FirstEnergy Corp. (NYSE:FE) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Nick Campanella: Hey, good morning, everyone. Happy Friday. Thanks for taking my questions. So I guess thanks for previewing the PJM transmission opportunity. As we kind of think about rolling that into our models, is this opportunity in the hundreds of millions of dollars. And I think you said back half of the plan? Or any idea how to size it at this point?

Brian Tierney: We’re still working through that, Nick. We just got the news last night. We do believe it will be in the hundreds of millions of dollars range. Which side of $500 million. We’re still trying to figure out today. But really, it’s late-breaking news for us. We have our engineers working on it today. We hope to be able to provide more detail on that at EEI.

Nick Campanella: Great. And then, I guess, just the cadence of updates from here because I know that there is a lot of moving pieces with the COO search to your point, some of the resegmenting and everything, should we still expect fiscal ‘24 guidance on the fourth quarter? And then how do you think about financing CapEx, etcetera?

Brian Tierney: Yes. We will provide that guidance on the fourth quarter call. And look, there is going to be some late-breaking news. I’m trying to forecast what it is that we’re going to be – what the news is going to be, so nobody is surprised. And of course, we’re going to be updating you as that news comes in and becomes available. But I don’t want people to be surprised by the positions that we’re looking for, how we’re going to manage the company going forward, how we’re going to report going forward. And that’s really why we’re forecasting all that. And then we will update it as the news becomes reality. But we anticipate doing all that here over the next several months.

Nick Campanella: Okay, thanks. And if I could just squeeze one more in. Just I know that we will get 2024 guidance in the fourth quarter, but there were just some more one-time items in the fiscal ‘23 walk, I acknowledge you kind of brought up the pension headwinds in prepared remarks. How do you kind of think about the offset to those future headwinds like pension, the tax item, etcetera? I know we get a better comp on weather next year, but any guidance you could give would be helpful.

Jon Taylor: So, Nick, this is Jon. So, I guess the way I am thinking about this year, if you think about where we are with the pension, if you just look at the year-over-year weather impacts and you look at what the company has done to offset that in terms of rates and investments taking advantage of opportunities in the capital markets with low-cost convertible debt and how we deployed that proceeds. If you just look at the tight cost controls that we have put in place year-over-year, I think that overshadows the benefits associated with the income taxes. And so as you think about next year, and beyond, it’s right, you are right. We are going to get a benefit from going back to normal weather. We have the rate cases that we have in flight.

We have the capital programs associated with our distribution companies that are on a formula rate as well as our transmission formula rate CapEx. And so if you think about where the returns are for the three rate cases that we filed this year, and if you look at where the returns are for the cases that we will file next year, I think you can do the math in terms of what’s going to carry the day for the earnings of the company.

Nick Campanella: Thank you.

Brian Tierney: Thanks Nick.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of David Arcaro with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your question.

David Arcaro: Hi. Good morning. Thanks very much for taking my question.

Brian Tierney: Good morning David.