Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the ITC Holdings Corp. Second Quarter Conference Call and webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will be given at that time. (Operator instructions) And as a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to introduce Ms. Gretchen Holloway. You may begin.

Good morning, everyone and thank you for joining us for ITC's 2011 second quarter earnings conference call. Joining me on today's call are Joseph Welch, Chairman, President and CEO of ITC; and Cameron Bready, our Executive Vice President, Treasurer and CFO. Last night, we issued a press release summarizing our results for the second quarter and for the six months ended June 30, 2011. We expect to file our Form 10-Q with the Securities and Exchange Commission today. Before I begin, I would like to remind everyone of the cautionary language contained in the Safe Harbor statement, which can also be referenced on slide two for those of you participating on the webcast. Certain statements made during today's call that are not historical facts, such as those regarding our future plans, objectives, and expected performance are considered forward-looking statements under Federal Securities Laws. While we believe these statements are reasonable, they are subject to various risks and uncertainties and actual results may differ materially from our projections and expectations. These risks and uncertainties are described in our reports filed with the SEC such as our periodic reports on Forms 10-Q and 10-K and our other SEC filings. You should consider these risk factors when evaluating our forward-looking statements. Our forward-looking statements represent our outlook only as of today, and we disclaim any obligation to update to update these statements except as maybe required by law. At this time, I’d like to turn the call over to Joe Welch.

Thanks, Gretchen and good morning, everyone. As we reflect on our results for the first half of 2011, we are obviously very pleased with our strong operational and financial performance. We have made very good progress on our 2011 operating plans during the first half of the year and are very much on track to meet our goals and objectives for the full year. While these results help to substantiate our consistent ability to successfully deliver on our commitment, I think they are especially important in 2011 as we begin to significantly expand our capital program and execute on our five year plan. The core component of our strategy in five year plan is achieving and maintaining best-in-class operations for all of our operating subsidiaries. Similar to prior years, ITC once again participated in the 2011 SGS benchmarking study in order to provide tangible data to evaluate our effectiveness in achieving our operational goals. I’m pleased to report that both ITC Transmission and METC rank within the top docile in the study with respect to sustained outages continuing to validate the performance improvements that have resulted from our capital investment and maintenance plans. In addition, these improvements served as critical factors in delivering reliable service during the recent heat wave we experienced both within Michigan and the Midwest region. During the week of July 18 when we experienced either all time peak or near all time peak loads, our system operated with a normal thermal and voltage limits and had 100% availability over the peak hours and consequently, we experienced no issues or disruptions to any customers. While these peak loads are important in demonstrating the operational strength of our system and the benefits of our investments, they are also suggesting more promising outlook for the state of Michigan and…

Thanks, Joe, and good morning everyone. For the second quarter of 2011 ITC reported net income of $43 million or $0.83 per diluted share. This compares with net income of $36.3 million, or $0.71 per diluted share for the second quarter of 2010. Net income for the six months ended June 30, 2011 was $85.0 million, or $1.64 per diluted share, compared to $70.5 million, or $1.38 per diluted share for the same period last year. The primary drivers contributing to this increase in net income include higher rate base and AFUDC at all of our operating companies resulting from our capital investments for the quarter and year-to-date period, ad slightly lower effective tax rate for the quarter and year-to-date period, and a $1.3 million increase in net income for the year-to-date period associated with the recognition of a regulatory asset for development and pre-construction activities for the Kansas V-Plan project. These increases were partially offset in the quarter by slightly lower revenues associated with the ITC Transmission rate freeze revenue deferral which was fully amortized in May 2011. The rate freeze deferral which stands from the 2003 and 2004 periods was amortized for rate making purposes on a straight line basis for five years from June 2006 through May 2011 and was included in ITC Transmission revenue requirement for those periods. Given that the amortization of this deferral was completed in May 2011 there will be a $6.9 million reduction in revenues and approximately $4.3 million reduction in earnings for the remainder 2011 as compared to 2010. This expectation has been and remains fully reflected in our earnings guidance for the year. As Joe noted we are very pleased with our overall financial results for the first half of the year. This strong performance for both the quarter and…

Thank you. (Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Daniel Eggers from Credit Suisse. Daniel Eggers – Credit Suisse: Hi, good morning guys. Just to make sure things for all the color on the kind of the FERC activity, but it is to make sure that we got the front line, right. Year-over-year of 1000 is effectively is not going to change the planning or the cost allocation designs at MISO and SPP have so far laid out the independent of a comprehensive order?

