Algonquin Power & Utilities Corp. Common Shares

Hello and welcome to the Algonquin Power and Utilities Corp. First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. All lives have been placed on you to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star 1 on your telephone keypad. I will now turn the conference over to Mr. Brian Chin, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thanks, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us on our first quarter 2024 earnings conference call. Speaking on the call today will be Chris Huskelson, Chief Executive Officer, and Darren Myers, Chief Financial Officer. Also joining us this morning for the question and answer portion of the call is Jeff Norman, Chief Development Officer, and Johnny Johnston, Chief Operating Officer. To accompany today's earnings call, we have a supplemental webcast presentation available on our website, AlgonquinPower.com. Our financial statements and management discussion and analysis are also available on the website as well as on CEEDARplus and EDGAR. We'd like to remind you that our discussion during the call will include certain forward-looking information and non-GAAP measures. Please note and review the related disclaimers located on slide two of our earnings call presentation at the investor relations section of our website at www.algonquinpower.com. Please also refer to our most recent MD&A filed on CEEDARplus and EDGAR and available on our website for additional important information on these items. On the call this morning, Chris will provide a business update, including brief comments on the company's strategic transition and renewable sale. Then Darren will review key highlights pertaining to our regulated and renewable business groups and our first quarter financial results. We will then open the lines for a question and answer period. We ask that you kindly restrict your questions to two, and then re-queue if you have any additional questions to allow others the opportunity to participate. And with that, I'll turn it over to Chris.

Thank you, Brian, and good morning, everyone. Before we jump into quarterly results, let me address our leadership announcement included in our press release. It's an honor to be appointed as permanent CEO of Algonquin. It's an exciting time to lead the company. After serving as interim CEO for the last nine months, I'm more convinced than ever that we are on the right path. I see opportunity throughout the business to improve our consistency and profitability as we look to successfully execute on the sale of our renewables business and elevate our utility platform. 2024 will no doubt be a year of transition. As we execute on the sale of the renewables business, the company for the first time will be focused on a single regulated business model to create value. Algonquin is in a unique position to capture cost improvements through simplification and better execution while continuing to serve our customers. This is a key reason why I've agreed to accept this role. I'm excited to help Algonquin capture that opportunity, create long-term value, and ultimately become the premier mid-cap regulated utility platform in North America. I'd also like to touch on recent and upcoming changes to our board. We're pleased to welcome Brett Carter, who most recently worked at Xcel Energy as Group President of Utilities and Chief Customer Officer, and nominee Chris Lopez, the outgoing Chief Financial Officer at Hydro One. Each of these individuals bring seasoned regulated utility experience and senior leadership capabilities to the company. Their past experiences and insights will complement the strengths of the current Board of Directors and support Algonquin's ongoing strategic transformations. to the pure play regulated utility. These developments reflect our recently signed cooperation agreement with Starboard, in which they proposed board nominees. Our board reviewed the nominees and agreed that Brett Carter and Chris Lopez were exceptional additions. We believe these developments reflect our appreciation of investor dialogue, our receptivity to stakeholder input, and our decisiveness. In further news, Ken Moore, the current chair of the board, has announced his intention to retire and not stand for re-election. And as part of the company's ordinary course nomination cycle, current board member Masheed Saidi also indicated she does not intend to stand for re-election. We thank Ken and Masheed for their commitment, dedication, and leadership during their respective 14 and 10 years of distinguished service to the company. I've personally worked with Masheed since 2005 and Ken since 2009. Masheed and I worked on transmission projects in New England, and Ken and I helped make the Ameri-Algonquin relationship a success for both companies. I will miss each of them on this board. Let me now turn to our quarterly update with a few brief comments before handing the call over to Darren. In the first quarter, we continued our efforts to simplify the business and transition towards a pure play regulated strategy. Our renewables business ended the quarter on target, and we continue to make progress on the renewable sale. Our timetable for sale continues as we expected. As I've said in the past, no news is good news. Moving to our regulated services group, We're pleased that our regulated net utility sales and divisional operating profit organically grew year over year. That said, one of my initial key priorities has been to focus on the regulated services group as a standalone business. We are making strides here, including simplifying how we operate the business, having recently rolled out the last leg of our enterprise IT platform. But we have plenty more work. and opportunity as we raise up our utilities within Algonquin. With the SAP system rolled out, we are positioned to focus on the cost structure of the business and continued service to our customers. In the coming quarters, this will become the primary focus for the business. Lastly, it was also a busy quarter on the capital markets front, having closed financings with a value of approximately $2.3 billion. This is the largest non-M&A related quarterly financing in the company's history. We are extremely pleased by the investor interest and confidence in the company and the momentum of our actions to create long-term value for our shareholders. And with that, I'll turn things over to Darren for an update on the business.