NorthWestern Energy Group, Inc.

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us and welcome to the Northwestern Energy Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results Webinar. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. I will now hand the conference over to Travis Meyer, Director of Corporate Development and Investor Relations Officer. Travis, please go ahead.

Thank you, Kendra. Good afternoon and thank you for joining Northwestern Energy Group's financial results webcast for the quarter ended June 30th, 2026. Joining us on the call today are Brian Bird, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Crystal Lail, Chief Financial Officer. Brian and Crystal will walk us through the results and provide an overall update on the great progress we've made this quarter. Before handing the call over, however, a few reminders regarding today's call. Northwestern's results have been released and release is available on our website at northwesterenergy.com. We also released our 10Q pre-market this morning. Please note that the company's press release, this presentation, comments by presenters, and responses to your questions may contain forward-looking statements. As such, I will direct you to the disclosures contained within our SEC filings and the safe harbor provisions included on the second slide of this presentation. Also note that this presentation includes non-GAAP financial measures and information regarding the pending merger transaction. See the non-GAAP disclosures, definitions, and reconciliations in the merger related disclosures in the appendix of today's materials. The webcast is being recorded. An archived replay will be available shortly after the event and will remain active for one year. Please visit the financial results section of our website to access the replay. For those details behind us, I'll hand the presentation over to Brian Bird for his opening remarks.

Thank you, Travis. For recent highlights for the quarter, we reported GAAP diluted EPS of 40 cents and non-GAAP diluted EPS of 50 cents. We're also affirming our 2026 earnings guidance range of $3.68 to $3.83. and also affirming our long-term rate-based and EPS growth rate targets of 4% to 6%. Regarding the merger, during the quarter, we received approvals from the Nebraska PSC, the South Dakota PUC and FERC. We also had our Montana hearing and the final briefing is now completed and we're awaiting the final order. Lastly, in terms of dividend, we declared 67 cents per share payable September 1st, 2026 You might note there's a change in the payment date and August 17th record date to make sure we align with Black Hills Corporation's dividend dates, which was intended to simplify the closing mechanics in the merger. And with that, I'm going to hand it over to Crystal to cover the second quarter financial review.