Essential Utilities Q2 2025 Earnings Report

Essential Utilities EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.38
• Consensus EPS: $0.29
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.09
• One Year Ago EPS: $0.28

Essential Utilities Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $514.91 million
• Expected Revenue: $462.70 million
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$52.21 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: +18.50%

Essential Utilities Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q2 2025
• Date: 7/31/2025
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Friday, August 1, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 11:00AM ET

Essential Utilities (NYSE:WTRG), Inc., formerly known as Aqua America, is a publicly traded water and natural gas utility holding company. Through its regulated water and wastewater subsidiaries, the company provides essential water services to residential, commercial and industrial customers. In addition, Essential Utilities delivers natural gas distribution services in Pennsylvania through its Peoples Gas subsidiary, offering integrated utility solutions under a unified corporate framework.

The company traces its roots to the Philadelphia Suburban Water Company, founded in 1886 to serve growing communities outside Philadelphia. Over more than a century of operations, it expanded its footprint through strategic acquisitions and infrastructure investments, going public in 1990 under the Aqua America name. In July 2020, reflecting its widened scope beyond water, the firm rebranded as Essential Utilities to underscore its dual-service model.

Essential Utilities currently serves millions of water and wastewater customers across eight states, including Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, Texas, Illinois, North Carolina, Virginia and Florida. Its water and wastewater operations focus on treatment, distribution and system maintenance, while its gas subsidiary provides distribution, metering and safety programs to residential and commercial users in southwestern Pennsylvania.

Leadership at Essential Utilities is headed by President and Chief Executive Officer Christopher H. Franklin, who oversees corporate strategy, operations and regulatory affairs. The company’s executive team and board of directors bring extensive experience in utility management, engineering and environmental stewardship, guiding ongoing investments in infrastructure modernization and customer service enhancements.

Essential Utilities Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: We delivered a 35% increase in GAAP EPS to $0.38 and reaffirmed full-year EPS to exceed the $2.07–$2.11 guidance range, driven by strong gas and water performance and nonrecurring benefits.
• Positive Sentiment: We have deployed $613 million of our $1.4 billion 2025 capital investment target and expect 8% CAGR rate base growth through 2027 (6% water, 11% gas).
• Positive Sentiment: Our Aqua business sustains top-quartile O&M efficiency and is leading PFAS remediation with the patent-pending PFASGuard solution, complemented by aggressive Texas connection growth and strategic acquisitions.
• Positive Sentiment: Employee engagement improved with 23% higher survey participation and 6% better satisfaction, and the board approved a 5.25% dividend increase, extending 30+ years of consecutive hikes.
• Negative Sentiment: Wet weather in several states reduced water consumption, resulting in a $2.6 million year-over-year revenue headwind in Q2.

Presentation

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. My name is Desiree, I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Essential Q2 twenty twenty five Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session.

[Operator]

I would now like to turn the conference over to Brian Dingardison. You may begin.

[Brian Dingerdissen, VP - Financial Planning & Analysis, Treasury and Investor Relations at Essential Utilities]

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for the second quarter twenty twenty five earnings call. If you did not receive a copy of the press release, you can find it by visiting our website. The slides are also found on the website. As a reminder, some of the matters discussed during this call may include forward looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results to be materially different from any future results expressed or implied by such forward looking statements.

[Brian Dingerdissen, VP - Financial Planning & Analysis, Treasury and Investor Relations at Essential Utilities]

Please refer to our most recent 10 Q, 10 ks and other SEC filings for a description of such risks and uncertainties. During the course of this call, references may be made to certain non GAAP financial measures. Reconciliation of any non GAAP to GAAP financial measures is posted on our website. We will begin the call with Chris Franklin, our Chairman and CEO, who will provide an update on the company. Then Colleen Arnold, the President of our Aqua business, will provide an update on the Water business.

[Brian Dingerdissen, VP - Financial Planning & Analysis, Treasury and Investor Relations at Essential Utilities]

Dan Schuller, our Chief Financial Officer, will then provide an overview of the financial results before Chris closes the call and opens it up for questions. With that, I will turn the call over to Chris Franklin.

