Evergy, Inc. (NYSE:EVRG) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Ashar Khan: Hi David. I think all my questions have been answered, but if I can just–I was just trying to sum up, if I may, so you said you’re going to have another $100 million of lower savings between now and 2025, if I see the chart, and if I’m right, that’s nearly about $0.40 or $0.45, so half of them came this year, if I’m right, in 2023, because you are showing an O&M decrease or benefit of $0.20. Is it fair that another $0.20, $0.25 is left in the next two years, and the other bridge is going to be, of course, transmission earnings and then the Kansas case next year, and should we factor in another Missouri case that will have some impact for 2025?

David Campbell: I’ll ask Kirk to comment on the O&M piece, but in general you can do the–we’ve got about 230 million shares, so you can calculate how much O&M savings we’ve got in the next year. I think it’s $50 million to $60 million range, so it’d be remainder that would come through ’25, and Kirk can correct me. We do expect rate cases in the every-other-year time frame, so that would imply–you know, we haven’t finalized our plans, but you are correct, that would mean a 2024 Missouri rate case, so I think you’ve got a good sense for the drivers. Kirk, anything you’d add?

Kirk Andrews: On the O&M front, just to clarify that you’re right – you know, if I incorporate the $60 million, and that’s roughly what that ’22 to ’23 reduction in O&M equates to, I think I even mentioned that when I was going through the slides, that puts us–I think we came out of ’22, and you can infer–you can go through our disclosures, about $1.74 billion of non-fuel O&M in ’22, so that means with that $60 million of savings, you’re at $1.14 billion. We’ve put a target out there, our ’25 target is 960, so that gives you about $54 million between–you know, from 2023 to 2025, over that period of time, so you’re right, that round to about $0.20 prospectively once you get outside of ’23, just to clarify that.

Ashar Khan: Okay. Then if I can just end up, and I know I don’t want to front run this because you have been meeting your objectives , but when will you do a revise, right, because right now the CAGR is based on 2020 time. Is that something which will happen a year from now or is that a 2025 exercise?

David Campbell: Yes, it’s likely to be a year from now, Ashar. We’re going to have the integrated resource plan update and we’ll get to the Kansas rate case, so I think that that’s going to be most informative for investors. Again, we think the Kansas rate case is pretty straightforward, but a lot of eyes are going to be on that rate case, so I think the most likely time frame forward is going to be in the Q4 call about a year from now, which I hope to open with a celebration of another Chiefs Super Bowl.

Ashar Khan: Okay, that’s correct, we’re hoping for that too. Thank you so much, so kind of you. Have a nice weekend.

David Campbell: Thanks Ashar.

Operator: Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference back to David Campbell for closing remarks. Sir?

David Campbell: All right, thanks Latif. For everyone on the call or reading later, thank you for your time this morning and thank you for your interest in Evergy. Have a great day.

Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

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