Good morning. And welcome to Otter Tail Corporation's fourth quarter 2024 earnings conference call. Today's call is being recorded. We will hold a question and answer session after the prepared remarks. I will now turn the call over to the company for their opening comments.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our fourth quarter 2024 earnings conference call. My name is Beth Eiken, and I am Otter Tail Corporation's Manager of Investor Relations. Last night, we announced our fourth quarter and annual financial results. Our complete earnings release and slides accompanying this call are available on our website at ottertail.com. A recording of this call will be available on our website later today. With me on the call are Chuck MacFarlane, Otter Tail Corporation's President and CEO, and Todd Wahlund, Otter Tail Corporation's Vice President and CFO. Before we begin, I want to remind you that we will be making forward-looking statements during the course of this call. These statements are based on management's current expectations. As noted on slide two, these statements represent our current views and expectations of future events and are subject to risks and uncertainties, which may cause actual results to differ from those presented here. So please be advised against placing undue reliance on any of these statements. Our forward-looking statements are described in more detail in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which we encourage you to review. Otter Tail Corporation disclaims any duty to update or revise our forward-looking statements due to new information, future events, developments, or otherwise. I will now turn the call over to Otter Tail Corporation's President and CEO, Mr. Chuck MacFarlane.

Thank you, Beth. Good morning, and welcome to our fourth quarter 2024 earnings call. Please refer to slide four as I begin my remarks with an overview of recent highlights. 2024 was a successful year for Otter Tail Corporation. We produced record earnings and generated diluted earnings per share of $7.17, and we continue to produce one of the highest return on equity figures in the utility industry. We updated our five-year capital spending plan with Otter Tail Power's portion totaling $1.4 billion, which is a 9% increase over our previous plan. The revised plan is expected to produce a rate-based compounded annual growth rate of 9%, and we continue to expect Otter Tail Power's earnings to increase at a similar rate. With our recent and projected strong financial performance, we are excited to announce increases to our long-term financial targets. Our updated long-term earnings per share growth rate is now 6% to 8%, an increase from our previous 5% to 7%. Slide five provides a summary of our quarter and year-to-date financial results. We are pleased with the record earnings generated during the year on the back of solid performance from our electric and plastics segments. Following my operational update, Todd will provide a more detailed discussion of our 2024 financial results, as well as our outlook for 2025. Turning to our electric platform, Otter Tail Power continues to perform well by converting our 2024 rate base growth into earnings growth at approximately a one-to-one ratio. We executed on our key regulatory priorities and delivered on our significant rate-based growth plan, all while maintaining some of the lowest electric rates in the nation. Turning to slide seven, we obtained approval for our fully settled North Dakota general rate case in the fourth quarter. The outcome of the case provided…

Thank you, Chuck, and good morning, everyone. 2024 was another remarkable year for Otter Tail. We delivered record earnings with diluted earnings per share totaling $7.17 compared to $7 in 2023. We ended the year in a position of financial strength with a solid balance sheet and ample liquidity to support our growth initiatives. 2024 also marked the 86th consecutive year in which we have paid dividends. Earlier this month, we announced a 12% increase to our dividend, producing an annual indicated dividend for 2025 of $2.10 per share. This double-digit increase reflects our commitment to delivering shareholder value while maintaining our balanced capital allocation strategy. We remain focused on investing in our electric segment's rate-based growth while returning capital to our shareholders. Please follow along on slides nineteen, twenty, and twenty-one as I provide an overview of our 2024 financial results at the consolidated and segment levels. Year-to-date diluted earnings per share increased $0.17 compared to 2023, primarily driven by our plastics and electric segments, partially offset by our manufacturing segment and corporate cost center. Electric segment earnings grew nearly 8% year over year with an increase of $0.15 per share. This was driven by the impact of the interim rate increase as part of our North Dakota rate case, higher rider revenues from the recovery of our rate-based investments, and increased commercial and industrial sales volumes. These items were partially offset by the impact of unfavorable weather and the cost of our rate-based investments in higher depreciation and interest expense. Our utility team, with efficient operating and financing costs, was able to offset the significant weather-related headwind during the year. Manufacturing segment earnings decreased $0.18 per share, primarily due to lower sales volumes, higher production costs, and less scrap revenue. This was partially offset by lower general and…

Thank you. As a reminder, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster.

Our first question comes from the line of Tate Sullivan with Maxim Group. Your line is open.

Hi. Thank you. I have just I have been looking at slide eleven. In terms of your phases to secure larger loads, and Chuck, did you say earlier that you have agreed to large load agreements with one or two customers or potentially will, and then is that reflected, if so, in the current CapEx guidance for the next five years to start, please?

Tate, thanks for the question. Yeah. If you are looking at that slide, we have what we consider an electric service agreement would be the point at which we have a signed agreement with the new large loads, and we do not have any of those. We have term sheets out to a group that have 150 megawatts worth, and then we are working with others, but just at an entry level of letter of intent discussion. So we have no signed items, but we hope to do that in the next one to three years. And just to add to that, those are not in our capital spending plan. If you look on slide twenty-five where we have got the incremental capital investment opportunity, that is where we would include some of that capital spending.

Yeah. That is an impressive number. And then if you can comment, I mean, does the 970 megawatt letter of intent exclude customers that you have not entered agreements with? In other words, are you turning away customers expressing interest to have new loads in your service territory?

I would not say that we are turning away. That is just the ones that we have had discussions Where?

Okay. Thank you. And then turning to manufacturing, I mean, it is broad-based. You have called the current weakness in the manufacturing and demand. I guess, it is mostly on steel steel working outsource manufacturing side. Is it if you would, categorize it across the different end markets, is it the higher interest rates? Is it just cyclical related to the higher demand you had during COVID? Can you comment on that?

Just a few things Tate, you know, some of it is cyclical. Some of it is in the recreational vehicle. We think there is a large used inventory and dealer inventory channel inventory corrections on agriculture. We do think that is also reflective of commodity prices that have come down and and farmer income. Construction, you know, is down, but not as much as the others. And lawn and garden has been sort of weak That was the first sector to go lower after COVID.

And then is the expansion of BTT Georgia related to one of those specific end markets or is it all of them?

We would say that the current area of BTD Georgia, you know, we have more construction in that segment than others, but they are all represented at BTD in Georgia.

And the last for me, is most of the work in the manufacturing, not the plastics part of manufacturing, but the manufacturing, the light on a metal fabrication work versus plastic thermoforming?

No. The mix is still heavily toward metal fabrication.

Okay. Alright. Thank you very much.

Thank you. As there are no remaining questions in the queue, I will turn the call back over to Chuck for his closing remarks.

Thank you for joining our call and your interest in Otter Tail Corporation. If you have any questions, please reach out to our investor relations team. We look forward to speaking with you next quarter.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.