CA - TransAlta Corporation (TAC) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

2024-02-23 21:39:02 ET

TransAlta Corporation (TAC)

Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call

February 23, 2024 11:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Chiara Valentini - VP, Strategic Finance & IR

John Kousinioris - President & CEO

Todd Stack - EVP, Finance & CFO

Kerry Wilks - EVP, Commercial, Legal, & External Affairs

Conference Call Participants

Mark Jarvi - CIBC

Maurice Choy - RBC Capital Markets

John Mould - TD Cowen

Patrick Kenny - National Bank Financial

Presentation

Operator

Good morning. My name is Ina, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to TransAlta Corporation Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Results Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions].

Thank you. Ms. Valentini, you may begin your conference.

Chiara Valentini

Great. Thank you, Ina. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to TransAlta's fourth quarter and full year 2023 conference call. With me today are John Kousinioris, President and Chief Executive Officer; Todd Stack, VP Finance and Chief Financial Officer; and Kerry O'Reilly Wilks, EVP Growth and Energy Marketing. Today's call is being webcast, and I invite those listening on the phone lines to the supporting slides that are posted on our website. A replay of the call will be available later today, and the transcript will also be posted shortly thereafter.

All the information provided during this conference call is subject to the forward-looking statement qualification set out here on Slide 2, detailed further in our MD&A and incorporated in full for the purposes of today's call. All amounts referenced during the call are in Canadian currency unless otherwise noted. The non-IFRS terminology used, including adjusted EBITDA, funds from operations and free cash flow are reconciled in the MD&A for your reference. On today's call, John and Todd will provide an overview of the annual and quarterly results. After these remarks, we will open the call for questions.

With that, let me turn the call over to John.

John Kousinioris

Thank you, Chiara. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our fourth quarter and full year results call for 2023. As part of our commitment towards reconciliation, I want to begin by acknowledging that TransAlta's head office, where we are today is located in the traditional territories of the people of Treaty 7, which includes the Blackfoot group comprising the Siksika, the Piikani and the Kainai Frst Nation, the Tsuut'ina First Nation and the Stoney Nako Stoney-Nakoda, including the Chiniki, Bearspaw, and Goodstoney First Nations. The City of Calgary is also home to the Metis Nation of Alberta, Districts 5 and 6.

It was another exceptional year of performance for TransAlta in which we increased our key financial guidance and targets twice. We generated free cash flow of $890 million or $3.22 per share from record revenues of $3.4 billion. We had adjusted EBITDA of $1.63 billion, in line with our record results from last year and record net earnings to shareholders of $644 million, a $640 million increase from 2022. We benefited from strong power prices, particularly during periods of market tightness and the exceptional efforts of our optimization, energy marketing and operations teams....

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