Earnings call transcript: Edison International Q1 2025 misses EPS forecast

Published 29/04/2025, 22:24
 Earnings call transcript: Edison International Q1 2025 misses EPS forecast

Edison International reported its Q1 2025 earnings, revealing an EPS of $1.37, slightly below the forecast of $1.41. The company’s revenue also fell short of expectations, coming in at $3.81 billion against a forecast of $4.4 billion. Following the earnings release, Edison International’s stock fell 1.24% in after-hours trading to $58 per share. The utility company maintains a notable 5.67% dividend yield and has consistently paid dividends for 22 consecutive years, according to InvestingPro data.

Key Takeaways

  • Edison International’s Q1 2025 EPS of $1.37 missed the forecast of $1.41.
  • Revenue for the quarter was $3.81 billion, below the expected $4.4 billion.
  • After-hours trading saw the stock decrease by 1.24% to $58.
  • The company reaffirmed its long-term EPS growth expectation of 5-7% from 2025 to 2028.
  • Major investments in grid resilience and wildfire mitigation are ongoing.

Company Performance

Edison International’s Q1 2025 performance showed a 21% increase in EPS compared to $1.13 in the same period last year, bolstered by a $0.30 contribution from a settlement approval. Despite the earnings increase, the company did not meet analyst expectations, which could be attributed to lower-than-anticipated revenue figures. Edison continues to focus on infrastructure improvements and regulatory engagement, particularly in California’s utility market.

Financial Highlights

  • Revenue: $3.81 billion, compared to $4.4 billion forecast.
  • Earnings per share: $1.37, compared to $1.41 forecast.
  • Year-over-year EPS growth: 21%, from $1.13 in Q1 2024 to $1.37 in Q1 2025.

Earnings vs. Forecast

Edison International’s Q1 2025 EPS of $1.37 was below the forecast of $1.41, marking a shortfall of approximately 2.8%. Revenue also missed estimates by 13.4%. This performance contrasts with previous quarters where the company often met or exceeded expectations, suggesting potential challenges in achieving revenue targets.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings announcement, Edison International’s stock declined by 1.24% in after-hours trading, reflecting investor disappointment over the earnings miss. The stock’s movement remains within its 52-week range, with a low of $49.06 and a high of $88.77. This decline aligns with broader market trends where utility stocks have faced pressure due to regulatory uncertainties. InvestingPro data shows the stock has experienced a significant 28% decline over the past six months, with analysts maintaining a consensus recommendation of 1.74 (Buy).

Outlook & Guidance

Edison International remains confident in its 2025 EPS guidance range of $5.94 to $6.34 and expects a 5-7% EPS growth annually through 2028. The company plans to refresh its guidance following a General Rate Case decision anticipated in the first half of 2025. Key initiatives include filing for next-generation ERP applications and advancing metering infrastructure to enhance grid resilience.

Executive Commentary

CEO Pedro Pizarro stated, "We remain confident in our ability to meet our 2025 EPS guidance and deliver a 5% to 7% core EPS CAGR to 2028." CFO Maria Rigatti added, "With a strong regulatory backdrop and robust rate base growth, coupled with a significant need for incremental grid investment, we are well positioned to deliver on the company’s near and long-term growth expectations."

Risks and Challenges

  • Regulatory changes in California could impact future earnings.
  • Wildfire-related liabilities remain a concern, with ongoing investigations.
  • Fluctuations in capital expenditure needs could affect financial stability.
  • Market saturation and competition in the utility sector may pressure margins.
  • Macro-economic factors such as interest rates and inflation could influence costs.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts questioned the potential liabilities from the Eaton fire and the company’s access to wildfire funds. There was also discussion about legislative efforts to modify AB 1054 and the risks associated with tariffs and capital expenditures. Executives clarified the accounting treatment for potential fire-related losses, emphasizing proactive risk management strategies.

Full transcript - Edison international (EIX) Q1 2025:

Michelle, Conference Operator: Good afternoon, and welcome to the Edison International First Quarter twenty twenty five Financial Teleconference. My name is Michelle, and I will be your operator today. Today’s call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Sam Ramraj, Vice President of Investor Relations.

Mr. Ramraj, you may begin your conference.

Sam Ramraj, Vice President of Investor Relations, Edison International: Thank you, Michelle, and welcome, everyone. Our speakers today are President and Chief Executive Officer, Pedro Pizzaro and Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Maria Rigatti. Also on the call are other members of the management team. Materials supporting today’s call are available at www.edisoninvestor.com. These include a Form 10 Q, prepared remarks from Pedro and Maria, and the teleconference presentation.

Tomorrow, we will distribute our regular business update presentation. During this call, we will make forward looking statements about the outlook for Edison International and its subsidiaries. Actual results could differ materially from current expectations. Important factors that could cause different results are set forth in our SEC filings. Please read these carefully.

The presentation includes certain outlook assumptions, as well as reconciliation of non GAAP measures to the nearest GAAP measure. During the question and answer session, please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. I will now turn the call over to Pedro.

