PPL Corporation (PPL) Q3 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending September 30, 2022

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

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good day, and welcome to the PPL Corporation Third Quarter Earnings Conference Call . Please note, this event is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Andy Ludwig, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Andy Ludwig - VP of IR

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. And thank you for joining the PPL conference call on third quarter 2022 financial results. We provided slides for this presentation on the Investors section of our Web site. We'll begin today's call with updates from Vince Sorgi, PPL President and CEO; and Joe Bergstein, Chief Financial Officer, and conclude with a Q&A session following our prepared remarks. Before we get started, I'll draw your attention to Slide 2 and a brief cautionary statement. Our presentation today contains forward-looking statements about future operating results or other future events. Actual results may differ materially from these forward-looking statements. Please refer to the appendix of this presentation and PPL's SEC filings for a discussion of some of the factors that could cause actual results to differ from the forward-looking statements. We will also refer to non-GAAP measures, including earnings from ongoing operations and adjusted gross margins on this call. For reconciliations to the comparable GAAP measures, please refer to the appendix.

I'll now turn the call over to Vince.

Vince Sorgi - President and CEO

Thank you, Andy, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to our third quarter investor update. Turning to Slide 4. We had another solid quarter of financial results as we execute our Utility of the Future strategy. Today, we announced third quarter reported earnings of $0.24 per share. Adjusting for special items, third quarter earnings from ongoing operations were $0.41 per share compared with $0.36 per share a year ago. Based on our strong financial performance year-to-date, today, we increased the midpoint of our earnings forecast from $1.37 per share to $1.40 per share, and narrowed our earnings forecast range to $1.35 to $1.45 per share. Our 2022 earnings guidance reflects a partial year estimate of contributions from Rhode Island Energy, which we acquired on May 25th. Today, we also reaffirmed our projected compound annual earnings per share and dividend growth rates of 6% to 8% through at least 2025. Our per share growth target is based off the midpoint of our pro forma 2022 forecast range of $1.40 to $1.55 per share or $1.48 per share. The pro forma forecast reflects a full year of earnings contribution from Rhode Island Energy.