Ameren Corporation

Greetings and welcome to Ameren Corporation's second quarter 2024 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief 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 and Corporate Modeling for Ameren Corporation. Thank you, Mr. Kirk. You may begin.

Thank you, and good morning. On the call with me today are Marty Lyons, our chairman, president, and chief executive officer, and Michael Main, our senior executive vice president and chief financial officer, as well as other members of the Ameren management team. 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. We have posted a presentation on the Amereninvestors.com homepage that will be referenced by our speakers. As noted on page two of the presentation, comments made during this conference call may contain statements about future expectations, plans, projections, financial performance, and similar matters, which are commonly referred to as forward-looking statements. Please refer to the forward-looking statements section in the news release we issued yesterday, as well as our SEC filings for more information about the various factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. Now here's Marty, who will start on page four.

Thanks, Andrew. Good morning, everyone. We're pleased to have you joining us today as we cover our second quarter 2024 earnings results and recent developments across our business segments. Overall, it was a very productive and positive quarter. As always, our dedicated and experienced management team remained laser focused on executing our strategic plan, positioning us well to take advantage of future opportunities to drive significant value for our customers and shareholders. Speaking of opportunities, I'm tremendously excited about the investment opportunities ahead for us in this dynamic period for the utility industry. In my 20 plus years with the company, our economic development and sales growth pipeline is the most robust I have seen, which I'll touch on more in a moment. First, let me cover our earnings and operations results for the second quarter. Yesterday, we announced second quarter 2024 earnings of 97 cents per share, compared to earnings of 90 cents per share in the second quarter of 2023. Key drivers of these strong results are highlighted on this page. And for the first six months of the year, our results have been solid, driven by infrastructure investments made for the benefit of our customers, encouraging weather normalized retail sales, and disciplined cost control. We remain on track to deliver earnings within our guidance range of $4.52 per share and $4.72 per share. Turning to page five, our strategic plan is designed to deliver on our steadfast commitment to providing safe and reliable energy in a sustainable manner. We do this by investing in rate regulated infrastructure, enhancing regulatory frameworks, and advocating for responsible energy policies while optimizing operating performance through ongoing continuous improvement in order to keep rates affordable. I'd like to express appreciation for my Ameren coworkers unwavering commitment to our strategy. On page six, we highlight our key accomplishments in the second quarter as we execute our strategy to deliver on our 2024 objectives. The strategic infrastructure investments we have made in the first six months of the year are designed to maintain the safety and reliability of the energy grid, to modernize the grid, and to harden against more frequent severe weather events. Over Memorial Day weekend, severe thunderstorms swept through Missouri and Illinois, bringing strong winds, flooding, and golf ball sized hail. As always, our teams quickly and safely assessed the damage, cleared trees, and worked long hours to make repairs to restore power as quickly as possible, allowing critical infrastructure to continue operations, businesses to remain open, and homes to stay cool and safe. But even better, during the first half of 2024, Over 22,000 Missouri and 11,000 Illinois customer outages were prevented during storms due to rapid detection rerouting and restoration of power by automated switches across our system. And over 6.4 million minutes of customer outages across both states were avoided due to investments to modernize the grid. As we look ahead to future investment for the benefit of our customers. it's important to operate under constructive regulatory jurisdiction and legislative policies. This quarter, we've made significant regulatory advancements, which Michael and I will cover in more depth on the coming slides. At Ameren Missouri, our largest business segment, we continue to make regulatory progress with the Missouri Public Service Commission for new solar and natural gas generation, which supports our integrated resource plan. Our Cass County solar project was approved in June and is expected to be one of three solar projects placed in service this year, which collectively, along with Huck Finn and Boomtown, represent an investment of approximately $1 billion. The Commission also approved a constructive order for the securitization of costs associated with our Rush Island Energy Center in connection with its retirement in October of this year. And finally, regarding generation updates, in June we filed the CCN with the Missouri PSE for our dispatchable Castle Bluff Energy Center. Overall, we continue to make significant progress on our Smart Energy Plan in Missouri, a combination of distribution, transmission, and generation projects to bolster reliability and empower our customers. In late June, AMRA Missouri filed its Electric Rate Review Request with the Commission, which is substantially driven by infrastructure improvements made under this plan. If approved, Ameren, Missouri customer rates would still remain well below national and Midwest averages. Turning to transmission. The Mid-Continent Independent SysTop Operator, or MISO's, long-range transmission plan continues to evolve. In April, MISO concluded the bid evaluation process for the Tranche 1 competitive projects in our service territory, ultimately awarding all three competitive projects to Ameren. And they continue to develop the $23 billion to $27 billion tranche 2.1 project portfolio, which promises Meaningfield Brownfield and Greenfield investment opportunities within our service territory. Finally, in Illinois, the Illinois Commerce Commission issued an order on the rehearing of Ameren Illinois' multi-year rate plan for 24 through 2027. Importantly, The order supports our planned base level of grid reliability investment that was reflected in our 2024 earnings guidance. Further, the ICC order reflects 94% of the rate base in our ongoing multi-year rate plan proceeding. We look forward to an ICC decision on the multi-year grid investment and rate plans by the end of this year. In addition to these significant regulatory advancements, we have seen strong operational performance across the business. with a focus on delivering safe, reliable, affordable energy service through enhanced automation, optimization, and standardization, which Michael will cover in more detail. Moving now to page seven for an update on our expanding customer growth opportunities. On the first quarter call, we touched on economic development opportunities in our service territory. Since then, collectively, across Amer, Missouri, and Illinois, we have seen