Press star followed by the number 1 on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, again, press star 1. I would now like to turn the conference over to Brian Dingerdissen. You may begin.

Shareholder approval in record speed compared to similar deals over the years, and we are very proud of that. As we move to slide six, you can see that by year-end 2025, we completed the seven filings in the states required. This was another substantial accomplishment in an incredibly short period of time and I truly appreciate the efforts of our teams involved. At this point, we have received the initial procedural schedules in most of the states, and based on those schedules, we continue to believe that we will close the transaction in 2027. As you may recall, three states have statutory timelines, but the others do not. I may not be able to promise this regulatory approval phase will proceed in the same record speed as our shareholder approval, but I can certainly say I am proud of the constructive regulatory relationships that we have built over the years, and I firmly believe that this mutual trust that we have built will lead to a constructive outcome. So let us turn our focus to reviewing the past year's successes on slide seven. 2025 was truly a banner year for Essential Utilities, Inc., and I am very proud of what our team across every function has accomplished. I would like to highlight some of these as I think they speak to the drive for consistency and excellence I have emphasized in our calls over the years. Financially, we delivered 2025 earnings per share of $2.20, above our guidance range of $2.07 to $2.11. Even without some of the nonrecurring, I will call beneficial items, noted in our 10-Qs and 10-K throughout the year, we would have ended up above the guidance range. This represents our continued commitment and legacy of delivering on the guidance that we provide investors. And…

Thanks, Chris, and good morning, everyone. Let us begin on slide nine with a high-level view of the full-year results, and then we will get into the details on the waterfalls. As Chris described, our 2025 was very strong with revenues up 18.6%. Let us recall that this year-over-year GAAP EPS comparison includes previously disclosed prior-year items related to the gain on sale of the Pittsburgh-area energy project, as well as the unanticipated weather we experienced in 2024. On slide 10, we have the revenue waterfall for the year. Revenue has increased $388.5 million, or 18.6%, from about $2.1 billion a year ago to near $2.5 billion this year. Approximately $177.6 million of that increase is the result of regulatory recoveries. Purchase gas tax repair credits to customers contributed $57.2 million, while the “other” category of $30 million consists of reduced weather normalization credits to our gas customers due to colder-than-normal weather in 2025. Next on slide 11, our O&M slide, we see O&M expenses up about $52.3 million, or 0.9% year over year, with an increase of $8.5 million in water production costs, contributing increases in power, purchased water, and chemicals. Operating expenses related to newly acquired water and wastewater systems added $1.7 million. The “other” category reduced O&M by $2.6 million, including the positive impacts of higher capitalization in the gas business, lower spending on materials and supplies, and some insurance-related benefits, offset by expenses related to the merger with American Water. If we normalize out the merger expenses, insurance proceeds, and growth, we get to a year-over-year increase more in line with historic norms. Moving to slide 12, our earnings per share waterfall. We begin with 2024 GAAP EPS of $2.17. As a reminder, we made a few adjustments to arrive at a non-GAAP income per share…

Alright. Thanks, Dan. Let us move to slide 15 to recap our water and wastewater acquisitions for the year and take a look forward. During 2025, Essential Utilities, Inc. completed three acquisitions of water and wastewater systems for approximately $58 million, which represent over 12,700 new customers. I want to touch on some recent news you may have heard regarding the city of Chester and the Chester Water Authority. We respect the court's ruling. The Supreme Court in Pennsylvania communicated its decision regarding the city of Chester and the Chester Water Authority. We stand ready to participate in any process where our company can be part of an overall solution that assists the city of Chester to exit bankruptcy and ensure utility customers in the region receive quality water at affordable rates. Now looking forward, we have three signed purchase agreements for systems in Pennsylvania and Texas, which we expect to close in 2026. Notably, last month, the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission approved Aqua Pennsylvania's acquisition of the assets of the Greenville Municipal Water Authority without modification. I will remind you that progress on our DELCORA transaction, the fourth pending item listed here, continues to be stalled by a stay put in place by a federal bankruptcy court judge related to the bankruptcy of the city of Chester. As we noted in November on our third quarter 2025 earnings call, we remain optimistic about the consolidation of water and wastewater systems in the United States, and look forward to leveraging the combined resources of Essential Utilities, Inc. and American Water to accelerate our business development work through 2027. Hopefully, we will see some movement on DELCORA now that the Supreme Court has ruled. All right. Let me conclude my remarks on slide 16. We are reaffirming our 5% to 7%…

