FirstEnergy Corp.

Hello, and welcome to the First Energy First Quarter 2024 Earnings Call. If anyone should require operator assistance, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. You may be placed with a question queued anytime by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It's now my pleasure to turn the call over to Irene Prezell, Vice President, Investor Relations and Communications. Please go ahead, Irene.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to First Energy's first quarter 2024 earnings review. Our president and chief executive officer, Brian Tierney, will lead our call today, and he will be joined by John Taylor, our senior vice president and chief financial officer. Our earnings release, presentation slides, and related financial information are available on our website at firstenergycorp.com. Today's discussion will include the use of non-GAAP financial measures and forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause our results to differ materially from those forward-looking statements can be found in our SEC filings. The appendix of today's presentation includes supplemental information along with the reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures. Now it's my pleasure to turn the call over to Brian.

Thank you, Irene. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today and for your interest in First Energy. This morning, I will review financial performance and highlights for the first quarter, provide some updates on key regulatory developments, and review First Energy's shareholder value proposition. For the first quarter, First Energy delivered gap earnings of 44 cents per share compared to 51 cents per share in 2023. Operating earnings were 55 cents per share, two cents higher than the midpoint of guidance for the quarter versus 60 cents per share last year. It is important to note that higher revenues from investments to better serve our customers and more favorable weather compared to last year were offset by higher planned O&M expenses and the expected decrease in signal peak earnings resulted in higher quality utility earnings for the quarter. John will provide additional details later in the call. During the last earnings call, we announced our five-year, $26 billion investment program to better serve our customers, branded as Energize 365. That plan, combined with our ongoing regulatory updates and our continuous improvement program, give us the confidence to affirm our 6% to 8% long-term operating growth rate. We are also affirming our operating earnings guidance range of $2.61 to $2.81 per share for 2024. We are providing guidance of 50 to 60 cents per share for the second quarter of this year. Our confidence in the future gave us the opportunity to increase our dividend again to 42.5 cents per share payable in June. On an annual basis, this would represent an increase of 6.25% versus dividends declared in 2023. We are continuing to make progress on recruiting and hiring executives to run our five primary businesses. We expect to make announcements in the near term. Earlier this month, we announced the hiring of John Combs as our Senior Vice President of Shared Services. John was most recently an SBP and Chief Technology Officer at JPMorgan Chase. John's deep background in technology and leadership, as well as his financial acumen, make him the perfect person to lead our IT, supply chain, flight operations, and corporate and cybersecurity organizations. We are thrilled to welcome John to the team. On March 25th, First Energy closed on the final phase of our multi-year $7 billion equity raise to improve our balance sheet and fuel our growth. We received 2.3 of the $3.5 billion proceeds with the balance and interest bearing notes that are expected to be repaid this year. We are excited to have Brookfield as our partner in the fast growing transmission segment of our business. The impact of this transaction on First Energy as the final phase of the $7 billion equity raise cannot be overstated. The total equity on the balance sheet increased 25% in the three months ended March 31st. That's truly remarkable for a company of First Energy size. For the first time in this company's history, we are fully regulated, mostly wires, with a strong balance sheet that enables organic investment in our utility companies to improve reliability and our customers' experience. Following the closing of the transaction, Moody's recognized the impact of the company by upgrading First Energy Corp's senior unsecured rating to investment grade. On Tuesday, S&P upgraded First Energy's corporate credit rating to BBB and our senior unsecured rating to investment grade with a positive outlook. The balance sheet strength and clean business model represented on this slide capture a lot about what excited me to come to First Energy. Let me provide some updates on key regulatory initiatives. People have asked us how they will know when we are making progress on our regulatory plan. I tell them to look for milestones where we are getting fair and reasonable regulatory outcomes. During the quarter, we proved that we can obtain constructive regulatory outcomes across our jurisdictions. We have received approval of our rate case settlement in New Jersey, authorizing a 9.6% ROE and a 52% equity capitalization ratio. Even with this increase, JCP&L's rates remain 26% below our in-state peers. The West Virginia Public Service Commission approved constructive depreciation and base rate case settlements. In addition, they approved an expanded net energy fuel charge settlement for recovery of about a quarter of a billion dollars through 2026 with no disallowances. For investors looking for milestones that First Energy can obtain fair and reasonable regulatory outcomes, we provided several examples during the quarter. John will provide additional detail on the results in his remarks. For the balance of the year, we have an active regulatory schedule. In Ohio, we filed a settlement in our Grid Mod 2 case asking for the opportunity to complete our advanced meter infrastructure rollout over four years. A hearing is scheduled for June 5th. Approval of this noncontroversial settlement will bring us to parity with our in-state peers. We are expecting approval of our ESP-5 filing this quarter, and we will file a base rate case next month. That case will seek a modest increase in base rates, but will reset a number of riders since the last base rate case. Earlier this month in Pennsylvania, we filed a base rate case requesting an 11.3% ROE and a 53.8% equity ratio. We expect a decision in December with rates effective in January of next year. Before I turn the call over to John, I would like to highlight the value proposition that First Energy offers to shareholders. We have completed the multi-year overhaul of our balance sheet and have achieved investment-grade status at both Moody's and S&P. Our strong balance sheet differentiates First Energy from many of our industry peers in that we do not anticipate incremental equity needs to fund our $26 billion investment plan. Our long-term annual operating earnings growth rate combined with our dividend yield represent a total shareholder return potential of 10 to 12 percent. Our earnings quality is vastly improved, driven by growth in our core regulated businesses, and our customers' affordability remains strong throughout the investment period. At the end of a significant business transition led by our board of directors and management team, First Energy represents a high quality and attractive risk value proposition to our shareholders. With that, I will turn the call over to John.