Good day, welcome to the New Fortress Energy Dividend Policy Update conference call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, all lines are in a listen-only mode until our question-and-answer session. Instructions will be given at that time. At this time, I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Patrick Hughes, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you, Jess, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining today's conference call, during which we're going to discuss our updated dividend policy. As Jess said, the call is being recorded and will be available by replay on the Investors section of our website under the subheading Events and Presentations. At the same location, you'll find a press release and a corresponding presentation related to our updated dividend policy. Both of these were released to the public yesterday evening. The presentation to which we'll refer during today's call contains a series of important disclosures related to forward-looking statements and non-GAAP financial measures. We encourage participants to review these important disclosures in addition to the description of risk factors contained within our SEC filings. Let's turn to today's call. This is Patrick Hughes. I look after investor relations here at New Fortress.
Joining me today are Wes Edens, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Chris Guinta, our Chief Financial Officer. Wes, over to you.
Great. Thanks, Patrick, welcome everyone. A little announcement here at the end of the year. We sent the press release out, as well as the flipbook that Patrick was referring to. What I would like to do is just briefly kind of go through the pages along with Chris, and then we're happy to answer any questions. Let's just start with page four. First the news is that we are updating our dividend policy.
When we initiated a dividend, you know, a year or more, I guess, at this point ago, it was more of a placeholder of a modest dividend, $0.10 a quarter, that was designed to reflect what we thought would be ultimately the business that we would grow into, and that we would adjust our dividend when we actually had the cash flow and the maturity of the business to support something that's more meaningful. The, the top of the, of the list is really, you know, a quick question about what the right way is to allocate capital. In a business like ours that has substantial cash flow and substantial investment needs, our view is that the right approach is a balanced approach.
As the business has grown and matured and cash flow has grown substantially, we want to then take the next step of employ a disciplined way to allocate that capital to benefit both shareholders and also grow the company. Doing this, we think, actually will provide significant and meaningful returns to shareholders. A big component of that is providing the framework by which we intend to update our dividend in the future. Flip to page number five. The guiding principles that I referred to are really the various options that we have to use incremental capital. We can use it, number one, to invest in CapEx, to invest and build the assets that we're building around the world.
Number two, we can do it to return capital to shareholders in the form of issuing dividends, or alternatively, to buy back shares, or alternatively, to pay down debt. Our debt is at very modest levels relative to the performance of the company. That's not a high priority for us at this point. When we look at the various scenarios that we have, you know, we're headed into a period where our cash flows are going to grow materially. In fact, if you look at page number six, this gives a very vivid depiction of this. 2019, our adjusted EBITDA, -$115 million. That was in the growth stage of the company. 2020, we basically broke even, made $33 million. Last year, $605 million.
This year, approximately $1.1 billion. Next year and years forward, it goes up materially now, so $2.5 billion+ next year and beyond that in 2024. The CapEx on the bottom line is impressive. We actually invested $377 million in 2019, $157 in 2020. Last year and this year, those numbers have increased substantially, $669 million last year, $800 million-$900 million this year, $2 billion+. The way I think of the business is that it really is two really quite different businesses. One is the production of cash flow, and the other is the investment of the cash flow.
When you think of the business that I used to be in, the fund business, if you had a fund that was investing $1 billion-$2 billion a year, that was actually a pretty big fund. What we are simply trying to relate is what's the appropriate amount of capital that we're going to retain and what's the appropriate amount of capital that we're gonna give back to shareholders. After a lot of analysis and looking at all the various scenarios, we have concluded that retaining approximately 60% of the capital for growth purposes and paying out approximately 40% for shareholders was the right balance. This is not a precise science. It's not like 39 and 61 was the wrong number or that 60/40 is absolutely the correct one.
What it does is when we look at the planned expenditures that we've got for CapEx, we can see that we can fund ourselves very readily with the liquidity and the cash on hand and the earnings that we have and still allow for a meaningful dividend. That's the judgment that we're making at the end of the day. It is not, by my measure, an aggressive policy whatsoever. I think that with the business environment that we're in, with the position that we're in, which is a very, very fortunate one, we have more than adequate capital to fund our business, and this is the right step to take. Page number seven.
