Sunoco LP (NYSE:SUN) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Joseph Kim: Elvira, this is Joe again. I think what’s really positive for investors is 5 or 6 years ago, there was talks about chatter about sun cutting distribution. Then you fast forward a couple of years later, I think the discussion is — distribution is very secure in volatile environments. Now we’re talking about distribution increase. So I think that’s a positive — very positive direction for all of our investors. With all that said, what I’ve mentioned to Theresa, the foundation is still exactly the same: secured distributions, strong balance sheet and growth. So as we increase our free cash flow, I think we’re at the point where we can’t have those discussions. So at the appropriate time, we’ll make that determination. And at the appropriate time, we’ll announce at Street.

Elvira Scotto: Great. And then the other question that I had, you talked about the Peerless acquisition and how the synergies are running ahead of expectations and the acquisition itself, overall running ahead of expectations. Can you provide a little more detail around that? And then can you talk about some of the additional opportunities that you see directly as a result of that acquisition? And then finally, just talk broader about the M&A environment.

Karl Fails: Sure. Elvira, this is Karl. I’ll talk about Peerless and then Joe, can probably give you a flavor on the overall M&A environment. If you look at our Peerless acquisition, it’s really kind of a microcosm of our strategy, right? It’s a solid fuel distribution company that had vertical integration with midstream terminal assets that they had their own brand and they sold to commercial customers. And so I think when we announced it last quarter and we talked about it, just really fit into our strategy. The good thing is that the margins and the volumes are stable. But if anything, I think under the previous ownership, they ran it really well, but there were some capital limitations. And so I think as we look at the opportunity for growth and folding that into our overall capital plan, we’re willing to grow that both by signing up new customers on the island by potential maybe even some smaller transactions on the island.

They currently have a export business where they’re exporting to neighboring Caribbean Islands. We can grow that, and then there’s even a possibility of us expanding into a bigger presence in some of those neighboring islands, building off the infrastructure we have in Puerto Rico. So I think that gives you a flavor of the kind of growth that we’re looking at as far as the base business and the synergies. I think we’ve looked at M&A for a long time, and we definitely aren’t necessarily conservative, overly conservative as we look at it. But I think once we got ownership and got to know the team a little better, it was even more solid than we expected and the business even more resilient with some of the price movements that happened. And so I think that gives you a good picture of why we’re excited.

Joseph Kim: And Elvira, this is Joe. As far as kind of a more general M&A environment, the way I would characterize it is very similar to what we saw in 2022. We still believe there’s value buys out there, especially for strategics like SUN that bring material synergies to the table. So I think a reasonable expectation is that we see 2023 being very similar to 2022.

Operator: Our next question is from Spiro Dounis with Citi.