Greetings, and welcome to Ameren Corporation's First Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host Andrew Kirk, Director of Investor Relations for Ameren Corporation. Thank you, Mr. Kirk. You may begin.

Thank you, and good morning. On the call with me today are Marty Lyons, our President and Chief Executive Officer; and Michael Moehn, our Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; as well as other members of the Ameren management team. 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. We have posted a presentation on the amereninvestors.com homepage that will be referenced by our speakers. As noted on Page 2 of the presentation, comments made during this conference call may contain statements about future expectations, plans, projections, financial performance and similar matters, which are commonly referred to as forward-looking statements. Please refer to the forward-looking statements section in the news release we issued yesterday as well as our SEC filings for more information about the various factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. Now here's Marty, who will start on Page 4.

Thanks, Andrew. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today as we discuss our first quarter 2023 earnings results. Our dedicated team continues to successfully execute on our strategic plan across all of our business segments allowing us to consistently deliver for our customers, shareholders and the environment while laying a strong foundation for the future. And as shown on Page 5, our strategic plan integrates our strong sustainability value proposition balancing the four pillars of environmental stewardship, social impact, governance and sustainable growth. These areas of focus incorporate our carbon reduction goals which are consistent with the objective of the Paris Agreement to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Here we also highlight a few of the many items we are doing for our customers and communities including being an industry leader in diversity equity and inclusion. We are honored that earlier this week DiversityInc named Ameren to its Hall of Fame, the first utility and only 11th company to be added. DiversityInc also recognized Ameren as a top company among all industries for ESG supplier diversity, philanthropy and employee resource groups or ERGs. For more than two decades, our team has made an explicit commitment to fostering diversity equity and inclusion within our company and in the communities we serve. It is a value that we believe is foundational to our mission to power the quality of life. We look forward to sharing best practices with other companies as we all work together to create vibrant cultures and communities. Further, our strong corporate governance is led by a diverse Board of Directors focused on overseeing the execution of our strategic plan in a sustainable manner. Finally, this page summarizes our sustainable growth proposition which remains among the best in the industry. As mentioned on…

Thanks Marty, and good morning, everyone. Turning now to page 15 of our presentation. Yesterday we reported first quarter 2023 earnings of $1 per share, compared to $0.97 per share for the year ago quarter. This page summarizes key drivers impacting earnings at each segment. As you can see under our constructive regulatory frameworks, we experienced earnings growth in Ameren Transmission, Illinois Electric Distribution and Illinois Natural Gas driven by increased infrastructure investment. While Ameren Missouri's earnings declined driven by the warmest combined January and February in 50 years, we were able to deliver strong earnings performance during the quarter as a result of our diverse business mix and disciplined cost management. Moving to page 16. Despite experiencing one of the warmest winters in 50 years, we're off to a strong start. We continue to expect 2023 earnings to be in the range of $4.25 to $4.45 per share. The $0.05 earnings per share impact due to mild first quarter temperatures, is expected to be offset through disciplined cost management. On this page, we've highlighted select considerations impacting our 2023 earnings guidance for the remainder of the year. These are supplemental to the key drivers and assumptions discussed in our earnings call in February. I encourage you to take these into consideration as you develop your expectations for quarterly earnings results for the remainder of the year. Turning now to page 17 for details on the Ameren Missouri electric rate review. In April, a non-unanimous stipulation agreement was reached in our Ameren Missouri electric rate review for $140 million annual revenue increase. The stipulation agreement was a black box settlement and did not specify certain details, including return on equity, capital structure or rate base. The agreement did provide for the continuation of key trackers and riders including the fuel…

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Jeremy Tonet with JPMorgan. Please proceed with your question.

Hi. This is Robin Shillock on for Jeremy. With one week left in the Missouri legislative session, any updates on the right of first refusal legislation that you've been supporting? And additionally, has this or any other recent Missouri legislative developments influenced your outlook for MISO or transmission opportunities in the state?

Yes. Look, you're right we've got just a little bit of time left, the legislative session. This is Marty Lyons by the way ends on May 12 at 6:00 p.m. And we have been supportive of right of first refusal legislation that's been moving along in the legislature. And so, you've probably been following House Bill 992 and Senate Bill 568 and we certainly support the legislative efforts there. Both bills have been heard in committees and we'll see whether there's any action on those bills as we approach the end of the session. So, we again, continue to believe that right of first refusal legislation is a positive. It certainly would allow transmission infrastructure to be built more rapidly in our state and at a cost competitive level. So, we're very supportive of that. We'll see whether it gets through. It's hard to predict any piece of legislation, whether it will go through, given the various priorities the legislature has. But in terms of the latter part of your question, whether that's influencing our thoughts on any of our path forward, I would say, no. As we look ahead, we continue to invest in a reliable clean energy transition, meaning, both reliable energy delivery infrastructure, renewable energy, as well as transmission. So, we'll continue to pursue those things. We do think things like right of first refusal are important to make sure that that infrastructure build-out can happen efficiently and effectively and maintain a good reliable system. But we'll keep forging forward, so thanks for your question.

Great. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] Mr. Lyons, there are no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the floor back over to you for closing comments.

Okay. Well, thank you all for joining us today. As you heard in our prepared remarks, we've had a strong start to 2023 and we remain focused on continuing to deliver for the remainder of the year. So, we invite you to join our annual shareholder meeting which is coming up here on May 11 and we look forward to seeing many of you at the AGA Financial Forum in a couple of weeks. With that, thank you, and everybody have a great day.

This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and we thank you for your participation.