Thank you for holding, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Alliant Energy's First Quarter 2018 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all lines are in a listen only mode. Today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to your host, Susan Gille, Manager of Investor Relations at Alliant Energy.

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 and Chief Executive Officer; Robert Durian, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer; and John Larsen, President; 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 first quarter financial results and affirmed the consolidated 2018 earnings guidance issued in November 2017. 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 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 references to non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation between non-GAAP and GAAP measures are provided in our quarterly report on Form 10-Q, which is available on our website at www.alliantenergy.com. At this point, I'll turn the call over to Pat.

Thank you, Sue. Good morning, and thank you for joining us. I'm pleased to share with you our first quarter 2018 results and updates on several of our key strategic priorities. After my remarks, Robert will provide details on our first quarter financial results and highlights of our regulatory schedule. We had a solid start to the year, with first quarter results in line with our expectations. Winter temperatures returned to normal, and higher margins in both our Wisconsin and Iowa utilities resulted in quarterly earnings of $0.52 per share, a $0.09 per share increase versus last year. With these results, we are well positioned to deliver on our 2018 earnings guidance range of $2.04 to $2.18 per share. I would also like to brief you on several developments on our strategy to deliver cleaner, cost-effective energy to our customers. The Iowa Utilities Board recently approved our additional 500 megawatts of wind generation, which brings our total approved wind generation to 1,000 megawatts. The advanced ratemaking principle for Iowa wind projects are included on Slide 2. As you can see, it was a very constructive order and our Iowa customers and communities will benefit from this expansion of clean, affordable energy. Construction is already underway at the Upland Prairie Wind Farm and later this year, we anticipate beginning construction at English Farm. These two sites total 470 megawatts and are expected to be in service in 2019. I would like to thank the welcoming communities that are collaborating so well with our project teams, as we work to minimize the disruptions that can come with any large scale construction project. We are finalizing site selection for the remaining 530 megawatts of the approved wind, which is expected to be placed in service in 2020. In Wisconsin, we completed the purchase…

Good morning, everyone. Yesterday, we announced first quarter 2018 earnings of $0.52 per share compared to $0.43 per share in the first quarter of 2017. The key drivers for the $0.09 increase were higher electric and gas margins at our two utilities and increased customer demand caused by colder temperatures in our service territory compared to last winter. We provided additional details on our earnings variance drivers on Slides 3 and 4. Excluding temperature impacts, we saw relatively flat retail sales in our service territories in the first quarter. Slightly higher temperature normalized sales at IPL were offset by slightly lower temperature normalized sales at WPL year-over-year. The lower temperature normalized sales at WPL are primarily a result of two industrial customers experiencing unplanned outages in the first quarter, which we anticipate will be resolved by the third quarter of this year. In summary, first quarter 2018 earnings of $0.52 were consistent with our expectations. As a result, our consolidated earnings guidance of $2.04 to $2.18 per share remains unchanged for 2018. Slide 5 has been provided to assist you in modeling this year's effective tax rates for IPL, WPL and AEC, including the impacts of tax reform and the tax benefit riders. We currently estimate a consolidated effective tax rate of 12% for 2018. Also, note that our forecast for ATC earnings assumes an ROE of 10.2%, once the FERC's decision for the second MISO ROE complaint is issued, which is currently expected sometime during the second quarter of 2018. Turning to our financing plans. Our 2018 financing plan remains unchanged, including up to $200 million in new common equity, an additional long-term debt at IPL and Alliant Energy Finance. Consistent with this plan, Alliant Energy Finance issued a two-year term loan of $300 million last month. As a…

[Operator Instructions] We'll take our first question from Nicholas Campanella with Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

So if you could discuss the legislation quickly and the implications to the forward plan. You guys have a very robust rate base growth CAGR, but there is still a wide delta between that and the 5% to 7% EPS CAGR. Obviously, some of that is driven from the equity issuance. And then as I understand it, the historic test year does drive lag at IPL. If you were to apply for test year to IPL, where would that put you within your 5% to 7% range?

Yes, Nick, and that's a good question. And a couple of other things that are included in that delta. Keep in mind, it's the AFUDC calculation as well. So we'll probably update that slide the next time we hit the road. But we still believe it will be in the 6% range. This whole legislation was really to help with some regulatory efficiencies, and it really wasn't intended at all to increase our earnings projections at all. So really just stick to the middle of our guidance range. This is really just an regulatory efficiencies that we're going to get out of this legislation.

And then just given it's an optional test year, do you have any idea of how the commission is positioned here?

No, that's some of the details we need to work out once the legislation is approved. So you know, the commission has been very proactive in the state as you're well aware. So we're fairly confident we'll get very solid rules on how to work with the forward-looking test year in the next few cases.

Thanks so much. Congrats again.

And Ms. Gille, there are no further questions at this time.

With no more questions, this concludes our call. A replay will be available through May 10, 2018 at 888-203-1112 for US and Canada or 719-457-0820 for international. Callers should reference conference ID 417-5543 and PIN 9578. In addition, an archive of the conference call and a script of the prepared remarks made on the call will be available on the Investors section of the company's website later today. We thank you for your continued support of Alliance Energy and feel free to contact me with any follow-up questions.