New Jersey Resources - Earnings Call - Q4 2025

Executive Summary

• Q4 FY2025 revenue beat but EPS underwhelmed: revenue $336.08M vs S&P Global consensus $299.75M (+12% beat), while GAAP EPS $0.15 came in below S&P consensus EPS $0.19; NJR’s non-GAAP NFEPS was $0.16, down sharply YoY due to lower Energy Services AMAs contribution. Estimates marked with * from S&P Global.
• FY2025 delivered at the high end of guidance: NFEPS $3.29 (raised intra-year) and net income $335.6M; management introduced FY2026 NFEPS guidance of $3.03–$3.18 and reaffirmed 7–9% long-term NFEPS growth from a $2.83 base.
• Mix shift: Strong utility gross margin post rate case and S&T growth offset weakness at Energy Services; CEV placed a record ~93 MW and benefited YTD from sale of the residential solar portfolio.
• Potential stock drivers: revenue beat vs estimates, FY2026 guide reset to a lower base, constructive Adelphia settlement approval (Nov 4) and Leaf River expansion filing could underpin medium-term cash flow and de-risk growth.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

• What Went Well
  • Utility strength: NJNG utility gross margin rose to $91.2M in Q4 (from $67.7M), driving FY utility NFE to $213.5M vs $133.4M last year, aided by the base rate case settlement.
  • S&T momentum: Q4 NFE increased to $4.6M (from $2.5M); FERC approved Adelphia rate settlement (Nov 4) and Leaf River filed to increase certificated storage capacity by 17.6 Bcf.
  • Management execution/tone: “We delivered NFEPS at the high end of our guidance range… Our fiscal 2026 NFEPS guidance of $3.03 to $3.18 reflects our confidence in achieving our 7 to 9 percent long-term NFEPS growth target.” — CEO Steve Westhoven.
• What Went Wrong
  • Energy Services drag: Q4 NFE fell to $(4.5)M vs $68.3M prior year; FY NFE dropped to $34.9M vs $111.5M, as expected lower AMA contribution rolled off.
  • YoY quarterly compression: Q4 GAAP EPS fell to $0.15 (from $0.92) and NFEPS to $0.16 (from $0.89) as last year’s Energy Services uplift normalized.
  • Mix headwinds at CEV in the quarter: Q4 CEV NFE declined to $23.8M (from $35.5M) on lower SREC sales and absence of residential solar portfolio contribution (sold Nov 2024), though FY grew on the sale gain.

Transcript

Speaker 2

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. My name is Abby, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the New Jersey Resources Fiscal 2025 Fourth Quarter and Year-End Financial Results Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during that time, simply press star, followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one a second time. Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference over to Adam Prior, Director of Investor Relations. You may begin.

Speaker 3

Thank you. Welcome to New Jersey Resources Fiscal 2025 Fourth Quarter and Year-End Conference Call and Webcast. I am joined here today by Steve Westhoven, our President and CEO; Roberto Bel, our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, as well as other members of our Senior Management Team. Certain statements in today's call contain estimates and other forward-looking statements within the meaning of the securities laws. We wish to caution listeners of this call that the current expectations, assumptions, and beliefs forming the basis of our forward-looking statements include many factors that are beyond our ability to control or estimate precisely. This could cause results to materially differ from our expectations as found on slide two. These items can also be found in the forward-looking statements section of yesterday's earnings release, furnished on Form 8-K, and in our most recent Forms 10-K and 10-Q as filed with the SEC.

We do not, by including this statement, assume any obligation to review or revise any particular forward-looking statement referenced herein in light of future events. We will also be referring to certain non-GAAP financial measures, such as net financial earnings or NFE. We believe that NFE, net financial loss, utility gross margin, financial margin, adjusted funds from operations, and adjusted debt provide a more complete understanding of our financial performance. However, these non-GAAP measures are not intended to be a substitute for GAAP. Our non-GAAP financial measures are discussed more fully in item seven of our 10-K. The slides for today's presentation are available on our website and were furnished on our Form 8-K filed yesterday. Steve will start with this year's highlights and a business unit overview, beginning on slide five. Roberto will then review our financial results. We will open it up for your questions.

