Atlantica Sustainable Infrastructure plc (NASDAQ:AY) Q1 2023 Earnings Conference Call May 5, 2023 8:00 AM ET
Company Participants
Santiago Seage - Chief Executive Officer
Francisco Martinez-Davis - Chief Financial Officer
Conference Call Participants
Angie Storozynski - Seaport
Julien Dumoulin-Smith - Bank of America
Eli Rodney - National Bank of Canada
Mark Jarvi - CIBC
Santiago Seage
Thank you very much. Good morning, and thank you for joining for our First Quarter 2023 Conference Call. I will start with a couple of messages before Francisco takes us through our results.
In the first quarter, revenue and adjusted EBITDA increased by 1.5% and 4%, respectively, on a comparable basis, while cash available for distribution increased by 4.6% year-over-year on a comparable basis.
Francisco Martinez-Davis
Okay. Thank you, Santiago. Please turn to Slide number 4, and good morning to everyone.
In Slide number 4, I will present our key financials for the first quarter of 2023. Revenue reached $242.5 million, which represents a 1.5% growth on a comparable basis, excluding the effect of foreign exchange. Adjusted EBITDA amounted to $172.2 million, representing an increase of 4% on a comparable basis.
Regarding cash available for distribution, we generated $61 million in the first quarter of 2023, an increase of 12.1% year-over-year. This includes $4.1 million from the sale of part of our equity interest in our development company in Colombia to a partner. Without this impact, CAFD would have increased by 4.6% year-over-year.
On the following slide, number 5, you can see our performance by geography and business sector. In North America, revenue decreased by 2% to $72.8 million in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the same period of last year. The decrease was mainly due to lower solar resource in Arizona and in California in the quarter.
In South America, revenue increased by 14% compared to the first 3 months of 2022, up to $43.7 million, and EBITDA increased 16% to $33.8 million. This increase was mainly due to newly consolidated assets, assets which we've recently entered operation and inflation indexation mechanisms in our contracts.
On a constant currency basis, adjusted EBITDA in the EMEA region increased by 10% to $88 million compared to the first quarter of 2022. This was mostly due to higher production and inflation indexation at Kaxu and also lower operating expenses in our solar assets in Spain. Looking below at the results by business sector, we can see similar effects.