[Christopher Franklin, Chairman & CEO at Essential Utilities]

Hey, thanks, Brian, and good morning, everyone. Let's just jump right in on Slide five there with some highlights from the quarter. We delivered another strong quarter reporting GAAP earnings per share of $0.38 that's a 35% increase over the same quarter last year. Both our water and gas businesses performed very well and in line with our expectations. And simply put, both divisions are firing on all cylinders.

[Christopher Franklin, Chairman & CEO at Essential Utilities]

Our gas business continued its impressive trajectory with net income for the quarter of $17,500,000 I'm not going to steal any thunder from Colleen. She's going to share a little bit more about the water business in a few minutes. But as you come to expect, we are executing nearly flawlessly in both our water and our natural gas segments. Based on our strong year to date performance, we expect to achieve GAAP earnings per share above our guidance range of $2.07 to $2.11 largely due to several non recurring benefits. We're also reaffirming our capital investment plans with a target of approximately $1,400,000,000 in infrastructure investment for 2025.

[Christopher Franklin, Chairman & CEO at Essential Utilities]

As of June 30, we've already deployed $613,000,000 in critical infrastructure improvements across our footprint. Now let me take a moment to highlight some exciting developments happening in our home state of Pennsylvania. Earlier this month, we participated in the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit, which was hosted by our new United States Senator, Dave McCormick. Energy leaders from around the country gathered to share thoughts, breakthroughs in energy and technology. And our Gas Division President, Mike Heuer showcased our ongoing hydrogen pilot project.

[Christopher Franklin, Chairman & CEO at Essential Utilities]

This is a cutting edge technology developed in partnership with H Quest and the University of Pittsburgh. Now, the comparatively low price of energy in Pennsylvania makes it such a logical choice for hyperscalers looking to locate data centers. And we continue to have active discussions with some of those hyperscalers as we speak. Now moving from Pennsylvania to Texas, we serve customers in the Kerrville area of Texas. You'll recall the terrible flood that took place just several weeks ago.

[Christopher Franklin, Chairman & CEO at Essential Utilities]

Fortunately, all of our employees and their families made it through the storm. And one of our employees and his family had nine feet of water in their home and had some absolutely harrowing moments, but thank God they're healing from their injuries and working to reestablish their home. During the height of the event, we had some customer outages, but restored service to most customers within twenty four hours and all customers within forty eight hours, a really exemplary job done by our Texas team. Speaking of employees, last month we wrapped up our most recent employee engagement survey under the theme Better Together. And I know employee engagement becoming a common topic for investors.

[Christopher Franklin, Chairman & CEO at Essential Utilities]

Now our results reflected the impact of our focused efforts to enhance our work environment. In fact, participation in the survey increased 23%, which was fantastic. Satisfaction scores rose by 6% and on average survey scores improved by seven points. These results reflect our continued focus on creating an engaging, inclusive and supportive workplace. Each year, we take great pride in reminding shareholders that for more than thirty years in a row, we've increased our dividend.

[Christopher Franklin, Chairman & CEO at Essential Utilities]

And as an expression of continued confidence, yesterday, the Board of Directors approved a 5.25% increase in the dividend. We remain committed to delivering long term shareholder value through dividends and share price appreciation. So let's take a look at Slide six. I want touch on a couple of community engagement issues. In April, we successfully concluded our fourth annual Essential Earth Day.

[Christopher Franklin, Chairman & CEO at Essential Utilities]

And this is a thirty day campaign dedicated to environmental stewardship and community engagement. The slide showcases our efforts in recent years, which include volunteer events, environmental programs, and a significant investment from our essential foundation. Now, recognition for our community engagement and leadership, we were recently honored as one of Greater Philadelphia's most community minded businesses. This is a recognition that we really appreciate and take to heart. Modeled after the Points of Light National Program, the award recognizes companies that set the standard for civic engagement through using their time, talent and resources.

[Christopher Franklin, Chairman & CEO at Essential Utilities]

This commitment to community engagement is something we do in all of our states where we have businesses. And finally, on a personal note, I am thrilled and honored to be named the Chairman-elect of the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce. I look forward to partnering with leaders from around the region to promote economic growth and regional priorities, which hopefully end up with more utility customers. Moving to Slide seven, let's talk about the shareholder value. We continue to deliver steady, reliable growth in earnings and dividends.

