-=Kinder Morgan (KMI) reported earnings on Wed 17 Jan 2017 (AMC)

Kinder Morgan beats by $0.03, beats on revs; reaffirms dividend boost; sees FY18 adj. EBITDA +7.5% to $7.5 bln 

• Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.21 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.18; revenues rose 7.2% year/year to $3.63 bln vs the $3.52 bln Capital IQ Consensus. distributable cash flow (DCF) of $0.53 per common share, representing 4 percent growth over the fourth quarter of 2016, resulting in $910 million of excess DCF above the dividend. The increase in DCF was driven by greater contributions from the Natural Gas, Terminals and Products Pipelines Business Units, as well as from Kinder Morgan Canada, partially offset by decreased contributions from CO2.
• The board of directors approved a cash dividend of $0.125 per share for the fourth quarter ($0.50 annualized) payable on February 15, 2018, to common stockholders of record as of the close of business on January 31, 2018. KMI continues to expect to increase its dividend to $0.80 per share for 2018 ($0.20 per share for Q1 2018).
• For 2018, KMI's budget is set to declare dividends of $0.80 per common share, achieve DCF of ~$4.57 billion ($2.05 per common share) and Adjusted EBITDA of ~$7.5 billion. KMI also budgeted to invest $2.2 billion in growth projects during 2018 (excluding growth capital expected to be funded by KML), to be funded with internally generated cash flow without the need to access equity markets, and to end the year with a Net Debt-to-Adjusted EBITDA ratio of ~5.1 times. KMI previously announced it will further enhance shareholder value through a $2 billion share buy-back program. KMI's Board of Directors authorized the program to begin in December 2017, and during that month KMI repurchased ~14 million shares for ~$250 million. In 2018, KMI plans to further utilize this program opportunistically.