OGE Energy Corp. (NYSE:OGE) Q1 2023 Results Conference Call May 4, 2023 9:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Jason Bailey - Director of Investor Relations

Sean Trauschke - Chairman, President and CEO

Bryan Buckler - CFO

Conference Call Participants

Constantine Lednev - Guggenheim Partners

Heidi Hauch - Bank of America

Alex Mortimer - Mizuho

Aditya Gandhi - Wolfe Research

Operator

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the OGE Energy Corp First Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call [Operator Instructions]. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.

I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Jason Bailey, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Jason.

Jason Bailey

Thank you, Hope and good morning, everyone. And welcome to the call. With me today, I have Sean Trauschke, our Chairman, President and CEO; and Bryan Buckler, our CFO. In terms of the call today, we will first hear from Sean, followed by an explanation from Bryan of financial results. And finally, as always, we will answer your questions. I'd like to remind you that this conference is being webcast and you may follow along at oge.com. In addition, the conference call and accompanying slides will be archived following the call on that same Web site. Before we begin the presentation, I'd like to direct your attention to the safe harbor statement regarding forward-looking statements. This is an SEC requirement for financial statements and simply states that we cannot guarantee forward-looking financial results but this is our best estimate to date. I will now turn the call over to Sean for his opening remarks. Sean?

Sean Trauschke

Thank you, Jason. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us on today's call. We're off to a really strong start for the year. As you know, the first quarter typically represents less than 10% of the electric company's earnings. However, this quarter does provide momentum for the year and I really like what I see. Earlier this morning we reported consolidated earnings for the quarter of $0.19 per share with $0.20 per share from OG&E and holding company loss of a penny. I'm pleased with the overall performance of electric company with results up year-over-year, and Bryan will discuss our financial results in more detail shortly. Our plan for the future is strong when you consider increased demand for electricity to support our growing communities. Business expansion is broad, representing many sectors, including manufacturing, defense, tribal enterprises and healthcare, in both Arkansas and Oklahoma. Some of these expansions include significant job growth, including 900 new military personnel who will be stationed at Ebbing Air National Guard Base in Fort Smith, Arkansas, along with Pratt and Whitney's announcement last month of the new sustainment center associated with its operations near Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma. Our customer initiatives have gained steam, particularly in the digital experience. One quarter after launching our new mobile app, more than 10% of our customer base has downloaded the app and more importantly, they're using it from bill payment to outage reporting. We're making it easier for customers to self serve online and rolling programs and rolling in services that help them manage their energy usage and monthly bill. These efforts pay off in a multitude of ways from improving our customer experience to driving cost out of our business.