Enviva Inc. (NYSE:EVA) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Shai Even: Pavel, good to hear you. Thank you for that question. Look, the equity offering is such a great statement, and I’ll vote of confidence. I can’t — I want to talk more about this, if I can. But why did we do it, right? On the one hand, we wanted to eliminate any perception of high leverage. We certainly wanted to shore up our balance sheet and provide the financial flexibility to execute our growth strategy. Without having to look at that again, we now have any option — all options available to us, whether it’s project finance. You’ve heard us talk in the past about the municipal bond offerings. I think we’re incredibly well suited to execute that strategy now build those four plans. And if we can build more, we will do so with what we now have secured. And I am incredibly grateful to the people who know our business best that they stepped up in the way that they did. It is an incredible vote of confidence and I’m grateful for that.

Pavel Molchanov: Understood. How long do you think this equity injection will last? So can you commit to not doing any additional equity issuance in 2023?

Thomas Meth: So, Pavel, great question. So we do not see the need for any equity raise in — for anything that we’ve outlined that is our path to build these four plants and go forward. So yes, I can certainly say that. And with the plan that we’ve outlined to build those four plants, it will get us and have a high level of confidence to our self-funding mode in 2027.

Shai Even: And in Brazil, as we mentioned in our prepared remarks, with this equity raise of $200 million to $250 million, we do expect not only on a pro forma basis at the end of 2022 to be within our financial policies with the leverage under 5x approximately maybe 4.7x, but also based on our forecast for end of 2023, we do expect to achieve those type of leverage targets both on a reported basis at approximately 4.8x. And based on our credit agreement, is approximately 3.7x. So, there is — at that point — at this point, our balance sheet is strong. We have — we feel very good about our leverage ratio, and there is no need to approach again the equity capital markets and to raise additional equity.

Pavel Molchanov: Okay. And then question also about pricing. In Q4, for reasons you’ve talked about kind of a messy quarter. Pricing per ton dropped about 10% sequentially. We peaked at, I guess, $257 a ton in for 2023, should we assume pricing around $250 a ton, I mean, like what’s the trajectory for that?

Shai Even: Yes. So 2022, we’re expecting reduction overall in average price per metric ton. So, we do like excluding the effect of the adjusted gross margin transaction on 2022, we had like overall adjusted gross margin per metric ton of around $60. We do expect, as we mentioned before, for 2022, adjusted gross margin per metric ton of over $50, but not as high as $60. We don’t include in our guidance of $305 million to $335 million for 2023, we don’t expect such a benefit from the commercial activity that we’ve seen in 2022.

Pavel Molchanov: Okay. So something closer to $200 a ton?

Shai Even: No, no. We’re expecting well over $200 a ton of the revenue per metric ton, as a revenue per metric ton, but I just wanted to highlight the adjusted gross margin per metric ton, which is based on our injection over $50 per metric ton for 2023.

Operator: This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Thomas Meth for any closing remarks.

Thomas Meth: Thank you, everyone, for taking the time to join us today. We continue to be incredibly privileged to have the opportunity to build a company and a unique platform that delivers what the world wants, reduced reliance on fossil fuels more quickly and more cost effectively from secure sources and that is exactly what we offer. We are laser-focused on execution this year, and I look forward to providing progress updates throughout the coming months.

Operator: The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.

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