"During the third quarter of 2019, our diversified portfolio of regulated and long-term contracted assets continued to perform very well," said CEO Russ Girling. "Despite significant asset sales that have accelerated the strengthening of our balance sheet, comparable earnings per share increased four per cent compared to the same period last year while comparable funds generated from operations of $1.8 billion were 15 per cent higher. The increases reflect the robust performance of our legacy assets and contributions from the approximately $8.2 billion of growth projects that have entered service to date in 2019. Those increases were partially offset by lower contributions from approximately $3.4 billion of assets that were monetized during the first nine months of the year. The asset sales included the Coolidge gas-fired power plant in Arizona, certain Columbia Midstream assets and an 85 per cent equity interest in Northern Courier. In addition, the Company has entered into an agreement to sell its Ontario gas-fired power plants including Napanee, Halton Hills and a 50 per cent interest in Portlands Energy Centre for approximately $2.87 billion. Including this transaction, which is anticipated to close in first quarter 2020, proceeds from asset sales are expected to total approximately $6.3 billion. Each of these transactions allowed us to surface significant value and redeploy the proceeds into our $30 billion secured capital program, thereby reducing our need for external funding including common equity," added Girling. "When combined with our significant internally generated cash flow and access to debt capital markets, we are well positioned to prudently fund our capital program in a manner that maximizes earnings and cash flow per share and is consistent with achieving targeted run-rate credit metrics including debt-to-EBITDA in the high four times area. As a result, we do not expect to issue any additional common shares from treasury under our Dividend Reinvestment Plan commencing with fourth quarter 2019 dividends."
