Essential Utilities, Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. My name is Jericho and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the essential full year 2025 earnings call. All lines has been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there'll be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, again, press the star one. I would now like to turn the conference over to Brian Dingerson. You may begin.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our full year 2025 earnings call. If you did not receive a copy of the press release, you can find it on our investor relations website. The slides can also be found on the website along with a webcast of the event. As a reminder, some of the matters discussed today may include forward-looking statements that involve risk, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause the actual results to be materially different from any future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Please refer to our most recent 10Q, 10K, and other SEC filings for a description of such risk and uncertainties. References may be made to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliation of any non-GAAP to GAAP financial measures is posted on our website. We will begin with Chris Franklin, our chairman and CEO, who will provide an update on the company. And Dan Schuller, our CFO, will provide an overview of the financial results. With that, I will turn it over to Chris Franklin.

Hey, thanks, Brian, and good morning, everyone. I want to start today's call off on slide five by thanking our shareholders. Last week, we received the final tally from the special meeting to approve our merger with American Water. And I am just so proud to report that nearly 95% of the shares voted were in favor of the transaction. This overwhelming mandate confirms what we have believed from the start, that this combination creates a premier multi-state utility with low risk or beta and first quartile growth. I also want to note that our research indicates that we secured shareholder approval in record speed compared to similar deals over the years, and we're very proud of that. As we move to slide six, you can see that by year end 2025, we completed the seven filings in the states required. This was another substantial accomplishment in an incredibly short period of time, and I truly appreciate the efforts of our teams involved. At this point, we have received the initial procedural schedules in most of the states. Based on those schedules, we continue to believe that we will close the transaction in the first quarter of 2027. As you may recall, three states have statutory timelines, but the others do not. Now, I may not be able to promise this regulatory approval phase will proceed in the same record speed as our shareholder approval, but I can certainly say I'm proud of the constructive regulatory relationships that we've built over the years, and I firmly believe that this mutual trust that we've built will lead to a constructive outcome. So, let's turn our focus to reviewing the past year's successes on slide seven. 2025 was truly a banner year for Essential, and I am very proud of what our team across every function has accomplished. I'd like to highlight some of these, as I think they speak to the drive for consistency and excellence I've emphasized in our calls over the years. Financially, we delivered 2025 earnings per share of $2.20, above our guidance range of $2.07 to $2.11. Even without some of the non-recurring I'll call beneficial items noted in our 10Qs and 10K throughout the year, we would have ended up above the guidance range. This represents our continued commitment and legacy of delivering on the guidance that we provide investors. And Dan will discuss this outperformance in more detail, but suffice it to say, we delivered another strong year of earnings. Now, alongside growing earnings per share, we also increased the quarterly dividend by 5.25% in July. That's 35 increases in 34 years for Anybody Keeping Score and 80 consecutive years of paying dividends. I'm also happy to report that this earnings per share and dividend growth was achieved while we increased capital investment for the benefit of our customers. In 2025, we invested a record $1.4 billion in regulated infrastructure, helping to improve reliability and resiliency for our communities. Also contributing to our growth were three municipal acquisitions we completed in 2025. These showcased the diversity of our growth strategy, which includes opportunities in western Pennsylvania and adding more municipal wastewater systems to our platform. Operationally, 2025 saw our water business continue executing on our $450 million PFAS capital plan with over 50 advanced treatment systems deployed across Pennsylvania and North Carolina. This is yet another marker of our industry leadership on this issue. We're also pleased to mark for our natural gas segment our 100,000th Intellis meter installation in 2025. The hard work and technical expertise of both our water and natural gas businesses have promoted the health and resilience of our communities, and I'm just so proud of what the team accomplished in 2025. Of course, both businesses have continued robust main replacement. Throughout the year and across both segments, replaced or retired over 400 miles of maine in 2025. now it's really worth noting that these successes demonstrate that our work on the merger did not distract us from our core operational goals and obligations to our customers and that will most certainly continue through 2026. now regarding sustainability i'm delighted to share that Essential has been named as one of Newsweek's America's most responsible companies for the fifth consecutive year. In 2025, we were also named to USA Today's America's Climate Leaders for the third consecutive year. I've been consistent and steadfast in my message to you over the years. Our focus on the environment, our focus on the community, our focus on people, These are fundamental to our success as a company and our fidelity to its mission. American Water shares a similar commitment, which makes our combination only more compelling. Another central area of focus for us tied to sustainability is maintaining our commitment to delivering high-quality, affordable service for our customers. Now amid ongoing national and state discussions around affordability, particularly the impact on customer bills, I want to reiterate that our approach is grounded in making responsible investments in replacing aging infrastructure, sustaining high-quality water, and strengthening system reliability while carefully managing our operating costs. By balancing these priorities, we work to support customer affordability while at the same time sustaining our financial performance. And with that, let me turn the call over to Dan to review our financials for the year.