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Emera Incorporated, with a market capitalization of $13.3 billion, reported a robust start to 2025, with first-quarter earnings per share (EPS) significantly surpassing expectations. The company posted an EPS of $1.28, compared to the anticipated $0.9353, marking a 36.8% earnings surprise. Despite a slight revenue miss, reporting 2.09 billion against a forecasted 2.15 billion, Emera’s stock rose by 1.08% in pre-market trading, reflecting investor confidence. According to InvestingPro analysis, the stock appears to be trading above its Fair Value, with 10 additional exclusive ProTips available to subscribers.
Key Takeaways
- Emera achieved a record first-quarter adjusted EPS, up 68% from the previous year.
- The company reported a 37% increase in operating cash flow, driven by regulated utilities and Emera Energy.
- Emera’s stock gained 1.08% pre-market, nearing its 52-week high.
- The company plans a $3.4 billion capital investment for 2025.
- Emera maintains a 5-7% annual earnings growth guidance through 2027.
Company Performance
Emera’s performance in Q1 2025 was marked by significant growth in its regulated utilities and Emera Energy sectors. The strengthening of the U.S. dollar and reduced corporate costs further bolstered earnings. This strong start to the year is consistent with the company’s strategic focus on capital deployment and customer affordability.
Financial Highlights
- Revenue: 2.09 billion, slightly below the forecast.
- Earnings per share: $1.28, a 68% increase year-over-year.
- Operating cash flow: Increased by 37% from Q1 2024.
Earnings vs. Forecast
Emera’s actual EPS of $1.28 exceeded the forecast of $0.9353 by approximately 36.8%. This earnings beat is notable, especially in light of the slight revenue miss, and underscores the company’s strong operational performance.
Market Reaction
Following the earnings announcement, Emera’s stock rose by 1.08% in pre-market trading, reflecting positive investor sentiment. The stock’s performance has been particularly strong, with a 25.3% gain over the past six months and relatively low price volatility. InvestingPro data shows the stock trading just 1% below its 52-week high, indicating market confidence in the company’s strategic direction.
Outlook & Guidance
Emera is maintaining its guidance of 5-7% annual earnings growth through 2027, supported by a $3.4 billion capital plan for 2025. The company raised its earnings guidance for Emera Energy to between $35-45 million, reflecting confidence in its operational capabilities. With six analysts recently revising earnings estimates upward and a consensus price target suggesting limited upside, investors seeking deeper insights can access the comprehensive Research Report available on InvestingPro, which covers this and 1,400+ other top stocks with expert analysis and actionable intelligence.
Executive Commentary
CEO Scott Balfour highlighted the company’s record performance, stating, "This represents the strongest first quarter performance in the company’s history." He also noted the strong population and economic growth in Florida as a key driver of future growth.
Risks and Challenges
- Interest rate and tariff uncertainties could impact market sentiment.
- Regulatory processes, such as the New Mexico Gas sale, remain ongoing.
- Supply chain risks and tariff exposures could affect project timelines and costs.
Q&A
During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the New Mexico Gas sale, with management confirming that the regulatory process is continuing with a hearing scheduled in June. Discussions about Florida data centers were also highlighted, with executives expressing cautious optimism about future developments.
Full transcript - Emera Incorporated (EMA) Q1 2025:
Mike, Conference Call Operator: Good morning, and welcome to the Emera Q1 twenty twenty five Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all lines are in listen only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. This call is being recorded on Thursday, 05/08/2025. I would now like to turn the conference over to Dave Bazanson.
Please go ahead.
