PPL Corporation (PPL) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending March 31, 2023

May 4, 2023 11:00 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks：

Operator

Good day, and welcome to the PPL Corporation, First Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions]. Please note, this event is being recorded.

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

Andy Ludwig

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining the PPL Corporation conference call on first quarter 2023 financial results. We have provided slides for this presentation on the Investors section of our website.

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

Thank you, Andy, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to our first quarter Investor Update. Let's start with our financial results and a few highlights from the quarter on Slide 4.

Today, we announced first quarter reported earnings of $0.39 per share. Adjusting for special items, first quarter earnings from ongoing operations were $0.48 per share compared with $0.41 per share a year ago. This increase was supported by solid results from our newly acquired Rhode Island business, as well as lower O&M expenses, partially offset by lower sales volumes due to the mild winter weather and higher interest expense.

We remain confident in our ability to deliver on our 2023 ongoing earnings forecast of $1.50 to $1.65 per share with a midpoint of $1.58 per share. Joe will speak to this more in his detailed review of our financial results.

In addition to solid financial performance, we continue to execute on our commitment to provide safe and reliable electric and gas service to our more than 3.5 million customers. This includes managing several significant storms at our utilities, including a severe March wind storm in Kentucky, the third most significant weather event in the last 20 years in our service territory.