Evergy, Inc.

Thank you for standing by and welcome to Evergy's third quarter earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 on your touchtone telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. Should you require any further assistance, please press star 0. I would now like to hand the conference over to your host, Vice President, Investor Relations, and Treasurer, Lori Wright. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Lateef. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Evergy's third quarter call. Thank you for joining us this morning. Today's discussion will include forward-looking information. Slide 2 and the disclosure in our SEC filings contain a list of some of the factors that could cause future results to differ materially from our expectations today. and include additional information on non-GAAP financial measures. The releases issued this morning, along with today's webcast slides and supplemental financial information for the quarter, are available on the main page of our website at investors.evergy.com. On the call today, we have David Campbell, Evergy's President and Chief Executive Officer, and Kirk Andrews, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. David will cover our third quarter highlights recap our recent investor day, and provide an update on our near-term resource plan. Kirk will cover in more detail the third quarter results, the latest on sales and customer information, and our financial outlook for the remainder of the year. Other members of management are with us and will be available during the question and answer portion of the call. I will now turn the call over to David.

Thank you, Lori, and good morning, everyone. I'll begin on slide five of our presentation. This morning, we reported third quarter adjusted earnings of $1.98 per share, compared to $1.73 per share a year ago, equal to a 14% increase. On a period-over-period basis, these results were driven primarily by favorable weather, higher transmission margin, higher other income, and lower income taxes, partially offset by decline in weather normalized demand. For year-to-date September 30th, adjusted earnings were $338 per share, compared with $282 per share a year ago, equal to a 20 percent increase. As with the quarter, favorable weather is the most significant driver. With these strong results, we are raising and narrowing our adjusted EPS guidance range to $350 to $360 per share, an increase from $320 to $340 per share. I commend and thank our team's ability to execute and focus on providing safe and reliable electric service to our customers throughout the first nine months of the year, notwithstanding the lingering pandemic impacts and the significant winter weather event in February. Kirk will detail the drivers of our financial performance that resulted in the upside guidance provision. In addition, we are affirming our 2022 adjusted EPS guidance of $3.43 to $3.63 per share, as well as our targeted annual adjusted EPS growth target of 6 to 8 percent through 2025, as we laid out during our investor day. Lastly, this morning, we also announced a 7 percent increase in our quarterly dividend to 57.25 cents per share, or $2.29 per share on an annualized basis. This increase is consistent with our growth trajectory and reflects our board's confidence in the execution of our plan. Moving on to slide six, I'll provide a brief recap of the business plan highlights from our recent investor day. As part of the event, we rebased and extended our key targets through 2025. Our five-year capital investments are estimated to be $10.4 billion through 2025, of which nearly $1.5 billion is for renewables projects. This spending plan drives our projected rate-based growth of 5 to 6 percent annually over that same time period. We also extended our target for cost efficiencies and added nearly 20 million of savings in 2025, increasing our total estimated annual O&M savings from our 2018 base year to $345 million annually in 2025. This represents more than a 25 percent overall decline. Building on the strong performance and realized cost savings achieved over the last three years, this trajectory implies a 1% to 2% annualized cost productivity gain through the five-year forecast period. The planned beneficial infrastructure investment and additional O&M savings enable us to extend our top-tier 6% to 8% annual growth rate and adjusted earnings per share through 2025. We're able to fund this plan with significant cash flow and modest incremental debt allowing us to maintain our strong balance sheet and credit metrics with no planned incremental equity through 2025. Lastly, we showcased our strong ESG profile, including our significant progress in clean energy and changing our generation mix. In 2020, 50% of our energy was emissions-free, and we achieved a 51% reduction in energy CO2 emissions relative to 2005 levels. We stack up well relative to our Midwest peers in terms of both clean energy delivered to our customers and our reduction in carbon emissions. We have ambitious but achievable goals as we advance toward our target of net zero carbon by 2045. Slide seven outlines our resource plan through 2026. To further lower energy costs for customers and reduce emissions, we plan to add more than 1,300 megawatts of new renewables split between over 500 megawatts of solar and 800 megawatts of wind through a series of yearly additions. We also plan to retire coal operations at our plant in Lawrence, Kansas. In September, we initiated a regulatory proceeding in Kansas called predetermination, seeking approval in advance for the Lawrence coal retirement and for the first 190 megawatts of solar generation. We expect to have an order in this proceeding by mid-2022. In October, we also issued a request for proposal for 800 megawatts of wind generation projects we have sequenced across 2024 and 2025 for the benefit of Kansas and Missouri customers. Bids are due later this month, and we plan to select a short list of projects before the end of the year. We are targeting having negotiations completed by mid-2022. In parallel, we will continue to evaluate potential opportunities to buy in and repower existing power purchase agreements as initial production tax credits expire. Before handing it over to Kirk, I'll wrap up on slide eight, which summarizes the average value proposition. The left-hand side of the page covers what we're focused on and how we plan to execute our strategy, which I discussed in depth during our investor day. The core tenets of our strategy are to advance affordability, reliability, and sustainability through a relentless focus on our customers, supported by stakeholder and collaboration, sustainable investment, and financial and operational excellence. The right-hand side of slide eight features what we believe are particularly attractive and distinctive features for our company. First, we are an all-electric regulated utility with significant benefits delivered since the merger and further opportunities that we will capture through continuous improvement, performance management, and sustained, consistent execution. Second, we have significant opportunities ahead for the ongoing transition of our generation portfolio. And we can do so cost-effectively, given that we'll be replacing coal with low-cost renewables, which is a win-win for affordability and sustainability. Third, we are geographically advantaged, given our proximity to world-class wind resources in Kansas. We are well-positioned to participate in the renewables and transmission build-out that will occur as part of the national transition to a clean energy economy. And finally, we are targeting a high-performing 6% to 8% annual growth rate in adjusted earnings per share through 2025 at the top rank with our peers. We are very excited about the opportunities for our company, and we are deeply committed to the sustained effort required to deliver against our high-performance objectives. I will now turn the call over to Kirk.