Southwest Gas Holdings, Inc.

Today's call is being recorded and our webcast is live. A replay will be available later today for the next 12 months on the Southwest Gas Holdings website. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the prepared remarks. If you would like to ask a question at that time, please press star 1 on your phone. I will now turn the call over to Justin Forsberg, Vice President of Investor Relations of Southwest Gas Holdings.

Thank you, MJ, and hello, everyone. We appreciate you joining our call. This morning, we issued and posted to Southwest Gas Holdings website our third quarter 2023 earnings release and the associated form 10Q. The slides accompanying today's call are also available on Southwest Gas Holdings website. We'll refer to those slides by number throughout the call today. Please note that on today's call, we will address certain factors that may impact this year's earnings and provide some longer-term guidance. Some of the information that will be discussed today contains forward-looking statements. These statements are based on management's assumptions on what the future holds, but are subject to several risks and uncertainties, including uncertainties surrounding the impacts of future economic conditions and regulatory approvals. This cautionary note, as well as a note regarding non-GAAP measures, is included on slides two and three of this presentation. Today's press release and our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which we encourage you to review. These risks and uncertainties may cause actual results to differ materially from statements made today. We caution against placing undue reliance on any forward-looking statements, and we assume no obligation to update any such statements. As shown on slide four, on today's call, we have Karen Holler, President and CEO of Southwest Gas Holdings, Rob Stefani, Chief Financial Officer of Southwest Gas Holdings, Justin Brown, President of Southwest Gas Corporation, and Paul Daly, President and CEO of Century Group, along with other members of the management team available to answer your questions during the Q&A portion of the call today. I'll now turn the call over to Karen.

Thanks, Justin. Thank you for joining us today to discuss the Southwest Gas Holdings third quarter results. Turning to slide five, we are happy with our progress on our transformational strategy of returning Southwest Gas to its core foundation as a premier fully regulated natural gas utility. We achieved significant milestones this quarter, building on our progress in the first half of the year. which continues to position the utility for strength and success, while also advancing the separation of Sintry into a standalone infrastructure services leader. Notably, we made progress on the regulatory strategy of the utility during the quarter and delivered improved third quarter results. Customer growth and demand remain strong, and the Southwest Gas team is acutely focused on safely addressing the needs of our customers, investing in the communities we serve, and delivering value for our shareholders. We are strategically deploying capital and investing in our operations so that we can meet the demand for safe, reliable, and affordable energy solutions, while also working constructively with our regulators and legislators to complement our strong organic rate-based growth. We are confident in our momentum We remain on track to deliver 5% to 7% CAGR in rate-based growth over the next three years and to maintain a strong investment-grade balance sheet and a competitive dividend. Additionally, Century has continued to see improved margins during the first nine months of the year as they execute on their core utility infrastructure services and overcome much of the previous cost and supply chain headwinds that had been faced during 2022. Turning to slide six, I'll touch on a couple of important points related to our strategic priorities. At Sentry, the separation remains well on track. We confidentially submitted a draft form S-1 with the SEC on September 22nd to facilitate a potential IPO. The ultimate timing of the separation will be affected by the form of transaction structure. As you can appreciate, we are in a quiet period with respect to a potential IPO, and we are not in a position to provide specific details on our process. However, we are continuing to make progress. If we execute an IPO, Southwest Gas Holdings may ultimately separate the business through a series of sell-downs, share exchanges, or distribute the balance of century shares to Southwest Gas Holdings shareholders. through a spin following any required lockup period associated with an IPO. As we disclosed in our press release from November 6th, we announced that our board adopted a tax-free spin protection plan to help preserve the company's ability to effectuate a tax-free spin. We continue to consider additional taxable separation alternatives to form a new independent, publicly traded utility infrastructure services company We remain committed to separating Sentry and we believe we have taken the appropriate steps and actions that will benefit all shareholders. We announced in that same press release that the IRS has decided to exercise its discretion not to rule on certain tax questions relating to the proposed Sentry separation based on the fact-intensive nature of the questions presented. Again, we are committed to separating Sentry and continue to assess the value of a potential tax-free spinoff of Sentry, either following or in lieu of a potential initial public offering by Sentry, as well as other transaction alternatives. As you can see on slide seven, we are making excellent progress on our 2023 strategic priorities, completing some more key strategic milestones during the third quarter. At the utility, we continue to execute on our business plan, We filed our Nevada rate case mid-September with the expectation of a resulting rate increase in April 2024. And as previously announced, we received ACC approval of the PGA surcharge in Arizona and remain on track with our expected Arizona rate case filing in the first quarter of 2024. Additionally, we are focused on completing the utility optimization review and prioritizing our identified initiatives as I will cover in more detail in a moment. We are very pleased with our continued progress, and our strategic plan is on track. On slide eight, we highlight our strong third quarter performance at Southwest and at Century. We are proud to announce that at the utility, we delivered the best third quarter performance on record. We experienced another quarter of strong customer growth, adding more than 41,000 new meter sets over the last 12 months. while continuing to make additional investments to ensure our system remains safe and reliable for the benefit of our customers. We also benefited from several constructive regulatory outcomes that have occurred during the year. At Sentry, we announced record-setting third-quarter revenue and EBITDA, which resulted in last 12-month adjusted EBITDA of approximately $299 million. This strong third quarter performance was driven by an increase in electric infrastructure services revenues and sustainable energy projects. As Paul will discuss, Sentry continues to win new business based on the strength of its relationships and capabilities and is well positioned to play a critical role in the continuing energy transition. Turning to slide 9, we are laser focused on evaluating and prioritizing a cross-functional by our employees this year. Our employees have been highly engaged in the process alongside our consultants and have provided productive feedback to help us to prioritize our optimization efforts. Our leadership team is developing specific initiatives that we believe will help us accomplish our goals of optimizing utility performance and accelerating our pursuit of operational excellence. identifying cost savings and efficiency opportunities for us to execute over the next couple of years. Further, these initiatives will help support the tremendous growth we have across our service territory, help pass on realized savings to our customers, improve ROEs, and result in positive returns for our stockholders. We are excited to share our expected returns and provide you our plans in the near future. But what I can say now is we are well-positioned to begin execution of our plans in 2024 to drive long-term positive change across the organization. And we are delighted with our employees' response to this collective effort. I will now turn the call over to Rob, who will review our financial performance for the quarter.