Algonquin Power & Utilities Corp. Common Shares

Hello and welcome to the Algonquin Power and Utilities Corporation first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question during this time, simply press star one on your telephone keypad. I will now turn the conference over to Mr. Brian Chin, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you attending our first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Joining me on the call today will be Rod West, Chief Executive Officer, and Rob Stefani, Chief Financial Officer, who will share prepared remarks. Other members of the management team are also available to answer your questions during the Q&A portion of the call today. 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 CEDAR Plus and EDGAR. We would 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. Additionally, all net earnings information to be discussed today is for continuing operations and is attributable to the common shareholders of Algonquin. Certain material factors and assumptions were applied in making the forecasts 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 important additional information on these items. On the call this morning, Rod will provide a business update, and Rob will follow with the details of our financial results. We'll then open the line for questions. We ask that you kindly restrict your questions to two, then follow up with us after the call if you have any additional questions to allow others the opportunity to participate. And with that, I'll turn things over to Rod.

Thanks, Brian, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us. First quarter of 2026 has been a solid start for Algonquin, and I'm pleased to say that we are indeed pushing ahead on our path to premier. As I stated in my early days at Algonquin, a premium pure play regulated utility earns its standing through consistent execution, constructive regulatory outcomes supported by disciplined financial and operational management. These attributes position the company to deliver sustainable value to shareholders, customers, employees, and the communities we serve. As we'll discuss in a moment, this quarter's results touch on all of those and build on the measurable progress we've made from 2025. In short, we're advancing toward our goal of becoming a premier pure play regulated utility. Taking measure of our strategic priorities for the year, I'm pleased with the progress we've made in the first quarter. For example, on the operations front, we've begun to roll out updated procedures and training materials for damage prevention and leak response at our gas operations. We've also implemented quality assurance and quality control reviews of line locating activities by independent inspectors. On the customer side in Missouri, We've improved our billing accuracy versus prior periods and improved our communications to customers in the moments that matter to them. On the regulatory side, we were pleased to achieve conclusions to our rate cases at New England Gas and Calpico Electric in order approving our settlement agreement at Empire Electric and the tariff agreement at Seralis, our Chilean water utility. We continue to work towards a resolution of our Arizona-Litchfield Park water and sewer and Empire, Kansas rate cases. On the corporate front, we expect to refinance our senior unsecured notes due in June, which Rob will discuss in more detail shortly. And we continue to explore tax optimization strategies, including a potential redomicile. In summary, we've laid out our list of strategic priorities for the year, and for the first quarter, we've made solid progress on this priority list. On slide six, we've outlined several factual considerations that require evaluation as part of a possible re-domicile, which I know is a common area of inquiry. As a reminder, we have not made any definitive decisions on this and such a move would require the approval of our board, shareholders, and other stakeholders. One timing point. We have engaged with the Internal Revenue Service to request a private letter ruling to confirm tax treatment, and these types of requests typically take six to nine months to rule on. We will update you when we have more to share. Turning to slide seven. Focusing in a bit more on our regulatory strategy, we've been prioritizing earlier dialogue to identify areas of common ground, as well as advancing more pragmatic filings. We expect this to deliver fair regulatory outcomes that allow us the opportunity to capture both recovery of reasonable costs and returns on our investments for the benefit of our customers. I'm pleased to note that we are starting to see this play out. In Massachusetts, the Department of Public Utilities on March 27 approved our New England natural gas settlement agreement, which calls for a $45.3 million revenue adjustment. In California, the Public Utilities Commission on March 19 approved a proposed decision that adopts our Calpico electric settlement agreement with the exception of changes to the proposed adjustment to our fixed charge for residential customers, which will remain the same. The approved decision provides for additional $48.6 million in annualized revenues and includes a retroactive adjustment to January 2025. Rob will provide more details on the Calpico settlement in just a moment. For Empire Electric Missouri, we continue to await commission review of our customer performance data. As a reminder, the approved settlement requires three consecutive months of customer metric performance before we can implement the $97 million in annualized revenues. We've submitted the three monthly filings in which we identified limited deviations in each month, consistent with the provisions of the settlement. We are now awaiting commission approval. Separately, the next step to the settlement is an additional potential $13 million of annual revenues based on meeting further performance requirements stated in the starting, rather, in the second half of 2026. We remain in close discussions with stakeholders to arrive at an appropriate set of customer performance metric definitions and review the processes for this second tranche of revenues. With regard to active cases, in Arizona, our settlement agreement and a decision regarding formula rate plans remains pending at Litchfield Park Water and Sewer. We've asked the commission for a decision by August. In California, separate from our CalPICO general rate case, we have our WEMA proceeding, which we filed in June of 2025. This application seeks recovery of approximately $77 million in wildfire costs consisting primarily of claim settlements in excess of insurance coverage, legal costs, and finance costs related to the 2020 Mountain View fire. We have also received proposed decisions and alternate proposed decisions in our Park Water and Apple Valley rate cases. In Kansas, our rate case at Empire Electric requesting a $15.8 million base rate change is pending. And finally, at our Chilean water utility, Sorales, we just this week reached an agreement with our regulators in our most recent terror proceedings, which includes a $4 million rate adjustment expected in the latter half of the year. The common thread through these updates is this. We continue to make steady progress on rate cases across multiple jurisdictions in a more deliberate and intentional manner. doing a better job of involving all stakeholders. Slide 8 helps to put all of this in context. Simply put, our regulatory strategy means we're engaging in key dialogue earlier, identifying broader areas of common ground, filing in a more timely and accurate fashion, and as a result, achieving more constructive resolutions. In other words, we're getting back to regulatory basics to earn our right to grow, earn the right to grow on our path to premier. Turning to slide nine, I'll add a few comments regarding our evolving regulatory and legislative landscape. On April 7th, the California Earthquake Authority released its Natural Catastrophe Resilience Study Report as required by Senate Bill 254's passage last year. We found the number of points in the report worthy of further discussion. For example, we support the report's concept of expanding the catastrophe fund to protect smaller utilities like CalPICO and the communities we serve so that we have the same financial protections during natural disasters as those served by our larger brother and sister utilities in the region. We also support the report's suggestion to transition the catastrophe fund away from a customer-only funding model. Wildfire safety is a shared state responsibility that should be supported by broader state resources, not just through utility bills. We're looking forward to presenting more of our perspectives on this and other points raised in the report in the near future. More broadly, in states including Arizona, Missouri, and New Hampshire, we're working to build coalitions with our peers to educate stakeholders on the benefits of forward test years and formula rate plans that facilitate constructive, customer-centric investment in our communities. These mechanisms are examples of the predictable, transparent, regulatory frameworks that support full and timely cost recovery and are key to operating as a premier pure play regulated utility. This allows the opportunity to capture returns closer to authorized return ROEs with the objective of supporting earnings and credit metrics stability, all to benefit our customers. And I'm pleased to say that in this first quarter, we've taken several steps further along on our journey to premier. With that, I'll turn it over to Rob to walk through our financial update for the quarter.