[Christopher Franklin, Chairman & CEO at Essential Utilities]

2025 is shaping up to be another strong year with core earnings per share expected to grow this year between 57%. Most of this growth is driven by investments in water and natural gas infrastructure. Of note, since we started providing annual guidance back in 2016, we have consistently met or exceeded market expectations. This consistency has enabled strong dividend growth underpinned by the outstanding execution of our operations team and their commitment to communities we serve. I have to tell you, continue to be impressed by what our team has achieved and I'm honored to continue to be steward of this great company with its one hundred and forty year history.

[Christopher Franklin, Chairman & CEO at Essential Utilities]

Today, I want to continue the tradition of spotlighting our business segment leaders. Last quarter you heard from Mike Huar, President of our Natural Gas Division. And today we welcome Colleen Arnold, President of our Water Division, who'll share some thoughts on our water business. Colleen?

[Colleen Arnold, President - Aqua at Essential Utilities]

Thanks, Chris. I'm happy to be here today and especially appreciate the opportunity to highlight the important work that the team at Aqua is doing. As a reminder for our investors, Aqua, as Chris just mentioned, has a strong hundred and forty year history and has grown from a small water company in Suburban Philadelphia to serving more than a million customers with over $7,000,000,000 of rate base in eight states. Notably, as shown on slide nine, we are expecting annual rate base growth of 6% through 2029, not including acquisitions. And the need for infrastructure investment has never been greater.

[Colleen Arnold, President - Aqua at Essential Utilities]

The DPA estimating $1,000,000,000,000 of need in water and wastewater infrastructure. That growth rate can easily grow with acquisitions. Now I've worked in the water industry for over thirty years, including as a consultant for municipalities and for a large city itself. Between the increasing complexity of PFAS, cybersecurity, wastewater, and declining funding, the conditions have never been more opportune. Now highlighting our operational excellence on slide 10.

[Colleen Arnold, President - Aqua at Essential Utilities]

As you see on the left, our o and m efficiency performs in the top quartile and has done so for over a decade. We take pride in ensuring that we're spending our customers' dollars efficiently. But equally important is that it is not at the expense of safe, reliable service. The top right hand side chart shows that we outperform water systems nationally with five to nine times fewer health based and aesthetic violations. The bottom chart also shows our strong safety record, the top quartile performance with respect to severe safety incidents.

[Colleen Arnold, President - Aqua at Essential Utilities]

Also, as we move to slide 11, we are tremendously proud of our industry leading p five commitment. We have been working on this for our customers since 02/2016, well before the EPA and state MCLs, because it was the right thing to do for our customers. Our laboratory in Pennsylvania was one of the first certified, and we sampled all of our sources proactively, enabling us to be where we are today. At this point, we have over 50 of our 300 plus sites mitigated and approximately another 50 under construction. This level of execution was made possible by the ingenuity of our engineering team who designed a proprietary modular system with applicability for groundwater systems.

[Colleen Arnold, President - Aqua at Essential Utilities]

We've recently signed a distribution agreement with Chartwater to sell this patent pending solution called PFASGuard to community water systems. It is generating a lot of interest. While we expect increased regulation to enhance acquisition opportunities, municipal systems, speaking from my experience, having worked with one, are slow to meet regulatory requirements. And many are just beginning to do the initial monitoring for PFAS now. The extension of regulatory deadlines may enable them to delay longer.

[Colleen Arnold, President - Aqua at Essential Utilities]

However, we remain optimistic that as the monitoring results come in, with our strong leadership, proven track record, and partnerships, this will be a strong avenue for acquisition growth. Lastly, speaking of growth, I wanted to spend a little bit of time on Aqua Texas, where we have grown by nearly 25,000 connections to over a 100,000 connections over the last ten years and currently have another 90,000 under contract or negotiation. This is in line with the impressive growth the state has seen with 16% population increase and corresponding 30% GDP growth or economic expansion. Our three core operational areas outside Spring, Austin, and Fort Worth, Texas grew from 20 to 40%. Most notably, Austin Metro, our area of highest developer growth grew 40%.

