Eversource Energy (D/B/A)

Source Energy Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Reema Hyder, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us today on the full year and fourth quarter 2025 earnings call. During this call, we'll be referencing slides that we posted on our website. As you can see on slide one, some of the statements made during this investor call may be forward-looking. These statements are based on management's current expectations and are subject to risk and uncertainty. which may cause the actual results to differ materially from forecasts and projections. We undertake no obligation to update or revise any of these statements. Additional information about the various factors that may cause actual results to differ and our explanation of non-GAAP measures and how they reconcile to GAAP results is contained within our news release. The slides we posted last night enter in our most recent 10Q and 10K. Speaking today will be Joe Nolan, our Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, and John Marrera, our Executive Vice President, CFO, and Treasurer. Also joining us today is Jay Booth, our Vice President and Controller. I will now turn the call over to Joe.

Thank you, Rima, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for our year-end earnings call. I'm pleased to report that 2025 was another year of strong execution across the organization. Our team delivered excellent operational performance, continued to advance critical infrastructure needs for our customers, leveraging technology solutions to lower O&M costs, and remained focused on providing safe, reliable, and affordable service to customers and communities we are proud to serve. We also made meaningful progress working collaboratively with state policymakers, regulators, and stakeholders to address critical priorities like affordability while remaining focused on reliability. This remains a top priority for Eversource. Our goal is to ensure state leaders have the tools they need to support customers and that we have the regulatory clarity to make the investments essential to balancing affordability and reliability. These challenges can only be solved through true partnerships, working together face to face with shared goals. Moving to slide four, let me take you through some of our 2025 accomplishments. Starting with our financial performance, I am proud to report that we delivered on our commitment of non-GAAP earnings with full year earnings per share of $4.76. We also paid dividends of $3.01 per share to our shareholders, representing a 5.2% increase. Moving on to slide five. In 2025, our employees once again demonstrated their commitment to operational excellence. Throughout the year, we delivered high levels of service reliability, responded effectively to several significant weather events, and continued making progress on projects that strengthened the resiliency and sustainability of our electric natural gas and water systems. As a result, we had top decile performance for both the MBI and the SADI metrics that demonstrates our investments vastly improve reliability for customers. With this high level of performance, our electric customers on average experience an outage only once in nearly two years. We successfully deployed over $4 billion in capital investments in 2025. Our team has advanced grid modernization initiatives, expanded customer energy efficiency programs, and continued supporting the region's long-term decarbonization goals. These efforts reinforce our role as a trusted partner for New England's clean energy future. and demonstrates our ability to execute consistently across a broad set of priorities. Our advanced metering infrastructure, or AMI program, has officially reached over 100,000 smart meter installations in Massachusetts. A significant milestone in this multi-year effort to upgrade more than 1.5 million meters statewide and deliver more modern tools with greater functionality that will benefit customers. On the regulatory front, we obtained several constructive decisions that will support ongoing infrastructure needs, including rate outcomes and cost recovery mechanisms that align with our infrastructure investment needs. We advanced key grid modernization initiatives, progressed on storm cost proceedings, with 98% of our $2 billion in deferred storm costs in current rates are pending cost prudence reviews, and we continue to engage with policymakers on the affordability and reliability implications of the region's energy transition and address low growth. Our commitment to building strong regulatory relationships is enabling productive dialogue in all three state jurisdictions. The outcomes we obtained last year reflect a shared recognition of the importance of modernizing the distribution system while keeping customer affordability at the forefront. Last month in Massachusetts, we worked with Governor Healey's administration to implement a rate relief plan for electric and gas customers, which is a constructive step in support of affordability for Massachusetts customers. The plan provides customer discounts in February and March during peak winter usage. The discounts are partly funded by the state, and we will gradually recover our portion of the discounts over the lower usage period this year. This approach aligns with our efforts to smooth bill impacts for our customers. Strengthening our balance sheet was a top priority for us in 2025, and over the last 12 months, ending September 30th, we have delivered an improvement of more than 400 basis points in our FFO to debt ratio at Moody's, as a result of the cash flow enhancements previously outlined. Maintaining this improvement will be a continued key focus area for us in 2026. In January 2025, we broke ground on the Cambridge Underground substation, a $1.8 billion investment which is the largest underground substation in the nation and critical investment in strengthening the electric system that serves one of the fastest growing and most energy intensive