Genie Energy Ltd. (NYSE:GNE) Q2 2024 Earnings Call August 6, 2024 8:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Brian Siegel - Investor Relations
Michael Stein - Chief Executive Officer
Avi Goldin - Chief Financial Officer

Operator

Good morning and welcome to Genie Energy’s Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] After today’s presentation by Genie Energy’s management, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note, this event is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Brian Siegel of Hayden IR. Sir, you may begin.

Brian Siegel

Thank you, operator. With me today are Michael Stein, Genie Energy’s CEO; and Avi Goldin, Genie Energy’s CFO, who will discuss operational and financial results. Any forward-looking statements made during this conference call, whether general or specific in nature, are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those discussed in the reports that we filed periodically with the SEC.

Genie assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements that we have made or may make or to update the factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those that we forecast. During their remarks, management makes reference to adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP measure. Management believes that its measure of adjusted EBITDA provides useful information to both management and investors that supplement our core operating results. Our earnings release, which is posted on the genie.com IR page includes a reconciliation of consolidated adjusted EBITDA to its nearest comparable GAAP measures, consolidated net income and income from operations for all periods presented. In addition, adjusted EBITDA for applicable segments are reconciled in the earnings release through their respective segment’s income from operations for all periods presented.

I will now turn the conference over to Michael Stein, Genie’s Chief Executive Officer.

Michael Stein

Thank you, Brian. Welcome to Genie Energy’s second quarter 2024 earnings call. We reported another in a line of solid quarters this morning, despite it being a seasonally slower quarter. We increased our cash, cash equivalent and restricted cash balance to $178 million, while paying our regular quarterly dividend and repurchasing approximately 170,000 shares of common stock, which add about 6x enterprise value to adjusted EBITDA, we believe continues trading well below its fair value.

At GRE, we ended the second quarter with 362,000 customers and 345,000 RCEs, which were relatively flat to the first quarter, but down from a year ago when we were aggressively rebuilding our customer base. Diversegy had yet another very strong quarter with over 50% revenue growth. At Genie Solar, we recognized our first full quarter of revenue from our operating solar farms. From a pipeline perspective, while moving forward on several projects, we subtracted a net 15 megawatts, but the number of potential projects remain the same, and we increased the amount in permitting phase to 10 megawatts. Remember that movement in and out of the pipeline is common for early-stage solar opportunities.