With that said, I will turn the call over to our President and CEO, Steve Westhoven. Please go ahead, Steve.

Speaker 4

Thanks, Adam, and good morning, everyone. I hope you all had a chance to review our earnings materials, which include detailed disclosures on our growth prospects. I wanted to start by discussing a few highlights. We delivered excellent results in fiscal 2025, driven by strong execution and performance. For the fifth year in a row, we exceeded initial earnings guidance and long-term growth targets. After a successful 2025, there are a few key themes as we look ahead for fiscal 2026 and beyond. First, consistency and execution. We're guiding to NFEPS of $3.03-$3.18 per share in fiscal 2026. The range is consistent with our long-term 7%-9% growth rate, while leaving additional room for upside. Second, targeted capital deployment. We expect to invest roughly $5 billion over the next five years across the whole company, with roughly 60% allocated to our utility, New Jersey Natural Gas.

To put the $5 billion into context, this represents a 40% increase compared to the CapEx spent over the last five years. Third, a healthy balance sheet anchored in disciplined financial management. We expect credit metrics to remain strong with healthy cash flows, ample liquidity, and a balanced debt maturity profile that supports long-term stability. Importantly, NJR requires no block equity issuance to execute on its capital plan. On the next slide, we highlight a few of the key drivers that are business segments. To begin, New Jersey Natural Gas is positioned for high single-digit rate-based growth through 2030. S&T is expected to more than double net financial earnings by 2027, driven by favorable recontracting of both Adelphia and Leaf River. Looking ahead, we recently filed with FERC a plan to increase working gas capacity by over 70% at Leaf River.

At Clean Energy Ventures, we expect to expand capacity by more than 50% over the next two years, with a robust pipeline of Safe Harbor projects. In short, through a disciplined capital investment strategy, we have visibility to deliver sustainable growth well into the future, supported by a solid balance sheet. We are able to achieve all this with minimal dilution to shareholders. Let me turn to a brief discussion of each business unit, starting with New Jersey Natural Gas on slide seven. Our planned investments at New Jersey Natural Gas are expected to drive high single-digit rate-based growth through 2030. New Jersey Natural Gas operates within a constructive utility framework and continues to make responsible investments in safety and reliability while prioritizing affordability for our customers. Natural gas is by far the cheapest option for customers to heat their home.

Energy efficiency programs such as Save Green further reduce usage and costs while aligning with environmental goals. For example, residential customers who fully participate in Save Green Whole Home offerings see a reduction of up to 30% in their energy usage, saving hundreds of dollars in utility costs every year. Moving to the next slide, Storage and Transportation is emerging as a key earnings growth driver for New Jersey Resources. Over the next two years, we expect NFE to more than double at S&T, and this is largely driven by strong recontracting of both Adelphia and Leaf River. These are fixed-price contracts with quality, credit-worthy counterparties. We recently reached a settlement in our Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rate case at Adelphia. This constructive outcome enables recovery of the substantial investments and operational improvements made in recent years.

While near-term earnings are set to double, we are actively pursuing organic growth opportunities for additional upside at Leaf River, which we outline on the next slide. When we acquired Leaf River in 2019, that positioned NJR as a leading service provider on the Gulf Coast, one of the highest-growing energy demand centers in the United States. In addition to the prime location, the long-term value of the asset was enhanced by expansion options beyond the three existing operating caverns. Since our purchase of the asset, market demand has strengthened. Throughout fiscal 2025, we conducted a number of non-binding open seasons, which confirmed a high level of commercial interest in capacity expansion. Following this favorable response, we filed a FERC application at the end of October that included several complementary investments to increase Leaf River's working gas capacity by over 70%.

