Thank you for holding, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Alliant Energy's Year End and Fourth Quarter 2016 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all lines are in a listen-only mode. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to your host, Susan Gille, Manager of Investor Relations at Alliant Energy. Please go ahead

Good morning. I would like to thank all of you on the call and on the webcast for joining us today. We appreciate your participation. With me here today are Pat Kampling, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Robert Durian, Vice President, CFO and Treasurer; as well as other members of the Senior Management Team. Following prepared remarks by Pat and Robert, we will have time to take questions from the investment community. We issued a news release last night announcing Alliant Energy's yearend and fourth quarter 2016 earnings. We released 2017 earnings guidance and provided updated 2017 through 2020 capital expenditure guidance. This release, as well as supplemental slides that will be referenced during today's call, are available on the Investor page of our website at www.alliantenergy.com. Before we begin, I need to remind you that the remarks we make on this call and our answers to your questions include forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks that could cause actual results to be materially different. Those risks include, among others, matters discussed in Alliant Energy's press release issued last night and in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We disclaim any obligation to update these forward-looking statements. In addition, this presentation contains non-GAAP financial measures. The reconciliation between the non-GAAP and GAAP measures are provided in the earnings release, which is available on our website at www.alliantenergy.com. At this point, I'll turn the call over to Pat.

Good morning and thank you for joining us for our yearend earnings call. Today, I am pleased to share with you an overview of our 2016 results and our outlook for 2017. I will also share with you our progress and advancing cleaner energy, improving the power grid and often customer’s innovative products and options. Next, Rob will provide details on our 2016 results and 2017 guidance as well as review our regulatory schedule and comment on potential favorable tax reform. We had another good year achieving a $1.88 non-GAAP earnings per share consistent with the mid-point of our 2016 earnings guidance. This represents a 5% increase over comparable 2015 results on a non-GAAP temperature normalized basis. Although 2016 had its share of interest and temperature swings it was on average normal for the year, so there is no need to temperature normalizes our 2016 results. Also please note on slide two, the 2016 non-GAAP results exclude the impact of the Franklin County charge of $0.23 per share recorded in the third quarter. We also issued earnings guidance for 2017 with a midpoint of $1.99 per share a 6% increase over 2016 non-GAAP results, driven by earning on our growing utility investments. Our earnings objective remains at 5% to 7% through 2020 based on non-GAAP 2016 earnings per share of $1.88. For some time growth objective is supported by continued robust capital expenditure plans, modest sales growth, constructive regulatory outcomes and is on a temperature normalized basis. We continued to make solid progress and providing cost effective clean energy for our customers while building a smarter, more robust grid. We have a dynamic plan in process that gives us the flexibility to adjust our capital plans as opportunities arise. So last evening we issued an updated capital expenditure plan for…

Good morning, everyone. We released year end 2016 earnings last evening with our non-GAAP earnings from continuing operations of $1.88 per share which is $0.13 per share higher than the non-GAAP earnings for yearend 2015. A summary of the year-over-year earnings drivers may be found on slides four, five and six. The major contributors of the year-over-year earnings growth were higher electric and gas margins, and increased AFUDC related to the Marshalltown generating station. I am pleased to report that temperature normalized sales increased approximately 1% as forecasted. The commercial and industrial segments continue to be the largest sales growth classes year-over-year at both the utilities. For 2016 our earnings were not impacted by temperatures, but milder temperatures in 2015 resulted in a negative $0.04 per share variance. Before I move on to discuss 2017 guidance, I would like to point out that at the end of 2016, Alliant Energy’s investment in ATC moved from WPL to one of our non-regulated subsidiaries in accordance with the PSCW order. There was no impact to Alliant Energy’s consolidated financial statements as a result of this change, and we will continue including ATC’s earnings with utilities in future earnings release table. Now, let's briefly review our 2017 guidance. Last evening we issued our consolidated 2017 earnings guidance range of $1.92 to $2.06 earnings per share, a walk from the 2016 non-GAAP EPS to the midpoint of the 2017 estimated guidance range is shown on slide seven. The key drivers for the 6% growth in earnings relate to infrastructure investments which are reflected in WPL’s recently approved electric and gas retail rates, as well as the infrastructure investment for IPL which will be included in interim rates which will go in effect 10 days after we filed the retail electric rate case in the…

Thank you, Mr. Durian. At this time the company will call to questions from members of the investment community. Alliant Energy’s management will take as many questions as they can within the one hour timeframe for this morning's call. [Operator Instructions] And we’ll go first to Brian Russo with Ladenburg Thalmann.

Hi, good morning.

Hi, Brian.

I understand that you don’t want to provide a revenue requirement request in the upcoming IPL rate case, but I’m just curious in general what percent of that rate increase would you say is attributable to the Marshalltown?

I’ll pass it on to Robert.

Yes. I would see a significant majority of the interim rate increase levels will be based on the Marshalltown generating station and the return on that investment.

Okay. Good. Because that’s been pre-approved, correct?

That’s correct.

And you mentioned that the interim rate would be based on a blended 10% ROE, if Marshalltown is 11%, how do you get 10% blended?

We have to use as precedence of what was used in the last rate cases, and because of the double leverage issue that we have to continue to apply until we can proceed with that issue in the next rate case. Really that double leverage brings down the non-advanced remaking principles down about 9.5% and therefore when you blend that with Marshalltown, Emery and Whispering Willow, that also have higher ROEs, it ends up being about 10% blended.

Got it. And I may have missed this before, but did you say you have no parent debt now?

That is correct. As of the end of 2016 we no longer have any parent company.

Okay. So that the prior parent debt that created the double leverage at IPL no longer exist.

That is correct.

Okay. Got it. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] Next is Gregg Orrill with Barclays.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Good morning. I was wondering when for modeling purposes the -- I apologize if you said this, when the incremental CapEx on renewable projects in 2019 would go into rate base?

This is Robert, Gregg. So right now were scheduled to try and put in the service the wind projects in 2019 in 2020. I would say a small portion of its going to go into 2019 and so it won't have a significant impact on the 2019 rate base. We are projecting to update our rate base information and present that as part of the information that we’ll share next week, and so we’ll be posting that probably sometime early next week if you want to look at that the online.

Okay. We’ll do. Thank you.

Thanks, Gregg.

[Operator Instructions] Ms. Gille, there are no further questions at this time question.

With no more questions, this concludes our call. A replay will be available through March 3, 2017 at 888-203-1112 for U.S. and Canada or 719-457-0820 for international. Caller should reference conference ID 8244179. In addition, an archive of the conference call and a script of the prepared remarks made on the call will be available on the Investor Section of the company's website later today. We thank you for your continued support of Alliant Energy and feel free to contact me with any follow-up questions.

This concludes today’s conference. We do thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.