NorthWestern Energy Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:NWE) Q3 2024 Earnings Conference Call October 30, 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

Shahriar Pourreza - Guggenheim
Chris Ellinghaus - Siebert Williams
Anthony Crowdell - Mizuho

Travis Meyer

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining NorthWestern Energy Group's Financial Results Webcast for the quarter ended September 30, 2024. My name is Travis Meyer. I'm the Director of Corporate Development and Investor Relations Officer.

Joining us today to walk you through the results and provide an overall update are Brian Bird, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Crystal Lail, Chief Financial Officer. [Operator Instructions]

NorthWestern's results have been released, and the release is available on our website at northwesternenergy.com. We also released our 10-Q pre-market. So please note that the company's press release, this presentation, 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 the safe harbor provisions included on the second slide of 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.

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 and can be found in the Financial Results section of our website.

With that, I'll hand the presentation over to Brian for his opening remarks.

Brian Bird

Thanks, Travis.

Just real quickly on the recent highlights. We had reported GAAP diluted EPS of $0.76 for the quarter and non-GAAP diluted EPS of $0.65. We are revising our 2024 non-GAAP EPS guidance to $3.32 to $3.47 in light of the delay in Montana interim rates. We're also reaffirming our long-term 5-year rate base and earnings per share growth rate targets of 4% to 6%.

From a dividend declared perspective, $0.65 per share payable December 31, 2024, to shareholders of record as of December 13, 2024. Yellowstone County Generating Station began serving customers in October.

In August of 2024, the U.S. Department of Energy awarded $700 million Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnership or GRIP grant to North Plains Connector Consortium project, which included a $70 million earmarked for the Colstrip transmission System upgrades. Of that $70 million, NorthWestern shares $21 million available for our investment in that line.