[Colleen Arnold, President - Aqua at Essential Utilities]

Based on customer growth and infrastructure needs, we expect to nearly double rebate to $1,100,000,000 in Texas by year end 2029. And now would be a good time to mention that we recently led with the Texas Association of Water Companies passage of future test year legislation. This will enable us to recover that capital investment and minimize regulatory lag. I would like to thank our amazing employees who really made that possible. We are excited for our future in Texas.

[Colleen Arnold, President - Aqua at Essential Utilities]

And with that, I will turn it to Dan for a review of the financials.

[Daniel Schuller, EVP & CFO at Essential Utilities]

Thanks, Colleen. Let's begin on slide 15 with a high level view of the first quarter results, and then we'll get into the details on the waterfall. Our quarterly performance was strong with revenues up 18.5% due primarily to favorable rate case outcomes in Pennsylvania, both for our gas and water subsidiary, higher purchase gas costs and increased gas volume. Corresponding earnings per share are up 35.7% on a year over year basis due to those drivers, partially offset by higher O and M, depreciation, interest and taxes. On Slide 16, we have the revenue waterfall for the first quarter.

[Daniel Schuller, EVP & CFO at Essential Utilities]

Revenues increased 80,500,000.0 from 434,400,000.0 a year ago to 514,900,000.0 this year. Approximately 44,000,000 of that increase is a result of rates and surcharges, with 31,000,000 of that attributed to water and 13,000,000 from natural gas. Purchased gas, which represents the cost of the gas sold by the company, increased 23,000,000 year over year due to an increase in gas commodity prices and higher natural gas usage. The other category of $9,800,000 includes $4,600,000 in weather normalization and $4,100,000 in reduced tax reverse store credits to customers as a result of last year's Peoples rate order. Increased gas volumes provided $4,300,000 in increased revenue, while growth in the water business contributed 2,100,000.0 These were offset by $2,600,000 from lower water volumes.

[Daniel Schuller, EVP & CFO at Essential Utilities]

Due to wet weather, we saw decreased consumption in a number of our states. Next, on slide 17, our O and M slide, we see o and m expenses up about $6,000,000 or 4.2% year over year. The main drivers include an increase in employee related costs of $6,100,000 compared to prior period, an increase in bad debt expense of $2,200,000 and increases in legal expenses, partially offset by favorability in other expenses, primarily as a result of capitalization. The increase in employee related costs includes about 650,000 of increased insurance reserves as we move the Peoples employees from a fully insured health plan to a self insured health plan. We normalize out the growth, the universal services rider increase, and the higher than normal employee expenses, such as the insurance reserve, we get to a year over year increase of less than 3%, which is in line with our historic norms.

[Daniel Schuller, EVP & CFO at Essential Utilities]

On Slide 18, our earnings slide, we can see the previously mentioned effect, an $0.11 positive impact from rates and surcharges, a $01 increase due to higher natural gas volume and a $02 negative impact due to lower water volume and increased expenses. Then turning to Slide 19. As you remember, this is a slide we introduced last quarter that provides more insight into how our annual EPS breaks out by quarter. We've now added the two quarters as reported, with both at the high end of the shaded ranges. For the third quarter twenty twenty five, we expect our EPS to be between 1020% of our annual guidance.

[Daniel Schuller, EVP & CFO at Essential Utilities]

We expect our fourth quarter to be between 2030% of our yearly guidance. We have some nonrecurring items this year that benefit earnings. So on a normalized basis, we continue to target $2.07 to $2.11 And as Chris mentioned, we currently expect GAAP EPS to exceed 2.11 Lastly, let's move to slide 20 to provide an update on regulatory activity. On 07/01/2025, our natural gas operating subsidiary in Kentucky received an order from the Kentucky Public Service Commission. This order approved the settlement agreement that allowed base rate increases designed to increase total annual operating revenues by $7,700,000 or 11.2%.

