PNM Resources, Inc. (Holding Co.)

Good morning and welcome to the PNM Resources second quarter 2023 conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. Please note this event is being recorded. I would like now to turn the conference over to Lisa Goodman, Executive Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Alan, and thank you, everyone, for joining us this morning for the PNM Resources Second Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. Please note that the presentation for this conference call and other supporting documents are available on our website at pnmresources.com. Joining me today are PNM Resources Chairman and CEO Pat Vincent-Coulant, President and Chief Operating Officer, Don Terry, and Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer, Lisa Eden. Before I turn the call over to Pat, I need to remind you that some of the information provided this morning should be considered forward-looking statements pursuant to the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. We caution you that all of the forward-looking statements are based upon current expectations and estimates and that PNM Resources assumes no obligation to update this information. For a detailed discussion of factors affecting PNM Resources results, please refer to our current and future annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, as well as reports on Form 8-K filed with the SEC. With that, I will turn the call over to Pat.

Thank you, Lisa. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today as we head into another heat wave across most of New Mexico and Texas. But today is also International Beer Day and White Wine Day, so we've given you some ideas on how to beat the heat tonight. I'm going to start on slide four with our financial results and company updates. Ongoing earnings were 55 cents for the second quarter compared to 57 cents last year. We are also affirming our guidance for 2023. Lisa will walk you through the details later in the call. Before I hand things over to Don to cover the operational highlights and key regulatory and legislative updates, let me cover a few strategic items. We extended our pending merger agreement with Avangrid to December 31st with the option for a further three-month extension through March. The New Mexico Supreme Court weighed in on our request for remand in May, along with requests from other parties to supplement the record. The court denied all of the requested motions and continued its appeal process of the Commission decision by ordering oral arguments, which were recently rescheduled from September 12th to September 15th. You may remember we have requested the oral arguments as part of our briefings last year. Following oral argument, There is no timeline or indication of when the court will issue its decision. We are confident in our legal arguments in the appeal, the Commission's improper handling of the proceedings and weighing of the benefits, and we continue to believe the existing case record supports approval of the agreement. We are also still confident the murder is the right decision for our long-term strategy and our customers, employees, and communities. If the court agrees with us on the appeal, they would remand the case back for modification. It would then be the commission's responsibility to determine what is necessary to remedy the order and set a schedule. The extension of the merger agreement should provide time to work through the court and commission processes. In our appeal on Four Corners, the court confirmed last month that we would need to file a proposed plan for the replacement resources in order to continue our plan to exit the plant early. As a reminder, we are a 13 percent minority owner in the Four Quarters plant with only 200 megawatts. We remain committed to fully exiting coal and removing carbon from our resource portfolio. We are focused on the best interests of our customers and are working on next steps, which could include refining an abandonment case with the Commission that would contain the specific replacement resources. Lastly, let me give an update on the sales process of our joint venture, NMRD. The process announced in May is continuing with bids due during the third quarter, and we still expect to close by the end of the year. With that, I'll turn it over to Don.