Essential Utilities (WTRG) Q2 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending June 30, 2022

August 4, 2022 11:00 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good day, and welcome to the Essential Utilities Inc. Quarter 2 2022 Earnings Call. Today's conference is being recorded.

At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Brian. Please go ahead, sir.

Brian Dingerdissen

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for today's conference 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, and the webcast of this event, can also be found on their website.

Here is our forward-looking statement. 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 from 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 in the presentation and also posted in the Investor Relations section of the company's website.

Here is our agenda for today. We'll start with Chris Franklin, our Chairman and CEO, who will discuss the highlights from the quarter and provide a company update. Next, Dan Schuller, our CFO, will discuss our financial results. Following Dan, Matt Rhodes, our EVP of Strategy and Corporate Development, will provide an update on our acquisition program. Lastly, Chris will conclude the presentation with a summary of our guidance before opening the call up for questions.

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

Christopher Franklin

Thanks, Brian, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us. As Brian said, let's start off with some highlights of the quarter. First, we reported year-to-date net income growth of 6.5%, and our quarterly earnings per share were in line with expectations, and Dan will take you through that in a little bit more detail in a moment. We continue to enhance shareholder value as the Board approved a 7% increase in the quarterly dividend this week. Marking the 31st consecutive year of dividend increase is something we're very proud of.