Dave Bazanson, Corporate Communications/Investor Relations, Emera: Thank you, Mike, and thank you all for joining us this morning for Emera’s first quarter twenty twenty five conference call and live webcast. Emera’s first quarter earnings release was distributed this morning via Newswire, and the financial statements, management’s discussion and analysis, and the presentation being referenced on this call are available on our website at emira.com. Joining me for this morning’s call are Scott Balfour, Emera’s President and Chief Executive Officer Greg Blunden, Emera’s Chief Financial Officer and other members of Emera’s management team. Before we begin, I’d like to advise you that this morning’s discussion will include forward looking information, which is subject to the cautionary statement contained in the supporting slide. Today’s discussion and presentation will also include references to non GAAP financial measures.
You should refer to the appendix for reconciliations of historical non GAAP measures to the closest GAAP financial measure. And now, I will turn things over to Scott.
Scott Balfour, President and Chief Executive Officer, Emera: Thank you, Dave, and good morning, everyone. This morning, we reported first quarter adjusted earnings per share of $1.28 representing a 68% increase over the same period in 2024. I’m proud to say this represents the strongest first quarter performance in the company’s history and sets us up to deliver well above our 5% to 7% earnings growth per share range in 2025. Our first quarter results were driven by robust performance across our regulated utilities. Tampa Electric and New Mexico Gas both benefited from new rates that reflect the rate base investments they’ve been making in support of their customers.
And at Nova Scotia Power’s results benefited from the colder weather we experienced here in Nova Scotia this winter. The results from our regulated utilities were further bolstered by a record quarter from Emera Energy. Cold weather in the Northeast resulted in higher pricing and market volatility, creating opportunities that the business was once again able to capitalize exceptional results. Our performance this quarter is also in many ways a direct result of the actions we took in 2024, which provided the strong foundation of our execution this year. Last year, we successfully executed on our asset sale program, strengthened our balance sheet, adjusted our dividend growth guidance, and finalized two important rate cases.
These actions strengthened our company and positioned us well going into this year to translate our rate base growth into meaningful earnings per share and cash flow growth. You can see this reflected in our first quarter results, and we’re confident that we will see strong performance for the year overall. We also remain confident in our 5% to 7% average earnings per share guidance through 2027. Teams across Emera have deployed over $700,000,000 in customer focused capital in the first quarter, putting us well on track to execute our $3,400,000,000 capital plan for the year. Major projects underway, including our solar development, deployment and reliability investments at Tampa Electric, energy storage and reliability upgrades in Nova Scotia, and gas infrastructure expansion at Peoples Gas are progressing as planned.
We continue to see strong population and economic growth in Florida, with customer growth at Tampa Electric and Peoples Gas continuing at a rate of over 1.53.5%, respectively, driving significant investment demand. Between the projected increases in Tampa Electric’s capacity needs owing to organic load growth, coupled with their desire to enable economic development in West Central Florida, Tampa Electric has brought certainty to their generation expansion plan to ensure resource adequacy by contracting for the supply of two gas turbines to be delivered in 2028. These investments, as well as continued investments in reliability, resiliency, renewable integration and technology are the key components of our 7% to 8% forecasted rate base growth and the foundational driver of our long term earnings growth expectations. Against an uncertain macroeconomic backdrop, we are laser focused on managing our capital deployment, focusing on both customer affordability and the timely recovery in rates. To the extent that we see tariff or supply chain impacts on our capital plan, we currently expect that we will work to reprofile our capital spend to maintain our 7% to 8% rate base growth so as not to negatively impact affordability while also meeting the needs of our customers.
As a result, we do not expect to make any material changes to our five year capital plan. Our teams are also working diligently to mitigate supply chain risk and identify alternative domestic supply opportunities to reduce any direct exposures to tariffs on behalf of our customers. To that end, we’ve already secured and received panels for our solar investments through 2026, after which new panels will be 100% domestic supplied with any tariff risk contractually mitigated through 2029, derisking the largest major project in our capital plan. At Peoples Gas, pricing has been locked in for major projects. And at Nova Scotia Power, approximately 95% of their capital spend is already sourced from Canadian suppliers.