I don’t think it will, Dan. I think that the processes in both of those RTOs was, took a long time to get to where they are at. They’ve got everybody onboard and it seems to me that Order 1000 really comes around and supports that I do think that there might be some minor tune ups around the edges, but nothing and anything significant. Daniel Eggers – Credit Suisse: Okay. question number two, are you guys starting to have or the engaging conversation s just some other regional generation distribution utilities as far as EPA compliance plans and may be work or planning work do you guys need to help facilitate planned closures and upgrades to keep system reliability up.

Dan this, Cameron. Certainly, we are accessing the markets in which were operating to try to identify where we think the implications will result from the implementation in this rules and regulations going forward. I think specifically Order 1000 part of what it tries to address is ensuring that an environment exist were policy driven transmission investment such as that which might be required to address you know plan closures resulting from implementation of new EPA rules has the opportunity to advance through our regional planning process. So I think it is safe to say at this stage we are certainly assessing the landscape that we think will materialize going forward and starting to have a dialog with various owners of generation assets to understand what plans may be, so that we begin to put fourth and start to crystalize our transmission thinking around investments that will be necessary to support you know a stable grid and a reliable grid going forward to the extend material changes in the generating fleet resulting from the implementation of these rules. Daniel Eggers – Credit Suisse: When do you guys think you’re going to have a better hand alone, kind of what the investment opportunity would be and I guess along those lines, Does that incremental spend into your mind or is that kind of shift the timing of other in the sense that you’ve tended to keep CapEx to self generated equity investment levels are with these recent that we you look issue equity that the if the growth opportunity was there.

I think there is still in your certainly you have good deal, with you’re self. There is still a lot of a uncertainty that exactly, how these rules will get implemented and when they will get implemented and certainly what the implications will be long-term. So it’s difficult to say specifically that we see our sales being in position to give real discrete capital investment guidance with respective this unique opportunity any time in the very near future. I think the way we think about it’s largely incremental to the plans that we already have established and certainly our five year plan because we didn’t really primes or we didn’t really contemplate any of these capital investment opportunity when we establish that plan last year. To your comment around how we fund that plan I would certainly not want to leave you with the impression that our goal was to go out and establish a plan that we thought we could capitalize with internally generated cash flow only. What we did was frankly the opposite. We established the plan that we thought was realistic achievable and was based on the opportunities that we saw available for us and it’s so happen that we can capitalize that plan without the to issue equity. I think our view is for the right investment opportunities we would go out and what’ raise contemplated in five year plan. We strongly believe that the returns we can achieve but contemplated in the five year plan we strongly believe that the returns we can achieve by investing in those projects far superior to our cost of capital and believe that would be in appropriate thing to do. So, we certainly planned based on the opportunities we see available to us and then we find the most efficient and effective way to capitalize that accordingly (inaudible) issuing equity longer-term we will we just currently don’t thank you guys. They need to do so. Daniel Eggers – Credit Suisse: Got it great thank you guys.

Thanks, Dan. Operator Thank you our next question comes from Jonathan Arnold from Deutsche Bank. Jonathan Arnold – Deutsche Bank Securities: Hi, good morning.

Good morning, Jonathan. Jonathan Arnold – Deutsche Bank Securities: My question has to do with the CapEx shift. Thank you for the color camera on the different things that contributed to that. It sounded like there was a good amount of acceleration of reliability but that offset by this deferral of sale on Hazelton some of those spent from 11 into 12. Was this reliability spend that sort of would have been done over a number of years and can you give us any sort of sense of what the changes you’ve just seen for ’11 sort of do net, so your ’12 outlook for example. Is it higher or same level?