a significant increase in the number of data center inquiries and formal engineering reviews underway, which combined would represent thousands of megawatts of additional demand. Our teams, along with a variety of state and local stakeholders, are working aggressively to attract these and manufacturing and other economic development opportunities to our service territories. Of course, Ameren has a strong track record of reliable infrastructure development And we have the people, resources, expertise, and partnerships needed to go after these opportunities. Further, our Missouri and Illinois territories offer an attractive value proposition for commercial and industrial customers. This includes sites with transmission, fiber and water access, coupled with competitive rates and tax incentives. In Missouri, we also have reliable generation with a growing portfolio of clean and dispatchable assets and the ability to expand in order to serve these economic development opportunities. So far this year, a construction agreement has been executed for a 250-megawatt data center, which would represent an approximate 40% and 5% annualized increase to Amer Missouri's industrial megawatt-hour sales and total megawatt-hour sales, respectively, upon completion and full ramp-up. Our construction to extend transmission and distribution services to support this data center is expected to be completed in December of 2025 with the customer ramping up operations from 2026 through 2028. In addition, we've received expansion commitments or executed new contracts for over 85 megawatts of additional load for manufacturing, smaller data centers, and other industries across both states. We would expect these new and expanding customers to be fully ramped up by 2028 with sufficient generation to serve them, creating value for all customers over time. We're excited about these opportunities, which will bring jobs and additional tax base to benefit our state and local communities. Importantly, the new data center and other customer commitments were not reflected in the weather normalized sales expectations included in our five-year earnings per share growth guidance issued in February. Of course, the ultimate net impact of any incremental load will be dependent upon a variety of factors, including customer ramp-up time, additional generation investment needs, timing of rate reviews, and tariff structures. To that end, we currently expect to update our Ameren Missouri Integrated Resource Plan, or IRP, by February 2025, following a careful evaluation of potential load growth and our planned generation portfolio. and we will work with all stakeholders to bring the economic benefits of these customer expansion opportunities to all customers, our communities, and shareholders. Turning to page eight. We continue to execute our Missouri IRP, which focuses on maintaining and building a diverse generation portfolio to ensure a reliable, low-cost, and cleaner mix of energy resources to serve our customer needs. We had two key developments this quarter. First, in June, the Missouri PSC approved the CCN for the 150 megawatt Cass County solar facility, which is expected to begin serving customers in the fourth quarter of this year. This facility will serve business customers who subscribe through our renewable energy solutions program to receive all or part of their energy needs from renewables. The Missouri PSC approval followed a successful auction held in May where customers across Missouri signed up to take part in the Renewable Energy Solutions program expansion. Demand remains strong for programs that bring businesses ready-made solutions to help them reach their sustainability goals. Second, in June, we also filed the CCN with the Missouri PSE for our Castle Bluff Energy Center, an on-demand 800 megawatt natural gas simple cycle facility to serve as a reliable backup source of energy ready to operate on the most extreme winter nights and summer days. Castle Bluff, subject to Commission approval, represents an approximately $900 million investment and is expected to be in service by the end of 2027. Moving now to page 9 for an update on the MISO long-range transmission projects. MISO and its transmission owners continue to engage in economic analysis of the Tranche 2 proposed set of projects. In June, An initial set of Tranche 2 projects, now referred to as Tranche 2.1, were proposed with a cost estimate of $23 billion to $27 billion. The portfolio identifies a need for a mix of brownfield and greenfield transmission lines of varying voltage levels and new or improved substations in both our Missouri and Illinois service territories. Ultimately, we won 100% of the Tranche 1 projects in our service territories reflecting our ability to deliver timely, cost-effective, high-value projects to our communities. We expect we'll be able to compete for Tranche 2 Greenfield projects in a similarly competitive manner to better serve our customers. MISO expects to approve the Tranche 2.1 projects by the end of the year. Once approved, MISO plans to propose a second set of Tranche 2 projects or Tranche 2.2 in 2025 address further transmission needs in the north and midwest regions turning to page 10. looking ahead over the next decade we have a robust pipeline of investment opportunities of well over 55 billion dollars that will deliver significant value to our stakeholders and create thousands of jobs for our local economies in addition we see several tailwinds forming across our business segments specifically We're seeing significant sales growth potential, which I discussed a few moments ago, and this may require us to reassess our Amer Missouri IRP and further expand our generation investment pipeline. We're seeing a growing focus amongst Missouri stakeholders on generation planning and reliability, and we see a strong need to embrace enhanced reliability-focused policies in legislative sessions to come. MISO's analysis of transmission needs in the Midwest region will likely identify additional opportunities to improve the ability to move electricity across the region. Maintaining constructive energy policies that support robust investment in energy infrastructure and to maintain reliability while transitioning to a cleaner energy future in a responsible fashion will be critical to meeting our country's growing energy needs and delivering on our customers' expectations. Moving to page 11. In February, we updated our five year growth plan, which included our expectation of a six to 8% compound annual earnings growth rate from 2024 through 2028. This earnings growth is primarily driven by strong compound annual rate based growth of 8.2% supported by strategic allocation of infrastructure investment to each of our business segments, based on their regulatory frameworks. Investment in Ameren presents an attractive opportunity for those seeking a high-quality utility growth story. Combined, our strong long-term 6% to 8% earnings growth plan and an attractive and growing dividend, which today yields 3.4%, result in a compelling total return story. We have a strong track record of execution, a strong balance sheet, and an experienced management team. I'm confident in our ability to execute our investment plans and strategies across all four of our business segments. Again, thank you all for joining us today, and I'll now turn the call over to Michael.