Hannon Armstrong Announces 17% Increase in Q3 2016 GAAP Earnings to $0.07 per Share and 12% Increase in Q3 2016 Core Earnings to $0.29 per Share

ANNAPOLIS, Md., Nov. 2, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Hannon Armstrong Sustainable Infrastructure Capital, Inc. ("Hannon Armstrong," "we," "our" or the "Company;"NYSE: HASI), a leading investor in the efficiency, wind and solar markets, today reported earnings as shown in the table below: 

The difference between GAAP and Core earnings is primarily the result of adjusting for distributions, net of an estimated return of capital, from our equity method investments in renewable energy projects and adding back non-cash equity-based compensation.  A reconciliation of our GAAP net income to Core Earnings is included in this press release. 

"Our diversified origination channels across multiple end markets continue to demonstrate the strength in our strategy, as we completed approximately $242 million of originations in the quarter, putting us approximately 20% ahead of last year at this time on a year to date basis," said Chairman, President and CEO, Jeffrey Eckel. "Yields and spreads remain fairly constant, notwithstanding the uptick in short-term rates."

Highlights

• Closed $712 million of transactions year-to-date compared to $595 million in the same period in 2015
• Growth of 17% quarterly GAAP EPS and 12% quarterly Core EPS in third quarter 2016 over third quarter 2015
• $0.30 per share quarterly dividend, for an annualized yield of 5.4% based on our closing stock price of $22.12 on November 1, 2016
• 67% fixed-rate debt
• Debt to equity ratio of 1.9 to 1 as of September 30, 2016
• Maintained a diversified pipeline of over $2.5 billion

"Our core federal government efficiency market remains strong with an additional $2 billion federal government target announced last month," continued Eckel.   "We are also seeing increased activity in wind equity investment opportunities as well as commercial distributed solar."

Portfolio

Our Portfolio totaled approximately $1.4 billion as of September 30, 2016, and included approximately $0.4 billion of energy efficiency investments and approximately $1.0 billion of renewable energy (wind and solar) transactions. The following is an analysis of our Portfolio by type of obligor and credit quality as of September 30, 2016:

Third Quarter Financial Results

Total GAAP revenue grew by $4 million, or 27%, in the quarter as compared to last year.  Increases were primarily driven by growth in the Portfolio to $1.4 billion from $1.1 billion at September 30, 2015 and gain on sale and fee income, which was $4 million for the three months ended September 30, 2016, as compared to $3 million for the same period last year.  In addition, GAAP equity method income grew by $1 million and core equity method income grew by $3 million over the same quarter last year. The growth in GAAP revenue and income from the equity method investments were the key drivers of the growth in both GAAP and Core Earnings for the third quarter. 

The growth in revenue and income from the equity method investments was offset by an approximately $4 million increase in interest expense for the three months ended September 30, 2016, as compared to the same period last year as a result of higher levels of outstanding borrowings and an increase in the proportion of fixed-rate debt as shown in the chart below.

SG&A (compensation and benefits and general and administrative expenses) stayed flat for the three months ended September 30, 2016 as compared to the same period in 2015.

"As expected, our other investment revenue of gain on securitization and fee income returned to more historic levels in Q3 as we increased the transactions for our balance sheet," said Chief Financial Officer Brendan Herron. "We expect this more normalized run rate to continue in the fourth quarter."

Conference Call and Webcast Information
Hannon Armstrong will host an investor conference call today, November 2, 2016 at 5:00 pm eastern time.  The conference call can be accessed live over the phone by dialing 1-800-239-9838, or for international callers, 1-913-312-1298. A replay will be available beginning two hours after the call and can be accessed by dialing 1-844-512-2921, or for international callers, 1-412-317-6671. The passcode for the live call and the replay is 2710760. The replay will be available until November 9, 2016.

A webcast of the conference call will also be available through the Investor Relations section of our website, at www.hannonarmstrong.com. A copy of this press release is also available on our website.

