Ameren Corporation

Greetings and welcome to Ameren Corporation's fourth quarter 2021 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Andrew Kirk, Director of Investor Relations for Ameren Corporation. Thank you, Mr. Kirk. Thank you, Mr. Kirk. You may begin.

Thank you and good morning. On the call with me today are Warner Baxter, our Executive Chairman, Marty Lyons, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Michael Main, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, as well as other members of the Ameren Management Team joining us remotely. Warner will begin with a business overview. He will be followed by Marty, who will provide a strategic and business update for 2022 and beyond. And Michael will wrap up our prepared remarks with a discussion of key financial matters, including our earnings guidance. Then we will open the call for questions. Before we begin, let me cover a few administrative details. This call contains time sensitive data that is accurate only as of the date of today's live broadcast and redistribution of this broadcast is prohibited. To assist with our call this morning, we have posted a presentation on the Amereninvestors.com homepage that would be referenced by our speakers. As noted on page two of the presentation, comments made during this conference call may contain statements that are commonly referred to as forward-looking statements. Such statements include those about future expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, strategies, targets, estimates, objectives, events, conditions, and financial performance. We caution you that various factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. For additional information concerning these factors, please read the forward-looking statements section in the news release we issued yesterday and the forward-looking statements and risk factors sections in our filings with the SEC. Lastly, all per share earnings amounts discussed during today's presentation, including earnings guidance, are presented on a diluted basis unless otherwise noted. Now here's Werner, who will start on page four.

Thanks, Andrew. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. To begin, I'd like to remind everyone that effective January 1st of this year, I became executive chairman of Ameren. Marty Lyons became president and CEO. Our transition to this new forward-thinking leadership structure is going very well. In light of the significant activities taking place in our industry, this new structure is enabling me to focus on key energy and economic policy matters and working with Marty on key strategic initiatives. At the same time, Marty has hit the ground running, leading the Ameren team in overall strategy development and execution, as well as managing the significant day-to-day operational and other responsibilities of the CEO. Our industry is transforming, and millions of customers in Missouri and Illinois are depending on us to achieve our vision, leading the way to a sustainable energy future and our mission to power the quality of life. Each year provides a new set of opportunities and challenges, but one thing that remains constant in Ameren is our strong commitment to safely deliver reliable, cleaner, and affordable electric and natural gas service. Our team continues to effectively execute our strategic plan across all of our businesses, including safely and successfully completing billions of dollars of value-adding projects for our customers advocating for constructive federal and state energy policies and regulatory outcomes, leaning further forward on our digital transformation, and pursuing a wide range of sustainability goals. Simply put, continued strong execution of our strategic plan is delivering significant value to our customers, communities, shareholders, and the environment. Which brings me to a discussion of our 2021 performance. Yesterday we announced 2021 earnings of $3.84 per share compared to earnings of $3.50 per share in 2020 or an increase of nearly 10%. Excluding the impact from weather, 2021 normalized earnings were $3.82 per share or an increase of approximately 8% from 2020's weather normalized earnings of $3.54 per share. We made significant investments in energy infrastructure in 2021 that resulted in a more reliable resilient secure and cleaner energy grid, as well as contributed to strong rate based growth at all of our business segments. is outlined on this page, we also achieve several constructive regulatory and legislative outcomes that will facilitate additional infrastructure investments, while keeping our customers rates affordable. This strong execution of our strategy in 2021 will continue to drive significant long-term value for all of our stakeholders. Turning to page five, as you can see on this page, our laser focus on keeping our customers at the center of our strategy has delivered strong results for our customers. Our investments in infrastructure have resulted in top quartile reliability, affordability, and customer satisfaction. The frequency of outages on our system continues to trend downward, resulting from our infrastructure investments, coupled with a focus on innovation and continuous improvement. Our discipline cost management has helped drive our electric rates approximately 25% below Midwest and national averages. And I am extremely proud to say that J.D. Power recently ranked Ameren Illinois number one. residential customer satisfaction in the Midwest among large electric utility providers within Missouri ranking third. Further, we have continued to deliver superior value to our shareholders, as you can see on page six. Our weather normalized core earnings per share risen 84% and an approximate 8% compound annual growth rate since we exited our unregulated generation business in 2013. While our dividends paid per share have increased approximately 38% over the same time period. This has driven a strong total return of nearly 220% for our shareholders from 2013 to 2021, which was significantly above our utility peer average. While I'm very pleased with our past performance, you can rest assured that our team will remain focused on enhancing performance in 2022 and in years ahead so that we can continue to deliver superior value to our customers, communities, and shareholders. Turning to page seven, this page summarizes our strong sustainability value proposition and focus on environmental, social, governance, and sustainable growth goals. Beginning with environmental stewardship, in September 2020, Ameren announced its transformational plan to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050 across all of our operations in Missouri and Illinois. This plan includes interim carbon emission reduction targets of 50% and 85% below 2005 levels by 2030 and 2040, respectively, which is consistent with the objectives of the Paris Agreement and limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. We plan to file an update to the 2020 Integrated Resource Plan in the first half of this year, which Marty will discuss a bit later. In 2021, we acquired the 300 megawatt Atchison Renewable Energy Center, located in northwest Missouri, our second wind generation investment. This acquisition is a significant step forward along the path to meeting our clean energy goals. We also have a strong long term commitment to our customers and communities to be socially responsible and economically impactful. This slide highlights a few of the many things we're doing for our customers and communities, including being an industry leader in diversity equity and inclusion. We were honored to be recognized again by diversity as one of those top utilities in 2021 in addition to a top company for esg. And we continue to help drive inclusive economic growth by spending approximately $900 million with diverse suppliers in 2021, an 11% increase over 2020. Further, our strong corporate governance is led by a diverse board of directors focused on strong oversight that's aligned with ESG matters. And our executive compensation practices include performance metrics that are tied to diversity, equity and inclusion and progress towards a cleaner energy future. Finally, this slide summarizes our very strong sustainable growth proposition, which remains among the best in the industry. Today we published our updated esg investor presentation called leading the way to a sustainable energy future available at emma investors.com. This presentation demonstrates how we have been effectively integrating our focus on environmental social governance and sustainability matters into our corporate strategy. I encourage you to take some time to read more about our strong sustainability value proposition. As noted previously, as part of my new role of Executive Chairman, I will focus on key energy and economic policy matters, including through my leadership roles at the Edison Electric Institute and the Electric Power Research Institute, as well as engaging with key stakeholders. Speaking of key energy and economic policy matters, we continue to strongly support and advocate for a robust federal clean energy tax package. in particular we support clean energy transition tax incentives including wind solar and nuclear production tax credits electric vehicle tax credits transmission and storage investment tax credits as well as direct pay and normalization opt-out provisions we strongly believe these forward-thinking policies to address climate change will advance the clean energy transition in a safe reliable and affordable fashion and will deliver significant long-term benefits for our customers communities and country. We will continue to work with key stakeholders, along with our industry colleagues, to advance constructive federal energy and economic policies. In closing, our team has accomplished a great deal over the last several years. Their relentless commitment to our vision, mission and strategy has delivered strong value to our customers, communities and shareholders. Looking ahead, I'm even more excited about our future because I believe these efforts have positioned airmen very well to deliver superior value over many years to come. Now, here is Marty to tell you how our team will keep delivering under the strategy in the future.