In addition, I want to highlight that we have very limited direct exposure to Chinese tariffs, with the only material exposure being planned energy storage investments at Tampa Electric. Importantly, despite the current tariff exposure, the business case for storage remains intact as batteries remain the lowest cost alternative for customers. Given the intense sector focus on this, I would note that our $20,000,000,000 5 year capital plan does not include any major capital to support data centers. To the extent that we capture any of these new customer opportunities, the revenue and capital investment opportunities would be upside to our plan. On the regulatory front, our focus is in three key areas.
The closing of the sale of New Mexico Gas, where the regulatory process continues as expected. The next milestone is the hearing scheduled to begin on June twenty third of this year. We continue to expect closing in Q4 of twenty twenty five. At Nova Scotia Power, the team has been working constructively with key stakeholders in the province on a path forward to secure financial stability for the utility and allow Nova Scotia Power to continue making important reliability and resiliency investments for customers. As you know, these processes take time.
And while we would like to have more to share on our call today, we’re encouraged by the progress and confident that we will have more to share in the second quarter. And at Peoples Gas, the rate application is also proceeding as expected with a hearing set for September and a final decision expected in the fourth quarter. And with that, I’ll turn it over to Greg to take you through our financial results. Thank you, Scott, and thank
Dave Bazanson, Corporate Communications/Investor Relations, Emera: you all for joining us this morning. Turning to the details of our financial performance, this morning we reported record first quarter adjusted earnings of $379,000,000 and adjusted earnings per share of $1.28 compared to $216,000,000 and $0.76 in 2024. The robust earnings growth from across the business translated into a meaningful 37% increase in operating cash flow when normalized for fuel and storm deferrals. As you’ll recall, our 2024 cash flow was impacted by the $464,000,000 US dollar storm deferral at Tampa Electric from the major storms we experienced last fall. Recovery of these costs began on March 1, and we will be collecting them over an eighteen month period through August of twenty twenty six.
And while the typical recovery period for storm costs in Florida is twelve months, we are recovering the costs over eighteen months to prioritize affordability for customers by modestly extending the recovery period. This quarter’s cash flow growth has delivered important progress towards our credit metric targets, with an over 200 basis point improvement in key metrics since the first quarter of twenty twenty four, bringing us closer to our 12% target on a trailing twelve month basis. Pro form a with the sale of New Mexico Gas, we are north of this target on the trailing twelve month basis, supporting our confidence in achieving targeted credit metrics at all rating agencies in 2025. We are pleased to see that S and P returned our outlook to stable in recognition of our successful efforts to deliver and reflecting their confidence in our cash flow growth for 2025. And while we can’t control the timing, we are confident that our actions to date and visible cash flow growth positions us well for Moody’s and Fitch to also return our outlook to stable this year.
Turning to the drivers of our results, increased contributions from our regulated utilities, Emera Energy and lower corporate costs drove a 68% increase in adjusted EPS this quarter. At Tampa Electric, rates reflecting the level of capital we’ve invested on behalf of customers increased contributions by $0.12 or 85% compared to the first quarter of twenty twenty four. For Canadian Electric Utilities, the recognition of income tax credits related to our battery storage projects and favorable weather increased contributions from Nova Scotia Power, which more than offset the lower contributions from equity investments resulting from the sale of Labrador Island Link last year. Emera Energy had their best quarter in their history with adjusted earnings of 48,000,000 US dollars in 2025 compared to 33,000,000 US dollars last year. Cold weather brought higher pricing and market volatility, which the business was able to capitalize on.
As most of you are aware, we generally see some earnings erosion over the summer because there is less margin opportunity while we are amortizing the cost of transport equally over the year. That said, in light of our strong Q1 performance, we are adjusting Emera Energy’s earning guidance upward for 2025 from the usual 15 to 30,000,000 US dollars to a range of 35 to $45,000,000 The strengthening US dollar had a meaningful impact on earnings from our US utilities and Emera Energy driving a $07 increase in adjusted EPS compared to Q1 twenty twenty four. Net of hedges that are reflected in corporate, this was a $05 increase. For the remainder of the year, we continue to expect that every penny change in the Canada U. S.