About Hannon Armstrong       
Hannon Armstrong (NYSE: HASI) invests in the energy efficiency, wind and solar markets. We focus on providing preferred or senior level capital to established sponsors and high credit quality obligors for assets that generate long-term, recurring, and predictable cash flows. We are based in Annapolis, Maryland.

Forward-Looking Statements

Some of the information contained in this press release is forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. When used in this press release, the words such as "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "plan," "continue," "intend," "should," "may," "target," or similar expressions, are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. Investors are cautioned against placing undue reliance on such statements. Actual results may differ materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements include those discussed under the caption "Risk Factors" included in our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as in other reports that we file with the SEC. Statements regarding the following subjects, among others, may be forward-looking:

• our expected returns and performance of our investments;
• the state of government legislation, regulation and policies that support energy efficiency, renewable energy and sustainable infrastructure projects and that enhance the economic feasibility of energy efficiency, renewable energy and sustainable infrastructure projects and the general market demands for such projects;
• market trends in our industry, energy markets, commodity prices, interest rates, the debt and lending markets or the general economy;
• our business and investment strategy;
• availability of opportunities to finance energy efficiency, renewable energy and sustainable infrastructure projects and our ability to complete potential new opportunities in our pipeline;
• our relationships with originators, investors, market intermediaries and professional advisers;
• competition from other providers of financing;
• our or any other companies' projected operating results;
• actions and initiatives of the U.S. federal, state and local governments and changes to U.S. federal, state and local government policies, regulations, tax laws and rates and the execution and impact of these actions, initiatives and policies;
• the state of the U.S. economy generally or in specific geographic regions, states or municipalities; economic trends and economic recoveries;
• our ability to obtain and maintain financing arrangements on favorable terms, including securitizations;
• general volatility of the securities markets in which we participate;
• changes in the value of our assets, our portfolio of assets and our investment and underwriting process;
• interest rate and maturity mismatches between our assets and any borrowings used to fund such assets;
• changes in interest rates and the market value of our assets and target assets;
• changes in commodity prices;
• effects of hedging instruments on our assets;
• rates of default or decreased recovery rates on our assets;
• the degree to which our hedging strategies may or may not protect us from interest rate volatility;
• impact of and changes in accounting guidance and similar matters;
• our ability to maintain our qualification, as a real estate investment trust for U.S. federal income tax purposes (a "REIT");
• our ability to maintain our exception from registration under the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended;
• availability of qualified personnel;
• estimates relating to our ability to make distributions to our stockholders in the future; and
• our understanding of our competition.

Forward-looking statements are based on beliefs, assumptions and expectations as of the date of this press release. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it is made. New risks and uncertainties arise over time, and it is not possible for us to predict those events or how they may affect us. Except as required by law, we are not obligated to, and do not intend to, update or revise any forward-looking statements after the date of this earnings release, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

The risks included here are not exhaustive. Our 2015 Form 10-K or other regulatory filings may include additional factors that could adversely affect our business and financial performance. Moreover, we operate in a very competitive and rapidly changing environment. New risk factors emerge from time to time and it is not possible for management to predict all such risk factors, nor can it assess the impact of all such risk factors on our business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward‑looking statements.  Given these risks and uncertainties, investors should not place undue reliance on forward‑looking statements as a prediction of actual results.

Investor Relations
410-571-6189
[email protected]

EXPLANATORY NOTES

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

Core Earnings

We calculate Core Earnings as U.S. GAAP net income excluding non-cash equity compensation expense, non-cash provision for credit losses, amortization of intangibles, one-time acquisition related costs, if any and any non-cash tax charges. We also make an adjustment to account for our equity method investments in the renewable energy projects as described below. In the future, Core Earnings may also exclude one-time events pursuant to changes in U.S. GAAP and certain other non-cash charges as approved by a majority of our independent directors.