They include the expansion of our existing caverns to a working gas capacity of 43 BCF by 2028, and the development of an additional fourth cavern that will bring total capacity to 55 BCF. Each phase of the investment is expected to be backed by long-term fee-based contracts, building on our already strong NFE growth. This phased approach has an inherent speed-to-market advantage that positions NJR ahead of greenfield development options. To conclude, we see considerable upside in both the near and long term as S&T becomes a greater contributor to NJR's earnings profile. Moving to Clean Energy Ventures on slide 10, we expect to grow in-service capacity by more than 50% over the next two years. Looking ahead, we have a strong project pipeline designed to maintain investment tax credits through strategic safe harboring. This positions CEV to deliver continued growth and high single-digit unlevered returns.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Roberto for a financial review. Roberto.

Speaker 0

Thanks, Steve. Fiscal 2025 was an excellent year, with strong earnings growth, a solid balance sheet, and continued investment across our businesses. Slide 12 highlights a few Fiscal 2025 accomplishments. New Jersey Natural Gas achieved a constructive outcome in its recent rate case and delivered record investments for Save Green. Clean Energy Ventures added record new capacity. In Fiscal 2025, CEV placed 93 megawatts of new commercial solar capacity into service, expanding our portfolio to 479 megawatts. In addition, CEV secured investment options for years to come through effective safe harboring. In Storage and Transportation, Adelphia received approval of settlement on its first rate case while Leaf River advanced expansion initiatives. Energy Services achieved strong cash flow generation, and our Home Services business was named our growth top 20 Pro Partner for the ninth consecutive year.

We also marked an important milestone: 30 consecutive years of dividend increases, underscoring confidence in our long-term plan. On the next slide, we finished the year at the top end of our guidance range, which was raised earlier this year. We delivered financial results ahead of expectations. Roughly two-thirds of total NFEPS came from the utility. When you exclude the net impact of the sale of our residential solar assets, that figure raises to over 70%, underscoring the stability of our earnings. Drivers of our performance included the completion of our rate case and a record year of Save Green investment. Additional drivers included approximately $0.30 per share from the sale of our residential solar portfolio, improved performance from our Storage and Transportation business, and solid winter results from Energy Services.

Moving to the discussion of CapEx on slide 14, we deployed $850 million across our businesses, which I'll highlight in the next few slides. On slide 15, New Jersey Natural Gas represented approximately 64% of total CapEx, with investments directed towards strengthening core infrastructure, enhancing system safety and reliability, and supporting customer growth. Almost half of these investments earned recovery with minimal lag. As shown in slide 16, fiscal 2025 CapEx for CEV came in well above expectations, reflecting accelerated progress. Importantly, our capital deployment target is fully safe harbor, securing tax benefits for future capital expenditures. Building on this strong 2025, I wanted to shift our CapEx outlook on slide 17. We're sharing a five-year CapEx outlook of $4.8 billion-$5.2 billion through fiscal 2030. This represents a 40% increase over the previous five years of capital spending across our businesses.

We expect that more than 60% of our total projected CapEx will be dedicated to the utility, with CEV and S&T representing the balance. Together, these investments support our 7-9% long-term NFEPS growth target while maintaining a solid balance sheet, as discussed in the next slide. Strong cash generation across our businesses translates into an adjusted FFO to adjusted debt ratio that is projected to remain at around 20% for the next five years, with no block equity needed. Additionally, ample liquidity and a well-laddered debt maturity profile minimize near-term refinancing risk and preserve financial flexibility. Finally, we're initiating fiscal 2026 NFEPS guidance with a range of $3.03-$3.18 per share. The range is consistent with our long-term 7-9% growth rate, while leaving additional room for upside.

The utility is expected to contribute approximately 70% of fiscal 2026 NFEPS, complemented by earnings growth from CEV and S&T and a baseline outlook for energy services. With that, I'll turn it back to Steve for concluding remarks on slide 21.

Speaker 4

Thanks, Roberto. Over the last 25 years, we've delivered industry-leading returns, reflecting both the quality of our utility investments and disciplined contributions from our non-utility businesses. While our infrastructure investments have been the foundation of this performance, energy services have complemented that strength, enhancing consolidated returns and providing flexibility to reinvest in our infrastructure businesses. To recap, fiscal 2025 was another year of solid execution, marking five consecutive years of exceeding initial earnings expectations. Our long-term growth remains anchored by our regulated utility, with clear visibility into capital spending at New Jersey Natural Gas. Storage and transportation is set for accelerated growth, with earnings expected to more than double in the near term before we even begin to factor in those capacity expansions we highlighted earlier.

