Hello and thank you for standing by. My name is Regina and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the New Jersey Resources' Fiscal 2023 Fourth Quarter and Year-End Conference Call and webcast. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Adam Prior, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you so much. Welcome to New Jersey Resources' Fiscal 2023 Fourth Quarter and Year-End Conference Call and Webcast. I'm joined here today by Steve Westhoven, our President and CEO; Roberto Bel, our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; as well as other members of our senior management team. Certain statements in today's call contain estimates and other forward-looking statements within the meaning of the securities laws. We wish to caution listeners of this call that the current expectations, assumptions and beliefs forming the basis for our forward-looking statements include many factors that are beyond our ability to control or estimate precisely. This could cause results to materially differ from our expectations as found on slide one. These items can also be found in the forward-looking statements section of today's earnings release furnished on Form 8-K and in our most recent Forms 10-K and 10-Q as filed with the SEC. We do not, by including this statement, assume any obligation to review or revise any particular forward-looking statement referenced herein in light of future events. We will also be referring to certain non-GAAP financial measures such as net financial earnings or NFE. We believe that NFE, net financial loss, utility gross margin, financial margin, adjusted funds from operation and adjusted debt provide a more complete understanding of our financial performance. However, these non-GAAP measures are not intended to be a substitute for GAAP. Our non-GAAP financial measures are discussed more fully in Item 7 of our 10-K. The slides accompanying today's presentation are available on our website and were furnished on our Form 8-K filed this morning. Our agenda for today is filed on slide four. Steve will begin with this year's highlights, followed by Roberto, who will review our financial results. Then we will open the call up for your questions. With that said, I will turn the call over to our President and CEO, Steve Westhoven. Please go ahead, Steve.

Thanks, Adam, and good morning, everyone. Fiscal 2023 represented another solid year at NJR as we reported earnings well in excess of our industry-leading 7% to 9% long-term growth rate. Our performance this past year speaks to the strength of our diversified business model and our ability to adapt to challenges in ways that benefit our customers and our investors. This morning, we reported fiscal 2023 net financial earnings per share of $2.70. This is at the top end of our revised guidance range, which was increased by $0.20 back in the first quarter. We've accomplished quite a bit this year. New Jersey Natural Gas added 8,800 new customers with expansion throughout New Jersey Natural Gas' service territories as our customer growth has returned to pre-pandemic levels. Clean Energy Ventures grew its project pipeline to the highest level in our company's history, and we increased our in-service capacity by the largest amount for any given year. At S&T, Adelphia Gateway completed its first full year in operation and Leaf River continued to deliver strong results. And finally, Energy Services once again delivered outperformance during periods of volatility during the year. As strong as this fiscal year 2023 performance was, we have been more enthusiastic about our future. The details of our guidance for fiscal 2024 are on slide six. We are introducing NFEPS guidance of $2.70 per share to $2.85 per share, which represents a 12% increase from the midpoint of our initial guidance last year. We broadened the size of our guidance range for fiscal 2024 to $0.15. We have had a range of $0.10 for many years despite significant growth of our earnings. This new range is consistent with those of our peers. Our projections are supported by contributions from all of our business units. During fiscal 2024,…

Thank you, Steve, and good morning, everyone. Slide 13 shows the main drivers of our NFE for fiscal 2023. We reported NFE of $261.8 million or $2.70 per share compared with NFE of $240.3 million or $2.50 per share last year. The results of our business segments exceeded our initial expectations and reflected a year-over-year improvement at Energy Services and CEV, partially offset by higher depreciation and interest expenses in our other segments. New Jersey Natural Gas reported NFE in line with expectations, which included another strong year for our BGSS incentive programs. I also wanted to note that a significant portion of the year-on-year increase in O&M at our utility is due to a difficult comparison versus fiscal 2022 when NJNG deferred nearly $11 million of bad debt expenses in accordance with the July 2020 BPU deferral order. Clean Energy Ventures increased NFE by over $5 million. As Steve mentioned, we increased our in-service capacity by more than 82 megawatts during the year, and we will recognize the value of the associated tax attributes over the next five years. Storage and Transportation reported NFE of $12.8 million, which included higher revenues from the facilities that went into service at Adelphia Gateway during the year, as well as higher depreciation and interest expenses. Finally, Energy Services reported NFE of $68.5 million compared to $39.1 million in the prior year. As we look to fiscal 2024, it's important to note that we expect to recognize a significant portion of the AMA's total revenue during the year, most of which will be recorded during our fiscal fourth quarter. Turning to our capital plan on slide 14. Over the next two years, we expect to invest between $1.2 billion and $1.5 billion across the company. This capital deployment is expected to support growth…