Pedro Pizarro, President and Chief Executive Officer, Edison International: Well, you, Sam, and good afternoon, everyone. Just three months have passed since the devastating wildfires and all of us at Edison continue to keep everyone affected in our thoughts. We’re working closely with state and county leaders and the communities of Altadena and Malibu to rebuild wildfire impacted areas stronger than ever. I will share further updates in a minute after touching on our earnings headlines. Today, Edison International reported core earnings per share of $1.37 compared to $1.13 a year ago.

However, this year over year comparison is not particularly meaningful because SCE has not received a decision in its 2025 general rate case. SCE recognized revenue from CPUC activities for both the first quarter twenty twenty four and 2025, largely based on 2024 authorized base revenue requirements with 2025 adjusted for the lower authorized TPUC ROE. Looking ahead, we remain confident in our ability to meet our 2025 EPS guidance and deliver a 5% to 7% core EPS CAGR to 2028. Maria will discuss our financial performance in her remarks. We recently provided Governor Newsom with SCE’s initial comprehensive plan to rebuild the impacted electrical distribution infrastructure in the Palisades and Ethan Fire areas.

Under this plan, SCE would underground more than 150 circuit miles, including nearly all distribution power lines in high fire risk areas within the burn scars of the affected communities. Once constructed, this grid hardening will increase reliability and make electrical distribution infrastructure more resilient to high wind and other extreme weather events, helping us better protect and serve our communities. On the Eaton fire, SCE’s investigation continues. Since our last update, the utility completed additional physical and video inspections of electrical equipment in Eaton Canyon, which were carried out in collaboration with stakeholders. Analysis of the images, videos, and equipment is ongoing.

The utility also recently began the removal of portions of the idle facilities in Eden Canyon for further expert review. While SCE has not conclusively determined that its equipment was associated with the ignition of the Eaton fire, it is also not aware of evidence conclusively pointing to another source of ignition. Absent additional evidence, SCE believes that its equipment could have been associated with the ignition of the Ethan fire. As such, and in light of pending litigation, it is probable that EIX and SCE will incur material losses in connection with the fire. As always, we are committed to being transparent throughout this process.

With significant media coverage surrounding the Ethan fire, we have noted numerous instances where facts have been misrepresented. To address factual errors and misstatements, we launched a new page on our website called Edison for the Record. I encourage you to take a look, and a link can be found on page three. I will reiterate that we continue to believe that SCE is a reasonable operator of its electric system if it is determined that SCE transmission equipment was associated with the ignition of the Eaton fire. Based on the information we have reviewed thus far, we remain confident that SCE would make a good faith showing that its conduct with respect to its transmission facilities in the Eaton Canyon area was consistent with actions of a reasonable utility.

Turning to the legislative front, we have continued to engage in broad discussions with legislators and the governor’s office to support the safety of our communities and enhance California’s industry leading AB ten fifty four regulatory framework. The conversations we’ve had leave us with no doubt that stakeholders understand the criticality of addressing the issue and the important role the industrial and utilities play in supporting California’s growth and economic development. We are confident policymakers are focused on the need to strengthen and restore confidence in California’s wildfire framework. On the regulatory front, I’m pleased to share that SCE continues to reach important milestones this year. The CPUC’s unanimous approval of the TKM settlement agreement signals a constructive California regulatory environment.

Last month, the Woolsey Cost Recovery ALJ issued the scoping memo adopting the schedule SCE and intervenors jointly proposed. The next major filings will be intervenor testimony in early June and rebuttal testimony in mid July. The schedule also includes a motion for consideration of a settlement agreement or joint statement of stipulations of issues due in mid August. As we have noted in the past, SCE is open to settlement discussions if a fair and reasonable outcome can be achieved, benefiting customers and shareholders. We will keep you updated as the utility continues its progress toward resolution in this proceeding.

Maria will highlight other milestones in her remarks. On SCE’s twenty twenty five general rate case, the ALJ recently made an administrative ruling extending the statutory deadline, which is typical and expected based on the prior calendar. Nonetheless, we continue to be optimistic that we will see a proposed decision in the first half of the year with the final decision as soon as thirty days later. The GRC will support SCE’s commitment to providing electric service that is reliable, resilient, and ready for customers’ needs. The utility’s significant investment plan is driven by the need to resume a traditional level of infrastructure replacement work necessary for system reliability and continue its wildfire mitigation programs that protect the safety of customers and the public.

SCE’s full GRC request also includes about $1,400,000,000 of annual capital spending on wildfire mitigation and includes hardening an additional 1,800 miles of the utility’s overhead distribution infrastructure. SCE will submit its 2026 wildfire mitigation plan in May. This comprehensive WMP reflects our collective priorities, risk mitigation, public safety, and affordability. It also includes continued deployment of covered conductor and targeted undergrounding. The utility looks forward to executing its integrated wildfire mitigation strategy, which prioritizes industry leading practices such as grid hardening, asset inspections, and vegetation management.

Before I turn it over to Maria, I would like to take a moment to say a big, big thanks to a few very special members of our team. Last week, Vanessa Chang retired from our board of directors, And we congratulate Vanessa on her retirement and are so thankful for her eighteen years of dedicated service and leadership on the board. I also wanna recognize our former general counsel, Adam Yumanov, who we previously announced will be retiring in July. Adam has simply put been the ideal General Counsel. He is a business leader above all, who is also a consummate legal expert.

On top of that, Adam has been a steadfast friend to many in our organization, and absolutely he’s been that to me. On behalf of our board and management team, we want to thank Adam for his outstanding service. At the same time, I am delighted to welcome Shonda Nwamu, who joined us earlier this month as our new General Counsel. Shonda brings substantial expertise within our sector and a solid understanding of California’s legal, political and regulatory environments. We’re excited to have Shonda here and look forward to her leadership and partnership.

All right, Maria, with that, turn it over to you for the financial report.

Maria Rigatti, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Edison International: Thanks, Pedro. And I echo the appreciation for Adam and Vanessa and welcome Shonda. Now, my comments today will cover first quarter twenty twenty five results, provide additional insight into key regulatory proceedings, and update you on other financial topics. Starting with the first quarter, EIX reported core EPS of $1.37 Page four provides the year over year quarterly variance analysis. As Pedro mentioned, the year over year comparison is not particularly meaningful because SCE has not received a final decision in its 2025 general rate case.

SCE is booking revenues at 2024 authorized levels adjusted for the change in ROE and will record a true up when it receives a final decision. First quarter EPS includes about $0.30 associated with the TKM settlement approval, partially offset by higher interest expense at EIX Parent and Other. On the regulatory front, I want to echo Pedro’s comment on SCE making significant progress across numerous proceedings. Let me highlight a few. First, SCE recently reached a settlement agreement with intervenors in its WMCE proceeding related to wildfire mitigation and restoration.

The settlement, which is awaiting CPUC approval, would authorize 100% of the capital expenditures along with 96% of the O and M. It would also contribute about $0.10 per share of true up earnings and about $700,000,000 of rate base, both of which are embedded in our 2025 guidance. Second, on SCE’s twenty twenty six cost of capital application summarized on page five, SCE requested an ROE of 11.75% and proposed updating the embedded costs of debt and preferred equity. The request also recommends the continuation of the cost of capital mechanism and to reset the benchmark. The utility made a strong case for its ROE based on risks that differentiate California utilities from their peers in other jurisdictions.

SCE’s proposed schedule calls for a PD in November, which would allow for a final decision by year end. Historically, the CPUC has issued timely decisions on cost of capital applications. Third, SCE filed its next gen ERP application with the CPUC, seeking total capital investment of about $1,100,000,000 The utility expects this program will provide substantial benefits to customers and enable business improvements. As a reminder, this program is not currently embedded in our capital and rate based projections. Lastly, with the $1,600,000,000 TKM cost recovery settlement now approved, within the next few weeks, SCE will file an application requesting authorization to issue securitized bonds.

Moving to SCE’s GRC, the utilities request provides the foundation for advancing critical customer objectives, reliability, resiliency, and readiness, as well as supporting our growth outlook through 2028. As you can see on page six, we will refresh our guidance following a GRC final decision. We wanted to be proactive in sharing with you that six weeks after a final decision, we will provide our updated capital and rate based projections, 2025 core EPS range, long term core EPS growth, and financing plans. Turning to SCE’s capital expenditure and rate based forecasts shown on pages seven and eight, the utility continues to execute against a capital plan that targets key programs, while maintaining flexibility in later years to adapt to what is ultimately authorized in the GRC. As I highlighted in comments going into 2025, we continue to see substantial additional capital opportunities that are incremental to the plan.

This includes investments to enhance our distribution system and more than $2,000,000,000 of FERC transmission spending. In addition, SCE plans to file an application for its advanced metering infrastructure program to request funding to replace its smart meter fleet, the majority of which were installed more than a decade ago. This program will address technology obsolescence and offers a chance to incorporate future capabilities that benefit customers. The program is expected to provide insights into energy usage and enable smarter energy management, thereby enhancing grid efficiency. Turning to financing activities, I will highlight two recent transactions.

In March, EIX issued $550,000,000 of senior notes, which successfully addresses our parent debt needs for 2025. Additionally, SCE issued 1,500,000,000 of long term debt as part of its planned financings for the year. Both of these offerings saw strong investor support and were significantly oversubscribed. Moving to EPS guidance on pages nine and ten, we are confident in affirming the 2025 range of 5.94 to $6.34 and reaffirming our long term EPS growth expectations of 5% to 7% from 2025 to 2028, which translates to $6.74 to $7.14 of 2028 EPS. Let me conclude by reinforcing our confidence in delivering on our financial targets.

With a strong regulatory backdrop and robust rate base growth, coupled with a significant need for incremental grid investment, we are well positioned to deliver on the company’s near and long term growth expectations. That concludes my remarks, and back to you, Sam.

