Hydro One Limited

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Hydro One Limited's fourth quarter 2023 analyst teleconference. At this time, all participants are in a listening 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 one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. As a reminder, the call is being recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference. Mr. Omar Javid, Vice President, Communications, Marketing, and Investor Relations at Hydro One. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us in Hydro One's quarterly earnings call. Joining us today are our President and CEO, David Lieber, and our Chief Financial Officer, Chris Lopez. In the call today, we will go over our quarterly and annual results, and then spend most of the call answering as many of your questions as time permits. There are also several slides that illustrate some of our points we'll address in a moment. They should be up on the webcast now, or if you're dialed into the call, you can also find them on Hydro One's website in the investor relations section under events and presentations. Today's discussions will likely touch on estimates and other forward-looking information. You should review the cautionary language in today's earnings release and our MD&A, which we filed this morning, regarding the various factors, assumptions, and risks that could cause our actual results to differ as they all apply to this call. With that, I'll turn the call over to our President and CEO, David Lieber. Thank you, Omar.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us on our fourth quarter earnings call. This morning, I will provide an update on our recent activities and reflect on the past year. Then, Chris will take you through the financial results in greater detail. As I reflect on this past year as CEO of Hydro One, I am proud of the achievements that we have been able to accomplish across the business. We executed our strategy, investing in critical infrastructure to support our communities and energize life in Ontario. We grew our transmission pipelines in nine transmission lines, currently in development or under construction, and are well positioned to play a vital role in the economic growth in the province. In 2023, we continue to expand our strategic partnerships with First Nations, communities, government, and industry. Partnerships remain at the heart of everything we do. Economic reconciliation efforts with Indigenous communities through our First Nations Equity Partnership Model ensures they can participate in and benefit from our transmission investments. We also continue to deliver on the commitments to our customers and the communities we serve. I am proud of the hard work and dedication our teams bring to the job every day. Their drive and execution, coupled with the commitment to safety and operational excellence, has allowed us to achieve success in meeting customer expectations and the needs of all Ontarians. At Hydro One, success is more than delivering power. It's about being there when our customers need us most. As we move into 2024, we continue to invest in critical infrastructure to support economic growth across the province. Looking ahead, in the coming years, we expect to see significant increase in the demand for electricity infrastructure and new customer connections. This growth provides tremendous opportunities for Hydro One to make additional investments in critical infrastructure that will energize life, support growing communities and businesses, and help move Ontario to a cleaner energy future. I am proud to report that we had another great year of safety results in 2023. A recordable injury and high energy serious injury frequency rates continue to be below our annual targets, in large part due to the relentless pursuit of zero safety incidents by our employees. In 2023, Hydro One achieved a recordable injury rate of 0.56 for 200,000 hours, which remains well below the world-class benchmark of 1.0. This result demonstrates what can be achieved when the entire organization rallies around a challenge. In November, this outstanding result was recognized by Electricity Canada when they presented Hydro One an award for excellence in transmission safety. With continued focus, I'm confident we can eliminate all serious injuries and fatalities. Our focus on safety goes hand in hand with our commitment to our customers and Ontario. This dedication is deeply rooted in our belief that being there when customers and communities need us the most is what matters. This January, our teams restored power to over 125,000 customers impacted by the snowstorms. We know that electricity is critical to our lifestyle and maintaining high levels of availability for our customers to meet their needs is core to our customer strategy. It is with great pride that our response efforts continue to be recognized by others This past year, IG1 was recognized by the Edison Electric Institute Award for Emergency Response. This award is our 14th Emergency Response Award and recognizes how our teams continue to show up and get the job done when the customers and communities need us the most. We continue to make the capital investments necessary to maintain the safety, reliability, and resilience of our transmission and distribution systems, but also provide the ongoing growth and modernization required to meet the expanding and evolving needs of our customers. Once again, we executed our capital program and met our capital investment commitments for 2023. This past year, we deployed approximately 2.5 billion of capital and in-service 2.3 billion of assets. These investments will supply the critical infrastructure needed to energize life and accelerate the adoption of sustainable electricity solutions that will contribute to Ontario's economic growth. I am pleased to say we have done this with a focus on continuous improvement to enhance customer service, efficiency, productivity, and reliability. Every dollar we invest is done so with our customers in mind, which is why we are committed to spending wisely and continually improving productivity. In 2023, we had another year of strong productivity savings, achieving savings of $114 million. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, we have grown our project pipeline to nine new transmission lines in development or construction. Three of these transmission lines, which are situated northeastern and eastern Ontario, were awarded to Hydro One in the fourth quarter. These lines include the Mississauga to Third Line, the Hamner to Mississauga Line, and the Greater Toronto Area East Line. The three lines will support the continued economic growth in northern communities and facilitate the growing electricity demand in transportation, mining, steel, and manufacturing industries in the northeast and eastern parts of the provinces. This result highlights how our superior execution continues to be a critical aspect of why Hydro One remains the transmitter of choice for the development, construction and operation of priority projects in Ontario. Our commitment to growing our network of strategic partnerships with First Nations, communities, government and industry partners underpins our approach to building critical infrastructure. These partnerships ensure proper engagement on planning, development and execution of projects, while allowing for the sharing of economic benefits from these investments. In December, we expanded our strategic partnerships through the signing of an initial partnership agreement with Five Nations Development Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Five Nations Energy Inc. Through the agreement, we will work together to meet the growing electricity demands in northeastern Ontario while increasing Indigenous participation in the energy sector. This agreement is part of our strong commitment and efforts to build mutually beneficial relationships with Indigenous partners. For the ninth year in a row, Forbes has recognized Hydro One on their annual list of Canada's best employers for 2024. The ranking is determined by the recommendations made by employees and other professionals who recommend Hydro One as a desirable employer. The rankings are based on the independent surveys of over 40,000 employees working for companies employing at least 500 people in Canada. Receiving recognition as one of Canada's best employers is a testament to our continued success in building a safe workplace where our teams feel heard, valued and have a true sense of belonging. This award follows our recognition by Corporate Knights as one of the best 50 corporate citizens in Canada during 2023. The award celebrates our relentless commitment to sustainability and environmental stewardship. This recognition is a testament to the dedication of our teams in driving our sustainability initiatives and adopting best practices throughout our operations. We are humbled and inspired by these accolades. These recognitions are a testament to the collective efforts of our employees, partners and stakeholders. In other updates, we continue working with the telcos to advance the delivery of high-speed internet to some 700,000 Ontarians. As we have mentioned on previous calls, Hydro One is prepared and has been for some time. We made investments in labour and training, strengthened our supply chains, streamlined our joint use processes, relaxed standards, onboarded contractors and purchased materials in preparation for this initiative. We understand the importance of connectivity to everyday life for families and businesses many of whom are our customers. As many of you know, Chris has made the decision to leave Hydro One to pursue other opportunities. Since joining Hydro One in 2016, Chris has played an instrumental role in shaping the company to what it is today. He has built a deep bench of experienced leaders within the organization and has overseen significant improvements in equity and bond investor competence, share price performance, and productivity savings. While I am sad to see Chris go, I fully understand and support his appetite to try other challenges. On behalf of the company and our employees, the executive team and myself, I want to thank Chris for his service to the company, its shareholders, partners, customers, and stakeholders. With that, I'll turn it over to Chris to discuss our financial results. Chris, over to you.