Dollar foreign exchange rate will have a roughly zero one dollars impact on our adjusted earnings per share. New rates of New Mexico Gas increased contributions from our gas utilities during the quarter, which were partially offset by modestly lower contributions from Peoples Gas. Corporate costs contributed $04 to the quarter over quarter earnings improvement, primarily driven by timing differences in the valuation of long term compensation and related hedges in Q1 of last year. And finally, contributions from our other electric utilities decreased modestly, driven primarily by higher operating costs. The strategic actions undertaken in 2024 to strengthen our balance sheet and reduce our exposure to variable rate debt establishes a foundation for growth and performance in 2025.
As of March 31, only 11% of our debt portfolio is variable rate, with 5% at corporate and 6% at our operating companies. Of our variable rate exposure, the approximately 1,000,000,000 variable rate debt at the holding company level is expected to be repaid with the proceeds from the sale of New Mexico Gas. And at the operating company level, the variable rate debt includes the incremental short term debt we incurred to finance the storm deferrals at Tampa Electric. And as I mentioned, recovery of those costs began on March 1 and will be recovered and repaid over the next eighteen months. And with that, I’ll now turn the call back to Scott.
Scott Balfour, President and Chief Executive Officer, Emera: Against an uncertain macroeconomic environment, we remain strategically well positioned with our high quality portfolio of regulated assets to deliver consistent, predictable performance. As always, we’re focused on execution to safely deploy over $3,000,000,000 in customer focused capital, to prudently operate our utilities and look for cost saving opportunities as well. With our strong foundation and expert team, our strategy will continue to allow us to deliver value for customers and shareholders. And now we’d like to open the call up for questions from our analysts.
Mike, Conference Call Operator: Thank you. If you do wish to ask a question, please press 1 on your telephone keypad. If you wish to withdraw your question, you may do so by pressing 2 again to cancel. Once again, please press 1 to register for a question. There will be a brief pause while questions are being registered.
Your first question comes from the line of Rob Hope from Scotiabank. Your line is now open.
Rob Hope, Analyst, Scotiabank: Good morning, everyone. Maybe to start off in New Mexico,
Scott Balfour, President and Chief Executive Officer, Emera: just going through
Rob Hope, Analyst, Scotiabank: all the stakeholder positions, anything of note that you see out of the ordinary and any key steps we should be watching in the coming weeks and months?
Scott Balfour, President and Chief Executive Officer, Emera: Hey, Rob. Look, I think we’re well into the process now. And every regulatory process involves stated positions from both sides. There’s nothing that’s unexpected from our perspective in terms of where we’re at. Curing coming up in June is the next milestone to pay attention to, and the team’s focused in getting ready for that.
And as I said on the call, we continue to expect a successful outcome from that process and closing in the fourth quarter.
Rob Hope, Analyst, Scotiabank: All right, thanks for that. And then maybe moving over to Florida, can you maybe add a little bit more color on kind of where conversations are regarding data centers for TECO, how the pace has gone and how they are kind of progressing versus expectations?
Scott Balfour, President and Chief Executive Officer, Emera: Sure. Archie, would you like to address that, please?
Archie, Florida Operations Executive, Emera: Sure. Good morning, Rob. Lots of you know, I think what I would say is there’s lots of discussions happening with data center developers. Nothing nothing that has developed to a point yet that we, you know, are putting pen to paper on agreements, but but, you know, we we continue to feel optimistic, confident, that that the developers are gonna see the merits of citing, in the West Central Florida geography. In fact, you know, we continue to take steps to, enable data center develop development by shoring up the supply chain.
The the two, CTs that Scott referenced are certainly in line with that. So we continue to be optimistic. I would say that recently we have felt a bit of a chill coming over, I think, the entire data center community because of interest rate uncertainty, tariff uncertainty, but things are still progressing in a good direction with all of the developers we’re speaking with.
