution is a concession that needs to have a long term vision. I've just -- we've just done a record investment of BRL5.8 billion in the CPFL Group, BRL4.80 billion is just in the distribution segment. So this is something that we're doing now to get -- to recover this in the next 20, 30 years. So this long term view is correct for the distribution operation and it's fundamental.
So if you do have a rule, a mechanism that guarantees this long term vision for those operators that comply with all the obligations, this is very important to keep the stability that we have today in this business segment, which is so important when we look at the whole chain of the electrical segment. This is where we earn the money, where we deal with the clients at the tip. And so this maintains the stability and that's what we defend. When we look at our regulation model, the way that it is established today, we have tariff revisions every four, five years, every three years for some distributors. We reset our margins with the regulatory markers revised, the remunerations, redimension, the operation, everything, the expenses and everything is shared. So we understand that with this mechanism, the level of return that we have of the distribution business is always adhered to the levels of return established by the regulatory agents.
So I think that having said this, when you think of a renewal that demands more quality, that stimulates companies to bring more innovation, service better offerings of products to the clients. I think this is the right way of regulation generating an environment that stimulates this competition between the concessions so that we, in fact, are able to bring more efficiency, which will be shared in the future with our clients. This is the right way of a regulation that stimulates a favorable environment for investment. And at the same time, to the clients at the tip. So I think this is -- this has to be the spirit and this is how we hope to contribute with the government to advance in our agenda.
Carlos Victor Cyrino
Thank you, Gustavo. Thank you, Guilherme. Now let's go to the second question. The second question comes from Marcelo Sa, Itau BBA. Let's follow with your question.
Marcelo Sa
Good afternoon. Thank you for the call. Well, this question, I would like -- you've already had interaction with the sub secretaries to discuss this distribution topic. Do this depend on the executive secretary, the name was released today. Are these comparisons good to start now would the executives secretary or do you have any perception of what can be solved about the team that this topic and without payment, will this give you some comfort in some way or another? Or is everything still open?
And the other question is in relation to M&A and growth. The first point, I would like to hear a bit more about the auctions and also points of stress in the credit market? And do you see a lot of assets market generation with better prices given the situation of the current credit? Thank you.
Gustavo Estrella
Marcelo, thank you for your questions. First of all, we do this interaction with the ministry, with the agency in a recurring manner. So these discussions, they already take place like they always do. Of course, the government is still in a formation process still without the secretary. So it's a conversation. It depends on the directioning of the government. It's a bit more complex and we believe that now this topic can be better addressed with the government once their team is formed. So I think it's this. Our role again is to contribute with our vision, with our experience. We are on the apparatus side bringing our concerns and all those who know the sector, I think this change of experiences that we have here in CPFL is very positive. On the side of M&A, we are going to have an auction now. We are evaluating the lots. We continue with our strategy of investment in transmission. So the lower assets that have some sort of relationship with our current investments, whether it be by regional or the type of assets that we have. So we have some lots with those characteristics and these are the -- this is the focus.
So we still are going to see the type of competition. We see that the past auctions, there was a lot of competition with different returns outside the standards. So we are going to continue with the same financial discipline maintaining our strategy and we look at the agenda. So we preserve our parameters, and we await new opportunities. So we look at these auctions and there's an expectation also of concentrating this in a number of players, larger players, more or less similar to the CPFL profile with a higher space for investment than we've had in the past, of course, and then also remembering the size of the auction with almost BRL50 billion these large auctions.
In relation to market assets, I think, yes, we have a challenge for the companies that have more difficulty of refinancing. So lower rating companies, smaller companies, and this sets an expectation which is something that happens. It's a moment of consolidation of these markets, whether it be the generation, as you mentioned. So once more, we're going to be paying attention to these opportunities. We always have -- the challenges that we see in the generation, of course, depends on the moment. And I think due to the positive short term hydrology, but when we look at the expectation, we have an offering of energy that's going to last and it generates challenge when we think of the decontracted has to contract with higher prices. This brings us a challenge. And when we look at the generation, we think of the capacity of generating value given the perspective of the prices in the next years. Of course, this is volatile as we know, very much affected by hydrology, but our structural vision is lower price due to the excessive offering during the next few years. Thank you, Marcelo.
Carlos Victor Cyrino
Now we have the third question. Third question comes from Antonio Junqueira from Citibank. Hello, Junqueira, go ahead and ask your question.
Antonio Junqueira
Hi, friends. All okay? Can you hear me well? Yes. What the market is saying today with the papers, the behavior of the papers, the market is afraid of the decisions that [indiscernible] is going to take, the executive secretary change and member of the directors, and this is something I would like to know why the market is wrong in relation to what is being done today? That's my first question.
And my second question is that, in the context of more concerns about renewing. The Isn't the purchase of [indiscernible] more complex? Or the prices have to drop a lot, given that we are afraid and the market is afraid not only today, there were other events in 2023. The market's already shown that it's not comfortable. Of course, the market can be wrong. But at the end of the day, the company goes after financing that shares in the same market when says that [indiscernible] choice was a bad choice for the sector. So first of all, I'd like to hear your opinion, the director of [indiscernible], your perception of his positioning in relation to the distributors and relation to the [indiscernible]. Thank you.
