Good day and welcome to Sempra's 2025 Value Creation Update Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Louise Bick. Please go ahead.
Good morning and welcome to an update of Sempra's Value Creation initiative. A live webcast of this teleconference and slide presentation are available on our website under the Events and Presentations section. We have several members of our management team with us today, including Jeff Martin, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Karen Sedgwick, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Justin Bird, Executive Vice President of Sempra and Chief Executive Officer of Sempra Infrastructure, Faisel Khan, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Sempra Infrastructure, Diana Day, Chief Legal Counsel and Corporate Secretary, and other members of our senior management team. Before starting, I'd like to remind everyone that we'll be discussing forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those projected in any forward-looking statement we make today.
The factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially are discussed in the company's most recent 10-K and 10-Q filed with the SEC. I'd also like to mention that forward-looking statements contained in this presentation speak only as of the date of this call. It's important to note that the company does not assume any obligation to update or revise any of these forward-looking statements in the future. Before we begin, I'd like to note one clarifying point that for the purposes of the remarks today, we'll refer to Sempra Infrastructure to describe SI Partners. With that, please let me turn the call over to Jeff.
Thank you all for joining us today. Earlier this year we launched five strategic initiatives to guide our near term business activities. Central to that effort was the opportunity to further simplify our business model, reduce risk, and create notable value for our owners in the near term. That's why today we're pleased to announce the sale of an equity stake in Sempra Infrastructure and a positive final investment decision at Port Arthur LNG Phase II. Right up front, I want to be very clear. The sale of equity at Sempra Infrastructure and the opportunity to officially recycle those proceeds into a capital campaign weighted toward Texas advances our goal of building America's leading utility growth business. Please turn to the next slide.
We're pleased to have signed a definitive agreement with KKR to sell a 45% interest in Sempra Infrastructure for a purchase price of approximately $10 billion, subject to closing adjustments. Exploring the deal specifics further, the transaction implies an enterprise value of nearly $32 billion at a compelling 13.8 times EBITDA multiple and $22.2 billion in equity value. Pro forma for the transaction closing, Sempra will retain a 25% interest in Sempra Infrastructure while KKR's ownership stake will increase to 65% and ADIA will retain a 10% stake. From the beginning, our primary objective was to sell a 15% - 30% stake in Sempra Infrastructure to officially finance our capital program while also strengthening Sempra's balance sheet. Secondarily, we wanted to help Sempra Infrastructure maintain sufficient financial strength to support its future growth.
We also said that at the right valuation, we would consider selling more than 30% if we saw a path to create added value for our owners, and that's exactly what we've done. Taken together, these considerations led us to upsize the transaction to sell a 45% stake while also adding further value to Sempra's balance sheet. By reducing our ownership position at closing to 25%, we now expect to deconsolidate Sempra Infrastructure and account for our remaining investment under the equity method on Sempra's GAAP financials. Importantly, the transaction is also accretive from an earnings per share perspective. Starting in 2027, on a full five year basis, we're expecting average annual EPS accretion of $0.20, with actual results varying by year. Under the terms of the agreement, we're receiving nearly half of the cash proceeds up front.
The remaining proceeds will follow with just over 40% accruing interest at a compelling 7.5% and payable in 2027, and the balance accruing interest at 8.5% through 2030 and 10% thereafter until maturity expected in 2033 unless repaid earlier. Also, I'd like to make three key points here. This structured approach to the transaction improves the efficiency of our planned use of proceeds while also delivering nearly 90% of the total cash proceeds within the first two years, with post-close and interest income that exceeds the earnings yield of the equity that we're selling, in addition to transactions expected to close between the second and third quarters of 2026. In short, this is a major milestone for our company, and we're pleased to extend our partnership with KKR and ADIA and expect great things from KKR's increased role as the new controlling owner. Please turn to the next slide.
What's special about this transaction is normally you face balance sheet and other trade-offs when you look to simplify and grow a business, and that's not what you see here. Our Corporate Development team, in working with management at Sempra Infrastructure, have done a great job in structuring a deal that is both EPS and credit accretive while also accelerating our strategic goal of building America's leading utility growth business.
Let me briefly summarize several of the.
Benefits shown on this slide. In the near term, we have a goal of achieving 95% of our earnings excluding parent and other from our regulated utility businesses, up from 81% of 2024 adjusted earnings. Second, this transaction helps to fortress our balance sheet during a period of higher growth for the industry. As a point of emphasis, we expect to improve and maintain our FFO to debt metrics while also fully deconsolidating Sempra Infrastructure including nearly $10 billion of debt. Moreover, the timing of these developments is also important. As you'll recall, Oncor is in the middle of a major investment cycle and Allen and his team continue to evaluate incremental capital opportunities for the 2025-2029 period and beyond.
As we shift our business mix toward Texas, this transaction enables us to eliminate the need for common equity issuances under our previously announced 2025-2029 plan, while also reducing our reliance on future common equity issuances at a time of remarkable growth for our company and recycle proceeds directly back into the growing capital programs at our utilities at significantly higher financial returns as compared to simply buying back stock. Please turn to the next slide. Next, this slide lays out the key milestones to complete the transaction. We continue to focus on closing the transaction in Q2 to Q3 of 2026, and that expectation is represented here as the middle of next summer. Please turn to the next slide. Now let me shift the discussion to Port Arthur LNG Phase II.
Internally, we've long recognized the opportunity to build out one of North America's largest and most important LNG export facilities. We're pleased to announce that we've issued a full notice to proceed under our fixed price EPC contract with Bechtel, which is designed to leverage continuous construction on site, helping reduce project execution risk. Under our current planning, commercial operations for trains 3 and 4 are targeted for 2030 and 2031 respectively. Sempra Infrastructure will retain a 50.1% ownership stake at the project level, which in combination with the equity transaction announced today results in Sempra maintaining a 12.5% proportionate interest. The other 49.9% will be owned by an investment consortium led by Blackstone Credit & Insurance. Estimated incremental project capital expenditures stand around $12 billion + $2 billion payment to acquire a 50% interest in shared common facilities at Phase I, Port Arthur.
Phase II is expected to generate unlevered after-tax returns to Sempra surpassing 13%, exceeding our internal investment thresholds. As a result, when brought online, we expect this project will extend the strong growth profile of this franchise well into the next decade. Compelling economics at the project are further reinforced by high-quality counterparties and a world-class anchor partner. We're pleased to extend our long-term strategic partnership with ConocoPhillips under a 20-year SPA, which helps reduce risk and create alignment for project success. As a final point, we're excited about today's announcement and would like to extend our gratitude to the leaders at all levels of Sempra Infrastructure who have contributed to the company's success in reaching this major milestone. Please turn to the next slide.
Let me start by saying this is one of my favorite slides and that it highlights the steady commitment by our Board of Directors and management team to be good stewards of our owners' capital. With the transaction announced today, we will have raised over $15 billion by selling down various stakes in Sempra Infrastructure over the last five years, while at the same time increasing the overall equity value of the franchise at a compounded annual growth rate of roughly 20%. Moreover, the current transaction is set at an attractive enterprise value of nearly $32 billion and a 13.8 EBITDA multiple. This valuation surpasses all of our previous Sempra Infrastructure transactions and reflects the significant value created through expanding Sempra's LNG franchise and its advantaged market position, which has direct access to both the Atlantic and Pacific markets.
From a financial standpoint, by periodically monetizing equity with quality returns, this reduced reliance on issuing common equity to finance our growth. Importantly, we'll also retain a 25% interest in the franchise, which at our ownership level implies a residual equity value of approximately $5.5 billion. We believe this transaction is a clear demonstration of creating shareholder value while positioning the company for long-term sustainable growth. Retaining the ownership stake provides Sempra with optionality on continued growth from the franchise's robust development pipeline while serving as a value investment alongside our core utility strategy. As an example, since 2019 we've been able to grow our regulated utility rate base each year by an average of nearly 11% through 2024. With today's announcement, this is another example of recycling capital back into our utility businesses to generate lower risk and attractive returns on capital. Please turn to the next slide.
In conclusion, this is an exciting time for our company and our shareholders. We're pleased with our progress against plan for the year and the opportunity to continue realizing the benefits of our value creation initiatives. That's particularly true with today's announcement to sell a 45% stake in Sempra Infrastructure and take positive FID at Phase II of Port Arthur LNG. We're also in a position today to affirm our current 2025 adjusted EPS guidance, 2026 adjusted EPS guidance, as well as our long-term EPS guidance, all as shown on this slide. We intend to provide an update to our roll forward capital plan on our fourth quarter call in February 2026, subject to the completion of Oncor's pending base rate review.
By advancing our capital recycling program and improving our balance sheet strength, we're well positioned to advance our corporate strategy, which is now sharply focused on building America's leading utility growth business. With that, we'll now take a moment to open the line and answer your questions.
Thank you. This concludes the prepared remarks. We will now open the line to take your questions. Please limit your questions to one question and one follow-up. If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing Star one one on your telephone keypad. Please make sure that your mute function is turned off. We will pause for just a moment to allow everyone to signal for questions. Our first question will come from Shar Pourreza from Wells Fargo. Your line is now open.
Hey guys. Good morning.
Hey, good morning, Shar. Congratulations on the new job.
Appreciate it. Congratulations on the big announcement. I know you've been working on that for a while, so well executed. Congrats, Jeff.
Thank you.
Jeff, can you just elaborate on the timing and scale of the reinvestment to achieve the $0.20 accretion? Does that number increase over time or could we see a step function? Could we see a step function change in the 7 %- 9% CAGR? Do you kind of need to see other pieces fit together with the overall plan?
Thanks. Sure. I'll make a couple comments here. Due to the expected timing of the closing, as you point out, Shar, we only expect nominal impacts to our previously stated EPS guidance range for 2026, which is why you saw us being comfortable reaffirming that today. In our prepared remarks we talked about that on a full year basis. Starting in 2027, we expect average annual accretion of $0.20, which will vary over time. We think that's a good number for planning purposes. You'll also recall that our original financing plan contemplated the issuance of common equity. In effect, the key takeaway here when you think about accretion is the level of projected accretion reflects our success and really substituting a lower cost of capital. We're now also better able to time the reinvestment of proceeds. We're very comfortable with that accretion number.
We're certainly comfortable with our guidance that we have on the street. One thing I might note is that we talk about internally this concept of compounding progress, much like you think about compounding financial returns. Shar, as you follow the company this year, think about some of the progress we've made on behalf of our owners. We've had two consecutive positive earnings calls. We've secured with the Oncor team a very positive unified tracker mechanism in capital in Texas and that set up that company for, I think, successful execution of a growing capital campaign. We've also had success under Caroline Winn's leadership in securing wildfire legislation in California, which was very important. Today we're taking FID at Port Arthur LNG Phase II and officially raising $10 billion in new capital while fully eliminating planned common equity in our 2025-2029 financial plan. We really have momentum in our franchise.
We're executing well. When you put all these positive developments together, I think the key takeaway is this management team has an improved outlook for both near term and long term value creation.
Got it. Perfect.
Just lastly for me, Jeff, just on the capital recycling, other than offsetting prior equity needs, can you elaborate on the excess capacity to increase the regulated CapEx to maintain that cash efficiency and how we should potentially think about opportunistic buybacks because obviously the share is still very undervalued.
Thanks. Yeah, sure. I mean, I think what we tried to do here is in lieu of taking all the proceeds up front on day one, which would have necessitated obviously having some repurchases of equity and potentially in the future, issuances of equity, we think there was kind of an alignment of interest between ourselves and KKR to stage access to that capital in a way that improves our investment opportunities. In lieu of just buying back equity, we can actually have improved financial returns by investing directly into the stages of growth in our capital program. There's no question that you're going to see increased capital plan when we roll forward to next year. I think this transaction puts us in a great situation. I'd make this point.
One of the issues that is commonly being discussed in this industry is how do they officially fund the remarkable growth that we're seeing all across the sector. I think it's now a competitive advantage for this franchise that we've got access to ample proceeds to meet what we think is a growing capital campaign. You can count on us to do that in an efficient way that would always look to minimize any reliance on the issuance of common equity.