Over the next two years, Clean Energy Ventures expects a 50% increase in installed capacity, and our project pipeline is secured into the future through proactive safe harboring. NJR today stands as a balanced, diversified energy infrastructure company built for long-term stability and value creation. The outlook for fiscal 2026 and beyond is clear, well-funded, and utility-anchored. As we all know, New Jersey recently had a gubernatorial election. Electricity prices and affordability issues were front and center. We understand the challenge the state is facing today, and we look forward to working with the incoming governor to meet her call for swift deployment of clean energy solutions and to continue providing affordable natural gas service to families and businesses. A sincere thank you to all NJR employees for your dedication and hard work throughout the past year. Your commitment is the foundation for our continued success.

With that, let's open the line for questions.

Speaker 2

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you have dialed in and would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press star one a second time. If you're called upon to ask your question and are listening via speakerphone on your device, please pick up your handset and ensure that your phone is not on mute when asking your question. Again, it is star one if you would like to join the queue. Our first question comes from the line of Gabe Maureen with Mizuho. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning, everyone. Quick question.

Hey, Gabe.

Hey, God. Just a question, maybe to start off on S&T here and Leaf River. Seems like there's a lot of positive developments. One, can you just talk about the contract renegotiations and the extent to which, at this point, maybe all the original contracts have rolled over on a remarketed or re-signed market rates at this point? Is there still more to go on that front in the years ahead? Secondly, around the FIDing of some of the bigger expansions that you may be looking at, can you just talk about potential timing for FIDing those projects, given the customer interest that you've seen in some of the non-binding open seasons?

Speaker 4

Yeah, sure. Talking about the contracts, the contract tenure at Leaf River, they've got various terms. We've always got contracts that are coming on and off. I would say there's probably a bias towards longer-term contracts currently. Certainly, the way the market is moving, any contract that you're signing up for in the future is higher than the ones in the past. Remember, when we purchased that deal, the average contract rate was probably about 9 cents a decatherm per month. We're now up to almost 20 cents a decatherm per month on average. Big contract upgrade there. That's really driving the doubling of the NFE from S&T over the next few years. Moving forward, a further constructive story, the open season provided for about three times the amount of capacity that we had available.

If you looked at the filing, we've got a few stages or phases of investment and expansion at that facility. I would say that before we make any investment, we've got contracts to back it. That's something that we've talked about for a long time, and we're not going to deviate from that. We've got signed contracts and certainly really quite a bit of clarity on where the revenues are coming in to support those investments. You can make that assumption moving forward. As we make these investments, first, two, we've got an expansion of the compressor station. We've got enlargement of some of the existing facilities. Those, we're starting to spend money and put those in motion. You can see those in our capital plan moving forward. Those are going to lead really nicely into a fourth cavern expansion in the out years.

We'll make FIDs as we get closer to that. Like we said, the open season certainly supports it, and it's very constructive for that business moving forward.

Thanks, Steve. Maybe if I can turn to CEV and I think a little bit more confidence in terms of the growth outlook there. Can you just talk about, has anything shifted on the ground in terms of your ability to start construction? How much of the 50% increase here has actually started construction or waiting on interconnects and why you think you may be past some of the delays I think that you may have seen in the past of the segment?

Yeah, we certainly have spent quite a bit of money. As you can imagine, the construction cycles are a little bit longer than they go across fiscal years. We are spending money now for projects that are going to be coming into service in the next fiscal year and then the fiscal year afterwards. We talked about it last call. We have safe harbored quite a bit of projects, a large amount of megawatts. We have great options moving forward. I think the other thing to consider as well is that with the electric capacity shortfall, the state of New Jersey and PJM, the quickest way to bring capacity to the market are those projects that are shovel-ready. We have a number of those. We feel well-positioned going forward. That combined with the fact that we have mature positions within the PJM queue as well.

Everything's moving forward. We've got a good position, a great number of options. You can see by our capital plan and the extension of that capital plan out five years, the confidence that we have in our investments moving forward.

Thanks, Steve.

Speaker 2

Our next question comes from the line of Jamieson Ward with Jefferies. Your line is open.

Hey, guys. Congrats on another strong result. Thanks for the extra visibility with the five-year look on CapEx and on CEV, which I'll maybe build off Gabe's question here. With the favorable Treasury guidelines and then, of course, all the planned investment safe harbored, what's the realistic deployment timeline? It's probably the most common inbound question we get. As we think about that pipeline, how should we model the earnings cadence?

Speaker 4

For the investments, we've got the capital plan that we put out there. Certainly, I just talked about it with Gabe. From a policy perspective, we believe that there's going to be a lot of pressure to add as much capacity to the grid as possible. That's favorable for our business. If you look at the amount of safe harbor projects we have, especially over the next two years, we've got projects that are safe harbor that are far in excess of what we need in our capital plan. You've got some ability to accelerate that. The capital plan that we have is the most accurate picture of what we're going to be able to achieve. I think looking at that, you can take your guidance from there.

That's terrific. I'll skip S&T because, yeah, it was a very thorough answer before. I'll just ask one more quick one on CEV and then on the overall plan. As we think about SREC, TREC, etc., what's the weighted average contract life? How should we be thinking about the timeframe? That's the second most common question we get, and it's CEV-related. I think you're going to find a lot less questions after this deck. Thanks for all the information, but I'll just ask that one.

You're saying from a time-related perspective, the amount of time allotted to kind of TREC and SREC and how long they live? I'm trying to get to the specifics of what you're asking.

Yeah. Just at a high level, we model a rolloff over the next few years. The question that we get is just how confident are you in basically the numbers that you've got there? We are just looking for very high-level, just a weighted average life remaining, right? Because, of course, the SREC sort of trimmed down or tailored down over the last few years. You are going to have S&T, which you were speaking to earlier, obviously doubling and picking up a lot of that slack there. Just a quick question on that and then one on the overall 2030 CapEx plan.

I'll talk about solar just from a kind of a broader perspective. We just talked about it was the quickest way to bring capacity to the market. You can see the capital that we're able to deploy over the next two years being significant and potentially maybe be able to accelerate with certain policy adjustments. The projects that we have, we've got the schedule for kind of TRECs and SRECs. Everybody knows the longevity of those. I would also add that as infrastructure becomes harder to build, each of these facilities, you've got the ability to repower, put in battery. You've already got an interconnect that's there as well. You've got kind of increases in class one RECs that have been happening over time. Speaking to just the long-term value of these facilities, as we need more capacity, it's not going to be constructive to retire capacity.

There's going to be some expectation that you continue to operate these facilities moving forward. How do you make improvements in them as well? We really view this as a long-term business, one that's supportive of the growing energy need that is certainly in the East, but over the entire US as well. You're going to see us looking to enhance whatever we can do with these facilities moving forward, just like you'd expect. Organic growth is important to us. How do we organically improve and grow those facilities as well? Hopefully that answers your kind of a long-term view of how we're thinking about these assets.

Yeah. Yeah, it does, actually. That's terrific. I think actually I'm good on the 4.8-5.2 through 2030 as well as I flip through here. I was going to ask one on affordability, but I saw your slides toward the end of the deck in the appendix there. I'll throw it out because that's the other as a final question. It's the other one we get. Of course, just given everything in New Jersey, you spoke to it in the prepared remarks. You've got some great slides here. Anything else you'd want to add as we think about the next rate case? Of course, you just got new rates November of 2024. As we look ahead, how should we think about your affordability efforts in New Jersey specifically? That's it for me. Thank you.

Thanks, Jamieson. Natural gas is the cheapest way that you can keep your home in business. We like our position when the affordability conversation comes up. Like we said in the presentation, we've got energy efficiency programs and Save Green. We're able to save customers' money as well. We look forward to working with the new administration and seeing ways that we can keep the affordability story going from our company and helping our customers reduce costs as much as possible.

Terrific. Thank you.

Thanks, James.

Speaker 2

Our next question comes from the line of Eli Josen with JP Morgan. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning. Just wanted to start on the EPS growth outlook. Seeing some kind of drivers within the Leaf River storage capacity and overall S&T earnings upside. Are there any kind of headwinds elsewhere in the business to keep the growth rate largely the same, possible decline in CEV contributions? Or can you just kind of frame tailwinds and headwinds for the overall range? Thanks.

Speaker 4

Yeah. Eli, I'd say that we're an energy infrastructure, energy services company, and this country needs more energy. We're going to make investments in order to grow that. You can see that reflected in our capital program. It's all positive at this point. We're at this point just looking to execute upon that plan in order to increase our earnings going forward. Confident in all of those things.

Got it. Maybe just to frame it differently, is there sort of material upside from this S&T business within the growth range should you execute on some of the projects that you outlined?

I mean, there's always upside in our business. We're the same business that we were last year and the year before. We've always been able to grab some upside in these markets. We certainly kind of normalize our expectations on a yearly basis. There's an ability to accelerate any of these infrastructure projects given the right policy initiatives. There's always an ability to upside. We put together a plan that we believe is executable. We hope for the best. Hopefully some of those things will come through and we'll be able to execute maybe more quickly.

Great. All right. I'll leave it there. Thanks.

Thanks, Eli.

Speaker 2

As a reminder, it is Star One if you would like to ask a question. Our next question comes from the line of Travis Miller with Morningstar. Your line is open.

Good morning, guys. Thank you.

Speaker 4

Hey, Travis.

Kind of a combined question here on slides eight and nine. How much of that increase from fiscal 2025 to 2027 on eight is the Adelphia rate case versus the recontracting and Leaf River, and then going to slide nine, is that capacity expansion trajectory also earnings trajectory? I guess the crux in both of those is the recontracting element. First, that split between Adelphia rate case and the recontracting, and then is the recontracting an extra above that capacity addition? Does that make sense?

I don't think you split it out. But there's probably more coming from Leaf River recontracting. I have to check those numbers. But the bottom line is that for existing assets and no capital investment, we've been able to double the earnings coming from those assets. And that's really driven by better contracts, higher contracts coming from the customers. So great story. As far as looking at your forward growth opportunities, you're seeing the beginning of expansion at Leaf River. We didn't talk about it, but you still got the ability to expand a little bit at Adelphia Gateway and add more customers in that pipeline as well. So depending on how far this market goes, and I believe it is going to go far, we're just going to need more and more energy and expansion of organic infrastructure. It's hard to determine where it'll stop, right?

Certainly, because we've got existing assets, we're able to expand them. We're also able to make the investments that you see, at least in the short term. I would guess that it's going to continue in the longer term as well.

Okay. Is that recontracting assumption based on today's rates at $0.27 at 20 cents, that term that you mentioned? Or is there another assumption you're making on the recontracting?

No, it's not an assumption, Travis. These are contracts that we have in hand. These aren't estimates of what forward value are. These are contracts that we've got signed in our hands and are driving our earnings over the next two years in that business unit.

Okay. Now, one high-level question. With all the CapEx you have and obviously the Leaf River, etc., how much capacity might you have to do more M&A in organic growth, either logistical, operational, or financial?

Yeah. I mean, we're always looking to kind of bolt on acquisitions and things that happen or assets that are available. We're building these businesses. If something comes along and it happens to fit and it fits organically, we would take a look at it. We've got the capacity on our balance sheet. We like these businesses, the infrastructure business. We'll continue to pursue it like we have in the past.

Okay. Great. I appreciate all the thoughts.

Thanks, Travis.

Speaker 2

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our question and answer session. I will now turn the conference back over to Adam Prior for closing remarks.

Speaker 4

Thanks, Abby. I would like to thank all of you for joining us. As always, we appreciate your interest and investment in NJR and look forward to talking to all of you at Utility Week in a couple of weeks. Thanks so much. Have a good rest of your day.

Speaker 2

This concludes today's call, and we thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.