Brookfield Infrastructure Partners LP (BIP) Q3 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending September 30, 2022

November 2, 2022 9:00 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Hello, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Brookfield Infrastructure Partners Q3 2022 Results Conference Call and Webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. It is now my pleasure to introduce Chief Financial Officer, David Krant.

David Krant

Thank you, Andrew, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Brookfield Infrastructure Partners Third Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. As introduced, my name is David Krant, and I'm the Chief Financial Officer of Brookfield Infrastructure. I'm also joined today by our Chief Executive Officer, Sam Pollock. I'll begin with a discussion of our third quarter financial and operating results as well as touch on our recent capital markets activity and balance sheet strength. I'll then turn the call over to Sam, who will provide an update on our strategic initiatives and concluding remarks. Following our commentary this morning, we will be joined by Ben Vaughan, our Chief Operating Officer, for our question-and-answer period. At this time, I'd like to remind you that in our remarks today, we make forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to known and unknown risks, and future results may differ materially.

For further information on known risk factors, I would encourage you to review our annual report on Form 20-F, which is available on our website. Brookfield Infrastructure delivered another strong quarter with funds from operations or FFO per unit of $0.68, a 15% increase compared to the same period last year. Our favorable results were driven by organic growth of 10% and the contribution of nearly $2 billion of capital deployed over the past 12 months. Taking a closer look at our operating results by segment. FFO from our utilities business were 8% above the prior year at $196 million. The base business benefited from inflation indexation and the commissioning of approximately $500 million of capital into the rate base during the last year.

Results also benefited from the contribution of two Australian utility acquisitions completed earlier this year. These positive contributions were partially offset by the impact of increased borrowing costs at our Brazilian utilities and the fact that the prior year included the final contribution from our District Energy operations. Within our segment, we continue to build out platforms in our North American and European residential infrastructure business. In North America, we completed the tuck-in acquisition of Quebec's largest rental water heater provider with 280,000 customers under contract. This investment expands our geographic footprint and will serve as a base for expansion into Eastern Canada. It also provides a platform to expand into new products and sales channels within the region.