Rob Hope, Analyst, Scotiabank: All right. Appreciate that. Thank you.
Mike, Conference Call Operator: Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Morris Choi from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open.
Rob Hope, Analyst, Scotiabank: Thank you and good morning everyone. I just want to come back to the discussion about tariff exposure and I appreciate the prepared remarks and tackling that head on. It sounds like a significant portion of your CapEx plan has been locked has the cost locked in. So I’m just curious if there’s any other areas that you’re spending a little bit more time focused on in terms of tariff exposure that you didn’t touch on or any areas where you might have
Morris Choi, Analyst, RBC Capital Markets: a little bit of a
Rob Hope, Analyst, Scotiabank: hard time passing the cost to customers?
Scott Balfour, President and Chief Executive Officer, Emera: Thanks for the question, Maurice. No, I wouldn’t say our anxiety is very high at
Dave Bazanson, Corporate Communications/Investor Relations, Emera: the moment. And of course,
Scott Balfour, President and Chief Executive Officer, Emera: the team’s working hard to address sort of tariff exposure, which is not that significant as you would have picked up from our calls. But in an effort to continue to ensure we are managing affordability impacts for customers. It’s, of course, a high priority item for the team. I think the other aspect to tariffs is just supply chain constraints. It’s disrupting supply chains, and so managing supply chain processes and ensuring we’ve got good supply chain relationships and alternatives, that would be sort of the other key area of focus for the teams.
Rob Hope, Analyst, Scotiabank: Understood. So maybe just focusing on Canada for a moment here. Last year, we saw quite a number of supportive actions done by various governments, for NSPI. Now that we obviously have the Canadian government in place and there’s a lot of discussion about affordability, just curious as to what you think might emerge here, whether as part of provincial or federal level or even both together in terms of helping those cautions and ahead of your potential rate case?
Peter Gregg, Nova Scotia Power Executive, Emera: Hi Maurice, it’s Peter Gregg from Nova Scotia Power. Great question. Early days yet obviously with the federal government, but I do think there’s strong alignment between the economic development goals that the Houston government has here in Nova Scotia with what we’re hearing are early goals of the Kearney administration. I think, certainly the Premier has been vocal about his desire to develop offshore wind resources that are quite strong in Nova Scotia. We do have a critical mineral strategy that is developing in Nova Scotia.
That’s a priority of Prime Minister Kearney. So I think there’s alignment and good potential opportunity there that we’re going to stay close to. But again, saying it’s obviously very early days. And I’d
Scott Balfour, President and Chief Executive Officer, Emera: just add, encouraged by what would seem to be some momentum and thinking around East West energy corridors that obviously is something of value and importance, I think, to Canada nationally, but particularly to Atlantic Canada as well. And so, you know, those kinds of things I think are encouraging. But as Peter said, it’s, you know, it’s still early days, of course.
Rob Hope, Analyst, Scotiabank: Just on that note about East West Corridor, how do you envision this playing out? And what role, if any, do you think NSPI will play?
Peter Gregg, Nova Scotia Power Executive, Emera: Yeah, it’s early. But you remember, we did a lot of work a few years back on what we at that point called the Atlantic Loop. So there’s been a lot of work done on that that I think can be refreshed. It probably would not look the same as that is my expectation, but a lot of that thinking has been done. Obviously, our interest at the Nova Scotia Power side would be on the transmission, investing in the transmission access of the East West Grid.
And if there is going to be development of offshore wind, what’s the routing of that? We’d be interested in where that meets land in Nova Scotia, making sure we have the transmission aspects of that. So really, our interest from Nova Scotia Power would be on the transmission side.
Rob Hope, Analyst, Scotiabank: Thank you very much.
Mike, Conference Call Operator: Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Ross Fowler at Bank of America. Your line is now open.