Gustavo Estrella
Thank you, Junqueira for your questions. First of all talking about [indiscernible] has experienced -- long term experience in the sector with the agency, I think with us, he has a relationship of a lot of transparency, a lot of dialogue. He's a technical person. He knows the sector. And I think this is a positive thing. I think every time we bring people that know the sector, that know the challenges, that know the complexities of the sector, if you fiddle with one piece, it affects the whole thing. You need to have a long vision focus, you can't have a customized short term rule. We've in the past we've had these type of experiences. So I think to have technicians that know the electrical sector, they're always welcome, whether it be in the agency or in the ministry.
And our expectation as always is of a lot of dialogue. I think that when we look at the relationship of the agents of the agency during the last year's. This has been the models of [Randy] (ph). I think a lot of dialogue ever since the pandemic, all the discussion of COVID, the treatment in the beginning of sense of the pandemic, the suspension of the cuts. These were challenging moments that no one knew the consequences, how we were going to operate, et cetera. So I think that really was important Randy was there, was the dialogue. We sat down, we had numerous meetings in weekends. We company with [Anil] (ph), Sunday evening, where we discuss topics, what way to go. So they know our expectation of keeping up this dialogue where we have people with technical knowledge on both sides so that we can build this structure or this framework which needs advancing. I think we have important topics, market opening, besides renewals, but it's important to have people that know how the sector works, so that we can advance. So I think our expectation is to preserve the dialogue and have people that know the sector is very important for us to advance in these important agendas.
In relation to renew, we've already mentioned, we are going to continue with this agenda of demonstrating the features related to the distribution sector. And the importance of preserving this perspective long term for this business, which demands heavy investments every year, which is what we do. And obviously, any topic relevant like this has to be in the price of an acquisition of a distributor. So the [indiscernible] process advancing, this is a topic. They were going to sit down and see what the best price is, because this is not only for renewable, for any premise, we always do the right way of how we really can deliver in each one of the assets, how we measure the risks of each business, the characteristic of the assets. So I don't think it will be different. We will act the same way. We have an additional variable that is going to be discussed together with the process. But for sure, we will find a way to put this and price this in the correct manner.
Antonio Junqueira
Thank you very much. Just to add, of course, the exposure is low. But you also had your BCE exposure. This is the topic that [indiscernible] when he was closed to leave the agency, he took a decision, which was then reverted by the collegiate. But this decision is part of the reason why the market is interpreting that this -- there's going to be a decision that's going to be before the [indiscernible] in front of the [indiscernible]. So that's why I ask a specific point. I know it's something small, but it's a sectorial reading for everyone.
Gustavo Estrella
I think this demonstrates the maturity of our processes, so once more going to dialogue, you have a decision, a monocraphic, or you have a specific vision of one agent. We have a process of approval that goes through ministries. This is -- it's not one isolated decision of one person that goes by [Anil] (ph) collegiate of directors. This is the maturity of this process. And I think it is a process of convergence of opinions to reach a decision the most mature possible for each one of what we have. Here's not different. So I think we had a discussion. This discussion was already -- this discussion should come back to the table, but we have to take the different instances into consideration whether it be the ministry, the Anil, so that we find a solution. So I think once more, his opinion is one more in the middle of every other key opinions that are going to put the topic on the table, debate this and our expectation as always is that we reached the fairest conclusion for all the agents of the sector. So I think we have to think of this balance company, client, government. And this is the way to go to have this long term -- in this long term sector, we continue the same. This discussion will be back to debate, we have opposition. This will be on the table that we discuss, and we believe that these four are going to take the best decisions.
Antonio Junqueira
Thank you very much.
Carlos Victor Cyrino
Thank you, Junqueira. Well, folks, we don't have any more questions. If there's anything, any question, Investor Relations questions, we are at your disposal to clarify. I'm going to give the floor now to Gustavo Estrella for his final considerations and for closing this event.
Gustavo Estrella
Thank you all for the participation. I think this is a, I would say, an emblematic year for CPFL. I think besides the financial results, it's a record results of the company. And in a very consistent way delivering good results, good financial results, what we have here is a delivery of a very robust plan. The professional, the indicators the best of the story and imagine that we have this more and more connected to our business bringing a very positive impact for all the stakeholders of the company. And to put the cherry on the cake, we closed the year of 2022 with the best safety indicators of the company, the best -- the lowest indicators levels of accidents of the company. So this shows us that we are on the right way looking for activities the way that we are conducting them with a lot of seriousness, diligence, planning, we deliver the results that are not only of the distributor's expectation is that this is consistent for the next year. And this will put us in a position of going after new growth opportunities in a competitive way so that we can bring even more return to our shareholders.
Thank you much for your participation and good afternoon to everyone.
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CPFL Energia S.A. (CPL) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript