Greetings, and welcome to the Ameren Corporation First Quarter 2015 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Doug Fischer, Senior Director of Investor Relations. Mr. Fischer, you may now begin.

Thank you, and good morning. I'm Doug Fischer, Senior Director of Investor Relations for Ameren Corporation. On the call with me today are Warner Baxter, our Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Marty Lyons, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, as well as other members of the Ameren management team. Before we begin, let me cover a few administrative details. This call is being broadcast live on the Internet, and the webcast will be available for 1 year on our website at ameren.com. Further, this call contains time-sensitive data that is accurate only as of the date of today's live broadcast, and redistribution of this broadcast is prohibited. To assist with our call this morning, we have posted on our website a presentation that will be referenced by our speakers who will -- who may use terms or acronyms which are defined in the presentation. To access this presentation, please look in the Investors section of our website under Webcasts & Presentations and follow the appropriate link. Turning to Page 2 of the presentation. I need to inform you that comments made during this conference call may contain statements that are not commonly referred to as forward-looking statements. Such statements include those about future expectations, beliefs, plans, strategies, objectives, events, conditions and financial performance. We caution you that various factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. For additional information concerning these factors, please read the Forward-Looking Statements section in the news release we issued today and the Forward-Looking Statements and Risk Factors sections in our filings with the SEC. Warner will begin this call with comments on first quarter financial results, full year 2015 earnings guidance and a business update. Marty will follow with a more detailed discussion of first quarter results and an update on financial and regulatory matters. We will then open the call for questions. Before Warner begins, I would like to mention that all per share amounts discussed during today's presentation, including earnings guidance, are presented on a continuing operations and diluted share basis, unless otherwise noted. Now here's Warner, who will start on Page 4 of the presentation.

Thanks, Doug. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Today, we announced first quarter 2015 earnings of $0.45 per share compared with $0.40 per share in last year's first quarter. This earnings advance reflected increased electric transmission and delivery infrastructure investments made by ATXI and Ameren Illinois and the formula ratemaking for the benefit of customers. Our first quarter results also benefited from reduced parent company interest charges. However, the earnings contributions from these factors were somewhat reduced by lower recognized allowed ROEs for the FERC-regulated transmission and Illinois electric delivery areas of our business. Earnings were also reduced by lower electric and natural gas sales volumes, due primarily to milder winter temperatures and energy efficiency. Our solid first quarter results clearly reflect the benefits of strategically allocating capital to jurisdictions with modern, constructive regulatory frameworks. These solid first quarter results also provide a good foundation for achieving our full year earnings expectations. Therefore, today, we affirmed our 2015 earnings guidance, which is expected to be in the range of $2.45 to $2.65 per share. Marty will discuss first quarter earnings in more detail in a few minutes, including comments on additional factors contributing to the higher results. Turning to Page 5. Here, we reiterate our strategic plan. We remain focused on executing this strategy, which we strongly believe will deliver superior value to both our customers and our shareholders. I'd like to highlight some of our year-to-date efforts and accomplishments towards this end. As I mentioned a moment ago, we continue to strategically allocate significant amounts of capital to those businesses where investment is supported by modern, constructive regulatory frameworks that provide fair, predictable and timely cost recovery, as well as long-term benefits to our customers. In particular, we invested approximately $270 million during the first quarter…

Thanks, Warner. Good morning, everyone. Turning now to Page 9 of our presentation. As Warner already noted, today, we reported earnings of $0.45 per share for the first quarter of 2015 compared with $0.40 per share for the year-ago period Key drivers of this earnings increase are listed on this page. Higher electric transmission and delivery infrastructure investments made by ATXI and Ameren Illinois under formula ratemaking increased earnings by $0.05 per share compared with the year-ago quarter. The earnings comparison also benefited by $0.05 per share from reduced operations and maintenance expenses for those businesses not operating under formula rates. In addition, the January 2015 Illinois Commerce Commission order approving recovery of Ameren Illinois cumulative power usage costs increased earnings by $0.04 per share compared with the first quarter of last year. Earnings also benefited by $0.03 per share from a reduction in parent company interest charges, reflecting the May 2014 maturity of $425 million of 8.875% senior notes that were replaced with lower cost short-term debt. Moving now to factors that had an unfavorable effect on the first quarter earnings comparison. Lower electric and natural gas volumes reduced earnings by $0.05 per share, with milder winter temperatures accounting for an estimated $0.03 per share of this decline and the balance due to energy efficiency and other drivers. First quarter 2015 temperatures were milder than those experienced during the polar vortex in the year-ago quarter, but were still colder than normal. We estimate that weather normalized kilowatt hour sales to residential and commercial customers across our systems decreased by approximately 1%, with about 1/2 of this decrease due to energy efficiency programs. In Missouri, the effect of declines in electric sales volumes due to our energy efficiency programs is offset by revenue recovery authorized under the state's Energy Efficiency…