You know, it's good, I think, to reiterate what we expect to happen after this kind of windfall period of 2023, 2024. Obviously the world is very, very short, gas, broadly speaking, for the short term, and we're gonna be the beneficiary of that. We already have been. Our goal for our business remains exactly the same as it was when we started the business, which is to match the long-term supply that we are generating with the long-term demand around the world. You can see the value of all these downstream, assets and terminals that we have out here. I mean, our goal long term with our FLNG volumes that are coming into the portfolio is to match those up with long-term supply.
To do so, really the focus for that is on these long-term customers that either buy gas from us or buy power from us. Today, the portfolio is 65 contracts with weighted average contract life of about 15 years. Very, very long-term demand matched now against our long-term supply on the FLNG side, and we simply wanna grow that side of the business to actually match this so that, you know, the calculation of our earnings is just a net spread, and the production of that is something which is very certain given the longevity of the cash flows. Page number eight, just to try and convert that into a relatable form.
A good rule of thumb, it's not precise, but it's close enough to be a good measure, is that every 100 megawatts of thermal power that you actually service uses about 10 TBtus of gas. To put that in the context of our portfolio, we're building five Fast LNG units that each produce about 70 TBtus, 5x 70 is 350. Converting that into power is 3,500 megawatts. 3,500 megawatts, by the way, we have either built or purchased to date more than 4,000 megawatts. Just again, to relate this to kind of like what the actual scale of the business is today, it's not something which is offside.
In fact, in addition to what we have done historically, if you look at the box on the right-hand side, we already have about 1,700 megawatts in discussion or under construction between Brazil and Ireland and South Africa and Jamaica, as well as actually a number of other assets and projects that are in earlier stages. Total 1,700, a need of 3,500. The timing to get there is over the next several years. You have lots of time and lots of opportunity to match up these two, I think long before we get to 2025, we're gonna be well matched on this, these long-term demands will meet the long-term supply, and we'll be fully utilize the gas that we're creating.
Now, to look at this in the context of how other companies view themselves and what their performance is, we did a very simple analysis and looked at the S&P 500. Of the 500 companies in the S&P 500, 397 of them pay a dividend. Not in the past year, but in fact, over many, many years, companies that pay dividends have outperformed the S&P by a substantial amount. The balance that all these companies are trying to achieve is the same balance that we're trying to achieve, is how do you match up excess cash flow with investment needs in the business and find that right balance in terms of returning capital to shareholders? Historically, companies that have done this are very well.
In page number 10, the real, the punchline of all this is that you wanna be the company in the upper right-hand corner. When you look at these two axes of growth and dividends, what you're really looking to be is the company that is in the upper right-hand corner, which is basically when we went back and looked at the 397 companies that were actually in the S&P 500, we can't find any that are really in the upper right-hand corner. What we're really. Well, you know, that's not a, an exhaustive analysis, but it's just an anecdotal one.
What we are trying to achieve is this very simple goal of being the company in the right-hand corner, which is a company that has very high levels of growth coupled with very significant amounts of capital that's returned to shareholders in the form of dividends. That's the company we wanna be. What we did is we just simply plotted this against a series of comparable companies, and I would put an asterisk next to that, and we don't feel that any of these are actually really great comparables to us. That's both a blessing and a curse of our business, is we don't feel like there's a great comparable per se.
We looked at the E&P companies, the midstream companies, the majors themselves as well as ourselves, and these are a bunch of fine companies, and they've got various elements of one or the other. They tend to be either higher paying and slower growth or higher growth and lower paying. There's nobody that's in the upper right-hand corner. This is the graph that we think is actually important for us. That's all. You know, I've got Chris here as well to answer any questions on the financial side. Of course, I'm here to answer questions. You know, our dividend is we're gonna pay $3 in this first dividend. The goal is basically to pay a dividend twice a year.
