UGI Corporation

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the UGI Corporation Q1 2023 Earnings 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 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, Tamika Morris, Senior Director, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our fiscal 2023 first quarter earnings call. Today, I'm joined by Roger Perot, President and CEO, Ted Yastrzewski, CFO, and Bob Beard, Chief Operations Officer. Roger and Ted will provide an overview of our results, and the entire team will then be available to answer your questions. Before we begin, let me remind you that our comments today include certain forward-looking statements, which management believes to be reasonable as of today's date only. Actual results may differ significantly because of risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. Please read our earnings release and our most recent annual and quarterly reports for an extensive list of factors that could affect results. We assume no duty to update or revise forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that are different from expectations. We will also describe our business using certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these measures to the comparable gap measures are available within our presentation. Now I'm pleased to turn the call over to Roger.

Thank you, Tamika, and good morning, everyone. I'll start today by providing an update on the quarter. Then Ted will provide an overview of our financial results and our liquidity positions. We had a good start to fiscal 2023 as our reportable segments delivered a $63 million increase in EBIT over the prior year period. In totality, UGI reported adjusted diluted EPS of $1.14 compared to $0.93 in the prior year period. In fact, our adjusted diluted EPS would have been $0.08 higher without the non-core energy marketing business. These results reflect the robust performance of our natural gas businesses including the effect of weather that was colder than the prior year period, higher gas base rates at UGI utilities, and continued growth from our UGI Appalachia assets. In the global LPG businesses, we realized benefits from disciplined margin management and expense control efforts which helped offset elevated inflationary pressures. These benefits, along with continued growth in national accounts volumes at Amerigas, helped to offset the effects of significantly warmer weather in Europe. In addition to the strong earnings performance in the first quarter, I'd like to comment on several other key accomplishments across our business. First, we are off to a strong start in our utilities capital expenditure program, and we invested $117 million of capital during the quarter. We are deploying record levels of capital to support our growth and infrastructure replacement programs And we expect to invest roughly $2.4 billion in this area between fiscal 2023 and 2026. We continue to see attractive customer growth at the utilities with more than 4,500 new residential heating and commercial customers added during the quarter. Our recent acquisitions continue to perform well and we realized increased earnings at Mountaineer when compared to the prior year period as well as incremental margins from our UGI Moraine East and Pennant acquisitions. Also at the utilities, last week our UGI Utilities Electric Division filed a request with the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission to increase rates by approximately $11 million. This increase would fund ongoing system improvements and operations that are necessary to maintain safe and reliable electric service. Similarly, On February 1st, Mountaineer filed a notice of intent to file a general rate case with the West Virginia Public Service Commission. We will provide updates as appropriate throughout the process. In our global LPG businesses, despite elevated inflation levels and driver availability challenges at Amerigas, we were pleased with the positive impact of strong margin management and disciplined expense control actions. In addition, National account volumes at Amerigas increased over the prior year period due to our continued focus on customer growth and satisfaction. As I mentioned during our fiscal 2022 year-end earnings call, we have initiated a strategic growth project at Amerigas focused on accelerating customer growth through an enhanced customer experience, acquisitions, and operational efficiencies. Through this Amerigas operations enhancement for growth project, we will leverage our scale to improve customer satisfaction and retention and optimize pricing. This is an important strategic focus for Amerigas and UGI as we strive for operational excellence and growth. Turning to renewables. During the quarter, we made meaningful progress in executing on our renewable strategy with additional RNG projects announced in New York and South Dakota. To date, we have committed over $450 million to renewables projects that support our financial commitments of delivering 6% to 10% EPS growth and 4% dividend growth over the long term. Lastly, I am pleased with the continuous progress that we have made in our ESG programs. Our efforts to maintain robust governance practices and improve greenhouse gas mitigation strategies continue to be recognized, and in December, UGI was upgraded to AAA rating by MSCI. This rating positions us among the leading companies worldwide for action across ESG matters. And now, I'll turn the call over to Ted, who will provide more details on our financial results.