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Michael Weinstein with UBS.

It's Julien here. So first question, if you will, on the Missouri case and I apologize if this didn't come across. When is your next expected filing? And how are you thinking about addressing the presumably incremental lag coming from some of the changes in the latest filing? And what's the magnitude of that lag that you would anticipate having from the transmission expense, along with some of the other tweaks?

So there are multiple questions in there, Julien, and I'll take a stab at those and maybe others can chime in and supplement as we go. And if I miss any of your questions, we'll let you repeat it. I think your first question was about when we're going to file our next rate case. I mean, obviously, we just received this commission order. We're in the process of assessing the order and also considering what matters we may ask the commission to consider rehearing on. So I wouldn't say we're even through the full process of this one. So it's certainly premature to think about the timing of a next rate case. What goes into that obviously is assessing this order, its impact. As we mentioned on the call and as you just alluded to, we're going to be taking a number of actions to align spending with this rate case outcome. We'll be looking at our capital expenditures moving forward and the in-service dates. And all of those things are going to factor into a decision about when a next rate case may be. Probably important to note that this rate case was about 2.5 years since our last rate increase. So no telling when the next one will be, but like I said, those are the various things we'll take into consideration. You also asked, I think, about some of those actions that we may be taking to address any lag coming out of this order. And I think that whenever you go into a rate case, it's certainly expected that cost savings that you've achieved over the past couple of years, in our case, help to mitigate the rate increase for the customer. And that's certainly what's happened here. And then what you have to do going forward is, to the extent that there are nonrecovered costs for certain areas of your business that you're going to identify actions that you can take within your business to overcome those, to offset those. As I said on the call, our goal continues to be to earn at or very near to our allowed returns, and that's going to be our objective going forward. And without providing any specifics, certainly have processes underway today as part of our annual planning processes to identify and implement those actions which are needed to achieve that objective.

Got you. And could you perhaps quantify a little bit what your lag expectations are? I suppose it's a little early, right, in the context of identifying offsetting cost cuts. And then maybe just more specifically on the transmission expense side. How much of the rate lag specifically or what kind of inflation rate have you been seeing of late? I imagine that's probably the most critical item there.

Yes. Sure. That's right. Those were parts of your other question. I guess, number one, Julien, we don't think about sort of an amount of lag that we're targeting or that we expect. As I said a moment ago, I mean, our objective is to earn at or very close to our allowed return. That has been our objective, and it continues to be our objective. Now there are going to be elements that are things that would have to be overcome. Now we'll -- on this transmission piece in the FAC, there, what's happened is transmission revenues and costs are coming out of the FAC and then would go into base rates and would be handled that way subject to potential rehearing on that issue with the commission. I would tell you that today, just to give you an order of magnitude, in 2015, we expect transmission revenues and transmission expenses in Ameren Missouri to be around $35 million. However, those revenues and those expenses change over time. And one of the reasons that we view them as being appropriate for being in the FAC is that, frankly, those costs are outside of our control and they can be volatile. And to give an example, I think what was put into our base rates reflected a differential between revenues and expenses of about $6 million where revenues had exceeded expenses. So that gives you, I think, some sense of the magnitude of the numbers and the change we've seen here recently. Hard to say what the change will be prospectively. Obviously, again, as I said, those costs are outside of our control. So what that may -- if it's not in the FAC, what that may mean for us in terms of prospective lag is really uncertain at this time.

