What we’re doing now is we’re actually moving to a model where the utilities are the businesses and we’re raising them up in the business. And so the skills and capabilities that will be developed and will exist in the field is going to be a lot stronger. And so we need to develop a succession plan across the entire company to facilitate that development and to continue to be more and more successful as a business being run that way. And so when I talk about succession, it’s not just this role, it’s the roles that are critical to really running this company better in the future. And so that’s the story. So yes, I will be doing more of that, I would say, because we will have time to do that as the renewables process unfolds, but the pace won’t change.
Benjamin Pham: Okay. Understood. And I know you mentioned with the renewable sale process. No news is good news. Can you share – I think last quarter, you had the specific timeline end of Q2, I think you mentioned. Is that also still intact in the overall messaging?
Darren Myers: Yes, we don’t see any change in the timeline as we said. And that’s to sign something and then targeting for a closure by the end of the year, as the original timeline.
Jeffery Norman: And Ben, the comments we were making were roughly mid-year for that. And then latter portion of 2024 or year-end thereabouts. So we did not give a hard deadline of Q2.
Christopher Huskilson: Yes. But nothing has changed. I think that’s the primary point there.
Benjamin Pham: Okay. Thank you.
Jeffery Norman: Thanks, Ben.
Operator: The next question comes from the line of Mark Jarvi from CIBC. Please go ahead.
Mark Jarvi: Thanks. Good morning, everyone. And perhaps, Chris, you talked about succession planning and building up the organizational strength, talked about need for improvements on the utility side. Do you need to make some hires there and build that up? And if so, what type of people would you be looking to bring in?
Christopher Huskilson: So at this point, I think we’re actually pretty well positioned to do what we’re planning to do. And so at the end of the day, we will work with the team that we have. And I think there’s lots of good experience on the water side, there’s lots of great experience, on the gas side, there’s lots of great experience on the electricity side out there. And it’s more a matter of surfacing those people in the organization and giving them more autonomy and authority to act. And I think that’s really what we’re focused on right now. So it’s not a boat hiring, it’s about enabling.
Mark Jarvi: And you haven’t seen any churn, just given some intro to the company, you brought the point that now with the permanent CEO, that brings probably some stability there and good for culture. Has that been a drag on the business in terms of churn?
Christopher Huskilson: Yes. In large part, we’ve been very fortunate. And I think, obviously, the people in the Renewables group are probably the ones that see the most uncertainty right now. But I think they’ve been very excited by the opportunity to be able to continue to develop and grow their business, which we were holding them back. And so we’ve been very fortunate that we’ve been able to keep a very good and active staff through this whole time of uncertainty. I don’t know, Jeff, is there anything you want to add to that? Or…
Jeffery Norman: No, I think you nailed it, Chris, that’s bang on.
Mark Jarvi: That’s good to hear. And just last question for me is just given where you are in your liquidity, balance sheet, the financing year-to-date and the power sale progressing largely than expected, do you think you’ll be in a position to buy back shares within the next six to 12 months?
Christopher Huskilson: Mark, that’s obviously all dependent on our goal – our target and everything we’re doing is to make sure we’re maintaining that solid BBB balance sheet. And so as the sale process concludes and depending on that price, we’ll be looking at how much can we – do we need to invest in the business? Is there excess for buyback. So all that will be determined over the next little while.
Jeffery Norman: Yes. It’s all about proceeds and whether [indiscernible]. I mean I think those are the two primary drivers to this.
Mark Jarvi: If and when you announce a transaction, would you be in a position then to tell the market whether or not you had buyback capacity relative to your organic investment needs?
Christopher Huskilson: Yes. We definitely would plan to come to the market with a proper investor update towards the kind of end of the year or early next year. That is – we want to make sure we’re being transparent in giving everybody the direction that we’re going as a company.
Mark Jarvi: Sounds good. Thanks for the time this morning.
Christopher Huskilson: Okay. Thank you.
Jeffery Norman: Thanks, Mark.
Operator: The next question comes from the line of Sean Steuart from TD Cowen. Please go ahead.
Sean Steuart: Thanks. Good morning, everyone and congratulations, Chris. Just one question. When you’re now able to really focus on long-term plans for the regulated platform, do you have any incremental thoughts on the platform you have now, you’re spread across electricity, gas, water. Are there opportunities for valuation, optimization by potentially divesting chunks of that portfolio. And I appreciate you’re going to want to ramp up investment in the organic rate base growth. But any broader thoughts on the current structure across the regulated platform?
Christopher Huskilson: Our focus right now is on the renewable sale. And as Darren keeps pointing out to me and the hydro sale a little bit later, so those are really where our focus points are. And at some point in the future, we’ll continue to look at the evolution of the business overall, but it’s just too early to have any kind of conversation about that.
