UNITIL Corporation

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q3 2021 Unitil Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star 0. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Mr. Todd Diggins, Director of Finance. Thank you, and please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us to discuss Unico Corporation's third quarter 2021 financial results. Speaking on the call today will be Tom Meissner, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, and Bob Hebert, 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 this call, we have posted information, including a presentation, to the investor section of our website at unitil.com. We will refer to that information during this call. Moving to slide two, the comments made today about future operating results or events are forward-looking statements under the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements entirely involve risks and uncertainties that can cause 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 obligation to update them. This presentation contains non-GAAP financial measures. The accompanying supplemental information more fully describes these non-GAAP financial measures and includes a reconciliation to the nearest GAAP financial measures. The company believes these non-GAAP financial measures are useful in evaluating its performance. With that, I will now turn the call over to Chairman, President, and CEO, Tom Meissner.

Thanks, Todd, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us. I'd like to kick off today's discussion on slide three, which provides a brief description of Unitil's business model. We're a pure-play distribution utility in New England, serving attractive areas, including the New Hampshire and Maine Seacoast. We have a diverse customer mix across the three states that we service, with about 25 percent more electric customers than gas customers. As a pure-play distribution utility, our earnings are not impacted by commodity cost fluctuations because we recover the cost of energy through Commission-approved reconciling recovery mechanisms. Turning to slide four, today we announced break-even net income and earnings per share for the third quarter of 2021. and net income of $21.6 million, or $1.42 per share, through the first nine months of the year. This represents a 17 cent per share, or 14% increase, over the same period in 2020, reflecting higher adjusted growth margins for both the gas and the electric divisions. I'd also like to touch on a few strategic updates. First, I'd like to reaffirm our long-term earnings guidance of 5% to 7% growth in EPS, with 2021 earnings expected to be above the higher end of that range relative to 2020. Our regulatory initiatives are progressing well with temporary rates currently in effect at both our New Hampshire electric and gas divisions. Bob will provide additional details about those proceedings later in the call. The company's capital investment plan is advancing as expected, supporting long-term rate-based growth in the range of 6.5% to 8.5%. We will provide a refreshed five-year capital investment forecast during our fourth quarter call. We're committed to maintaining a strong balance sheet to support our growth, and in the third quarter, the company raised equity through a public offering, resulting in net proceeds of approximately $44.5 million. The net proceeds of this transaction will be used to make equity capital contributions to our regulated utility subsidiaries, to repay debt, and for general corporate purposes. Finally, I'm pleased to share that in October, we published our 2021 Corporate Sustainability and Responsibility Report, which provides greater clarity into our progress and our developing strategies. Slide five summarizes some of the key points of our corporate sustainability report, which can be found on our website. As I mentioned previously, earlier this year we announced our carbon commitment, which aligns with the Paraclimate Agreement. Maintaining safe, reliable systems and reducing greenhouse gas emissions are central to our vision. We continue to advance our business strategy with a keen focus on those goals. In 2021, we also began company-wide diversity, equity, and inclusion training and an ongoing employee awareness campaign. At Unitil, diversity means having a workforce that is reflective of the people in the communities we serve while also ensuring that people are provided the resources and opportunities to grow and succeed. This is crucial to successfully realizing our vision of transforming the way people meet their changing energy needs to create a clean and sustainable future. Finally, in addition to discussing our sustainability strategies and goals, the report also provides key metrics and statistics in various industry-specific reporting templates. I encourage you to view the full report at unitil.com. Turning to slide six, converting heating and transportation fuels such as diesel, fuel oil, and gasoline to lower carbon alternatives with the support of electrification and natural gas presents significant opportunities for Unitil. The states we have have the highest dependency on fuel oil for heating in the nation. In addition, across our New Hampshire and Massachusetts service areas, there is considerable overlap between our gas and electric customers. This is particularly noteworthy in Massachusetts, where more than 90 percent of our customers have Unitil as their electric service provider. Looking forward, we see that diversity as a strategic opportunity as electrification policies continue to develop. I would also like to mention that New Hampshire Senate Bill 86 recently became law and prohibits towns and municipalities from barring or restricting the use of any commercially available utility service or heating system, including natural gas. We're confident that the strong economic conditions in our service areas together with the potential for fuel conversion and customer additions, will continue to support growth opportunities across our territories. With that, I'll now pass it over to Bob, who will take us through the details of our financial results.