Right. But just to be clear, though, if you may permit me. Your expectation is that you will be able to continue to earn at or around your earned or your authorized level?

Julien, that is our objective, and we work each year to align our costs to achieve that objective. Julien, I just would add on that, I mean, I think we have a good track record that we've shown over this past couple of years of actually achieving that objective. But thank you for your questions.

Our next question comes from the line of Paul Patterson with Glenrock Associates.

Just on the long-term growth rate, which -- how should we think about that now?

Well, in terms of the long-term growth rate, you're speaking about the rate base or the earnings per share?

I'm talking about the earnings per share. That doesn't seem to be in the slide deck this time around.

Yes. Sure. That's fine, Paul. I just wanted to clarify. I mean, obviously, in the slides we talked about our 6% compound annual rate base growth from '14 to '19. I mean, you're right. What we didn't do is specifically mention the earnings per share growth. And I think going forward, the reason for that is really simply that we plan to formally update you and others on the long-term earnings growth plans on an annual basis, consistent with our annual planning cycles. But that being said, as we sit here today, we do continue to be confident in our ability to deliver within that 7% to 10% compound earnings per share growth range that we previously talked about, which is from 2013 to 2018. As you know, Paul, that growth is driven by base growth that I just mentioned. It's driven by reduction in parent and other costs that we've been achieving. It's driven by the modernization and reinvestment of tax assets that we have, about $440 million of tax assets at the parent company. And also incorporated in there is our expectation of rising interest rates in achieving that 7% to 10% growth. What we don't plan to do is provide quarterly updates on the long-term plans going forward based on, I would say, short-term movements in interest rates or changes in allowed returns. We take all of that data, of course, into consideration as we prepare our -- do our annual planning and think about where we're going to allocate capital and how we're going to modify our longer-term growth plan.

Now the -- so I guess that means -- does that mean that like from quarter-to-quarter internally you guys might think that this number might be changing? Or is this more of a sort of a cosmetic thing in terms of just simply leaving it alone until the -- in a more annual basis because that would make more sense than changing it, I guess, quarterly or quarter. Is that -- how should we think about that?

Sure. Sure, Paul. It's a fair question. No, I mean, what we're not doing, I would say, is internally updating our 5-year earnings per share growth outlook each quarter based on changes. It's frankly a fairly comprehensive process that we and I'm sure other companies go through on an annual basis to think about changes in long-term interest rate forecast, long-term ROE forecast, changes in regulatory frameworks, changes in customer needs, changes in technology and really think about what kinds of investment should be made for the benefit of our customers, where they should be made, when they should be made. And all of those things factor into our long-term investment plans and our long-term EPS growth. So we do, do those comprehensive planning processes on an annual basis. And we'll be planning then to roll that out and roll it into the guidance we provide you and others on an annual basis about what our long-term growth plans are. Paul, I would just add a couple months ago, when we provided our guidance, I was asked a question about, "Well, are you going to hit that 7% to 10% in the current ROE environment?" And what I'd said on that call, and I certainly stand by is that, if we held the ROEs that were embedded into our guidance flat through time, we still expect to be in that 7% to 10% range, albeit potentially at the lower end. And I have to say that while we haven't completely reassessed our long-term model, I do remain confident that even with this lower Missouri ROE and holding the other ROEs embedded in our current guidance flat, we do have that flexibility within the guidance range and within our business plans to be able to achieve at least that 7% end of our growth. So and that growth, as you know, that 7% earnings per share growth is superior, I think, to the average of our regulated peers. And we fully expect that interest rates over time will rise, that ROEs will rise, and that will certainly help to drive earnings higher within that range.

Okay. Just to sort of follow-up here on the regulatory environment and the legislative environment in Missouri. You guys went over the rate case. Not exactly what you guys wanted and it looks like the legislative efforts, if I understand you guys, they're dead for this year. Do you think that there's any rate case fatigue? I mean, let me put it right out there. I mean, do you think that there's maybe -- there may be a limit in terms of revenue increases in Missouri? And then just to sort of follow that through, do you have any opinion of the legislation that's happening in Illinois with respect to nuclear and the other sort of clean job stuff and what have you that's been garnering a lot of attention in Springfield?

