Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the American States Water Company Conference Call discussing the company’s Third Quarter 2022 Results. The call is being recorded. And if you would like to listen to the replay of this call, it will begin this afternoon at 2 p.m. Eastern Time and run through Tuesday, November 15, 2022 on the company’s website www.aswater.com. The slides that the company will be referring to are also available on the website. [Operator Instructions] This call will be limited to an hour. Presenting today from American States Water Company is Bob Sprowls, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Eva Tang, Senior Vice President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer. As a reminder, certain matters discussed during this conference call may be forward-looking statements intended to qualify for the Safe Harbor from liability established by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Please review a description of the company’s risks and uncertainties in our most recent Form 10-K and Form 10-Q on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, this conference call will include a discussion of certain measures that are not prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles or GAAP in the United States and constitute non-GAAP financial measures under SEC rules. These non-GAAP financial measures are derived from consolidated financial information, but are not presented in our financial statements that are prepared in accordance with GAAP. For more details, please refer to the press release. At this time, I will turn the call over to Bob Sprowls, President and Chief Executive Officer of American States Water Company.

Thank you, Joe. Welcome, everyone and thank you for joining us today. I’ll begin with some brief comments on the quarter, Eva will then discuss some financial details, and then I will wrap it up with some further thoughts on the quarter, updates on regulatory activity, California’s drought, ASUS, dividends and then we will take your questions. Like the first and second quarters of this year, this was a unique quarter, with reported earnings per share decreasing from the prior year’s comparable quarter. This was in large part due to losses incurred on our investments to fund one of the company’s retirement plans as compared to gains in the same period of 2021 as well as timing issues with receiving a final decision on our water general rate case at Golden State Water. Excluding the gains and losses on investments from both periods and including the additional revenues and water supply costs caused from the delay in the water general rate case in our third quarter results, adjusted consolidated diluted earnings for the third quarter of 2022 were $0.82 per share as compared to adjusted diluted earnings of $0.76 per share for the same period in 2021, an adjusted increase of $0.06 per share or nearly 8%. From an operations perspective, it’s been business as usual for our subsidiaries, providing reliable water, wastewater and electric services to our regulated water and electric utility customers, as well as on the 11 military bases we serve. We are on pace to spend $145 million to $160 million this year in infrastructure investments at our regulated utilities. On the regulatory front, there are several filings pending. We are awaiting a proposed decision from the California Public Utilities Commission, or CPUC for both Golden State Water’s general rate case as well as a proposed decision on the pending cost of capital application. At this time, we expect both decisions in the fourth quarter of this year. The general rate case delay has reduced our earnings so far this year, as new rates were to take effect on January 1, 2022. In addition, our electric utility subsidiary filed its general rate case on August 30 of this year to set new rates for the years 2023 through 2026. Eva will discuss the earnings results in more detail. And I will turn the call over to her.

Thank you, Bob and hello everyone. Let me start with our third quarter financial results. As you can see from Slide 7, consolidated earnings as recorded were $0.69 per share as compared to $0.76 per share last year, a decrease of $0.07 per share. This included losses of $1.3 million or $0.03 per share on investments held to fund a retirement plan as compared to small gains in 2021. This item alone resulted in an unfavorable variance of $0.03 per share. In addition, due to the delay in receiving a final decision on the pending water rate case, while the revenues for 2022 were based on 2021 adopted rate has a new rate being approved and implemented on January 1, 2022 consistent with the November 2021 settlement agreement reached between Golden State Water and the Public Advocates Office, CPUC, we would have reported additional revenue and water supply costs that would have resulted in higher earnings of $0.10 per share for the third quarter of ‘22. Excluding the gains and losses on investments from both periods and including the impact caused by the delay in the water GRC in the results, adjusted consolidated earnings for the quarter were $0.82 per share as compared to adjusted earnings of $0.76 per share for Q3 of 2021 that is an increase of $0.06 per share, or near 8%. For our Water segment, earnings were $0.54 per share as compared to $0.62 per share last year, an $0.08 decrease both items as discussed, affected earnings at the Water segment, so factoring the same effect from two items, adjusted earnings for the third quarter at the Water segment, were $0.67 per share, which was an increase of $0.05 per share as compared to adjusted earnings of $0.52 per share for the same period in 2021.…

Thank you, Eva. Before I get into regulatory matters, I would just like to reiterate a few key factors impacting our third quarter and year-to-date earnings. As previously discussed, the investment losses on one of our retirement plans during the third quarter and year-to-date periods of 2022 negatively impacted earnings per share by $0.03 and $0.17 respectively as compared to the same periods last year. In addition, had 2022 water rates been approved consistent with the settlement agreement in the general rate case and implemented on January 1, 2022, Golden State Water’s earnings contribution for the third quarter would have been $0.10 per share higher and $0.29 per share higher for the first 9 months of 2022. Once a final decision is issued by the CPUC and the general rate case, the new rates will be retroactive to January 1, 2022. Therefore, we will record the cumulative retroactive impact at the time a decision is issued. While it’s unfortunate that the delay in the general rate case has negatively affected our earnings thus far in 2022, we view this as a timing difference for the year. We are hopeful to receive a decision in time to record the impact from the new rates in 2022. Finally, we also record a reduction to water revenues, which decreased the quarterly and year-to-date per share earnings by $0.04 and $0.10 respectively to reflect our best estimate at this time based on our accounting assessment of revenues subject to refund from the pending cost of capital proceeding filed in May 2021, which includes the impact of Golden State Water’s lower cost of debt requested in its application. However, at this time, we cannot fully predict the ultimate outcome of the cost of capital application and the associated impact on 2022 revenues. Changes in estimates…

Thank you, Joe. Yes, I just want to thank everyone today for their participation. And we look forward to speaking with you next quarter and I wish you a happy holiday season. I don’t speak to you between now and then. Thank you all very much.

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect your lines.