We think the right period to kind of measure this is the first half of the year or the second half of the year. The dividend is the record date to be a recipient of the dividend is January 4. The payment date is January 13th. For those shareholders that are actually owners on the 4th, and they'll receive it on the 13th. Our goal then would be roughly in the second half of the year, so the figure after the first half is done, so July or early August. We'll actually have a similar conversation to this, and our goal is to obviously be consistent with this. We feel very good about our forecast for next year. We feel like the environment is a good one, and we're well underway.
Obviously, what this does reflect is a significant amount of confidence in both, the market for our products as well as, the timing for, you know, the supply that we're bringing online. There's no real update to that. We had an earnings call here and a investor day and kind of demonstrated that. The bottom line is that kind of on time and on budget is what our expectations are, and there's nothing we see that actually gets in between now and then. Obviously, March, April, May are not very far away. We sit here in the middle of December, so there's a lot of work to be done. We feel obviously good about it, and the confidence in our ability to deliver on that is in part reflected on this. It's not irrational exuberance by any means.
It's something that reflects kind of the day-to-day, you know, activities of our business. With that, let me turn it back over to the operator. We're happy to answer any questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question or comment, it is star one on your Touch-Tone telephone. If you're using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Again, that is star one to ask a question. We'll pause for just a moment to allow everyone a chance to signal. Our first question comes from Sam Margolin with Wolfe Research. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. First one is just a, sorry, a clarification on slide six, the cash and working capital facilities. Do I understand correctly, that's sort of pro forma, the sale leaseback that was announced a couple months ago for the vessels? Is that right?
Hey, Sam, it's Chris. No, that's really just the revolver and the letter of credit facility. Revolver today. Is $460. We're gonna upsize that. You've got an LC facility for another $300. We expect to have about $1 billion between those two facilities accessible sometime in the first quarter.
Okay, got it. Thank you. Yeah, just on the reinvestment side and the build-out of downstream and, you know, incorporating a full gas to power value chain, are you gonna keep most of the generation capacity that you participate in, sort of off balance sheet, and operate it through joint ventures? Or is that incorporated into the CapEx number here?
What we've done historically is what we expect to do in the future, which is basically where necessary, we've invested in the generation to get it built and online. Once it's up and running, we've looked to then either finance or sell it. That's what we did in Jamaica. That's what we did in Brazil. Those are recent examples of it. The announced transaction in Mexico, another one. I mean, long term, our real goal is supplying, you know, fuel to these products or power. But we don't think that there's gonna be a significant balance sheet of generation assets for us in the future.
That's not the goal, that we're obviously happy to invest in them, we're happy to partner in them. There's lots and lots of different situations that are out in the world that are interesting. I think that we don't think that, you know, that running a balance sheet of generation assets is really where we want to be or need to be.
Excellent. Thank you so much.
Once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you had a question, it is star one on your phone. We will go next to Craig Shere with Tuohy Brothers. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking the questions. First I wanna make sure I understand this correctly. First part, stating the obvious, the street is well below guidance. The second point, that at a 40% payout ratio, the announced dividend run rate implies beating guidance. Am I saying that wrong?
I'm sorry, Craig, I couldn't hear kinda clearly. I think that the 40% payout rate with, you know, $3 annualized, $6 does give you guidance with respect to what we think the EBITDA is for sure. Obviously, we think it's gonna be, you know, substantially greater next year than it is this year, and we have actually tremendous visibility into that. That's obviously what is driving it. Trying to I feel like effective dividend policy is one where there's not only a dividend declared, but there's also a paradigm that's used to actually show how it is constructed so people can then base their expectations on both current and future dividends based on what the actual performance of the business is.
We obviously feel very confident about the performance of the business next year, and we're making a dividend announcement as a reflection of that, and we think that that's the right, the right path to take.
Sure. I guess just to clarify, when you say $2.5+ billion next year EBITDA, this dividend suggests an emphasis on the plus.
I missed just the very last part. The $2.5 billion EBITDA. Sorry, I just missed the last sentence. I couldn't actually understand clearly.