Our equity method investments in the renewable energy projects are structured using typical partnership "flip" structures where we, along with other institutional investors, if any, receive a pre-negotiated preferred return consisting of priority distributions from the project cash flows, in many cases, along with tax attributes. Once this preferred return is achieved, the partnership flips and the renewable energy company, which operates the project, receives more of the cash flows through its equity interests with the institutional investors retaining an ongoing residual interest.   The cash flows in renewable energy projects are often significantly different from the net income due to high levels of depreciation and other non-cash expense and the agreed upon allocation of cash flow in a project with these preferred returns may be different than the profit and loss allocation. 

Under U.S. GAAP, we account for these investments utilizing the hypothetical liquidation at book value method ("HLBV"), in this case, at the end of the immediately preceding quarter.  Under this method, we recognize income or loss based on the change in the amount each partner would receive, typically based on the profit and loss allocation, if the assets were liquidated at book value, after adjusting for any distributions or contributions made during such quarter. Given the structure of the investments, we negotiated the purchase prices of our renewable energy investments based on our assessment of the expected cash flows we will receive from each investment discounted back to net present value based on a discount rate that represented an expected yield on the investment. This is similar to how we value the expected cash flows in financing receivables.  In an attempt to treat these investments in a manner similar to our other investments and our initial valuation and because we are entitled to receive a preferred return of cash flows on our investments independent of how profits and losses are allocated, in calculating Core Earnings for the below periods, we include as Core Earnings the distributions received from these investments less an estimated return of capital.  Generally, under this methodology, we reflect our initial capital investment as being amortized over the life of the project using a constant yield.  The initial constant yield we selected is equal to the discount rates we determined when making our investment decisions.  On at least a quarterly basis, we will review and, if appropriate, adjust the discount rates and the expected amortization for purposes of calculating Core Earnings in future periods, as necessary, to reflect changes in both actual cash flows received and our estimates of the future cash flows from the projects. Our allocation of profits and losses in certain of our equity investment transactions is projected to change in 2019, which is expected to result in an increase of the amount of HLBV profits or losses allocated to us.

As of September 30, 2016, we have outstanding borrowings of approximately $244 million, most of which is on a nonrecourse basis, using our equity method investments as collateral.  Included in our U.S. GAAP investment interest expense for the nine months ended September 30, 2016, was approximately $11 million of interest expense related to loans secured by our equity investments.  For the nine months ended September 30, 2016, we collected cash distributions from our renewable energy equity investments of approximately $45 million, of which $19 million represents our Core Earnings adjustment for these investments based upon the constant yield methodology discussed above.

We believe that Core Earnings provides an additional measure of our core operating performance by eliminating the impact of certain non-cash expenses and facilitating a comparison of our financial results to those of other comparable REITs with fewer or no non-cash charges and comparison of our own operating results from period to period. Our management uses Core Earnings in this way. We believe that our investors also use Core Earnings, or a comparable supplemental performance measure, to evaluate and compare our performance to that of our peers, and as such, we believe that the disclosure of Core Earnings is useful to (and expected by) our investors.

However, Core Earnings does not represent cash generated from operating activities in accordance with U.S. GAAP and should not be considered as an alternative to net income (determined in accordance with U.S. GAAP), or an indication of our cash flow from operating activities (determined in accordance with U.S. GAAP), a measure of our liquidity, or an indication of funds available to fund our cash needs, including our ability to make cash distributions. In addition, our methodology for calculating Core Earnings may differ from the methodologies employed by other REITs to calculate the same or similar supplemental performance measures, and accordingly, our reported Core Earnings may not be comparable to the core earnings reported by other REITs.

We have calculated our Core Earnings and provided a reconciliation of our GAAP net income to Core Earnings for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2016 and 2015 in the tables below: 

The table below provides a reconciliation of the Other Core Adjustments:  

The table below provides a reconciliation of the GAAP SG&A Expenses to Core SG&A Expenses:  

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SOURCE Hannon Armstrong Sustainable Infrastructure Capital, Inc.