Algonquin Power & Utilities Corp. Common Shares

Power and Utilities Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question during this time, simply press star 1 on your telephone keypad. I'll now turn the conference over to Mr. Brian Chin, Interim Chief Financial Officer and Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for our third quarter 2025 earnings conference call. Joining me on the call today is Rod West, Chief Executive Officer. To accompany today's earnings call, we have a supplemental webcast presentation available on our website at algonquinpower.com. Our financial statements and management discussion and analysis are also available on the website as well on Cedar Plus and EDGAR. We'd like to remind you that our discussion during the call will include certain forward-looking information and non-GAAP measures. Actual results could differ materially from any forecast or projection contained in such forward-looking information. Certain material factors and assumptions were applied in making the forecast and projections reflected in such forward-looking information. 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 algonquinpower.com. Please also refer to our most recent MD&A filed on Cedar Plus and Edgar and available on our website for additional important information on these items. On the call this morning, Rod will touch on our leadership and then provide a review of the key highlights and operational updates for the quarter. He'll also provide some commentary regarding the company's portfolio strategy. I will follow with details of our financial results. We will then open the lines for questions. 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. With that, I'll turn things over to Rod.

Thanks, Brian, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us on the call. Before we move into the quarter results, I'd like to briefly touch on the important leadership update we announced by press release earlier this morning. We're very pleased that Robert Stefani will be joining Algonquin as Chief Financial Officer Effective January 5th, 2026. Robert brings to the role an exceptional blend of financial discipline, capital markets expertise, and strategic acumen, having served the last three years as CFO at Southwest Gas Holdings and four years in the same role and treasurer of Pico Energy. We're excited to welcome Rob to the executive leadership team. I expect his capabilities and contribution will help us accelerate our path to becoming a premium pure play regulated utility. I'd also like to take a moment to thank Brian Chen for stepping into the interim CFO role. I personally appreciate his partnership and steady hand during my early months as CEO, and we look forward to having Brian continue with us as a key member of the finance and leadership team and to assist in the leadership transition. Onward we go. From a financial and operational standpoint, I'm pleased to report that it was a constructive and solid quarter. Our Q3 financial results were strong with double-digit year-over-year percentage increases in adjusted net earnings and adjusted net earnings per share, and our outlooks remain unchanged. On the operational front, We received approval of our Energy North rate case settlement, and our CalPICO rate case settlement is pending. At Empire Electric, we filed a settlement and recognized from Commission feedback that we have more work to do to align on specific metrics and milestones to demonstrate improved and predictable customer service. Let me state, we always appreciate hearing from the Commission. We are listening, and we are committed to reciprocating the transparency. We will be working with the parties to consider how to factor the Commission's feedback into our settlement. We have hearings in December on our New England natural gas rate case. And in our Litchfield Park case, intervener testimony is due on January 2026, with hearings scheduled for March. of next year. These two cases represent a combined total rate request of $73.6 million of the $326.4 million in total pending rate requests. A few additional comments while we're on the topic of our regulatory proceedings. We understand that any adjustments in rates can be challenging for some customers, and affordability is a concern we take very seriously. Rate requests go through a rigorous regulatory review process designed to support our continued delivery of safe, reliable, and cost-effective utility services for our customers, with rates reflecting the very real cost of modernizing infrastructure, meeting safety and reliability standards, and improving customer experiences and outcomes. These are investments made by the company to create sustainable value for all of our stakeholders. We recognize that while necessary, our investments must be balanced with affordability in mind, which is why we are committed to doing our part to continuously find ways to lower our costs and be more efficient in the way in which we work. And finally, before I turn things over to Brian on the results, a few comments on the company's portfolio optimization strategy. When I became CEO in March, I initiated a series of quantitative and qualitative screens of our portfolio, including value accretion, dilution, credit strength, and overall strategic fit. I heard the questions that many of you were asking me in my first days, hours, and weeks in the role. With the benefit of that initial work now behind me, I am confident that our back to basics pure play regulated strategy we laid out in June is fundamentally sound. Continuing our focus on lowering our cost curve, improving operational performance, and stakeholder engagement is our best path to creating sustainable value, reducing risk, and growing our business. That being said, With a stable balance sheet and robust organic growth prospects within our existing portfolio, we are poised to be opportunistic should the situation arise. And regarding those opportunistic situations, you should first expect that any potential opportunity must be first value-enhancing to our regulated pure play strategies. whether it's through EPS accretion and or risk reduction. And secondly, you should expect that we would have and articulate clear lines of sight on transactability. And thirdly, it should not be a surprise to you, given the fact that we're turning this company's performance around or aim to, it should not unduly distract management's attention from our central strategy of turning around our financial performance and keeping our promise to you to be steady and predictable. That being said, Brian, I'll turn it over to you for the quarter results.