UNITIL Corporation

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q4 2020 Unitil earnings call. At this time, all participants are in the listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you need to press star 1 on your telephone. If you require any further assistance, please press star then 0. I would now like to introduce today's conference call, Mr. Todd Diggins. You may begin, sir.

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us to discuss Unitil Corporation's fourth quarter 2020 financial results. Speaking on the call today will be Tom Eisner, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, and Bob Hevert, Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, and Treasurer. We will discuss financial and other information on this call. As we mentioned in the press release announcing the call, we have posted that information, including a presentation, to the investor section of our website at www.unital.com. We will refer to that information during this call. On slide two, the comments made today about future operating results or future events are forward-looking statements under the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements inherently involve risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those predicted. Statements made on this call should be considered together with cautionary statements and other information contained in our most recent annual report on Form 10-K and other documents we have filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Forward-looking statements speak only as of today, and we assume no duty to update them. This presentation contains non-GAAP measures. The accompanying supplemental information more fully describes these non-GAAP measures and includes a reconciliation to the nearest GAAP measures. The company believes these non-GAAP measures are useful in evaluating its performance. And with that, I will now turn the call over to Chairman, President, and CEO, Tom Eisner.

Thanks, Todd. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm going to begin on slide four, where today we announced net income of $13.6 million, or $0.90 per share, for the fourth quarter of 2020. This represents an increase of $2.2 million, or $0.13 per share, compared to 2019. For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2020, net income was $32.2 million, or $2.15 per share. By any measure, 2020 proved to be a challenging year for our company, our customers, and our shareholders. The year began with historically warm winter weather, which negatively impacted sales margins and earnings. The winter was then followed by the worst worldwide health emergency in over a century. The COVID-19 pandemic led to both financial and operational headwinds for the remainder of 2020. However, faced with these challenges, we stayed true to our mission and continued to provide safe and reliable service for our customers and communities. Over the course of the year, we successfully responded to several storm events and achieved record results for safety and customer satisfaction, all while executing on our strategic priorities. In addition, we effectively executed on our investment plan, moved forward with grid modernization, and advanced our ESG profile. We also carried out our regulatory strategy as we finalized rate cases for our natural gas division in Maine, both gas and electric divisions in Massachusetts, as well as Granite State, our FERC-regulated gas transmission company. As we head into 2021, Unitil is well-positioned to move forward stronger than ever. With that, I will now pass it over to Bob to provide further detail on our 2020 results.