Perfect.
Congrats Jeff. Again, the execution is very noteworthy. Have a good day.
See you guys. Thank you, Shar.
Thank you. Our next question will come from Nicholas Campanella from Barclays. Your line is open.
Good morning, Nick.
Hey, good morning. Thanks for all the updates and congrats.
Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you.
So.
Yes, absolutely.
I guess that you likely ran this by the credit agencies, and maybe you can kind of speak to what their reaction has been. What is your view of what the right FFO to debt minimum is to kind of now run this business at with 95% regulated earnings, and you gave an average accretion on an EPS basis. How are you kind of viewing it?
On the credit side?
Is it 50 basis points accretive or.
How should we think about that? Thanks.
Yeah, sure. I will tell you that one of our goals in this transaction was to take our balance sheet off the table to the end of the decade. Now we've got some more work to do. You have to remember we're going to roll forward our five-year capital plan. We've got the pending base rate review in Texas, and we've got to get to closing hopefully in Q2, but no later than Q3. I think what we're trying to do here is make sure there's something in this transaction for everyone. There's no question this is a win for our fixed income holders, and we have worked closely with the credit rating agencies. I would tell you it's not just at the Sempra level. Sempra Infrastructure has had ongoing conversations with all three agencies, as has Sempra. What we've tried to do here is create a path.
It creates value on the EPS side and also is accretive to credit. I think what might be helpful, Karen, is to maybe express your views on how you think this transaction benefits the balance sheet and our credit metrics.
Sure, would love to.
Thanks.
Yeah. Once we close, we expect to pay down debt, deconsolidate Sempra Infrastructure, that's including roughly $10 billion of debt, improve our risk profile with the mix of utility earnings expected to hit that 95% level in the near term. That's excluding parent. In combination, these considerations will support lower thresholds while also allowing us to improve and maintain a solid cushion in our FFO to debt metrics. Again, as Jeff said, our plan is to take the balance sheet off the table through the end of the decade. We expect to provide updates on our commitments in this regard once we have the roll forward five-year plan, complete the base rate review at Oncor, and finalize the close. You brought up the rating agencies, and I'll say we've spent a lot of time with them over the last couple of months and certainly the last couple of weeks.
We really appreciate their support and believe they understand the benefits of this transaction to our balance sheet, in particular to our business risk profile. We'll continue to work with them going forward and more to come. I think the answer is, you know, we are taking this off the table.
Nick, I would just add a point too as you think about and you asked the question is there 50 basis points of accretion? I think that question to also take into consideration that one of the expected outcomes here is the opportunity to lower our downgrade threshold. We're not solving for our credit issues by doing that. We're also committing to improve our FFO to debt metrics. The question will be where do we land in creating a sizable cushion that makes all of our investors feel comfortable with our ability to execute our campaign across the end of the decade?
Okay, that's helpful, thank you for that. Just one follow up. You gave the outlook in the fourth quarter, you did kind of talk about there's going to be a point where the 7% - 9% outlook intersects the prior 6% - 8%, obviously 7 basis here, but just kind of making the point that you'd be back in that projected range now that you kind of have the $0.20 of accretion and we haven't thought about incorporating UTM yet or the CapEx upside. Just what year is that in your mind?
It's a very insightful question. You recall back in February it was a very challenging phone call for this management team around our Q4 call. I made the point at that time that we have a more muscular view of the value creation we can produce. Your question is very insightful. There's no question that these lines cross more in the near term than the long term. What our job to do, Nick, is we want to keep stacking positive news around our equity story. We have some big ticket items in front of us today. We need to, number one, execute well on the base rate review in Texas. We're going to roll up under Karen's leadership, our five-year capital plan. We're going to be laser focused on closing this transaction.
We're going to come back to you in the spring with an update on our guidance for 2027 and give you a more definitive view. There has been a series of positive developments that improved our earnings outlook. Right now we feel comfortable with guiding to the high end or above that 7% - 9% range. I can tell you our confidence in beating our guidance has gone up.
All right, that's very helpful.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, Nick, for joining the call.
Thank you. Our next question will come from Bill Appicelli from UBS. Your line is open.