areas of our region. Construction on this project continues to progress very well. We completed the construction of the onshore substation for the Revolution Wind Project late last year. And as Orsted recently announced, The project is expected to achieve first power within the coming weeks. Orsted has also stated that construction of Revolution Wind has resumed since the preliminary injunction on the recent stop work order was granted, and the project is 87% complete. Currently, given the latest construction updates and cost estimates, we do not need to change the contingent liability that we recorded in the third quarter of 2025. Another one of our proud accomplishments for the seventh year in a row was that Newsweek recognized Eversource as one of America's most responsible companies. This recognition highlights our excellence in environmental, social, and corporate governance areas. This recognition is a reflection on the hard work and dedication of nearly 11,000 Eversource employees who do the right thing every day, and I want to sincerely thank them for that. Moving to slide six. As we look at 2026, our priorities remain clear and well aligned with the needs of the region. First, we will continue to deliver top-tier operational performance for our customers. maintaining high reliability, enhancing customer experience, and ensuring the safety of our workforce and the public are our core commitments. Second, we will advance our infrastructure investment program, including grid modernization, resiliency projects, and target upgrades that support reliability today while enabling the clean energy transition of tomorrow. The service we provide is critical, Replacing the aging infrastructure and addressing capacity requirements to meet demand growth is extremely important for our customers. John will discuss in greater detail our new five-year capital investment plan of $26.5 billion. This new plan increases our necessary infrastructure investment over the next five years by $2.3 billion. The majority of this increase is aimed at electric and natural gas distribution investments to address aging infrastructure needs under a multi-year project such as the electric sector modernization plan and the underground cable modernization program, as well as complying with applicable state safety regulations. Third, we will continue to actively pursue our constructive engagement with regulators and stakeholders. In each of our states, new leadership in government brings fresh perspectives, new conversations, and new opportunities to partner in shaping the future of energy in our region. In Massachusetts, our Smart Meter initiative is a cornerstone of that future, offering customers more insight, more control, and more connection to the way they use energy. Last year in Connecticut, we reached an agreement to sell Aquarian Water Company, This decision followed a thoughtful and disciplined review of our investment portfolio. While we were disappointed with Pura's initial decision, we will continue to work with them on the judge's remand. The commission recently announced that we can expect a revised draft and final decision in March. Aquarian is a well-run business with a strong local team, and this transaction positions the water system for continued investments under a dedicated water operator. while also delivering value to our customers and shareholders. In addition, as this business is still part of Eversource, we have provided PIRA with notice of intent to file a rate case for Aquarium, consistent with our responsibility to seek appropriate recovery for ongoing investments that ensure safe, reliable, and sustainable water service for customers. We will also begin our first rate review in Connecticut for CLMP in about eight years. We see that as an incredible opportunity to show how we've provided best in the industry reliability and that those investments are valuable to customers. Another key item for us is our recovery of storm costs. We expect to receive a decision from PURA on our Connecticut storm cost prudency review in July. which would allow us to begin the legislative-backed securitization process. Importantly, securitization enables timely cash collection, improving our FFO to debt metrics, while reducing near-term bill impacts for customers. This year, we're also looking at how we thoughtfully and responsibly use artificial intelligence, which is helping us reimagine how we work, from safety to line inspections, to system planning to customer service, and even leveraging AI in how we prepare and respond to regulatory proceedings. Using AI to optimize our system operations can reduce costs for our customers. And finally, we will continue to execute with financial discipline. We remain committed to a strong balance sheet, prudent capital deployment, and delivering stable, predictable long-term value for our stakeholders. I want to thank our employees across the organization. for their commitment, professionalism, and exceptional work throughout 2025. Their dedication is the foundation of everything we do, and it positions us well for another productive year ahead and continued long-term success with a keen eye on enhancing our earnings and de-risking our business profile. 2026 will be a truly transformational year for us as we operate within a changing regulatory landscape and navigate affordability concerns. We are driving forward on several major fronts. We're executing relentlessly on completing our offshore wind commitments, advancing storm cost securitization, and managing a potential sale of Aquarium. At the same time, we remain laser focused on delivering top decile operational performance across our systems to continue to deliver on our customers' expectations. This combination of strategic execution and operational excellence positions us to achieve earnings growth towards the upper half of our 5% to 7% long-term BPS range by 2028. I will now turn the call over to John to discuss this long-term growth trajectory as well as our results. Thank you.