Emera Incorporated

Good morning, and welcome to the AMERA Q1 2025 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all lines are in listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. If at any time during the call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Thursday, May 8, 2025. I would now like to turn the conference over to Dave Bizanson. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Mike, and thank you all for joining us this morning for AMIRA's first quarter 2025 conference call and live webcast. AMIRA's first quarter earnings release was distributed this morning by Newswire, and the financial statements, management's discussion and analysis, and the presentation being referenced on this call are available on our website at AMIRA.com. Joining me for this morning's call are Scott Balfour, AMIRA's president and chief executive officer, Greg Blunden, AMIRA's chief financial officer, and other members of AMIRA's management team. Before we begin, I'd like to advise you that this morning's discussion will include forward-looking information, which is subject to the cautionary statement contained in the supporting slide. Today's discussion and presentation will also include references to non-GAAP financial measures. You should refer to the Appendix for Reconciliations of Historical Non-GAAP Measures to the Closest GAAP Financial Measure. And now, I will turn things over to Scott. Thank you, Dave, and good morning, everyone.

This morning, we reported first quarter adjusted earnings per share of $1.28, representing a 68% increase over the same period in 2024. I'm proud to say this represents the strongest first quarter performance in the company's history and sets us up to deliver well above our 5% to 7% earnings growth per share range in 2025. Our first quarter results were driven by robust performance across our regulated utilities. Tampa Electric and New Mexico Gas both benefited from new rates that reflect the rate-based investments they've been making in support of their customers. And at Nova Scotia Powers, results benefited from the colder weather we experienced here in Nova Scotia this winter. The results from our regulated utilities were further bolstered by a record quarter from Amir Energy. Cold weather in the Northeast resulted in higher pricing and market volatility, creating opportunities that the business was once again able to capitalize on to deliver exceptional results. Our performance this quarter is also, in many ways, a direct result of the actions we took in 2024, which provided the strong foundation of our execution this year. Last year, we successfully executed on our asset sale program, strengthened our balance sheet, adjusted our dividend growth guidance, and finalized two important rate cases. These actions strengthened our company and positioned us well going into this year to translate our rate-based growth into meaningful earnings per share and cash flow growth. You can see this reflected in our first quarter results, and we're confident that we will see strong performance for the year overall. We also remain confident in our 5% to 7% average earnings per share guidance through 2027. Teams across the mirror have deployed over $700 million in customer-focused capital in the first quarter, putting us well on track to execute our $3.4 billion capital plan for the year. Major projects underway, including our solar development deployment and reliability investments at Tampa Electric, energy storage and reliability upgrades in Nova Scotia, and gas infrastructure expansion at Peoples Gas are progressing as planned. We continue to see strong population and economic growth in Florida. With customer growth at Tampa Electric and Peoples Gas continuing at a rate of over 1.5% and 3.5% respectively, driving significant investment demand. Between the projected increases in Tampa Electric's capacity needs owing to organic load growth, coupled with their desire to enable economic development in West Central Florida, Tampa Electric has brought certainty to their generation expansion plan to ensure resource adequacy by contracting for the supply of two gas turbines to be delivered in 2028. These investments, as well as continued investments in reliability, resiliency, renewable integration, and technology are the key components of our seven to 8% forecasted rate-based growth and the foundational driver of our long-term earnings growth expectations. Against an uncertain macroeconomic backdrop, we are laser focused on managing our capital deployment. focusing on both customer affordability and the timely recovery in rates. To the extent that we see tariff or supply chain impacts on our capital plan, we currently expect that we will work to re-profile our capital spend to maintain our 7% to 8% rate-based growth so as not to negatively impact affordability while also meeting the needs of our customers. As a result, we do not expect to make any material changes to our five-year capital plan. Our teams are also working diligently to mitigate supply chain risk and identify alternative domestic supply opportunities to reduce any direct exposures to tariffs on behalf of our customers. To that end, we've already secured and received panels for our solar investments through 2026, after which new panels will be 100% domestic supplied with any tariff risk contractually mitigated through 2029, de-risking the major the largest major project in our capital plan. At Peoples Gas, pricing has been locked in for major projects, and at Nova Scotia Power, approximately 95% of their capital spend is already sourced from Canadian suppliers. In addition, I want to highlight that we have very limited direct exposure to Chinese tariffs, with the only material exposure being planned energy storage investments at Tampa Electric. Importantly, despite the current tariff exposure, the business case for storage remains intact as batteries remain the lowest cost alternative for customers. Given the intense sector focus on this, I would note that our $20 billion five-year capital plan does not include any major capital to support data centers. To the extent that we capture any of these new customer opportunities, the revenue and capital investment opportunities would be upside to our plan. On the regulatory front, Our focus is in three key areas. The closing of the sale of New Mexico gas, where the regulatory process continues as expected. The next milestone is the hearing scheduled to begin on June 23rd of this year. We continue to expect closing in Q4 of 2025. At Nova Scotia Power, the team has been working constructively with key stakeholders in the province on a path forward to secure financial stability for the utility and allow Nova Scotia Power to continue making important reliability and resiliency investments for customers. As you know, these processes take time. And while we would like to have more to share on our call today, we're encouraged by the progress and confident that we will have more to share in the second quarter. And at People's Gas, the rate application is also proceeding as expected with a hearing set for September and a final decision expected in the fourth quarter. And with that, I'll turn it over to Greg to take you through our financial results.