Hi, good morning.
Good morning.
A couple questions around the deal itself. The net proceeds or after-tax proceeds. I saw in the footnotes there about the 20% tax payment. Is this closer to like, is it $9 billion or so after tax?
Now, I think the schedule we provided in our slide materials is the best one to guide yourself by because it shows the puts and takes around closing as well as the expected proceeds from earned interest income. From a tax standpoint, what I would do is perhaps pass it to Karen to provide some more color. Remember, all those taxes are not paid on day one. Some of those taxes are paid as and when you receive proceeds. Karen, perhaps you could provide some color on the expected tax leakage.
Sure. We anticipate taxes to be about 20% of the purchase price. We do have some opportunities to manage those cash impacts. We can use existing NOLs using available tax credits, including better utilizing credits that were otherwise set to expire. We can apply this installment method where available and beneficial. We anticipate providing additional details about the tax impacts when we close the transaction.
Bill, I referenced this earlier, but you should read Karen's reference to that 20% together with the detailed information we gave in the waterfall on slide 11.
Right. Okay, perfect. The interest, will that be booked on the income statement as it comes in, or is that sort of deferred and accrued and paid out with the as the installed payment schedule?
Yes, yes, it will be booked as and when it comes in.
All right. I guess just around the, you know, FID decision, would the target be for additional SPAs moving forward, or what's the threshold you're looking to get that to? Ultimately.
Sure. We're really excited about Port Arthur LNG Phase II. This has been, you know, a long time project that we've been working on for over five to seven years. Obviously, Bill, taking Phase II actually opens up further opportunities to develop that project. I think we've taken a strong approach to how we've contracted that facility. Justin, perhaps you could give a little bit more color about how you think about the approach to contracting.
Absolutely.
And.
Hello, Bill.
At Port Arthur, look, we think this is a very attractive project to Sempra and our partners. As you saw in the materials, we have a strong mix of counterparties. ConocoPhillips as a strategic partner and customer across both phases. JERA as one of the largest and most preeminent buyers of LNG in the world, EQT, one of the largest producers of natural gas in the U.S., and as you noted, Sempra Infrastructure contracted the remaining amount and expects to secure those under long-term agreements in the near term. First, this is a similar approach used in the industry to hold back volumes, noting that the increased certainty for counterparties after taking FID, which improves the certainty of COD, provides the opportunity to improve the economics of the project.
I'll tell you, Bill, we continue to be actively engaged with several counterparties and today's announcement is another tool in our toolbox as we discuss with those counterparties as to how we sell those remaining volumes.
Bill, I would just comment anecdotally to Justin's points, which is we certainly believe that the pre FID price for those contracts are below what we would expect on post FID contracting.
Understood. Great. Thanks very much.
Thank you for joining the call.
Thank you. Our next question will come from Julien Dumoulin-Smith from Jefferies. Your line is open.
Good morning, Julien.
Hey, good morning, team.
Hey, thanks for the time.
Maybe just a couple cleanup items there. I mean, in response to Nick's question there, as you think about the pro forma outlook, preparing for 4Q here, you obviously emphasize here today no further equity. It seems like if I wordsmith your commentary, effectively expect no incremental equity for most scenarios that you would be laying out with the 4Q timeframe. You've effectively incorporated some of that incremental capital plan into the thinking with the rating agencies. Is that fair? How would you respond to that, especially. Karen gave some comments about the credit.
Metrics as well there.
Hey, Julien, it's a great question. I would respond by saying I think that's generally fair. The one caveat I would give you is we're going to roll forward this capital plan, and we have lots of opportunity. You know, based upon following our company for a long period of time, we force capital inside the company to compete, and we're going to exercise a lot of capital discipline. A lot of this will turn on, number one, where we want to land that cushion on our balance sheet, which Karen and I are committed to, and number two, where we size that capital plan. One point of nuance here, Julien. There may be an opportunity to size a base plan versus an upsided plan, but you're absolutely right. We're trying to structure this deal to make sure that we are minimizing reliance on issuing future equity across the decade.
If we have to issue some, you know, we're certainly pleased to do that because of our growth. We're trying to be very thoughtful about that. I think your characterization is fair.