I think ’12 isn’t going to change materially, Jonathan for a couple of reasons, one is that sound of Hazelton getting differed into ’12. Jonathan Arnold – Deutsche Bank Securities: Yeah.

And candidly and I think you’ve touched on this in his comments more qualitatively, the needs of that system continue to be significant. And the opportunities that we find to invest capital to improve reliability be it at storm damage or just the ongoing activities that we have in just operating the system and the needs that we identify through that, continue to be relatively daunting from an investment perspective. So I don’t certainly think that accelerating some of the reliability spend into 2011 will have a resulting negative in the longer-term plan, because I think as we look forward in time it’s really excited to see in Midwest in particular, there remains a significant amount of investment required to improve the reliability of that system, commensurate with our overall operational objectives. Jonathan Arnold – Deutsche Bank Securities: Are you talking about things that might have been in the pipeline? When you talked us on last fall that a potentially dropping. into the, we need to do the sooner, bucket or is new opportunities if it were on the system?

I think it’s a combination of things. It’s new capital investment required as a result of storing damage, it’s new reliability investment that we’ve found as a result of continuing to operate the system and its acceleration of something that refer out the that in the plan. Net-net as I said, I don’t think it has a materially impact long-term to the plan for ITC Midwest. Jonathan Arnold – Deutsche Bank Securities: Okay. And if I could add one just more small thing, Your non-recoverable expenses in the second quarter and first half. Could you give us a sense of where those are tracking?

I don’t have the quarter number in front of me. For the first half, it’s in the neighborhood of sort of $9 million to $9.5 million. Jonathan Arnold – Deutsche Bank Securities: Okay.

So again, consistent with the overall annual guidance that we provided for total non-recoverable expenses in that range of $20 million to $25 million. Jonathan Arnold – Deutsche Bank Securities: Okay. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Jay Dobson from Wunderlich Securities. Jay Dobson – Wunderlich Securities, Inc.: Hey, good morning. Joe, I was hoping you could may be talk a little and I understand that it’s a lot to get through 600 and somewhat paid use of Order 1,000. But talk a little bit about your early read on what this could do to the competitive landscape around transmission?

Jay Dobson – Wunderlich Securities, Inc.: Got you. Well, that’s helpful; I understand that it’s early. And then Joe, I’ll hand it to you and then maybe you might hand part this off to Cameron but as we look at the equity plan and totally understand you don’t have to issue anything under it. Does that give us any read through as we look out to the September analyst meeting and sort of what the next five years of CapEx hold understanding that higher CapEx, highest equity is a fairly high class problem for you all to have because it produces earnings growth. But should there be any read through to that that you would like us to have?

No not at all. I think that – I think that if you have followed our capital plan and the fact that our Attachment O gives you a really simple way to model this, we actually have, we are in a really strong position to be able to finance that plan all with internally generated cash and are really well positioned going forward. So we have no plans now or in the foreseeable future as far as just from the pure development and building out the infrastructure having to issue any equity long term of course if there were some unit stepping there an acquisition or something else that is not seen in that plan and we would have to come back and review that but I don’t foresee it right now.

And Jay this is Cameron. I will just add to that. We think about that arrangement really as a tool and it’s a tool that we have available in the event that we find opportunities to invest incremental capital above and beyond our plan that would ultimately necessitate us to issue small amounts of equity to balance out the overall capital structure. So I sort of like to be prepared, it’s the way I would think about it, I like to have the tool available in the event that it’s needed and we’ve tried ourselves here on being nimble and flexible and more entrepreneurial and we want to be able to move quickly if opportunities present themselves. So having the tools available for us to do that I just view it as prudent, and again, that the – I wouldn’t read through the update of the five-year plan. I would read through to the fact we had a facility there or an arrangement that was expiring and we didn’t want to go a long period without a replacement tool. Jay Dobson – Wunderlich Securities, Inc.: Okay, fair enough. Or maybe the other way and I should know the answer to this question. I apologize. What was issued under the 2008 plan?

