Hannon Armstrong Sustainable Infrastructure Capital, Inc. (NYSE:HASI) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Jeff Lipson: Well, it certainly could be a higher line item. That’s one that you need to recreate every year. I think our forward pipeline of assets that can be securitized gives us strong confidence that where we’re tracking towards this year, we’ll be able to achieve again next year and thereby able to achieve our guidance. And remember, those parameters to achieving guidance that we laid out are meant to be sort of the bare minimum. That’s not actually our plan, of course. So I think we, from a gain on sale perspective, remain confident that we’ll be able to replicate this year again next year and there is some chance we’ll exceed it.

Mark Strouse: That makes sense. Okay. Thanks, Jeff.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question is from Chris Souther with B. Riley Securities. Please go ahead.

Chris Souther: Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my questions here. So, essentially it seems like we’re saying with today’s balance sheet and kind of normal gain on sale we’re already at, next year’s guidance but, there’s obviously kind of a big pipeline of opportunities here that you guys are looking to execute on. Can you kind of just walk through puts and takes around the impact that rotation of assets would have on the balance sheet size and therefore, what we would get as far as net investment income next year versus kind of the new stuff that’s coming on? I’m just wanting to kind of square away, it sounds like we’re saying there’s potentially kind of good upsides to the guidance for next year.

Jeff Lipson: Sure. Thanks, Chris and I’ll start and maybe Mark will add to this answer. But I would start by saying the portfolio balance, given all of the volume we did this year and a decent amount of it in the back half of the year, of course, creates a dynamic where the average portfolio balance next year is already going to be unambiguously higher than this year. So that creates earnings growth in and of itself. In terms of executing on the pipeline, as we talked about some of these balance sheet rotation ideas and some of the things we’re developing in terms of other off-balance sheet channels will help us on that pipeline. But we’ll obviously be in a somewhat, call it capital first mode, where we want to make sure we’ve identified the source of funds before we move forward too actively on the forward pipeline.

So I think that’s the dynamic that’s occurring now, given the volatility, but we remain confident in developing these sources and actually executing on some of that pipeline.

Chris Souther: Okay. And then as we’re looking at the kind of levers here, rotation of existing assets, would the $1.2 billion of receivables that are yielding below 8% be kind of the first lever there? And then as we’re looking at new assets, can you kind of just walk through the decision tree between having the balance sheet securitization co-invest between specific projects that you’re evaluating? Obviously, the yield and asset class are kind of the main two there, but just how you’re kind of approaching that decision tree on new assets would be helpful.

Jeff Lipson: So it is in some regard an optimization exercise. So for example, if we have assets on the balance sheet that we could securitize at a gain and replace with new assets that are 300 basis points higher on yield, that’s a bit of a no-brainer and obviously we’ll execute on transactions that look like that. Likewise, as Marc said, leverage is 1.7%, which gives us additional room for additional debt and he laid out some perspective sources of debt that we think will be cost effective, particularly given the yield on these investments in the pipeline. So that is another source there as well and then some of these off-balance sheet sources that we’re working on with some new partners, will be next in line behind those two as well. So again, that’s how I think about the decision tree of raising additional funds to take advantage of this opportunity.

Marc Pangburn: And I just have one comment, which is that the potential balance sheet rotation that could lead to a securitization, for example, would generally be some of the lower yielding, lower risk assets, because that is, has generally been what’s gone through our securitization program.