[Daniel Schuller, EVP & CFO at Essential Utilities]

New rates in Kentucky went into effect on July 1. We currently have three pending rate cases or surcharges in North Carolina, which is a three year forward looking rate case, Ohio, Texas and Virginia, with requested annual revenue increases of $96,600,000 So it's a busy year on the regulatory front. We continue to manage our regulatory activity to maintain safe and reliable service, earn an appropriate return on the capital that we invest and minimize regulatory lag while always considering affordability for our customers. Before I conclude, we wanted to take a moment to recognize Bob Rubin. Bob has been with the company for thirty six years, and he's been our Chief Accounting Officer for twenty years.

[Daniel Schuller, EVP & CFO at Essential Utilities]

During this time, Bob has had ultimate responsibility for our financials and SEC filings, and he's played a critical role in our earnings call press. Thanks for your contributions to the company, Bob, and for your friendship. You will be missed. Fortunately, over the past few quarters, Bob has worked to transition his role to Brad Palmer, our new Chief Accounting Officer, so we won't miss a beat. Welcome to that new role, Brad.

[Daniel Schuller, EVP & CFO at Essential Utilities]

And with that, I'll turn it back over to Craig. Craig?

[Christopher Franklin, Chairman & CEO at Essential Utilities]

All right. Thanks, Dan. Now let's move to Slide 23, where we touch on our long term growth through acquisition strategy that for many years and really continues to be focused on growing our water and wastewater business. Last week, we finalized our $37,750,000 purchase of the City of Beaver Falls wastewater system in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, serving about 7,000 customers that's out near Pittsburgh. We plan to invest $10,000,000 in the system focused primarily on improving both operational efficiency and environmental compliance.

[Christopher Franklin, Chairman & CEO at Essential Utilities]

We're very excited to welcome our new customers and bring their system up to our standards. Now for 2025, in total, the company has acquired systems which serve approximately 10,300 customers for approximately $58,000,000 We also have another four signed purchase agreements for relatively small systems in Pennsylvania and Texas. I'll remind you that progress on DELCORA 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. Now, there's really nothing new to report on DELCORA, but I'll remind you that DELCORA is not included in our current guidance numbers. Now turning to Slide 24, I'll close by reiterating some of our goals and aspirations both short term and long term.

[Christopher Franklin, Chairman & CEO at Essential Utilities]

We continue to see strong growth potential in both our water and gas platforms and expect our combined utility rate base to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of about 8%. Breaking this down a little further, the regulated water segment is expected to grow about 6% and our regulated natural gas segment rate base will grow about 11%. We are reaffirming our 5% to 7% multi year earnings per share guidance through 2027. This includes acquisitions expected to close in 2025 and 2026, but as we've said before, excludes DELCORA. This projection includes the crucial work that we're doing to remediate PFAS across our water platform, as well as our work to replace aging water and natural gas pipes.

[Christopher Franklin, Chairman & CEO at Essential Utilities]

We remain committed to maintaining a strong balance sheet, improving our cash flow and debt metrics and delivering consistent dividend growth while keeping our payout ratio between 6065%. All in all, we see a bright future for our company as we continue to invest in our nation's infrastructure and continue to deliver long term value to our shareholders. And with that, I'm going to conclude the formal remarks for today and we'll open it up for questions. Let me send it back to you, operator.

[Operator]

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer And our first question comes from the line of Julien Dumoulin DUMOULIN Smith SMITH:] with Jefferies. Your line is open.

[Julien Dumoulin-Smith, II-Ranked & 'Hall of Fame' Research Analyst covering Power, Utilities & Clean Energy at Jefferies]

Hey, good morning team. Hey, good to chat with you guys. Happy Friday. Maybe actually just to break it down, a bit of a nuance question, but it has implications here. You guys provide this timing to the year in terms of quarterly earnings.

[Julien Dumoulin-Smith, II-Ranked & 'Hall of Fame' Research Analyst covering Power, Utilities & Clean Energy at Jefferies]

If you take the midpoints from those and kind of look at what's implied, kind of implies maybe high end or better if you look at implied third quarter and fourth quarter here. Again, I don't mean to nitpick too much, but if you have any comment there, I'd love to kind of read between the lines there if there's anything you'd say.