Nothing. Jay Dobson – Wunderlich Securities, Inc.: Nothing, perfect. And then last question, Cameron how do you think of equity vis-à-vis Holdco debt as you look forward and again, all within the planning context understanding, I think in your previous comments, you’ve indicated that the current five-year plan requires nothing of neither, I don’t think dramatically correct, but do you understand what I am saying?

I do, let me clarify; I mean we certainly envision that we need new long-term debt at the holding company level, looking forward in time to capitalize the plan. I guess the way I think about capitalizing the plan is obviously we generate a fairly significant amount of operating cash flow in the business that’s going to fund a little under half of the total capital needs of the business over the course of the five years. The balance will be funded through a combination of new long-term debt financings as well as revolving credit facilities like the ones that we’ve recently established. That will support a lot of the construction that we have ongoing. We’re targeting, maintaining an investment grade holding company and our plan I believe allows us to do that. Our debt to total capitalization will remain below 70% and we believe that the credit metrics that are implied in – out of the cash flows coming out of the forecast strongly support FFO to interest and FFO to debt levels that are investment grade or certainly from our perspective, above investment grade for the holding company and that’s generally how we think about managing the business and managing the capitalization of the business. Jay Dobson – Wunderlich Securities, Inc.: That’s great. Thanks so much for the comments.

Thanks, Jay.

Thank you. (Operator Instructions) Our next question comes from Greg Reiss from Catapult. Greg if your line is on mute, will you please unmute. Greg Reiss – Catapult : Hi, guys. How are you? Can you hear me?

Yes. We can. Greg Reiss – Catapult : Real quick question on the five-year plan. Have you guys embedded any of these MISO MVP projects in your forecast?

Greg, as you probably are aware, we have in our capital plans certainly a component of that is driven by our expectation around investment opportunities for development projects and within that sort of component of the capital investment plan, obviously we have a pipeline of projects that we have included and we’ve risk adjusted to produce an expected investment opportunity associated with development initiatives and within that obviously we have capital that is comprised of opportunities that we see available to us in the North Central region and the upper Midwest region and in the South Central region. So clearly, the evolution of the MISO projects going forward the MVP projects are a component of our overall development plan and we will provide an update on that as we get into the fall and we have our new Investor Day. But we certainly, we certainly do envision that the MVP projects are currently being advanced through MISO will form a component of that development capital plan going forward.

Yeah. But just as a follow-up to that. I mean you do know that the Wind Zone project is the worse project that’s in the Northern Michigan was part of that five-year plan and that is the first MVP project approved. So… Greg Reiss – Catapult : I was just trying to get a sense that if all of the MVP projects were approved in their entirety that would result in some upsides here CapEx, because you guys have just probability weighted those projects at this point?

Yeah. I mean I wouldn’t start to look at it a discrete project by discrete project, because the pipeline consists of a couple of dozen different projects some of which we fully expect will move forward and we realized 100% some of which may not move forward at all. So I think we generally more think about it in the context of managing a portfolio of projects and the opportunity for investment associated with those is reflected in our capital plan. And as I said, if we roll forward to the fall and we update that plan and we’ll provide a more comprehensive assessment as to how we see the pipeline progressing and where our confidence level is with respect to capital investment opportunities associated with that plan. I would tell you by and large we are generally more, we view what’s happening in MISO favorably around the MVP process and we do view that as being bullish relative to where we were last year. But as I said, the plan in and itself is comprised of lot of different things, not just the MVP projects. So it would be important to sort of think about in the context of the entire plan not just relative to how the MVP process is evolving. Greg Reiss – Catapult : Got it. Thanks guys. I appreciate that color.

Thanks Greg.

Thank you. And if there are no other questions I would now like to turn the conference back over to the speaker for any additional remarks.

This concludes the question-and-answer portion of our call. Anyone wishing to hear the conference call replay available through August 2, should dial toll free 855-859-2056 or 404-537-3406. The passcode is 83322776. The webcast of this event will also be archived on the ITC website at itc-holdings.com. Thanks everyone for joining us for today’s call.

Ladies and gentlemen that does conclude today’s conference. You may now disconnect and have a wonderful day.