Ross Fowler, Analyst, Bank of America: Good morning Scott, good morning Greg, how are you? Just let me go back to New Mexico for a minute. I mean the settlement window, correct me if I’m wrong, expired but could you still settle this before the June 23 hearing date? Would that kind of be a goal to get settled before hearing if that’s possible?
Scott Balfour, President and Chief Executive Officer, Emera: Yeah, Ross. I mean, a settlement can happen at any time, of course. The later in the process that the settlement is, it has some risk of impact on schedule. But yes, a settlement can happen at any point in time. But the team remains focused on the upcoming hearing and putting its case in front of regulator and demonstrating how, in fact, this transaction is beneficial for customers.
Ross Fowler, Analyst, Bank of America: Thanks Scott. And then on The US listing, you’re still planning on that within the context of I guess the spring, I guess we’re still in spring June ’20 first this summer so no way for the solstice. Are we still on time for that?
Scott Balfour, President and Chief Executive Officer, Emera: Yeah even though we’re well into the season of spring we continue to guide that we expect a listing in New York in the spring of twenty twenty five.
Ross Fowler, Analyst, Bank of America: Perfect. And then given FX volatility we’ve seen in April, are you thinking any difference in strategy around your hedging policy or how you look at hedging that going forward?
Dave Bazanson, Corporate Communications/Investor Relations, Emera: Hey Ross, it’s Craig. No, at this point in time, the volatility we’re experiencing is uncommon for the Canadian dollar. At this point in time, we have no plans to change our approach to hedging our U. S. Dollar earnings.
Ross Fowler, Analyst, Bank of America: Okay. Perfect. Thank you.
Mike, Conference Call Operator: You. Your next question comes from the line of Mark Yarvi from CIBC. Your line is now open.
Morris Choi, Analyst, RBC Capital Markets: Hey, good morning, everyone. Maybe going back into New Mexico, just given some of the staff filings that want to see some more commitments from the buyer, Would there be a need to amend the application before the hearing? Or do you just try to advocate between yourselves and the buyers on the conditions that have been established on the original filing?
Scott Balfour, President and Chief Executive Officer, Emera: Yeah, don’t think the intention is to amend the application, Mark. I wouldn’t say that. But through the process, of course, we will respond. We will provide rebuttal effectively to the filings of the intervenors to respond to their concerns. And that evidence will be part of the deliberations that the Commission will consider at the hearing.
Morris Choi, Analyst, RBC Capital Markets: Okay, and turning to Florida, if you look through some of the statistics that were presented by NextEra FPL in terms of customer growth and labor market, it seems like things have moderated in Florida. Are you seeing the same trends in your Tampa electric territories or something a bit different between your areas? I guess if economic growth population growth has moderated, is data centers really the only sort of upward driver of higher rate base growth potential next couple years?
Scott Balfour, President and Chief Executive Officer, Emera: So let me start and Archie can chime in. Think obviously we pay attention to sort of economic growth signals across all our portfolios. And I wouldn’t say we’ve seen anything particularly notable in Florida, but it’s certainly something that we’re watching for. We’re certainly not seeing growth accelerate in this environment. But I would say it’s an environment probably in both Canada and The US where because of the sort of the broader economic conditions, I think we and everyone are probably paying attention to what’s happening in terms of growth drivers.
Underlying it, we still see the economy in Florida continuing to be strong. We’ve still seen strong customer growth in the first quarter. Not really expecting any change to that, but it’s certainly something we’re paying attention to. Archie, anything that you’d want to add to that?
Archie, Florida Operations Executive, Emera: I agree with everything you just said, Scott. The only thing that I would add is, like, our economic development team is as active as they’ve ever been, and the files that they’re managing are not exclusively data center files. We have lots of companies looking to relocate to Florida, and, you know, and there’s a you can sense there’s a real movement around the, like, the onshoring. And so, you know, I think there’s opportunities that might provide to us in West Central Florida as well.