We will now open for questions. If you have dialed in and would like to ask a question, please press 1 on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. If you are called upon to ask your question and are listening via speakerphone on your device, please pick up your handset to ensure that your phone is not on mute when asking a question. Our first question comes from Paul Zimbardo with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning, team. Hi. Good morning. How are you? I am good. I am good. Thank you for taking the questions. The first was, and I apologize I have missed it, did you quantify what the non-GAAP 2025 would be if you made those adjustments, both sort of positive items, and then we noted the transaction costs as well?

No. We did not say it specifically. We just gave you the nonrecurring items there. You can find all those numbers in the Qs and then in the 10-K that will be released later today. You will see that we still sit favorable to our guidance range, really, as we have projected throughout the course of the year.

Okay. Understood on that. And broadly, on the regulatory strategy, could you describe what is the timing for the next round of Pennsylvania rate cases?

Yeah. So the way I think about it, we have not announced it officially. But for both PNG and Aqua Pennsylvania, we have been on a two-year cadence historically. So I would use that same cadence. That would have us filing relatively quickly here.

Okay. Okay. Then the last one I had was just I noticed that the small tweak on the language on the credit metrics is 12% plus versus the prior range. Anything to read into or things that you are trying to communicate from that?

I guess all we would probably say is, as we finished out the year and concluded our financial reports, it looks like we are in a nice position there in terms of FFO to debt. We should be above that 12% threshold for Moody’s and for S&P. So we feel good about those credit metrics.

Thank you very much, team.

Our next question comes from Travis Miller with Morningstar. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Hi, everyone. With some of your plans for regulatory activity with the merger, is there any chance that you could combine regulatory sign-off for the merger? Or would those be two separate filings in any of the states? You are about rate cases? Rate cases or surcharges, any kind of rate-related type of regulatory activity? Is that something you could combine somehow, either settlement or through the proceedings? Or are they all considered separate?

They are separate dockets and will be adjudicated separately in each case. I do not see those being combined, Travis.

Okay. Just thought I would check there. And then when you talk about the participate in along those lines? Take me through what might develop or what you could participate in along those lines?

It is such a great question. Now that the Supreme Court has ruled and said that the water authority, the Chester Water Authority, is actually owned by itself, right? The city argued that it should be owned by the city. And in that case, the city could sell the asset and exit bankruptcy with the proceeds. Now that the city does not have an asset to sell, somebody has to figure out—obviously, the receiver in this case along with the bankruptcy court judge—how they are going to exit bankruptcy or declare bankruptcy. And I think that is what is happening in the background. Where I think it is important for us is for DELCORA. You will remember that there is a small reversionary stub piece, if you will, of the contract that says if DELCORA sold, in this case to us, that the city assets, the Chester city assets, that were subject in place in 1972 when this addendum was put together, would revert to the city. I think there is an opportunity here for us to pay something for those assets. It is not going to nearly cover bankruptcy. We are talking maybe a little bit above our current purchase price at rate base. It is a minor amount in comparison to the almost $350 million they owe. But it could be a help in some way. At this point, what we would like to see is the bankruptcy judge allow the PUC proceeding to take place on DELCORA, and then we can begin this negotiation on the reversionary portion of the contract. Is that clear? As clear as I suppose it could be. It is a fun type of option for all of us.

Yep. No. That is all I had.

This concludes the question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the call back over to Chris for closing remarks.

Thank you.

Thank you. You may now disconnect. This concludes the call. Thank you for joining.

Thanks for joining. As always, we are available for follow-up questions that you might have. Have a great day. Thanks for being with us.