NorthWestern Energy Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:NWE) Q4 2023 Results Conference Call February 15, 2024 3:00 PM ET

Company Participants

Travis Meyer - Director of Corporate Development and Investor Relations Officer

Brian Bird - President and Chief Executive Officer

Crystal Lail - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Paul Fremont - Ladenburg

Sophie Karp - KeyBanc

[Call Starts Abruptly] and Crystal Lail, Chief Financial Officer.

All participant lines are currently muted. After the presentation, we have allowed time for a Q&A session. I will provide instructions for asking questions at that time [Operator Instructions]. NorthWestern's results have been released and the release is available on our Web site at northwesternenergy.com. We also released our 10-K premarket this morning. Please note that this presentation, the company's press release, comments by presenters and responses to your questions may contain forward-looking statements. As such, I'll direct you to the disclosures contained within our SEC filings and safe harbor provisions included in 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 Time and can be found in the Financial Results section of our Web site. With that, I'll hand the presentation over to CEO, Brian Bird.

Brian Bird

Thanks, Travis. The first slide here, we talk about recent highlights. We just had two days of Board meetings. And one of the recent highlights was our ability to serve our customers in a cold snap in the middle of January. And really, that cold snap will be demonstrated two things. One, it demonstrates our need for capacity. So the importance of the Yellowstone County plant and the incremental coal strip that we'll be adding in 1/1/26 that's the first thing. The second thing is just a fantastic coordination of our operating folks to serve our customers when they need it most. That means days of minus 45-degree weather, very, very proud of our team and our ability to serve our customers. So the points on this particular page, recent highlights, reported GAAP diluted EPS of $3.22 for the year and non-GAAP diluted EPS of $3.27. We're affirming our 2024 diluted EPS guidance of $3.42 to $3.62. We're also affirming our long term five year rate base and earnings per share growth rate targets of 4% to 6%. And I'd also like to point out we had unanimous approval of multi-party rate review settlements. In Montana, both our electric and natural gas rate reviews. In South Dakota, our electric brake review. We completed the second and final phase of the holding company reorganization on January 1, 2024, certainly can't overlook the monumental task that was and the great work throughout our company to make that happen. And we have also declared a dividend for the quarter of $0.65 per share payable March 9, 2024, to shareholders of record as of March 15, 2024. And lastly, a recent highlight for us. Certainly, you talked about it before, but northwestern celebrating 100 powerful years. You may recall back in 2012, Montana Power celebrated its 100 year anniversary and our proud companies coming together now collectively been serving our customers in our service territories for over 100 years.