|
Article Excerpt OPERATOR: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Enbridge Inc. conference call to discuss the sale of OCENSA. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mr. Vern Yu. You may proceed.
VERN YU, IR, ENBRIDGE INC.: Thank you. Good morning, everyone. With me this morning are Pat Daniel, President and Chief Executive Officer; Richard Bird, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Corporate Development; and Steve Letwin, Executive Vice President, Gas Transportation and international.
Before we begin, I should advise you that during this conference call we may refer to certain information that constitutes forward-looking information. Please take note of the legally required forward-looking information disclaimer in our slides which generally states that you should not place undue reliance on statements about the future, since we necessarily apply certain assumptions to reach conclusions about future outcomes and future outcomes are always subject to risks and uncertainties affecting our business, including regulatory parameters, weather, economic conditions, change rates, interest rates and commodity prices. A more fulsome discussion of these risks and uncertainties are included in our Securities disclosure filings, which are publicly available both on SEDAR and Edgar.
This call is a webcast, and I encourage those listening on the phone to view the supporting slides on our website at www.enbridge.com\investor. A replay of the call will be available later.
The Q&A format will be the same as the past earnings calls. The initial Q&A session will be restricted to the analyst community, and once that is completed, we will invite questions from the media. I would also remind you that both Pat Murray and I will be available for any detailed follow-up questions after the call.
And finally, I'd like to turn the call over to Pat Daniel.
PAT DANIEL, PRESIDENT, CEO, ENBRIDGE INC: Okay. Thank you very much, Vern, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us for a review of the sale of our interest in OCENSA and also for an update on our financing and growth plans. I am going to lead off this morning and then I will ask Richard Bird, our CFO, to fill in some of the details.
As indicated in the news release, we've sold our interest in OCENSA to Ecopetrol at an attractive valuation of approximately US$400 million. In Canadian dollars and after tax, we will net about CDN535 million, including realization of an excellent gain on the associated foreign exchange hedge. That works out to an effective price to earnings of about 19 times, and thus a very accretive deal for Enbridge.
The transaction demonstrates that attractive valuations can still be achieved in the current environment for asset sales or monetizations with the right matchup with the counterparties' strategic and financial objectives.
This brings to a conclusion our involvement in Colombia and with Ecopetrol, and it has been a fruitful and honorable relationship for all concerned over about 12 years, and we wish them every success. For the time being, this transaction also brings to an end our international investment involvement, although not our international presence, which will continue to be maintained through our technology, training and consulting business.
The sale of our two international assets, CLH last year and OCENSA this year, is a response to favorable valuations which enhance shareholder value and to attractive opportunities to redeploy the capital associated with those investments. This is not a change in our long-term strategy. We continue to believe that there will be selected opportunities to create shareholder value by extending Enbridge's unique pipeline development and operating capabilities to markets beyond North America.
In the meantime, at home in North America, the landscape has changed. As...
|
|

More articles from Fair Disclosure Wire
Q4 2008 Tractebel Energia S.A. Earnings Conference Call (English) - Fi..., March 16, 2009 Q4 2008 Linde AG Earnings Presentation - Final.(Broadcast transcript), March 16, 2009 Q4 2008 FLOTEK INDS INC DEL Earnings Conference Call - Final.(Broadcas..., March 16, 2009 Gilead Sciences at Cowen and Company Healthcare Conference - Final.(Br..., March 16, 2009 Johnson & Johnson at Cowen and Company Healthcare Conference - Final.(..., March 16, 2009
Looking for additional articles?
Search our database of over 3 million articles.
Looking for more in-depth information on this industry?
Search our complete database of Industry & Market reports by text, subject, publication
name or publication date.
About Goliath
Whether you're looking for sales prospects, competitive information, company
analysis or best practices in managing your organization,
Goliath can help you meet your business needs.
Our extensive business information databases empower business
professionals with both the breadth and depth of credible,
authoritative information they need to support their business
goals. Whether it be strategic planning, sales prospecting,
company research or defining management best practices -
Goliath is your leading source for accurate information.
|
|