American States Water Co (NYSE:AWR) Q1 2023 Earnings Conference Call May 11, 2023 2:00 PM ET

Company Participants

Robert Sprowls - President and Chief Executive Officer

Eva Tang - Senior Vice President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Agnieszka Storozynski - Seaport Research Partners

Jonathan Reeder - Wells Fargo Securities

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the American States Water Company conference call discussing the company's First Quarter 2023 Results. The call is being recorded. If you would like to listen to a replay of this call, it will begin this afternoon at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time and run through Thursday, May 18, 2023, on the company's website, www.aswater.com.

The slides that the company will be referring to are also available on the website. All participants will be listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. [Operator Instructions] This call will be limited to an hour.

Presenting today from American States Water Company are Bob Sprowls, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Eva Tang, Senior Vice President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer.

As a reminder, certain matters discussed during this conference call may be forward-looking statements intended to qualify for the Safe Harbor from liability established by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

Please review a description of the company's risks and uncertainties in our most recent Form 10-K and Form 10-Q on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, this conference call will include a discussion of certain measures that are not prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles or GAAP in the United States and constitute non-GAAP financial measures under SEC rules.

These non-GAAP financial measures are derived from consolidated financial information but are not presented in our financial statements that are prepared in accordance with GAAP. For more details, please refer to the press release.

At this time, I will turn the call over to Bob Sprowls, President and Chief Executive Officer of American States Water Company.

Robert Sprowls

Thank you, Gary. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'll begin with some brief comments on the quarter. Eva will then discuss some financial details, and then I'll wrap it up with updates on regulatory activity, ASUS, dividends, and then we'll take your questions.

I'm pleased to report that our adjusted earnings for the first quarter of 2023 were $0.13 per share higher than adjusted earnings for the first quarter of 2022. The higher earnings performance in 2023 was aided by the receipt of a proposed decision in Golden State Water Company's water General Rate Case or GRC, from the California Public Utilities Commission or CPUC, during April and strong earnings at our contracted services business, American States Utility Services or ASUS. The proposed decision allows us to continue investing in the utility infrastructure to provide safe and reliable water services for the communities we serve.