[Daniel Schuller, EVP & CFO at Essential Utilities]

Sure, Julien.

[Daniel Schuller, EVP & CFO at Essential Utilities]

Yeah. So what we had said, you know, what we said on the call here, both Chris made the point and I did as well, that we're gonna come out on a GAAP basis above our guidance range. So above that $2 That's Julian.

[Julien Dumoulin-Smith, II-Ranked & 'Hall of Fame' Research Analyst covering Power, Utilities & Clean Energy at Jefferies]

Yeah. Yeah. That that that you So yeah. Yeah. No. No.

[Daniel Schuller, EVP & CFO at Essential Utilities]

I All of a sudden, we got some strange music going on. So, you know, let me let me give a little bit of detail there. So as I said, we're gonna we're gonna come out above the GAAP guidance range.

[Daniel Schuller, EVP & CFO at Essential Utilities]

We had strong revenue in gas this winter with more gas usage than weather alone would have predicted. And then this year as well, we benefited from some tax items and the reversal of a regulatory reserve as a result of the Aqua Pennsylvania rate order, and we had some insurance proceeds as well. Those were on the positive side. We've also had some headwinds this year. We've had a wet summer in several of our states, which has impacted us in Q2.

[Daniel Schuller, EVP & CFO at Essential Utilities]

It's currently continuing to impact us in the early part of the third quarter. Interest rates, of course, remain higher than expected. Inflation is still impacting some areas like chemicals, and we're still in the investing stage on our lean initiative. So and we've been, of course, you know, it's still early in the year relative to the gas business. We've had one half, know, we've had half of last year's heating season.

[Daniel Schuller, EVP & CFO at Essential Utilities]

We still have, November and December to go this year. So things can still move around, and that's you know, we're not being overly specific on where we'll land, but we're saying on a GAAP basis, it'll be above the guidance range.

[Julien Dumoulin-Smith, II-Ranked & 'Hall of Fame' Research Analyst covering Power, Utilities & Clean Energy at Jefferies]

Yeah. Got it. Thank you very much. Just wanted to elaborate a little bit there. And then just on the cash flow front, I mean, just where are you trending on FFO through the year here?

[Julien Dumoulin-Smith, II-Ranked & 'Hall of Fame' Research Analyst covering Power, Utilities & Clean Energy at Jefferies]

And then specifically within that, how are you thinking about PFAS here and some of the tailwinds from the settlements here and the timing for the collection of those, if you will?

[Daniel Schuller, EVP & CFO at Essential Utilities]

Yes. So you'll see let me touch on those in pieces. So our our focus really for this year is to be above that 12% downgrade threshold. Ideally, you know, put some distance in there, call it, like, a a 12.2% target area. Because we've obviously been in in close conversations with Moody's, and and we'd like to see that negative outlook removed in early twenty twenty six once they see full year 2025 results.

[Daniel Schuller, EVP & CFO at Essential Utilities]

And then, in terms of PFAS settlement dollars coming in and being helpful from a cash perspective, you'll see when we file the Q on Monday next week, you'll see that we received just about 7,100,000 in PFAS proceeds from those lawsuits already. And we expect a number this year that's kind of in the 45,000,046 million dollars range in total.

[Julien Dumoulin-Smith, II-Ranked & 'Hall of Fame' Research Analyst covering Power, Utilities & Clean Energy at Jefferies]

Got it. All right. Excellent. Thank you. Appreciate that.

[Julien Dumoulin-Smith, II-Ranked & 'Hall of Fame' Research Analyst covering Power, Utilities & Clean Energy at Jefferies]

You know what, I'll leave it there. Let others ask questions. But thank you and nicely done. Good luck in Texas here.

[Daniel Schuller, EVP & CFO at Essential Utilities]

Thanks, Julien.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Ryan Connors with Northcoast Research.

