SJW Group

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the SJW Group fourth quarter 2024 financial results conference 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'll need to press star 1 1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to Andrew Walters, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of SJW Group. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator. Welcome to the 2024 Financial Results Conference Call for SJW Group. I will be presenting today with Eric Thornburg, Chair of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Bruce Hawk, Chief Operating Officer. For those who would like to follow along, slides accompanying our remarks are available on our website at sjwgroup.com. Before we begin today, I would like to remind you that this presentation and the related materials posted on our website may contain forward-looking statements. These statements are based on estimates and assumptions made by the company in light of its experience, historical trends, current conditions, and expected future results as well as other factors that the company believes are appropriate under the circumstances. Many factors could cause the company's actual results and performance to differ materially from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements. For description of some of the factors that could cause actual results to be different from statements in this presentation, we refer you to the financial results press release and our most recent forms, 10-K, 10-Q, and 8K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, copies of which may be obtained on our website. All forward-looking statements are made as of today, and SJW Group disclaims any duty to update or revise such statements. You will have an opportunity to ask questions at the end of the presentation. This webcast is being recorded, and an archive of the webcast will be available until April 28, 2025. You can access the press release and the webcast at SJW Group's website. In addition, some of the information discussed today includes the non-GAAP financial measures of adjusted net income and adjusted diluted earnings per share that have not been calculated in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States or GAAP. These non-GAAP financial measures should be considered as a supplement to the financial information prepared on a GAAP basis rather than an alternative to the respective GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are presented in the table in the appendix of our presentation. I will now turn the call over to Eric Thornburg.

Thank you, Andrew. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us. I'm Eric Thornburg, and it is my honor to serve as chair, president, and CEO of SJW Group. Before we review SJW Group's strong performance in 2024, I want to take a moment to share with you that earlier today, I announced my retirement as President and Chief Executive Officer of SJW Group, effective June 30th. It has been my honor to lead the team of talented individuals across our entire organization and to be a part of this profession for 43 years. The Board of Directors has appointed Andrew Walters, our Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer, to be my successor as CEO. Andrew has been a true partner and a driving force behind our success. He's an outstanding choice to lead the company. Bruce Hawk, our Chief Operating Officer, will take on the added role of President, Regulated Utilities, and Kristen Johnson, our Senior Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer, will take on the added role of President of our Shared Service Organization. These promotions will drive our organization forward. More information on these leadership changes is available in the news release we issued prior to this call. Now let's get back to our 2024 achievements. I'm pleased to share that we continue to meet drinking water and environmental regulations, deliver on our public health and environmental stewardship commitments, and provide high-quality water and service to customers. We also delivered strong financial results including a nearly 11% increase in net income from 2023 on a GAAP basis. Our performance reflects our continued execution of our proven growth strategy, focused on investments in our infrastructure and water systems across our national footprint, and constructive engagement and consensus building with key local stakeholders, all with an eye on affordability. Some highlights this year include the California Public Utilities Commission approved a constructive decision in San Jose Water's 2025 through 2027 general rate case. Also earlier this year, the CPUC approved our request to defer our 2025 cost of capital filing to 2026, which maintains our current return on equity, cost of debt, and overall rate of return through 2026. We secured approval for increases in our infrastructure recovery mechanism in Maine and filed a petition with the Maine Public Utilities Commission to unify our 10 separate rate districts under a single tariff. In Connecticut, we had a record year of recovery through WCA, the Water Infrastructure and Conservation Adjustment. The Texas Public Utilities Commission approved our first system improvement charge last year, and we filed our second request in September. In 2024, we invested $353 million in water and wastewater utility infrastructure across all four states. And, as we will discuss later in this call, we are increasing our five-year capital budget. Additionally, SJW Group was recognized by Newsweek as one of America's most responsible companies, 2025. Importantly, we continue to create long-term shareholder value with earnings per diluted share of $2.87 and adjusted non-GAAP earnings per diluted share of $2.95 in 2024. By any measure, 2024 was an outstanding year for SJW Group. We reinforced our strong foundation for sustained growth and long-term value creation, and I want to thank our talented team across the nation for making that happen. At the same time, our industry is at a pivotal moment. Aging infrastructure, evolving regulatory requirements, and the increasing impacts of climate change, ranging from severe droughts to devastating wildfires, demand forward-thinking solutions. In 2024, we saw firsthand the toll of extreme drought in our Texas service area, reinforcing the need for greater system resiliency, redundancy, and efficiency. We are future-proofing our water systems through a disciplined, long-term investment strategy that includes replacing at least 1% of aging pipelines annually, enhancing water supply and storage, improving system efficiency and resiliency, and building advanced treatment facilities to meet new water quality standards, including PFAS compliance. These investments are critical to providing for long-term reliability and public health. while strengthening our ability to adapt to changing climate conditions. At the core of our approach is financial discipline and a steadfast commitment to affordability. We are leveraging our scale, operating efficiencies, and technological advancements to manage costs while providing for our systems to remain robust, resilient, and reliable. We'll discuss this all in more detail later in the call, but for now, let me turn it over to Andrew to take you through our financial results. Andrew?