Brookfield Infrastructure Partners L.P. (BIP) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending March 31, 2023

May 03, 2023, 09:00 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Brookfield Infrastructure Partners First Quarter 2023 Results Conference Call and Webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. As a reminder, today's program is being recorded.

And now, I'd like to introduce your host for today's program, Mr. David Krant, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead, sir.

David Krant

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Brookfield Infrastructure Partners' first quarter 2023 earnings conference call. My name is David Krant, and I'm the Chief Financial Officer of Brookfield Infrastructure Partners. I'm also joined today by our Chief Executive Officer, Sam Pollock; and Dave Joynt, Managing Partner on our investments team focused on global transport opportunities.

I'll begin with the discussion of our first quarter financial and operating results as well as our balance sheet strength and liquidity position. I'll then turn the call over to Dave, who will discuss global supply chain investment opportunities. Finally, Sam will provide an update on our strategic initiatives and priorities for the balance of the year. Following our commentary, we will be joined by Ben Vaughan, our Chief Operating Officer, for our question-and-answer period.

At this time, I would like to remind you that in our remarks today, we may make forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to known and unknown risks, and future results may differ materially. For further information on our known risk factors, I would encourage you to review our annual report on Form 20-F, which is available on our Web site.

With that, during the first quarter of 2023, we generated strong financial and operational results. Our regulated and contracted business generated funds from operations or FFO of $554 million or $0.70 per unit, both increasing 12% over the prior year. Organic growth was strong at 9%, which is the high end of our annual target, reflecting the benefit of elevated levels of inflation on our tariffs, strong volumes across our transport networks and the commissioning of approximately $1 billion in new capital projects over the last 12 months.

Results were further supported by the contribution of approximately $2.4 billion of capital deployed in new acquisitions over the past year. Partially offsetting the strong underlying performance of our business was the normalization of market sensitive revenues, as the prior year benefited from elevated commodity prices, as well as the impact of asset sales.