Avista Corporation

Welcome to the Q4 2019 Earnings Conference Call. My name is James, and I'll be your operator for today's call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. During the Q&A session, if you have a question, please press star 1 on your phone. And also note this conference is being recorded. I'd now like to turn the call over to John Wilcox. John, you may begin.

Thanks, James, and good morning, everyone. And welcome to Avista's fourth quarter and fiscal year 2019 earnings conference call. Our earnings and our 2019 Form 10-K were released pre-market this morning and are both available on our website at avistacorp.com. Joining me this morning are Avista Corp President and CEO Dennis Vermillion, Executive Vice President, Treasurer, and CFO Mark Thies, Senior Vice President, External Affairs, and Chief Customer Officer Kevin Christie, and Vice President, Controller, and Principal Accounting Officer, Ryan Crassel. I would like to remind everyone that some of the statements that will be made today are forward-looking statements that involve assumptions, risks, and uncertainties which are subject to change. For reference to the various factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed in today's call, please refer to our Form 10-K for 2019, which is available on our website. To begin this presentation, I would like to recap the financial results presented in today's press release. Our consolidated earnings for the fourth quarter of 2019 were $0.76 per diluted share compared to $0.70 for the fourth quarter of 2018. For the full year, consolidated earnings were $2.97 per diluted share for 2019 compared to $2.07 last year. Now I'll turn the discussion over to Dennis.

Well, thanks, John, and good morning, everyone. Our performance during 2019 was strong as we were able to achieve both our financial and operational goals while being on the forefront of innovation in our industry. Financially, we had a good year as our earnings for 2019 were in the upper half of our guidance, and Mark will provide further details on that a little bit later. Operationally, we are on track with one of the largest capital projects in our history, the deployment of advanced metering infrastructure in Washington. The development of this infrastructure will provide customers with more real-time data so that they can better manage their energy use. We also announced plans to join the Western Energy and Balance Market in 2022, which will expand our ability to integrate additional renewable energy into our electric generation resource mix and allow us to share resources and costs more effectively across a larger geographic area. We have continued to be on the cutting edge of innovation in our industry and region. In 2019, through our partnership with McKinstry, we began construction of the new Catalyst Building in Spokane, Washington, which is a zero energy, zero carbon, 159,000 square foot building, along with the Scott Morris Center for Energy Innovation. When these two projects are completed in 2020, A centralized system will provide energy to multiple buildings in the ecodistrict. Last year, we established our Clean Energy Goals with an ultimate target of serving our customers with carbon neutral electricity by the end of 2027 and carbon free electricity by 2045. We also donated $7 million to the Avista Foundation to support area communities to prevent homelessness, promote youth education and success, and support small communities in our service area over the years to come. We were proud to announce yesterday that Avista has been recognized as one of the 2020 World's Most Ethical Companies by Ethisphere, a global leader in defining and advancing the standards of ethical business practices. This is just a tremendous achievement, and it acknowledges how Avista interacts as a business and as people with our natural environment, communities, and employees. Our actions are mission-driven and values-based with a commitment to achieving our organizational goals in ways that deliver value for all of our stakeholders. We're honored to receive this recognition, which demonstrates the leadership of our employees and Avista's commitment to ethical corporate culture built on trust, integrity, and respect. In 2019, we reached settlements in all of our general rate cases with approvals by the commissions in Oregon and Idaho, and we are awaiting the decision from the Washington Commission on the partial settlement agreement for our 2019 general rate cases. We're also waiting on the decision for the 2015 remand case. Looking ahead, we remain focused on running a great utility and continue to invest prudent capital to maintain and update our infrastructure and provide reliable energy services to our customers. To facilitate the timely recovery of our costs, including capital investments that are not included in our current rates, We expect to file general rate cases in Washington, Idaho, and Oregon in 2020. We are initiating our earnings guidance with a consolidated range of $1.95 to $2.15 per diluted share, which represents over 9% growth from our midpoint of the original 2019 guidance, of course, excluding the effects of Hydro-1. This earnings guidance range assumes approval of our partial general rate case settlement by the Washington Commission. Lastly, earlier this month, the Board increased our dividend by 4.5% to an annual dividend of $1.62 per share. And at this time, I'll turn this presentation over to Mark.