Essential Utilities (WTRG) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending December 31, 2022

February 27, 2023 11:00 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good day and welcome to the Essential Utilities Full-Year 2022 Earnings Call. This meeting is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to hand the call over to Brian Dingerdissen. Please go ahead, sir.

Brian Dingerdissen

Thank you, Serge. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for Essential Utilities 2022 full-year earnings call. I am Brian Dingerdissen, Vice President, Investor Relations and Treasurer at Essential. If you did not receive a copy of the press release, you can find it by visiting the Investor Relations section of our website at essential.co. The slides that we will be referencing in the webcast of this event can also be found on our website.

As a reminder, some of the matters discussed during this call may include forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause the actual results to be materially different [Technical Difficulty] any future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Please refer to our most recent 10-Q, 10-K, and other SEC filings for a description of such risks and uncertainties.

During the course of this call, reference may be made to certain non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP to GAAP financial measures is included at the end of the presentation and also posted in the Investor Relations section of the company's website.

Here is our agenda for the call today. We'll begin with Chris Franklin, our Chairman and CEO, who will discuss the highlights from 2022 and provide a company update. Next, Dan Schuller, Executive Vice President and CFO will discuss our financial results. Lastly, Chris will provide an update on our acquisition program and conclude the presentation with a summary of our guidance before opening the call up for questions.

With that, I will turn the call over to Chris Franklin.

Chris Franklin

Thank you, Brian, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us. Let's start out with some highlights from our 2022 year. Our focus on operational efficiency and infrastructure improvement and service-related priorities led us to another strong year, reporting earnings per share of $1.77, which is 6% better than last year and the mid-point of our 2022 guidance. It's also in-line with our 5% to 7% long-term guidance, despite macro challenges of inflation and rising interest rates, among others you all know about.