Thanks, Roberto. Since our Analyst Day in 2020, NJR has reported 12 quarters of financial results. During this time, we have raised our earnings guidance on five occasions as a result of strong performance throughout our business units. We exceeded our 7% to 9% long-term growth rate for each of the past three years, and we expect to do it again this year. An important component of our value proposition is the ability to return capital to our shareowners. For fiscal year 2024, we have raised our dividend to an annualized rate of $1.68 per share, a nearly 8% increase compared to fiscal 2023. With this increase, we have now raised our dividend every year for the last 28 years. The combination of our expected growth in dividend provides investors with an expected shareholder return of between 11% to 13%. In the coming years, we'll continue to develop organic growth opportunities that support long-term NFEPS growth markets through prudent capital decision-making reinforced by a strong balance sheet. As always, I'd like to thank all of our employees at NJR for their hard work and contribution. And with that, I'll now open the call for your questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question will come from the line of Julien Dumoulin-Smith with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning. This is Tanner on for Julien. Now that we're a few years into the long-term planning period, what factors could -- are you seeing that could trend your EPS growth to the upper or lower end of your long-term guidance for the remainder of the planning period? Given your upcoming rate filing and CapEx plans, should we think of NJNG is accelerating here in the back-end? I'm just trying to get a sense of the -- how you view the linearity of NJNG and then Clean Energy Ventures as well?

So Tanner, I think you described it right there. We've got a number of options we're able to grow or deploy capital, I guess, more quickly in order to accelerate that growth. You can see the CapEx program at utility increasing due to customer growth and other factors of clean energy. We've got a large pipeline of projects at CEV. We've got potential expansion, although nothing has been announced at our S&T Group. So you have all those factors pushing forward. Added into that, the fact that we have less need for equity due to the cash flows from Energy Services. It's just to build a strong platform for future investments. So I'd like to think about it is that we've got a good plan, solidly built going forward to hit the 7% to 9% growth and then the potential for additional investments, should any of the things that I've just mentioned it.

Great. Thanks. And then with respect to the upcoming rate case application, can you set some preliminary expectations for the composition of the filing? Is it expected to be pretty straightforward? Or could there be programs or mechanisms attached with the filing? Thanks.

Tanner, this is Pat Migliaccio, Chief Operating Officer of New Jersey Natural Gas. To answer your question, this is a pretty straightforward rate case. You may recall, we'll be filing sometime in fiscal year 2024. The principal toggle for that is IT investments related to our program next as well as other, I'll call bread-and-butter utility investments around safety and reliability, the pipeline, et cetera. But to hit the nail on the head, it's a pretty straightforward rate case.

Great. Thank you very much.

Your next question comes from the line of Travis Miller with Morningstar. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you.

Hey, Travis.

Quick question on slide 11 to start. Those -- the revenue and cash flow projections, what kind of variability should we expect in those or not at all?

Travis, hi, this is Roberto Bel. You're talking about -- you're talking about the AMA, right?

The AMA, yes.

Yes, those are contracted. There is no variability on those cash flows or revenues.

Okay. So in terms of modeling, just model a straight out as you presented them.

Correct.

Okay. And then -- can you tell us what the earned ROE was at NJNG this year for the fiscal year?

No. Unfortunately, that's something we don't disclose publicly, Travis.

Okay. Okay. Understand. And then a higher-level question. On CEV, I wonder if you could characterize both the types of projects that are in the pipeline and then also your thinking around strategy in terms of building and/or contracting and/or buying projects in the future?