Sam Ramraj, Vice President of Investor Relations, Edison International: Michelle, please open the call for questions. As a reminder, we request you to limit yourself to question and one follow-up so everyone in line has the opportunity to ask questions.

Michelle, Conference Operator: Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your phone. One moment for the first question, please. Nicholas Campanella with Barclays. You may go ahead, sir.

Nicholas Campanella, Analyst, Barclays: Hey. Thanks for taking my questions and for all the disclosures today. You bet. Hey. So I just, you know, I appreciate the new material loss disclosure that you mentioned and I guess just what drove you to kind of put that out there now versus, know, in the fourth quarter update and then I guess just now that you’re in the situation now that you’ve had kind of more time to digest the situation, you know, how do you kind of see the potential liability stacking up versus the $21,000,000,000 fund that you also kind of talk about in the disclosure?

Thanks.

Pedro Pizarro, President and Chief Executive Officer, Edison International: Okay. Thanks Nick for the question and also for the comments. You know, as you can imagine, this is an ongoing process, right? We are only three months here since the start of the fire. The community is still recovering and will be for quite a long time.

And as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, the investigation continues. And so as I mentioned in my comments, I think one of the key factors here is that while we have not yet concluded that our equipment started the fire, it was a cause of ignition, yeah, there’s certainly a lot of, you know, number of pieces of call it circumstantial facts. But importantly, we also are not finding another likely hypothesis for the cause of the fire. So I think it’s really when you combine those two elements, it felt appropriate to in this order make the disclosure about this being a probable event. In terms of liability, again, it’s still very early days here.

The liability is simply not estimable today. And I’m not sure when it may become estimable. That could take quite some time too. You know, there’s a number of third parties out there in the public who have come up with estimates of various pieces of this. Those seem to suggest that, you know, perhaps the fire might be somewhere in the range of the fund.

But I think it’s just certainly too early for us to be able to make any sort of estimate around the size of the liability and therefore can’t answer your question fully. Maria or anybody else, anything would add?

Maria Rigatti, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Edison International: No, I think you covered it, Pedro.

Pedro Pizarro, President and Chief Executive Officer, Edison International: Thanks, Maria.

Nicholas Campanella, Analyst, Barclays: I Certainly appreciate the moving factors and appreciate that color there. And then just in regards to the financing plan refresh six weeks after the GRC decision, can you just remind us or kind of give us color on how you’re thinking about how you’d reflect any liabilities from the Eaton fire? Like how that would that would that go into the financing considerations at that point?

Maria Rigatti, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Edison International: Yeah, Nick, that’s a great question. It’s Maria. So, when you think about the potential and the probable losses that Pedro talked about, remember that now at this point in time, unlike when we were dealing with TCAM and Woolsey, we have the wildfire fund that we will be accessing. So, when it comes to it, we’ll take our first billion dollars of customer funded self insurance, we would be paying claims from that initially, and then we would access the fund. And the benefit of that is that we will not need to be issuing debt in order to pay claims as we did for TCAM and Woolsey.

There’ll be another avenue for that, and that not only benefits sort of the financing plan, but obviously that’s there as a protection for the community that suffered the loss. So, when we do our financing plan, we will be just basing it on sort of the normal course things that we’ll be looking at, which is our capital plan, etcetera. So, that is how we will be refreshing the plan, and that’s what we’ll be communicating once we get the GRC final decision.

Pedro Pizarro, President and Chief Executive Officer, Edison International: Thanks for taking the questions. Appreciate it. Yeah, thanks.

Michelle, Conference Operator: Thank you. Our next caller is Michael Lundin with Evercore ISI. You may go ahead, sir.

Michael Lundin, Analyst, Evercore ISI: Hi, thanks for taking my questions. Just wondering if you could share more color about the latest options being considered for updated wildfire legislation in California. What gives you confidence the legislation will give investors more certainty about effective financial backs up in the state? And then also, you confident the legislation will get passed this session ending in September?

Pedro Pizarro, President and Chief Executive Officer, Edison International: Yeah, thanks. Your phone line was just a little shaky, but I think I got the bulk of that. I think you’re asking about the prospects for legislation and what drives the level of confidence. So as I mentioned in my remarks, Mike, the good news here is that clearly the governor’s office is engaged as our legislative leaders. They’re getting their arms around what is admittedly a very complex issue.

But they are on the case and we are having discussions as folks are looking for information. But again, it’s very, very early days here in terms of those discussions. I think what gives me confidence is that, let me put it this way, we are confident that they understand the need for expansion of the AB ten fifty four framework and the need for action. Beyond that though, while I think that there’s I’m sensing a lot of good intent around action in this session, we need to let this play out and continue to engage constructively on our side. There’s never any guarantees in anything like this but I’m certainly very encouraged by the level of diligence and engagement that I’m seeing on the part of you know, key leaders across the legislature and the governor’s office.

Michael Lundin, Analyst, Evercore ISI: Thank you. And then, you know, I think last disclosure on your Moody’s risk management model, you said you had reduced the probability of catastrophic wildfire by eighty eight percent. You know, obviously wildfire mitigation has been focused on distribution assets and this one could potentially have been on transmission. Just wondering have you had discussions with Moody’s, you know, about updating that probability? And if so where do you stand now?

Pedro Pizarro, President and Chief Executive Officer, Edison International: Well, might say it a little differently for starters and I asked Steve Powell to weigh in here as well. But the Moody’s RMS model is really a comprehensive model that looks across our various risk areas. For us historically, distribution had led to ignitions. We hadn’t seen them from the transmission side. But the model is comprehensive and we always knew that unfortunately the risk would never be zero.

But Steve, is there any other color you would add here for Mike?

Steve Powell, Edison International: I’d just say that the grid hardening that we’ve done, as well as all the other mitigations we’ve deployed, really are the driver of that risk reduction. And so from the modeling perspective, that doesn’t really change. I’ll say we’ll continue to evaluate other models. I know RMS matures their models and we look at other models as well to see is there more to learn about wildfire risk and how that’s evolving and can be modeled to continue to evaluate that risk reduction, but the fact is that the work that we’ve done in the system has lowered the risk of ignitions and frankly of catastrophic wildfires being associated with our equipment, both on the distribution and the transmission system, so that’s all incorporated into analysis. And so we’ll continue to focus on reducing the risk further, but also paying attention to the tail risk that exists.

Pedro Pizarro, President and Chief Executive Officer, Edison International: Great,

Michael Lundin, Analyst, Evercore ISI: thanks for taking my questions.

Pedro Pizarro, President and Chief Executive Officer, Edison International: Yeah, thanks Mike.

Michelle, Conference Operator: Thank you. Our next caller is Carly Davenport with Goldman Sachs. You may go ahead. Hey, thanks so much for taking the questions.

Carly Davenport, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Maybe just a follow-up on the last one there. Just as you continue to investigate Eton with the potential of the idle facilities to have been involved, can you just talk a bit about your wildfire mitigation plans related to any other idled or abandoned lines that could potentially pose risks going forward?

Pedro Pizarro, President and Chief Executive Officer, Edison International: Yeah, so at a high level with I think you’ve heard us comment before when we maintain idle lines and we don’t take them down it’s because we believe that the utility may have future use. So they are inspected. They are maintained. Certainly as we look at this latest experience but also every year as we update the wildfire mitigation plans, You know, we look at are there any further learnings that we can bring to bear to continue to make the system stronger. We have disclosed for example that coming out of the recent experience we realized you could bring some added clarity to, for example, the transmission operations manual in terms of the detail around how you ground idle lines.

And those are always very case by case basis, but Steve’s team added more specificity so there’s more clarity to how grounding is done out in the field. That’s one example of the continuous improvement cycle that we go through, not only for this, but really for all aspects of operations.

Carly Davenport, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Got it. That’s really helpful. Thank you. And then maybe just as you think about the current capital plan, can you talk a little bit about if you’ve done any work quantifying exposure to tariff risk and how you might be working to mitigate that?

Maria Rigatti, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Edison International: Yes, Carly, I mean, obviously, I think like most of the companies in The U. S, we’ve been thinking about that. And as we look at it and step back, really about five percent of our total purchases, are foreign materials. So it’s a relatively relative to our whole program, it’s a relatively small number. If you translate that into dollars, it’s probably about $125,000,000 on an annualized basis.

Now, we’re going to continue to monitor that, we’re going to continue to look for any kind of secondary impacts that might occur, but we’re in that zone. And the customer impact will be mitigated to some extent because all of that is really related to capital, and the capital will enter rates and recovery of that capital enters rates over a very long useful life for most of our assets. So that’s where we are right now in terms of the tariff evaluation.

Carly Davenport, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Great. Thank you so much for the time and the color.

Pedro Pizarro, President and Chief Executive Officer, Edison International: Yeah. Thank you, Carly.

Michelle, Conference Operator: Thank you. Our next caller is Shar Pourreza with Guggenheim. You may go ahead.

Pedro Pizarro, President and Chief Executive Officer, Edison International: Hi, Shar.

Shar Pourreza/Constantine, Analyst, Guggenheim: Good afternoon to you. It’s actually Constantine here for Shar. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the Just starting off maybe on the shifting deadline for the SCE rate case. Do you anticipate any offsets in lieu of new rates into the first half of the year?

And is there enough visibility to continue executing on CapEx? Or would there be a little bit more focus on critical kind of versus discretionary as you get that clarity?

Maria Rigatti, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Edison International: Yes, so maybe I’ll take the second part of your question first in terms of the capital plan. Because the general rate case is a four year cycle, we can execute against our plan and continue on with our priorities, and once we get the general rate case final decision, we can always adjust what the spend is in the back end over the next three years and three and a half years beyond the decision. So, I think that’s how we’re thinking about capital plan. In terms of offsets and rates and the like, obviously, we’re charging folks and rates include right now the 2024 revenue requirement adjusted for the ROE. As we get into the final decision, any changes to the revenue requirement will be amortized into the bills over time.