Morris Choi, Analyst, RBC Capital Markets: And the Archie has the mix in terms of growth coming from the residential obviously there’s great migration trends for a while. Is it shifted more to the C and I type customers then?
Archie, Florida Operations Executive, Emera: Well, from an economic our economic development work is is is exclusively C and I. Residential customer migration into our service territory, as Scott said, first quarter was consistent with where it’s been for the last, for the last number of years. But, you know, I think there is a bit of there’s some concern from economists that there’s at this ten seconds, there’s a you know, people are being more thoughtful about decisions they make given the economic uncertainty. But, all things being equal in The US, Florida considered it continues to be a preferred destination for for folks to relocate to.
Morris Choi, Analyst, RBC Capital Markets: Okay. Good to hear. Thanks, Sean.
Mike, Conference Call Operator: Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Ben Pham from BMO. Your line is now open.
Mark Yarvi, Analyst, CIBC: Hi, thanks. Good morning. First off, Nova Scotia Power, you put in a good quarter. ITC’s they were weather conditions. I’m just wondering with that first quarter behind you, like how does that reconcile with the ROE language in terms of being both below that for the year?
Peter Gregg, Nova Scotia Power Executive, Emera: Hi, Ben, it’s Peter. Yeah, our outlook for the balance of the year is still consistent with the language we put in there. It’s earning just below the allowed rate of return band. So even with a good first quarter, we still think that is the appropriate guidance for the year.
Morris Choi, Analyst, RBC Capital Markets: Your it’s clearly
Dave Bazanson, Corporate Communications/Investor Relations, Emera: Yes. Just we’re not going to provide specific guidance, but we had an ROE kind of mid 8.5% range last year. And I think it’s fair to say that we would expect it to be somewhat similar this year.
Mark Yarvi, Analyst, CIBC: Okay, got it. And I know a few questions on New Mexico and the staff commentary, DOJ and whatnot, but we’ll see how that plays out in the next little bit. But can you compare I know the onus is on the buyer to prove the benefits of the proposed deal. But can you share from your perspective just this application versus your application ten plus years ago in terms of just really any big differences and how the approach is and also your own qualitative view on the commission makeup today versus the past? Is it more supportive than before?
Or is it the same?
Scott Balfour, President and Chief Executive Officer, Emera: Yeah, well, first of all, the constitution of the Commission is different today in that now it is appointed where, with our filing, it was elected. I’m not in a place to assess as to whether there’s any difference in that. I’d say our experience with this commission right from the beginning has been very balanced outcomes. And our regulatory experience in New Mexico has reflected that, I think. And from our view, I think Bernhard Capital Partners, while they are a private equity owner, we obviously are not, they do operate a number of businesses.
They are not sort of a traditional private equity type firm. They have their hands on and are experienced owners and operators of businesses, and they have investments in New Mexico and are very committed to delivering value for customers and also committed to proceed through the regulatory process demonstrating benefit for customers. And that’s what we expect will be evident through the rebuttal testimony that’s filed and the hearing in June. Karen, anything that you’d want to add to that?
Karen, Regulatory Executive, Emera: No, Scott, I think that’s exactly right. We’re working through the process. It is a net benefit test that we need to demonstrate in New Mexico, and we’re all aware of that and aligned on that. So we continue to engage with all parties and work through the process, and we’re confident that we’re positioned to be able to achieve those expectations in terms of the regulatory requirements.
Ross Fowler, Analyst, Bank of America: Okay, got it. Thank you very much.
Mike, Conference Call Operator: Thank you. At this time, there are no further questions. I will return the call to Dave Bisansen for closing remarks.
Dave Bazanson, Corporate Communications/Investor Relations, Emera: Thank you, Michael. Thank you all for your interest in Emera. That concludes our call for today. Have a safe day.
Mike, Conference Call Operator: Thank you. This now concludes our presentation. Thank you all for attending. You may now disconnect.
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