Avista Corporation (NYSE:AVA) Q1 2022 Earnings Conference Call May 4, 2022 10:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Stacey Wenz - IR Manager

Dennis Vermillion - President and CEO

Mark Thies - EVP, Treasurer and CFO

Kevin Christie - SVP, External Affairs and Chief Customer Officer

Ryan Krasselt - VP, Controller and Principal Accounting Officer

Conference Call Participants

Kody Clark - Bank of America

Anthony Crowdell - Mizuho

Brian Russo - Sidoti

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by and welcome to the Avista Corporation Q1 2022 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded.

I would like to turn the conference over to your host Ms. Stacey Wenz. Please go ahead.

Stacey Wenz

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Avista’s first quarter 2022 earnings conference call. Our earnings and our first quarter 10-Q were released premarket this morning. Both are available on our website. Joining me this morning are Avista Corp. President and CEO, Dennis Vermillion; Executive Vice President, Treasurer and CFO, Mark Thies; Senior Vice President, External Affairs and Chief Customer Officer, Kevin Christie; and Vice President, Controller and Principal Accounting Officer, Ryan Krasselt.

Some of the statements that will be made today are forward-looking statements that involve assumptions, risks and uncertainties, which are subject to change. For reference to the various factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed in today’s call, please refer to our 10-K for 2021 and 10-Q for the first quarter of 2022 which are available on our website.

I’ll begin by recapping the financial results presented in today’s press release. Our consolidated earnings for the first quarter of 2022 were $0.99 per diluted share, compared to $0.98 for the first quarter of 2021.

Now I’ll turn the discussion over to Dennis.

Dennis Vermillion

Well, thanks, Stacey, and good morning, everyone. We had a real solid start to 2022 as Avista utilities earnings were above our expectations and we are pleased with the results of the first quarter. Our performance was partially the result of the timing of certain expenses. And for the remainder of 2022, we anticipate seeing higher cost based upon current economic environment. However, as we always do, we are proactively managing these issues and we are on track to meet our consolidated earnings targets for the full year. Not unlike what other companies are seeing some of these challenges that we’re seeing include higher inflation than in the recent past, we have increased interest rates. Commodity costs that are higher than we’ve seen in almost 15 years and some supply chain constraints, and competitive labor markets. And of course, that lingering pandemic, which thankfully, looks like we’re on the tail end of that, we’re all really happy about that, obviously, so all these are contributing to a difficult operating environment.