So, I think we have a handle on the rates, and I think maybe just pointing back to where we think our rates are going on a longer term trajectory, I think you’ve seen the analysis that we’ve done that looks at the general rate case, 100% of that request, it looks at additional capital that we might deploy, it looks at recovery on TKM and Woolsey, and even with those other pieces added into the rate trajectory, we see our rates growing again back in line with local inflation.

Shar Pourreza/Constantine, Analyst, Guggenheim: Excellent. Thanks for that. And as you’re working on the incremental CapEx items like ERP and AMI among the other items, commission, how should investors think about financing alternatives on the incremental CapEx just in terms of maintaining capital efficiency and their potential need for any capital structure waivers or any of that sort?

Maria Rigatti, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Edison International: Yeah, so we typically at SCE finance capital in line with the authorized capital structure. I don’t think you would really see a need for any capital waivers that came about during the TCAM and WOLSI process, but the capital plan is very different than that. As we think about just more generally the financing plan, we’ve run a lot of scenarios, I think you’ve seen our financing plan right now through 2028, very minimal equity, largely debt financed between the parent and utility. As we get the final GRC decision, we can rerun all of those numbers, but again, I think we have a lot of capacity to fulfill our capital needs.

Shar Pourreza/Constantine, Analyst, Guggenheim: Okay, excellent. Thanks for that. Appreciate taking the questions.

Pedro Pizarro, President and Chief Executive Officer, Edison International: Thank you.

Michelle, Conference Operator: Thank you. Our next caller is Paul Zimbardo with Jefferies. You may go ahead, sir.

Paul Zimbardo, Analyst, Jefferies: Hi, good afternoon. Thank you, team. Up on Nick’s question a little bit on the Eaton disclosures around a potential material loss, Just does that indicate like you think there could be a reimbursement back to the wildfire fund? Or just is there any kind of signal around that? Because if it’s contained within the fund, I would think there wouldn’t be a material loss if you were found to be prudent.

So, you could just help unpack that disclosure a little bit, it would be helpful. Absolutely.

Maria Rigatti, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Edison International: And maybe I’ll just go through how you account for it. You have to actually think about the two pieces separately. You think about the loss or the liability, and you disclose information around that, and then you think about the recovery of that. So, we would record, you know, sort of receivables from insurance or the normal course insurance, and then as we go through, we will also record, receivables from the wildfire fund. So, it’s not trying to be a signal as to positioning around what we think in terms of prudency, think that or refunding the fund, I think you’ve heard us say before that based on everything we know today and the information that we’ve reviewed, we believe that SCE will make a good faith showing that it was prudent, but from an accounting perspective, you kind of show the piece parts, not a net number.

Pedro Pizarro, President and Chief Executive Officer, Edison International: Yeah, and Maria, what I wanted to there, because the signal we’re giving you is what Maria just said, that based on what we know today, we believe SCE was a reasonable operator of the system. All right. The shift to probable just indicates that we do see a material loss as probable now because of the absence of another likely cause having come to light so far. But we view this as if a fire ultimately and we conclude that it is an Edison related fire then we have access to the fund. And in terms of prudency, we believe that SEE will be able to make that good faith or showing of reasonableness.

So I just want to make we’re crystal clear on that.

Paul Zimbardo, Analyst, Jefferies: Yes. No, thank you for clearing that up. I appreciate it.

Pedro Pizarro, President and Chief Executive Officer, Edison International: I appreciate you asking the question. Thank you.

Paul Zimbardo, Analyst, Jefferies: Yes. No, thank you. And then the other I know you said things are going to take a long time to play out to get more clarity. And you did mention like litigation strategies in the queue. Just is there any time when based on other events you think about like approaching settlement conversations with parties?

Pedro Pizarro, President and Chief Executive Officer, Edison International: Yeah, you will have heard this answer from us regarding fires. They’re all case by case, right? Specific facts and circumstances of each fire, Paul. So it’s really difficult to extrapolate any timing for this one based on other experiences. One timing item we pointed to is that when it comes to the core formal investigation materials coming out of the fire authorities, those can take twelve to eighteen months, right?

That seems to be a broad timeline that we’ve seen elsewhere. But beyond that timing towards making decisions about engaging with plaintiffs and settlements, etcetera, that’s still very difficult to handicap at this point.

Paul Zimbardo, Analyst, Jefferies: Okay, understood. Thank you very much, team.

Pedro Pizarro, President and Chief Executive Officer, Edison International: Thanks, Paul.

Michelle, Conference Operator: Thank you. Our next caller is Richard Sunderland with JPMorgan. You may go ahead, sir.

Pedro Pizarro, President and Chief Executive Officer, Edison International: Hi,

Sam Ramraj, Vice President of Investor Relations, Edison International0: Rich. Hey, good afternoon. Can you hear me?

Pedro Pizarro, President and Chief Executive Officer, Edison International: Yes, I can hear you great.

Sam Ramraj, Vice President of Investor Relations, Edison International0: Great, thank you. Just following up on the last one there. It sounds like this hasn’t changed, but do you have any revised timing expectations on the investigation just as your own progresses here?