[Ryan Connors, MD & Research Analyst at Northcoast Research Partners LLC]

So a couple of big picture questions on Pennsylvania and then a housekeeping for you, Dan. So I know you're out of rates in Pennsylvania at the moment, but obviously we have the new consumer advocate there. So and I assume your team watches other matters going on really closely. So curious whether you've gotten able to get any feel for the approach that he's going to take and how that will differ from the prior consumer advocate? And then secondly, I've been hearing some chatter about the Office of Small Business Advocate being tougher to get to the settlement table on various matters and maybe being the next fly in the ointment, if you will.

[Ryan Connors, MD & Research Analyst at Northcoast Research Partners LLC]

So I wonder if you had any perspective on that as well.

[Christopher Franklin, Chairman & CEO at Essential Utilities]

Yes. Listen, I think our engagement with Daryl Lawrence and the OCA has been very positive. I would expect that Daryl and his team will continue to do their job as advocates for the customers and we'll do our job. But I do think that there is a maybe an enhanced desire in that group to figure things out, put this puzzle together in a way that's constructive and that all parties feel like they've come out of it with a win, you will, or at least not with a loss. And so I do expect a more constructive relationship there at the OCA.

[Christopher Franklin, Chairman & CEO at Essential Utilities]

That's been our observation so far. Listen, the small business advocate, she has a role as well and these are statutory parties and they've got their priorities. I would say this, the advocate has been very open to conversations. She's visited us here at the company in Bryn Mawr, and she has been open to conversation on all the topics. So listen, I'm hopeful that we can have constructive relationships with all the advocates and that's been our experience so far.

[Ryan Connors, MD & Research Analyst at Northcoast Research Partners LLC]

Great. That's very helpful color. Thank you, Chris. And then secondly, on the fair market value front, I've been hearing that there are some municipal sellers out there holding out for a price above the reasonable review ratio that was set in the reform to FMV in Pennsylvania. And I guess the reasoning is that the PUC does have the ability to approve something above that level on a case by case basis.

[Ryan Connors, MD & Research Analyst at Northcoast Research Partners LLC]

Is that something you've seen? And would you be willing to go take that risk over the cap? Or would you want just be staying kind of at or below the RRR?

[Christopher Franklin, Chairman & CEO at Essential Utilities]

Yes. I can't say that we've seen that yet. But I will say that on occasion we might pay more than the RRR if we thought that for example there was huge rate base growth and we could grow into it. I'd like to think that the RRR is a target for both seller and buyer given impact on rates, right? And I think that was the Chairman and the Commission's primary goal here was to minimize impact on rates from transactions.

[Christopher Franklin, Chairman & CEO at Essential Utilities]

And we're big believers that that's important. And so I'm not saying it would never happen, but we'd like to see both buyer and seller be closer to that RRR than above it.

[Ryan Connors, MD & Research Analyst at Northcoast Research Partners LLC]

Got it. Okay. Very helpful. Then Dan, yes, just on the tax rate, it really continues to kind of jump around and at least for us found it very difficult to model. So any perspective you can give us on where actually we should think about the landing zone there not only for the balance of '25, but even into next year?

[Ryan Connors, MD & Research Analyst at Northcoast Research Partners LLC]

Like what's your advice here on trying to model that tax line? Because it really seems to be kind of a random spin.

[Daniel Schuller, EVP & CFO at Essential Utilities]

Yeah. So my only way I think about that is for the full of 2025, think of a low single digit benefit. And then for the whole of 2026, at this point, of course, we haven't finished our budget or plan. But I think of that as a low single digit expense. So think of a crossover, you know, from at year end from small benefits this year to small expense next year.

[Ryan Connors, MD & Research Analyst at Northcoast Research Partners LLC]

Got it. That's exactly what we were looking for. Thank you very much. Thanks, guys.

[Daniel Schuller, EVP & CFO at Essential Utilities]

Yes, for sure.

[Christopher Franklin, Chairman & CEO at Essential Utilities]

Thank you.

[Operator]

And we have a question comes from the line of Davis Sunderland with Baird. Your line is open.

[Christopher Franklin, Chairman & CEO at Essential Utilities]

Hey, Davis.

[Daniel Schuller, EVP & CFO at Essential Utilities]

Good morning, Davis.