Excellent. If I can follow up more strategically. I think you checked the box when it comes to repositioning the company substantively in terms of regulator. Regulator, like contracts, any diesel compound at this point, to continue to move in this trajectory, obviously you've achieved this year. Today, you sort of put the SI in a little bit of a smaller box here. How do you think pro forma here, whether that is, continue to increase the formal utility box or any further moves over time in terms of emphasizing or deemphasizing the other components of businesses.
Yeah, and Julien, I really appreciate that question. I would probably respond this way: in addition to being excited about today's transaction, I think it really reflects some of the thoughtfulness of our Board of Directors and management team. Let me offer this perspective. We just have over $100 billion of assets. They're spread across the Sunbelt with leadership positions in both Texas and California. The perennial question that we address, you know, how active we are on strategy, is how can we concentrate our resources and specifically our capital campaign to produce the best value for owners? That was what was in the front seat of our decisions around these transactions. I will remind you that early in my CEO tenure, we worked closely with the Board to launch a new corporate strategy. You and I have had this conversation on multiple occasions.
That strategy was centered around four features. Number one, trying to own and operate utilities at scale. Number two, gaining exposure to large and growing economic markets. Number three, focusing on states with constructive regulation, and number four, committing continuously to an aggressive capital recycling program to minimize reliance on issuing common equity, which, by the way, was your first question today. It is with that background that we took on this transaction with KKR with a view toward it being transformative. It was aligned, Julien, with our 2030 strategy of building a leading growth platform as a utility, and it directly supports that as well as having obviously a stronger balance sheet. The proposition I would leave you with, I think for investors, is at Sempra, the management team has improving confidence in our long-term growth.
We're committed to our dividend and maintaining ample cushion in our FFO to debt metrics. We certainly believe our current stock price is pretty significantly discounted relative to the value creation that we expect to see in the future. I think we're on the right path. Your terminology is very good. We've put Sempra Infrastructure in a box. From a credit standpoint, we certainly appreciate exposure to that business. Think about it, we put out prompt year projected EBITDA guidance of about $2.3 billion for that business. Owning a 25% stake that's been greatly de-risked really provides important cash flows to support our dividend policy. We think we're in a pretty good place right now. It also gives us exposure to continued growth that we see in that platform.
Excellent.
Thanks, Jeffrey .
Appreciate it, Julien.
Thank you. Our next question will come from Carly Davenport from Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.
Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my question.
Hi, Carly.
Maybe just a couple quick follow ups on some others that have been asked. First, appreciate all the color on the volumes and the potential for offtake agreements. I guess if there are other offtake agreements that could be struck, could that involve any incremental equity ownership in the project as we saw with Port Arthur LNG Phase I? Or are you sort of set today on the Sempra share of the project ownership structure that you disclosed?
Yeah, I think we're comfortable letting you know that we're set on the capital structure for that project.
Okay, great. Thank you for that. In terms of the other value creation initiatives that you've highlighted, is there any impact from the shift in ownership for the deal terms related to the plans to sell the Mexico assets or any of the other initiatives that you've highlighted?
No. In reference to Slide 3, I think one of the things I wanted to mention to you was that earlier this year we had a very positive view of what we thought we could do long term. I think we soon realized, Carly, that the most important thing to build credibility about the long term opportunity was to deliver value in the near term. That's why I thought it was important to come out on March 31 with five key initiatives that would drive value in 2025. You see that reflected on Slide 3. We've made great progress on the $13 billion goal on our own capital. We have already improved our expected returns, particularly with the UTM bill in Texas. Obviously, I'm providing an update today on number two in terms of unlocking value in the LNG franchise. There really is no impact to your question around Mexico.
That transaction is going quite well at Ecogas. We've received robust interest and we continue to target closing for that deal in the Q2 Q3 timeframe. Those cash proceeds would be distributed into the existing ownership structure at Sempra Infrastructure. I would also note that we're making progress on improving the cost structure of this business. This is not unique to Sempra. It's not unique to the utility industry. Across the Fortune 500 universe, you're seeing companies right size their cost structure for their future needs. We've made great progress, particularly here in California under that regard. Finally, as you think about safety, risk reduction, and operational excellence, which is number five, it is significant progress for us to get wildfire legislation that we think is constructive in Texas and to also get a strengthened wildfire fund here in the state of Texas.