Paul, we'll try -- this is Marty again. We'll try to take those in order. I think on the Missouri ones -- and maybe Michael Moehn, who's with us here who's the head of our Missouri operations could take the first part of your question.

Yes. Great. Thanks, Marty. With respect to the fatigue, certainly, these increases have been hard on customers. We recognize that. We try to do everything we can to mitigate the impact on customers. But at the end of the day, all of these investments that we're making are really to continue to provide safe and adequate and reliable service. And so we're going to continue to do what we think is necessary to deliver on that promise. And with respect to legislation in Missouri, we do remain very focused on trying to get something across the finish line. And we continue to talk with stakeholders, legislators about the importance of modernizing the regulations in Missouri to make sure that we're able to continue to build out the grid of the 21st century. We'll continue to remind them of the good things that are going on in Illinois, referencing what's happening in Arkansas and Wisconsin and Michigan. And so I think through a constant, relentless pursuit of it, we're going to get it across the finish line at some point. It's difficult to say exactly when it's going to be -- when that's going to happen, but we are going to continue to put every effort into making that happen.

But it won't be this year, right?

Yes. I think that is a fair assumption at this point in time.

Okay. And then if you could follow-up on Illinois. I don't want to take up any more time.

Yes, that's okay. Paul, this is Warner. Richard Mark is here too. So Richard, maybe you can give a little perspective on the Illinois legislation?

Well, there's 3 bills pending in Illinois. We're just continuing to monitor those bills to see which one of them will -- which of them will be called for hearings in the near future. The session in Illinois ends May 31. So we're going to continue to monitor those to see which ones -- how they affect our customers through improvements and value, as well as the impact that would have on increased cost to our customers.

Our next question comes from the line of Greg Gordon with Evercore.

You guys have answered a lot of my questions. I was looking back at the disclosures from the end of the year call. And I can't remember, did you disclose explicitly what ROE you're reserving to or was it just that you're making assumptions that are less explicit?

Yes, Greg. This is Marty. What we had talked about on that call and repeat here, I mean, obviously, we've got active litigation and we don't want to get into specifics. But what we did say then is our guidance reflected approximately the outcome of the ISO New England order last year, plus a 50 basis point adder. And that kind of an ROE was embedded into our guidance, and that's what we continue to reflect in our ongoing results. And it's also reflected in our current guidance for 2015.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Michael Lapides with Goldman Sachs.

Real quick, I want to make sure I understand some things. In the quarter, O&M was down a lot this quarter and came in a good bit better. Can you just talk about whether that's seasonality, whether there were some things that will put upwards pressure on O&M towards the back half of the year or is this a kind of a new run rate?

Michael, I'll try to answer as best I can. This is Marty again, obviously. But yes, the O&M was down. The O&M was down principally at Missouri. When you see the 10-Q, you'll get some further detailed breakdown, I suppose, by legal entity. But I'll tell you that Illinois was about flat and the real driver was lower Missouri. And I would say that, that's just, in general, just efforts to contain cost. There were some specific costs that we had last year at our Callaway plant that did not recur in the current period. But I would say, overall, our focus is to continue to work to improve the productivity of our operations, to find ways to control cost. And I can't really be specific with you in terms of trends for the remainder of the year in O&M. But I will tell you that just in general and especially in light of the rate case outcome that we had, we're going to continue to be very cost conscious and manage O&M very carefully.

Michael, I'd just add, this is Warner. This is not something new. This is not something new. We have been very disciplined in managing our costs. And as Marty rightfully said a moment ago is, we manage those costs between rate cases. It helps address regulatory lag. And then as we have the rate cases, it certainly provides a significant benefit to customers. And we're not done. We're going to continue to do that, both in Missouri and across our enterprise because it's the right thing to do. And so I know others have raised the questions on regulatory lag. We cite that, obviously, the regulatory lag may become more challenging. At the same time, we're geared up to address those issues internally and are still very focused and confident that the execution of our plan is going to deliver superior value to -- not just to our shareholders, but also to our customers.