[Davis Sunderland, Equity Research Associate at Baird]

Good morning, Chris. Good morning, Doug. Good morning, Colleen. Thank you for the time. Happy Friday.

[Davis Sunderland, Equity Research Associate at Baird]

Two questions from me. Maybe first, just jumping back, Chris, to your comments about the hyperscalers and obviously a lot of activity going on in Pennsylvania right now. Could you maybe just talk a bit more about the potential opportunity here and specifically the timeline for ultimately folding some of these into rate base? I just I guess I'm trying to square the stable customer count through 2027 makes me think maybe beyond that would be the opportunity, but just wanted to clarify some of the thoughts there. And then I have one more.

[Christopher Franklin, Chairman & CEO at Essential Utilities]

Yes. Think listen, most of the hyperscalers that are talking are talking about really short term turnaround. They build want and get in service. And as I said, I think Pennsylvania, is a prime location for that, particularly Western Pennsylvania where there is low cost energy. I have to be careful in what I say.

[Christopher Franklin, Chairman & CEO at Essential Utilities]

There are some NDAs in place, I can't really talk much about the opportunities we're engaged with right now. But I will say quick turnaround. And I would also just maybe position it to think about as you think about these things, maybe not all rate base or all regulated, but some unregulated opportunities as well.

[Davis Sunderland, Equity Research Associate at Baird]

That is super helpful. Thank you for that. And then maybe second one, Colleen, I appreciate the comments on PFAS, and thank you for that. Maybe just wanted to ask about this potential EPA pushout and the rule maybe coming out later this fall. I would assume no change to how you guys were thinking about it and plowing ahead with the upgrades, but maybe just more about what you're thinking munis might do.

[Davis Sunderland, Equity Research Associate at Baird]

Is this any change in maybe the acquisition pipeline, if there's maybe a push out in some opportunities related to that or any thoughts? Thanks, guys.

[Colleen Arnold, President - Aqua at Essential Utilities]

Yeah. Thanks for the question. And as I said in my comments, there's no change to our program at all. You know, we're full steam ahead. I do think, really, in terms of the acquisition and and the growth opportunities, there's no change there either.

[Colleen Arnold, President - Aqua at Essential Utilities]

Most municipalities, you know, are going to wait till the last possible minute. They're just starting monitoring. And so they'll this gives them a little bit more time to keep their head in the sand, but the opportunities are gonna be there. And like I said, with our position, with the amount of experience we have with systems, operating operating well, we're gonna be really well positioned to help them.

[Christopher Franklin, Chairman & CEO at Essential Utilities]

And, Colleen, I you know, just think about it. Yeah. They might have get a couple of more years to comply. But given the fact that we have a resource, a solution, maybe we can help accelerate some of those solutions with our filtration system. And who knows, maybe that starts some conversation, would you agree?

[Colleen Arnold, President - Aqua at Essential Utilities]

Yes. And when I was at the American Water Works annual conference this year, you know, generating a lot of interest, a lot coming up to me, the engineers coming up to me, asking about it. And, as they, like I said, get their heads out of the sand and know they have to comply, I I know our solution is gonna be a great fit.

[Davis Sunderland, Equity Research Associate at Baird]

This is great. Thank you both. Appreciate the time guys.

[Daniel Schuller, EVP & CFO at Essential Utilities]

Take care.

[Operator]

That concludes the question and answer session. I would like to turn the call back over to Chris Franklin for closing remarks.

[Christopher Franklin, Chairman & CEO at Essential Utilities]

Thanks, folks. Appreciate you joining us today. As always, the team is ready to answer questions or follow ups if you have them. Thanks so much. Have a great weekend.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining, and you may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Brian Dingerdissen, VP - Financial Planning & Analysis, Treasury and Investor Relations
• Christopher Franklin, Chairman & CEO
• Colleen Arnold, President - Aqua
• Daniel Schuller, EVP & CFO

Analysts

• Julien Dumoulin-Smith, II-Ranked & 'Hall of Fame' Research Analyst covering Power, Utilities & Clean Energy at Jefferies
• Ryan Connors, MD & Research Analyst at Northcoast Research Partners LLC
• Davis Sunderland, Equity Research Associate at Baird