Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q2 2025 Unitil Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Christopher Goulding. Vice President of Finance and Regulatory. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us to discuss Unitil Corporation's Second Quarter 2025 financial results. Speaking on the call today will be Tom Meissner, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Dan Hurstak, Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. Also with us today are Bob Hevert, President and Chief Administrative Officer; and Todd Diggins, Chief Accounting Officer and Controller. We will discuss financial and other information on this call. As we mentioned in the press release announcing today's call, we have posted information including a presentation to the Investors section of our website at unitil.com. We will refer to that information during this call. Moving to Slide 2. The comments made today about future operating results or events are forward-looking statements under the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements inherently involve risks and uncertainties that can cause actual results to differ materially from those predicted. Statements made on this call should be considered together with cautionary statements and other information contained in our most recent annual report on Form 10-K and other documents we have filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Forward-looking statements speak only as of today, and we assume no obligation to update them. This presentation contains non-GAAP financial measures. The accompanying supplemental information more fully describes these non-GAAP financial measures and includes a reconciliation to the nearest GAAP financial measures. The company believes these non-GAAP financial measures are useful in evaluating its performance. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Chairman and CEO, Tom Meissner.

Great. Thank you, Chris, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. I'm going to begin on Slide 3, where today, we announced adjusted net income of $4.7 million and adjusted earnings of $0.29 per share for the second quarter of 2025. Those adjusted amounts, which exclude acquisition-related costs, represent an increase of $0.4 million or $0.02 per share compared to the second quarter of 2024. Through the first 6 months of the year, adjusted net income was $33.1 million or $2.03 per share, an increase of $1.6 million or $0.07 per share compared to the same period of the prior year. During the call today, we will discuss a number of strategic updates, including the ongoing UES rate case and the regulatory review of the Maine natural gas and Aquarion acquisitions, which are expected to close by the end of 2025. We will also provide an overview of recently passed legislation in Maine, protecting fuel choice. Looking ahead, we see a strong financial outlook and today, affirm -- reaffirm our long-term guidance for earnings growth, dividend growth and rate base growth. Moving now to Slide 4, the regulatory reviews of the Maine natural gas and Aquarion Water transactions are progressing on schedule. Starting with the regulatory review of Maine Natural Gas, the Office of the Public Advocate, which is the only intervener in the case recently filed testimony that did not object to the acquisition. Technical conferences are planned for August and September with the current decision deadline set for November 5. You may recall that in the case of Bangor Natural Gas, we were able to reach a settlement with all parties. We will actively pursue a settlement in this case and could potentially receive a decision ahead of the currently scheduled deadline. Moving to the…

Thank you, Tom. Good afternoon, everyone. I'll begin on Slide 8. As Tom mentioned, today, we announced second quarter adjusted net income of $4.7 million and adjusted earnings per share of $0.29 representing an increase of $0.4 million or $0.02 per share compared to the same period in the prior year. For the first 6 months of the year, adjusted net income was $33.1 million and adjusted earnings per share were $2.03, representing an increase of $1.6 million or $0.07 per share compared to the corresponding period in 2024. Moving to Slide 9. I will discuss our electric adjusted gross margin. For the 6 months ended June 30, 2025, electric adjusted gross margin was $53.3 million an increase of $1.3 million or 2.5% compared to the same period in 2024. The increase in electric adjusted gross margin reflects higher distribution rates and customer growth. The company added approximately 730 electric customers, 110 of which are new C&I customers compared to the same period in 2024. As noted during prior calls, electric distribution revenues are substantially decoupled, which eliminates the dependency of distribution revenue on the volume of electricity sales. Turning to Slide 10, I will discuss our gas adjusted gross margin. For the 6 months ended June 30, 2025, gas adjusted gross margin was $108.1 million, an increase of $15.8 million or approximately 17.1% compared to the same period in 2024. The increase in gas adjusted gross margin reflects higher rates in customer growth in 2025 and the effects of a return to normal winter weather. The company added approximately 9,360 new gas customers compared to the same period in 2024, including 8,800 customers from the acquisition of Bangor Natural Gas. As of June 30, 2025, approximately 55% of the company's gas customers are under decoupled rates. When excluding Bangor…

Great. Thank you, Dan. Ending now on Slide 16, we had a strong first half of the year and are pleased with our financial and operating results. We are executing across all segments of our business, including the integration of Bangor Natural gas and are planning for the integration of Maine Natural Gas in the Aquarion Massachusetts and New Hampshire operations. We remain confident in our long-term growth and earnings guidance and we are well positioned to provide strong shareholder returns through a reliable, regulated business model. With that, I'll pass the call back to Chris.

Thanks, Tom. That wraps up the prepared material for this call. Thank you for attending. I'll now turn the call over to the operator who will coordinate the questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Matvey Tayts with Freedom Broker.

Congratulations with the strong adjusted EPS growth. So my question is about your Slide 15. So I see that in Q3, you expect like slight negative results on EPS and the question is, will it affect in a way your dividend approach for the third quarter and how you go along with this potential negative result in the third quarter 2025?

So no, the answer to the question is no. The earnings for the full year are in line with where we thought they would be. And the slight change in the quarterly distribution for the second half of the year will not have an effect on the company's approach to 2025 dividends.

[Operator Instructions] I'm showing no further questions at this time. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.