Atmos Energy Corporation (NYSE:ATO) Q2 2024 Earnings Conference Call May 9, 2024 10:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Dan Meziere - VP-IR and Treasurer
Kevin Akers - President and CEO
Chris Forsythe - SVP and CFO

Conference Call Participants

Richard Sunderland - JPMorgan
Christopher Jeffrey - Mizuho

Operator

Thank you for standing by. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Atmos Energy Corporation Fiscal 2024 Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Thank you.

I would now like to turn the call over to Dan Meziere, Vice President of Investor Relations and Treasurer. Dan, please go ahead.

Dan Meziere

Thank you, Greg. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our fiscal 2024 second quarter earnings call. With me today are Kevin Akers, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Chris Forsythe, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Our earnings release and conference call slide presentation, which we will reference in our prepared remarks, are available at atmosenergy.com under the Investor Relations tab.

As we review these financial results and discuss future expectations, please keep in mind that some of our discussion might contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Act and the Securities Exchange Act. Our forward-looking statements and projections could differ materially from actual results. The factors that could cause such material differences are outlined on slide 30 and more fully described in our SEC filings.

With that, I will turn the call over to Kevin Akers, our President and CEO. Kevin?

Kevin Akers

Thank you, Dan, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate your interest in Atmos Energy.

Yesterday, we reported year-to-date fiscal '24 net income of $743 million or $4.93 per diluted share. And we updated our fiscal '24 earnings per share guidance to a range of $6.70 to $6.80. This performance continues to reflect the commitment, dedication, focus, and effort of all 5,000 Atmos Energy employees to successfully modernize our natural gas, distribution, transmission, and storage systems, while safely providing reliable natural gas service to 3.4 million customers in 1,400 communities across our eight states.

For the quarter, we continue to experience robust customer growth, driven by continuing favorable employment trends in Texas, along with a strong new housing market in the North Texas area. For the 12 months ended March 31, 2024, we added over 56,000 new customers with more than 43,000 of those new customers located in Texas. New-home starts in North Texas were up 44.7% during the first calendar quarter of '24 compared to the first quarter of 2023.