Pedro Pizarro, President and Chief Executive Officer, Edison International: No, we haven’t been able to provide an estimate, and we still can’t provide an estimate.

Sam Ramraj, Vice President of Investor Relations, Edison International0: Understood. And then I know we’ve unpacked the material losses disclosure a bit, but just have you ruled out any third party potential sources of ignition at this point? I mean, know you said you haven’t ruled out your own equipment and there’s still some others out there, but just trying to understand if that impacted the language coming this quarter.

Pedro Pizarro, President and Chief Executive Officer, Edison International: Yeah, I guess I’d refer back to the way I said it in my prepared remarks, you know, at this point, we are not aware of any evidence that conclusively points to another source of ignition. So looking, obviously if someone has information, we would be very interested in hearing it or seeing it. But based on where we are today in the absence of evidence pointing conclusively to something else, that was one of the factors in changing our designation to probable.

Sam Ramraj, Vice President of Investor Relations, Edison International0: Understood. Thanks for the time.

Pedro Pizarro, President and Chief Executive Officer, Edison International: Yeah, thanks, Rich.

Michelle, Conference Operator: Thank you. Our next caller is Greg Orrill with UBS. You may go ahead, sir.

Pedro Pizarro, President and Chief Executive Officer, Edison International: Hi, Greg.

Sam Ramraj, Vice President of Investor Relations, Edison International1: Yeah. Hey, good afternoon. Just regarding the expectation of losses disclosure again, just is there anything about the nature of the type of the lawsuit that would make it unrecoverable the wildfire fund that you’re seeing? Whether it’s not economic damage or something else?

Maria Rigatti, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Edison International: No, Greg, this is Maria. The wildfire fund is available to pay damage claims. So period, full stop. We have a safety certificate, so we also have the benefit of the liability cap. So there’s nothing in the way we provided disclosure or any of that that would preclude us from accessing the fund.

And there’s no limitation on those types of claims that are paid by the fund, which might be more directly your question.

Sam Ramraj, Vice President of Investor Relations, Edison International1: Okay, thank you. One other, just on the interest expense driver for the quarter. Is it possible to break that up into TKM one time and then ongoing and anything else?

Maria Rigatti, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Edison International: Yeah, so the interest expense driver, I think you’re looking at the materials that we posted, there’s about $0.30 that’s related to the prior period true up for TKM. The $0.14 which is an annualized benefit on a go forward basis, you’ll start to see that now as we get into the second quarter and we have now closed out the prior period.

Sam Ramraj, Vice President of Investor Relations, Edison International1: Okay. Thank you. That’s it.

Pedro Pizarro, President and Chief Executive Officer, Edison International: Thanks, Greg.

Michelle, Conference Operator: Thank you. Our next caller is Anthony Credel with Mizuho. You may go ahead, sir.

Michael Lundin, Analyst, Evercore ISI: Good afternoon, team. Just,

Sam Ramraj, Vice President of Investor Relations, Edison International2: I guess on the legislative efforts going on in Sacramento, I’m just wondering if I think in a rate proceeding, you guys may meet with parties before just to talk about plans and everything else. Any of the just wondering if you could share with us any type of when you’re meeting with policymakers, is there any ideas on the solutions of modifying AB ten fifty four that you believe are maybe resonating with the policymakers, whether that’s a replenishment mechanism or a bigger fund or anything to that that you could share?

Pedro Pizarro, President and Chief Executive Officer, Edison International: Yeah, not really, Anthony. Again, it’s pretty early days right now. I think a lot of the legislators are still getting their arms around this. Recognize that a lot of our legislators are newer to Sacramento from post the 2019 period. So, you know, there are ideas that various people are mentioning, but it could be premature to get into the sort of details right now.

From our end, we’re just very committed to remaining engaged, to helping educate, and to making sure that policymakers understand the implications here, right? This is ultimately about how do we maintain safety for our communities and do it at the lowest possible cost to customers. And so we’re making sure that, for example, people understand the impacts that action from the shareholder side can have on cost of debt, on credit ratings, and therefore impact to customer cost. So I think that still in that early phase of getting arms around the topic.

Sam Ramraj, Vice President of Investor Relations, Edison International2: Great. Thanks for taking my question.

Pedro Pizarro, President and Chief Executive Officer, Edison International: You bet. Thanks, Anthony.

Michelle, Conference Operator: Thank you. Our next caller is David Arcara with JPMorgan Stanley. You may go ahead, sir.

Pedro Pizarro, President and Chief Executive Officer, Edison International: Hi, David.

Sam Ramraj, Vice President of Investor Relations, Edison International3: Hey, thanks so much for taking the question. Let’s see, a quick question on the on the probable losses that you may recognize. Would there be any considerations perspective from either the CPUC or credit rating agencies when that impacts the financial statements?

Maria Rigatti, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Edison International: Yes, so David, the way it would be recorded is we would have the loss again, so that’s one piece of the puzzle, but we would also have offsetting receivables or regulatory assets, if you will. So, there’ll be a balance on the balance sheet, so it wouldn’t have an earnings impact and you’d be grossing up the balance sheet, but it would be offsetting on each side. So, from a regulatory capital perspective, as well as from sort of a rating agency perspective, we’ve got the basis covered.