Yes. I guess I'll take the strategy. It hasn't changed from where we started. We've got a few different stages of projects that we're able to purchase and acquire. We started developing, but certainly not opposed to buying late-stage projects or even ones in operations. General strategy is to be able to build, develop and own within regions and jurisdictions that are favorable in our risk profile. So I'd say New Jersey like, if we get outside of New Jersey, which we have, I think, 40% of our projects to date are outside of New Jersey or 40% going forward are outside of New Jersey. We're really looking at the risk profile, making sure the regulatory environment is favorable and really matches what we like to say is utility-like earnings across the whole company. So that's the way we're looking at it.

Okay. Do you foresee doing projects on your own? Or would you consider going into maybe some very large projects with a partner or other equity partner, however, you'd want to structure it, but could you see yourselves going into bigger projects with a partner?

I wouldn't -- I'm not going to take anything off the table. But to date, you know, you've seen the size of projects that we're doing anywhere from a few megawatts up to 25 to 30 megawatts. So smaller in nature when you look at large scale utility-like investments and I think that niche market fits us well not only from a return management perspective. That being said, I think we certainly have the capability to manage larger projects. Again, this is all really focused on returns and risk profile of the jurisdiction in which we're making the investment.

Okay. Great. Appreciate the thoughts.

Thanks, Travis.

[Operator Instructions] Your next question will come from the line of Robert Mosca with Mizuho. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning, everyone. So on slide nine, which is the staging of the CEV backlog additions, the big points on the x-axis changed. So it's kind of hard to tell if anything is different with respect to project timing, but any notable developments you want to call out? It also seems like CEV CapEx in '24 is going to be slightly higher than originally thought. So any thoughts there would be helpful?

So what are you looking for Robert? I'm not sure what the question is?

Yes, sorry. So slide nine, the CEV project addition time line. So just wondering if anything has changed because the breakpoints on the x-axis are different than were in the prior quarter. But any developments or kind of steady as she goes? And it also looks like the '24 CapEx for CEV is slightly higher than originally thought. So any thoughts there?

Hey, Rob, this is Roberto. So on slide nine, if you compare this slide to prior slides from pior calls, there is no significant difference other than that our in-service capacity has increased because we have been in -- significant [indiscernible] megawatts internally. But if you look at the total, right, that 1.2 gigawatts that we have on the right, has not changed. So we continue to move and progress, creating our pipeline, but from the last quarter when we had this conversation, no material changes.

Okay. Great. That's helpful. And Steve I think you touched on it in your prepared remarks just with the widening of the guidance range. Is that just to match your peers? Or is there any more earnings variability in your base businesses this year compared to prior years? And if there is, just wondering what that could be attributable to?

No, not related to more variability. This is exactly what you're saying to much of our peers. If you think about our guidance range, it's been about $0.10 for 12 years, I don't know, more than 10 years. Despite that, we have been growing earnings every single year, right? So this is just to bring us back in line with what our peers are projecting on a relative basis.

Okay. Great. Thanks, Roberto. And just a quick last one for me. I know you mentioned kind of pursuing the service enhancements at Leaf River. Just wondering, is that something that could be monetized? Is that an area of growth? Or is that just improving customer service for those customers?

No, I think the whole strategy associated with our S&T business to be able to get on to organic growth with those assets. And certainly, we've got a growth mindset in those businesses. So, yes, we've got some small investments that we're making now tied to some contractual arrangements and I think moving forward, it's been a secret that storage is being expanded in the Gulf Coast. And certainly, pipeline infrastructure in the Northeast is difficult to build greenfield expanding existing pipelines is much more -- is much easier. So when we look at those two facts, we look at expansion. We've got nothing to announce now, but it's certainly something that we look at that could be outside of the plan.

Got it. All right. Thanks for the day, everyone.

Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] We have no further questions at this time. I'll turn the call back over to Adam Prior for any closing remarks.

Thanks, Regina. I'd like to thank everyone for joining us this morning. As a reminder, a recording of this call is available for replay on our website. Everyone have a happy and safe Thanksgiving. And as always, we appreciate your interest and investment in NJR. Thanks so much and goodbye.

That will conclude today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.