We continue to think we'll make progress on these same five initiatives throughout.
The balance of the year.
That's great.
Thank you so much for the color.
Thank you, Carly.
Thank you. We do have time for one last question. Our last question today will come from Anthony Crowdell from Mizuho. Your line is open.
Good morning, Anthony.
Good morning. Thanks for squeezing me in. Thanks, Jeff.
Congrats.
Thank you.
I guess just two high level questions. First question is, you know, you look over the last 10 years, the company has done a great job of recycling capital. Whether it was selling down South America, investing in Oncor, selling renewables, now the sell down of Sempra Infrastructure. What is the next do you think capital recycling opportunity? Clearly what you have, you know, the California utilities and Texas is core. What do you see next as the next capital recycling opportunity?
I appreciate that question and sometimes we talk about this internally, but if you go back to 2017, when I was the CFO, one of the things we had done with our board of directors, Anthony, was really identify three buckets of value inside of our company. We had a core platform of utilities that we knew we wanted to grow and diversify. That led to our decision to enter the Texas market. We had a second basket of assets that we did not think were core. I think with our management team, we decided to sell those as quickly as possible. I think we've thrown out a number in that 2018-2020 timeframe on an enterprise value basis, we recycled about $35 billion of capital and that was instrumental in funding our acquisition of an 80% ownership interest in Oncor.
Anthony, the third bucket of assets were ones in which we thought that we could add value to but may not own long term. We put together the Mexico platform, which was essentially a midstream platform with LNG. Obviously on today's slide you've seen the value creation that we've extracted from that. I think what's missing is that across that same timeframe we've been able to grow our rate base at about a 20% CAGR from 2017. The real opportunity for us is to have really good execution in the next six months around the base rate review in Texas, around rolling up a very thoughtful and officially funded capital program and then making sure with Justin's help and Diana Dave's help, we drive the closing on the transactions that we've announced today.
Long term, the value opportunity for this company is we have made a commitment to take the balance sheet off the table at the same time that we've set a goal with our board of directors of creating the leading utility growth platform in the country. I think what you'll see is we give investors more and more exposure to the quality of that Texas market. You should see the stock re-rate over time. We have a very bullish view about the value we can create through the end of the decade.
That's great.
I don't know if you want to answer this or Justin, just curious, does this change maybe the management team at Sempra? Is Justin go with the assets? Is he like, like, does that make any changes? I'll leave it there.
Yeah, I appreciate the question. At Sempra Infrastructure, I think one of the things we hear consistently is that it's a well-recognized management team with an established track record around three areas that we think where we have core competencies. Anthony, number one, safety and operational excellence. We certainly have an energy infrastructure development expertise, and I think they've got a demonstrated track record for financial stewardship and value creation. I think in terms of management, this transaction doesn't change. It really just changes the capital structure. You referenced Justin. You know, he wears two hats at Sempra. He's an EVP at Sempra today and also the Chair and CEO of Sempra Infrastructure.
One of the things is we've worked through this with our partners so that Justin can continue in his CEO capacity through closing next year, at which point in time we expect he'll move over full time to Sempra. I think to the heart of your question, the key takeaway here is we have an experienced team in place that will continue to lead the business. I think together with KKR and ADIA, we all as partners understand the importance of maintaining leadership continuity and business momentum through closing and through the end of the decade.
Great, congrats and thanks for taking my questions.
Thanks a lot, Anthony.
Thank you. That concludes today's question and answer session. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference back to Jeff Martin for any additional closing remarks.
Hey, I really want to take a moment to thank everyone for joining us on short notice this morning for an update on our 2025 value creation initiatives. If there are any follow up questions per custom, please reach out to our IR team with your questions. I would note I'll be joined by Karen Sedgwick, Justin Bird, and Allen Nye next week at the Wolfe Conference in New York, and we look forward to seeing many of you there. This concludes our call.
Thank you for your participation, and you may now disconnect.