Sure. I apologize. I'm just saying the dividend announcement would suggest the plus in the $2.5+ billion is being emphasized, that, you know, you would expect to be able to exceed that number.
That's correct. Your math is right.
Okay. Last question. You mentioned $11 billion liquidity through 2025 being added. In terms of annual allocation, is it fair to say that it's gonna be a little lumpy, you know, some years a lot more towards CapEx, but that roughly over the entire timeframe, you might be targeting 40% dividend, 40%-45% for CapEx, and then the rest for share buybacks, you know, taxes, other things?
It's not precisely that, but that's certainly directionally correct. I mean, I guess the 2025 numbers and forward. If you take our current book of business, which is about 120 TBtus, right? You add in the 350, right? That obviously takes it up to 470. If you used a $10 margin as your long-term supply, long-term demand number, you can multiply 10x 470 to get kind of a rough approximation of what we think the long-term prospects for the business are. That's what we. When I say match long-term supply with long-term demand, that's what I'm talking about.
Obviously, over the next couple of years, there's a build up to that, so it's not gonna be precisely a matter of it moving, you know, this amount by quarter by quarter. Within the approximations of kind of the 60/40, we think there's more than ample room to pay this dividend and also to increase it if we're, you know, fortunate enough to do what we expect to in the coming years. But the $11 billion, I think that's our estimate of what the production of the business is gonna be over the next couple of years. I think it adds some context, that's meaningful context, I hope, for shareholders to understand what we think the dimensions are of the business.
One of the ways to kind of evidence the confidence in that is what we're doing right now, which is returning some capital and setting up a paradigm that allows us to, you know, revisit this every six months. You can obviously revisit the earnings updates every quarter. You know, those two things will allow you to vector in on what the performance is and what the payout of capital is versus the investment of it.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, it was star one, if you had a question. We will go next to Jason Mandel with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the question. on, in previous comments, you guys have had some focus on migrating towards investment grade, with the change in the dividend policy. Any change towards either that progression or the speed, or the importance and value of being investment grade? Thank you.
No, not at all. In fact, we think that this reinforces that path. I mean, we're in active dialogue with the agencies all the time. I mean, at the end of the day, my experience with rating agencies, which is pretty significant over time, is that consistency and performance are what actually carry the day. Our overall leverage is actually very modest given the cash flows of the business. We've moved from being a development company to an operating company in a very material way, as reflected by the cash flows we generated this year and the ones that prospectively we expect next year. We think that that puts us in great standing on this.
I think that, getting to investment grade, is a big step, and it's a meaningful one for the company, on a number of different levels. I think that, getting our FLNG units up and running, getting, you know, more and more of the supply termed out on long-term contracts on the power side, those two things are what we think are the ingredients to getting to the right place from the agencies. I mean, we've demonstrated very clearly, in my view, that long-term supply and long-term demand can be easily matched in this business. That's the current book of business that we have that is very, very well matched. We just now need to execute on the second half of that, and I think we'll be in a phenomenal place in terms of the rating of it. So.
Okay, great. Thank you for all the color. It's very helpful. Just one other question on the 2023 illustrative goal, $2.5 billion+. Obviously, there's still a pretty decent sized disconnect versus what the street is, appears to be looking for, which has increased pretty significantly over the last several quarters, several months. Any sense what you think the Street's getting wrong in terms of 2023?
I think that it's not unusual for people to wait for performance to kind of reflect it. You know, we've done everything that we can do, both in terms of making the money and being as transparent as possible. We hosted folks down in Corpus Christi to show them the progress down there. I think that, you know, I think it's just a matter of time. Hopefully this is another brick in the wall in terms of, you know, trying to solidify what the performance of the company is. It's not a, it's not an event, it's a process. I feel like we are very, very undervalued. You know, as a result, you know, I think that we've got a lot of potential.
