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Brookfield Business Partners L.P. (BBU) Q1 2019 Earnings Call Transcript
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In This Article:

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Brookfield Business Partners L.P. (NYSE: BBU)
Q1 2019 Earnings Call
May. 01, 2019, 11:00 a.m. ET

Contents:

  • Prepared Remarks

  • Questions and Answers

  • Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Welcome to the Brookfield Business Partners First Quarter 2019 Results Conference Call and Webcast. (Operator Instructions) And the conference is being recorded. (Operator Instructions) Now I would like to turn the conference over to Jaspreet Dehl, CFO. Please go ahead, Ms. Dehl.

Jaspreet Dehl -- Managing Partner, Private Equity

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Brookfield Business Partners 2019 First Quarter Conference Call. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that in responding to questions and in talking about our growth initiative and our financial and operating performance, we may make forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to known and unknown risks and future results may differ materially. For further information on known risks, I would encourage you to review our filings with the securities regulators in Canada and the U.S., which are available on our website.

On the call with me, today is Cyrus Madon, Chief Executive office; and Denis Turcotte, Managing Partner in our operations team. I will pass the call over to Cyrus to provide an update on our strategic initiatives, after which Denis will provide an operational update on our activities at Westinghouse.

And finally, I will review our financial results for the first quarter. We will then be available to take your questions. I will now pass the call over to Cyrus.

Cyrus Madon -- CEO and Senior Managing Partner

Thanks, Jespreet, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to announce that yesterday we closed our acquisition of the world's leading automotive battery manufacturer and distributor. We renamed this business, Clarios Power Solutions. Clarios is a global market leaders that supplies more than 1/3 of the world's automotive batteries and benefits from economies of scale and product development, manufacturing and recycling of used batteries. the total purchase price was $13 billion , which includes $3 billion of equity and $10 billion of debt financing. Once we finalize the participation of our institutional partners, we expect our share of the equity funding to be about $750 million for 25% ownership interest.

Given the exceptional strength and stability of this business, we were able to finance the acquisition with $10 billion of long-term debt at a weighted average cost of 5.9% and in an average maturity of 7 years. The financing has no recourse back to BBU, and there are no financial maintenance covenants. As a supplier of essential products to an end-market that's growing, Clarios has a remarkable stability in earnings and a decade long record of consistent growth in EBITDA and unit profitability throughout business cycles. More than 75% of the company's sales are to the replacement market where demand is both stable and inelastic. In fact, the aftermarket nature of this business provide significant downside protection to our investment. On average, the car has 3 battery replacements over its lifespan. And given the current number of cars in the market serviced by Clarios today, it would take a very long time to displace or significantly impact cash flows from this business. We believe that favorable industry trends also provide Clarios with the significant growth potential. First industry forecast suggest that total number of cars on the road will grow by up to 30% globally over the next 10 years.