Got it. And want to a circle back on the transmission ROE. Your guidance assumed a lower ROE. Is there any change in the guidance level, the ROE? I know this is piggybacking off of Greg's question a little bit. But want to just make sure I understand kind of the puts and takes versus original guidance and what you're saying today.

Sure, Michael. I'll reiterate. Basically, what's in our new guidance, our current updated guidance reflects exactly what we had in our guidance in the beginning of the year. So we said then and we say now what it reflects is basically the outcome of the ISO New England order, plus 50 basis points. And so that gives you an approximation of where we're booking a reserve to, what the effective earned ROE is that we're reflecting in our financial statement this year. Obviously, we don't know where those cases will come out. We certainly think that the testimony that was filed by the MISO TOs and our own witnesses speak for itself. And we'll let that play out here over the remainder of the year.

Got it. One last item. Thinking about Illinois and MISO transmission opportunities. I mean, you've got a very healthy rate base growth opportunity there over the next 4 or 5 years. But trying to think about what could be incremental to what's already in your plan. Can you talk a little bit about the Order 1000 process on the MISO and whether projects are soon to be put out to bid or whether there's another round of potential Order 1000-related projects that you could potentially be a participant in an RFP on or updates on the MTEP process as well?

Sure, Michael. I think the best person to speak to that is Maureen Borkowski, who's the head of our transmission business. Maureen, do you want to comment on this question?

Sure. MISO is in the process of getting some Order 1000 things started. They're a little behind the curve relative to the other RTOs. And just to clarify, at the present time, our business development folks are active not only in the MISO Order 1000 process, but also in PJM and Southwest Power Pool. We actually have some proposals active in some of the PJM solicitation windows right now. And as you've mentioned correctly, any kind of success in that venue, in any of those MISO, PJM, SPP, is all incremental to the rate base growth and investment that we've already talked about today. But we're not necessarily relying on that to provide our future growth pipeline. We have a great deal of investment opportunity remaining in our utility systems, both for reliability needs, aging infrastructure replacement and modernization of the grid. We also expect the Clean Power Plan will likely have some impact on the generation fleet in our service territory, which will also drive local transmission projects. And all of those opportunities that I mentioned are really ours to deliver on. They're not subject to any of the competitive process in MISO. So we certainly are active in the competitive space, but we're not relying on that to provide our pipeline. We have lots of other opportunities as well.

Got it. Okay. I just wanted to kind of tail on to that only because yesterday on an earnings call, one of the Kansas utilities talked about the SPP and just mentioned that they had only put out one small Order 1000 project bid, no others for RFP. Do you know the number of potential projects that the MISO is likely to put out to bid and when those RFPs would come out?

I really couldn't speculate on that. It is supposed to be in the MTEP 2016 process, I guess, which begins effectively in August of this year. So sometime late next year.

Michael, it's Marty. Just a couple of things. I think it was implied in your question, but obviously, our rate base growth plans that we put out there today and in prior call, 6% doesn't include any kind of expectation for any kind of FERC Order 1000 competitive wins. So if anything was achieved there, it'd certainly be incremental. As Maureen described, we've got a good pipeline of local reliability projects. That goes on beyond the 5-year period. Certainly, there could be some incremental for our current 5-year plan. But I'd also mention that as we discussed last time, I think you asked a question in the last call and I responded, I mean, certainly, there could be of an incremental investment in other areas of our business, particularly in the gas area, where there's the possibility that new federal rules will come into play that will actually cause us to increase the amount of investment that we need to make for replacement of aging infrastructure. So there are number of things, including transmission on top of transmission that present additional rate base growth opportunity. Appreciate the question.

[Operator Instructions] Thank you. At this time, we've reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I'll turn the floor back to Mr. Doug Fischer for closing comments.

Thank you for participating in this call. Let me remind you again that a replay of the call will be available for 1 year on our website. If you have questions, you may call the contacts listed on today's release. Financial analyst inquiries should be directed to me, Doug Fischer. Media should call Joe Muehlenkamp. Our contact numbers are on today's news release. Again, thank you for your interest in Ameren and have a great day.