Monetizing Renewables: Duke Energy's Asset Sale Aligns With Street's Expectations, Says Analyst

BMO Capital analyst James Thalacker reiterated an Outperform rating on the shares of Duke Energy Corp DUK and lowered the price target from $102 to $101.

The company had yesterday announced the sale of its commercial distributed generation business to an affiliate of ArcLight Capital Partners LLC for an enterprise value of $364 million.

The sale, according to the analyst, completes the monetization of the company’s Commercial Renewables (CR) business after its June 12 agreement to sell just the utility-scale solar/wind operations.

So, cumulatively this brings net proceeds closer to the analyst’s $1.5 billion assumption in total proceeds for DUK's CR portfolio.

Although there remains about 500MW of renewables yet to be sold as part of the company’s full exit from CR, given about $200 million of residual carrying value related to the assets, it would only be expected to give modest incremental proceeds when they are sold, said the analyst.

The analyst sees the sale move as largely in line with the Street's lowered expectations, and visibility on the final proceeds should allow investors to turn their focus to the company’s efforts in securing regulatory clarity in its two primary North Carolina rate cases this year.

The 2023-2025 estimates remain unchanged at $5.66, $5.97, and $6.33, respectively, added the analyst.

Price Action: DUK shares are trading lower by 0.96% at $90.73 on the last check Thursday.