I think that as we continue to make strides, I think that you're gonna get this reflected properly. I think it's just hard for people, in certain cases, to get their mind around going from $33 million in EBITDA to $2 billion or $3 billion or $4 billion in EBITDA over a couple-year period. That's the world that we're in. The first job is to make that money. The second job is to increase the duration of all those cash flows. That's something we have done a number of times, so we feel very confident we can do it again. I mean, the need for power long-term in the world has not lessened in the last couple of years. It's gone the other way, actually.
While people are very excited about, you know, short-term, you know, demand for the product, the long-term demand is greater than ever. We feel like that, you know, the gas to power fully integrated model is the most amazing, you know, business model I've ever been associated with. Now it's just a matter of doing the work to kind of put, you know, those pieces together.
Great. Thank you for your thoughts. Appreciate it.
Our next question comes from Gregg Brody at Bank of America. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Good morning, thanks for the update. Just as it appears that this is a forward-looking number, which you've... How should we think about how much of that is locked in and how much margin of safety you've built into that forecast or that forecasted dividend that you're gonna pay out?
Yeah, it's from my standpoint, it is not really forward-looking based on kind of the business flows and, you know, the transactions that we have in hand. We feel like it is reflecting the reality of the business more so than projecting kind of some forward results. We've been very clear about what we think the future holds. We have, obviously, a lot of tools at our disposal to make these numbers and, you know, feel really good about it. I think that we do mitigate a substantial amount of our risk, you know, through a variety of different measures. You know, the easiest way to lock in profits is to sell, you know, supply. We've done a lot of that.
The second easiest way to do it is to hedge it. Obviously, there's a lot of, you know, factors you can take into consideration there, but we've done that as well. You know, there's variability. I'd say the most significant variability from my standpoint is in the second half of the year, not the first half of the year, and that just simply relates to when the FLNG turns on. I think that, for those of you that went down to our site visit in Corpus, I think that everyone that's there hopefully understands is it's merely a question of when, not if. Obviously, a month or two or three can make a difference. We believe strongly in the timelines that we have communicated with people. You know, we're gonna have mechanical completion, you know, in the spring.
We're gonna get this thing, you know, off of the dock and into the water in probably April, May, and turned on in June. I mean, that's, you know, what the plan is, and we feel great about that plan. But I think that when you look at the from our standpoint, when we look at the numbers, there's more variability in the second half of the year than the first half of the year as a result of that. But even with that, there's a very substantial amount of earnings and cash flows that are generated in the ordinary course of the business. That's why I say this, we don't feel like this is a speculative position we're taking at all. It really just reflects the business.
Just one follow-up. Does the dividend change your strategy on contracting or anything in terms of locking in cash flows? Are you still approaching things the same way?
No. I really think that the business plan is I would say, we have our current core business, which is matched supply with matched demand. We have, you know, a significant amount of additional supply that we're bringing to the portfolio, and we wanna match that up with long-term demand. In the ordinary course to build or buy or, you know, develop those assets, it takes a couple of years. You have this incredibly fortuitous situation where you've got excess volumes in a period where merchant prices are very, very high, and you have long-term supply going to feed long-term demand when those, you know, factors start to abate a bit.
I'd say that there's more volatility and variability in 2023 and 2024, I think probably in a positive way, just given kind of the dynamics of the business. Then I feel very good about our ability to lock in that with real duration, on, you know, gas and power customers, you know, long term, 2025 and beyond. That's really the-- that's really what I think is simply the business model, and I think you're gonna see it play out, you know, vividly over the next, you know, number of quarters as we go from here to there.
It's really what has changed is really the market has changed, and it has made, you know, this, the time while we're waiting for long-term supply to get developed be a very positive addition to, you know, our cash flows. There's no penalty for doing that. We don't have to worry about being uncommitted during this period because obviously the market is such a productive one, if that makes sense.
It does. Thank you for the explanation.
Great. Well, great. Well, we are up at the end of the time, I want to thank everyone for getting on the phone in short order and look forward to chatting with a number of you personally, I'm sure. Thanks much.
Ladies and gentlemen, that will conclude today's call. We thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at this time. Have a great day.