Sam Ramraj, Vice President of Investor Relations, Edison International3: Yeah, gotcha. Okay, understood. You made it pretty clear that it’s not a flow impact, just based on the access to the fund. And let me see, Pedro, I just also wanted to, clarify something. Did you mention that, are you seeing third party estimates of potential damages that suggested that the entire fund or something close to the size of the current fund could potentially be, used or potentially representing the liability at that level?

Pedro Pizarro, President and Chief Executive Officer, Edison International: Yeah, not quite. What I indicated was maybe a little more detail. As I read the paper, as you read the papers, right, every now and then in an article you’ll see estimates by this expert or that expert or that entity. And I’m not sure that those were all comprehensive. I think sometimes as I recall, they might talk about insured losses.

So they might talk about some other kind of loss. I don’t recall seeing any one of those elements add up to $21,000,000,000 yet. But again, because they’re parts and piece parts, kind of hard to tell from that. Certainly it is a large fire. And if it ends up being linked to Edison infrastructure, then it could certainly consume a good quantum of the fund.

But at this point we can’t estimate so it’s unclear whether it would consume X percent or even extinguish the funds. So it’s just, again, too soon to tell. But a number of those estimates seem to have for whatever they’re estimating, they seem to be within the envelope of it. Again, just You’d have to peel the onion back on what they’re looking at and how they’re looking at and what’s the qualities of those estimates. I just wanted to acknowledge that you may be reading the same papers that we are and seeing numbers pop up here and there.

Sam Ramraj, Vice President of Investor Relations, Edison International3: Yeah, gotcha. Okay, absolutely. That makes sense. Yeah, I appreciate the color. Thanks so much.

Pedro Pizarro, President and Chief Executive Officer, Edison International: Yeah, thanks, sir.

Michelle, Conference Operator: Thank you. Our next caller is Ryan Levine with Citi. You may go ahead.

Sam Ramraj, Vice President of Investor Relations, Edison International4: Hi, everybody.

Michelle, Conference Operator: Hi, Ryan. Have

Sam Ramraj, Vice President of Investor Relations, Edison International4: changes to the wildfire mitigation plan preparation work or approach to forming the updated plan post the January events?

Pedro Pizarro, President and Chief Executive Officer, Edison International: Yeah, let me turn it over to Steve. And just remind you, as I mentioned earlier, this is something that every year the team looks at, you know, what else are we learning, what else should we be looking at. But Steve, let me turn it over to you.

Steve Powell, Edison International: Yeah, Pedro, you hit the top line message, which is the plan is always evolving around the edges. The core of it remains we’ve got to continue to execute on our grid hardening programs, right? And so that means doing the cover conductor and the undergrounding. As Pedro mentioned, as we look at the areas, at least within the burn scars, we certainly are doing more undergrounding there than was originally planned, based on the devastation that is there, the need to rebuild back stronger for those communities and take advantage of the fact that there’s a lot of other work going on there. But beyond that, we look at every aspect of our inspection programs and our vegetation management to see if are there emerging or things we’ve learned over, frankly, fires over the last few years that would change nature of those programs.

But generally, it’s the same programs. We continue to be as aggressive as we can in deploying those. And so I’d say that the wildfire mitigation plan that we’ve been working on is an extension of the plans, modified for learnings over the past couple of years.

Sam Ramraj, Vice President of Investor Relations, Edison International4: Thanks, and then one follow-up from a previous question. In terms of the timetable to access the wildfire fund, recognizing that there’s a number of moving pieces, is there any early indication of when you may start to pull capital from that fund?

Maria Rigatti, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Edison International: Yeah, I think that’s pretty that’s very premature, Ryan, just because we don’t know what process is. Obviously, we’re still going through the investigation and the analysis. Want to be through all that, then we would have to go through some sort of settlement process. But if you believe that, you you can skip over all those things and think about sort of accessing the fund. First, we have a billion dollars of customer funded self insurance, so if there were any claims that had to be paid, that would be the first piece.

And then one would go to the wildfire fund, and there is a process that the, fund administrator has, which appears to be going very smoothly for others who have accessed it, where you accumulate the claims and you go and you get them reimbursed. So I think it’s a pretty they’ve made it a very streamlined, straightforward process once you hit the point where you need to access.

Sam Ramraj, Vice President of Investor Relations, Edison International4: Thanks for taking my questions.

Pedro Pizarro, President and Chief Executive Officer, Edison International: Yeah, thanks. Bye.

Michelle, Conference Operator: Thank you. I will now turn the call back over to Mr. Sam Ramraj for any closing comments.

Sam Ramraj, Vice President of Investor Relations, Edison International: Thank you for joining us. This concludes the conference call. Have a good rest of the day. You may now disconnect.

Michelle, Conference Operator: Thank you. You may now disconnect from today’s conference. Have a good rest of your day.

This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.

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