NorthWestern Corporation (NASDAQ:NWE) Q4 2022 Earnings Conference Call February 17, 2023 3:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Travis Meyer - Director of Corporate Finance and IR Officer

Brian Bird - President and CEO

Crystal Lail - VP and CFO

Conference Call Participants

Jamieson Ward - Guggenheim

Anthony Crowdell - Mizuho

Sophie Karp - KeyBanc

Travis Meyer

Good Friday afternoon, and thank you for joining NorthWestern Corporation's financial results and webcast for the year ending December 31, 2022. My name is Travis Meyer. I'm the Director of Corporate Finance and Investor Relations Officer for NorthWestern.

Joining us on the call today to walk you through the results are Brian Bird, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Crystal Lail, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. [Operator Instructions]

NorthWestern's results have been released and the release is available on our website at northwesternenergy.com. We also released our 10-K premarket this morning. Please note that the company's press release, this presentation, comments by presenters and responses to your questions may contain forward-looking statements. As such, I'll direct you to the disclosures contained in our SEC filings and the safe harbor provisions included on the second slide in this presentation. Please also note this presentation includes non-GAAP financial measures. Please see the non-GAAP disclosures, definitions and reconciliations also included in the presentation today.

The webcast is being recorded. The archived replay of today's webcast will be available for one year beginning at 6:00 p.m. Eastern today and can be found in the financial results section of our website.

With that, I'll hand the microphone over to NorthWestern's President and CEO, Brian Bird.

Brian Bird

Thanks, Travis.

I think many of us would agree, 2022 was a challenging year in many fronts, but we also had some very good outcomes in '22. From an operational performance standpoint, we maintained a safe and reliable service while reaching new all-time system peaks for both our electric and gas businesses in 2022.

We also had significant storm response, both in South Dakota with two that occurred during May and with substantial flooding in both Montana and Yellowstone National Park. Our employees did such a great job responding to that. We were acknowledged by EEI for our response there.

We are also one of the very few utilities with improved JD Power Customer Satisfaction scores in 2022 and most improved for both electric and gas among the West Midsized peers. We were recognized by Newsweek as one of America's most responsible companies, one of the 13 of the EEI companies acknowledged by Newsweek there. We also had very good regulatory execution. The rate case continues to progress well in Montana, and we received interim rates in October.