Algonquin Power & Utilities Corp. Common Shares

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Algonquin Power and Utilities Corp. First Quarter 2019 Analyst and Investor Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star then 1 on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star and zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to Christopher Jarrett, Vice Chair of Algonquin Power and Utilities Corp. Please go ahead.

Great. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us this morning for our 2019 First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. As mentioned, my name is Chris Jarrett, and I'm the Vice Chair of Algonquin Power and Utilities Corp. And joining me on the call today are Ian Robertson, our Chief Executive Officer, and David Bronachewski, our Chief Financial Officer. To accompany our earnings call today, we have a supplemental webcast presentation available at algonquinpowerandutilities.com, and additional information on our results is also available for download at this site. Over the course of the call, we will be providing information that relates to future events and expected financial positions, which should be considered forward-looking. Our full disclosure on forward-looking information and non-GAAP financial measures are available on our website, and we will read the full disclaimer at the end of this call. On our call this morning, Ian, as usual, will provide the strategic achievements for Q1 2019, and David will follow up with the Q1 financial highlights. Ian will then conclude with our strategic outlook for the business, and then we'll open the lines up for questions. And as usual, we ask that you restrict your questions to two, even though sometimes you don't, And we will recue if you have any additional questions to allow others the opportunity to participate. And with that, I will turn it over to Ian to start the presentation.

Great. Thanks, Chris. And good morning to you who've been able to join us on the call this morning. So as Chris mentioned, I'd like to start the conversation with some of the highlights from Q1. So firstly, in terms of financial results for the quarter, we felt the performance was generally in line with expectations. slightly better than forecast performance in our regulated utilities, helped offset lower than average resource conditions in our wind and hydro group. With respect to year-over-year performance analysis, I think it's important to try to look through the one-time impact of U.S. tax reform within our Q1 2018 financials. And without the impact of the one-time income acceleration in 2018 from the U.S. tax reform, Q1 2019 adjusted EBITDA shows approximately a 3% increase as compared to the same quarter last year. Q1 2019 adjusted EPS of 19 cents would be compared against the one-time tax reform adjusted Q1 2018 EPS of around 21 cents. We see ourselves as a business which is built from long-lived assets and stable operations, and we've consistently been able to produce stable and growing financial results and remain highly confident in our plans to continue delivering strong returns to our shareholders. We're pleased that Algonquin's performance throughout 2018 and our strong financial positioning has led to support from our Board of Directors to approve an increase in our common share dividend of 10% which will apply to this quarter's dividend which was declared yesterday. Secondly, and as to progress on our organic growth initiatives in the quarter, we made positive progress on the customer savings plan in the Midwest with the recent approval granted by the Arkansas Commission. And following a hearing in front of the Missouri PSC, which was completed last month, we're hoping for an approval in Missouri by the end of this quarter. Regulatory approval for the Granite Bridge natural gas pipeline, LNG and storage facility. It's closer with filings made in the New Hampshire PUC. Perhaps a little disappointing, and I'll touch on it a little bit more, the PUC schedule won't allow completion of the process until this fall. And within Liberty Utilities, we secured a $6 million increase in our annual revenue requirement from completed rate reviews in Georgia and Massachusetts. And lastly, I think we've taken some positive new steps in advancing our development initiatives. On the international front, we were pleased to announce that Aegis was selected as a successful proponent for the development of a 60-kilometer 500 kV transmission line in Uruguay. This project now can be added to the to-do list for our international development team. we're pleased to have completed a $30 million investment in the San Antonio Water Pipeline. Some of you may recall that this is the close to $1 billion water delivery project in Texas, in which Abengoa owned a 20% interest at the time we announced our international expansion initiative. Close at home here in Canada, the quarter saw the closing of our partnership with Fortis in the Watanikaiap Northern Ontario Transmission Line, We're pleased that the project has now received Leave to Construct approval from the Ontario Energy Board and is now awaiting environmental approvals. Project teams working with EPCs with construction expected to commence later this year. So all told, I think we took some positive steps to continue building the business and creating value for shareholders in this quarter. And so with that, I'll pass things over to David for a review of the Q1 2019 financial results.