WEC Energy Group, Inc. (WEC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, and welcome to the WEC Energy Group Annual Meeting of Stockholders. Please note that today's meeting is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] It is now my pleasure to introduce -- or to turn today's meeting over to Gale Klappa. Mr. Klappa, the floor is yours.

Thank you. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It's just past 1:30 p.m. Central Daylight Time, the time set for convening WEC Energy Group's 2021 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. I'm Gale Klappa, Executive Chairman of WEC Energy Group, and I will serve as Chairman for today's meeting. Before we begin, I'd like to call your attention to the rules of conduct for our meeting. They're available on the left side of the meeting page on your screen. A link is also provided, if you'd like to reference the proxy materials at any time during the meeting. And now it's time to call our 2021 annual meeting to order. I've been given the inspector's report, which indicates that more than 86% of the company's outstanding shares are represented. This constitutes a quorum under the company's bylaws, and this meeting, therefore, is duly convened to conduct business. At the end of our formal program, we'll be happy to answer your questions. As always, some of the information you will receive at this meeting is forward-looking in nature and is based on our current expectations. Our projections clearly involve risks and uncertainties. Factors discussed in the company's latest Form 10-K and in subsequent reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission could cause our actual results to differ materially from those discussed today. Now we'll begin our business session. All members of our Board of Directors who are standing for election are joining us virtually today. Also attending virtually is [ John Roku ] from Computershare. Computershare is the company that serves as our transfer agent and registrar. [ John ] has been appointed as the inspector of election for our meeting. Representatives of Deloitte & Touche, P.J. DiStefano and Tom Keefe are also with us online today. They're our auditors. And now I'll call on our Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, Peggy Kelsey, to report on the proposals that we have before us. Peggy, all yours.

Thank you, Gale. On March 25, 2021, a notice of this meeting was sent to all stockholders of record as of February 25, 2021. We will now proceed with the vote for the 2021 annual meeting. If you have previously voted your proxy, your vote has already been recorded. If you have not yet voted or wish to change your vote, you may do so now by clicking on a link in the online meeting center. The link is labeled, To cast your vote, click on the graph icon above. We will close the polls shortly. As set forth in your proxy statement, there are 4 items on which stockholders have been asked to vote: number one, election of 10 directors to serve for terms expiring at the Annual Meeting of Stockholders in 2022, including, Curt Culver, Danny Cunningham, William Farrow III, Kevin Fletcher, Cristina Garcia-Thomas, Maria Green, Gale Klappa, Thomas Lane, Ulice Payne, Jr. and Mary Ellen Stanek; number two, ratification of Deloitte & Touche LLP as our independent auditors for 2021; number three, approval of the amendment and restatement of the WEC Energy Group Omnibus Stock Incentive Plan; and number four, an advisory vote to approve compensation of the named executive officers, otherwise known as Say on Pay. I have been appointed to vote all of the shares represented by the proxy votes sent in by our stockholders. I have submitted the proxy ballot that reflects your instructions to the inspector of election. The polls are about to close. So if you have not finished voting, please do so now. [Voting]

Thank you. The online voting is now closed. The preliminary inspector's report has been completed. Based on the preliminary review of the votes cast, I declare that all nominees for the Board of Directors have been elected, the appointment of Deloitte & Touche as independent auditors for 2021 has been ratified. The amendment and restatement of the WEC Energy Group Omnibus Stock Incentive Plan has been approved and the advisory vote to approve the compensation of the named executive officers has passed. A final report will be filed with the SEC in the next few days. I will now turn the meeting back over to you, Gale.

Thank you very much, Peggy. The formal business portion of our meeting is adjourned. Now we'd like to provide you with a brief update on our company's progress. I'm pleased to report that on virtually every meaningful measure, we delivered another year of solid results in 2020. Our focus on efficiency and financial discipline and an encouraging rebound in energy demand during the second half of 2020, resulted in the highest net income from operations and the highest earnings per share in company history. Then in January of this year, our Board of Directors increased the dividend by 7.1%. This marks the 18th consecutive year that our company has rewarded shareholders with higher dividends. And as you may know, on Monday, we reported first quarter 2021 earnings of $1.61 a share. Our year is off to a strong start. We're well positioned to achieve our full year guidance of $3.99 to $4.03 a share with an expectation of reaching the top end of the range. Throughout 2020, we also made significant progress on diversity and inclusion. We spent a record $303 million with diverse suppliers. Entering 2020, through our Board refreshment, 46% of our Board members were women or minorities. Moving to the operations side of our business. We delivered another successful year of strengthening the energy infrastructure that our customers depend on. We invested nearly $2.2 billion in our core business to maintain reliability and improve customer service. And We Energies, our largest utility, was named the most reliable in the midwest, the 10th year in a row. Also in Wisconsin, our Two Creeks Solar Park began commercial operation in November. This is our first large-scale solar project, an investment of $130 million. Two Creeks, by the way, is one of the largest solar installations in the eastern half of the United States. I'd like to turn now to the events of this past February when another polar vortex gripped major parts of the country. I'm very pleased to report that our people and our infrastructure performed remarkably during that bitter cold stretch when temperatures in the northern portion of our service area dropped to minus 42 degrees Fahrenheit. As they used to say on The Tonight Show, that's cold. The investments we've made in our generating fleet, the diversity of our fuel mix and the resilience of our distribution networks kept the economy moving and our 4.6 million customers warm and safe. Moving forward, as we plan for a bright, sustainable energy future, our priorities can be summed up in 3 words: affordable, reliable, clean. To that end, we recently announced new goals to further reduce carbon dioxide emissions and methane emissions. We've committed to a 60% reduction in carbon emissions from our generating fleet by 2025 and an 80% reduction in carbon emissions by the end of 2030. We believe we can achieve these goals with existing technology. And of course, over the longer term, the target for our generating fleet is net 0 carbon by 2050. Regarding methane emissions, our plan is to source supplies of renewable natural gas that we'll deliver through our gas distribution networks. Our aggressive new target is to achieve net 0 methane emissions from our gas distribution system by the end of 2030. We continue, ladies and gentlemen, to be a leader in the energy industry, leader in reliability, a leader in customer satisfaction, a leader in financial performance and a leader in the transition to a low-carbon future. And now I'll turn the meeting over to Kevin Fletcher, our President and CEO. Kevin will address our response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Kevin?

Thank you, Gale. In a year like none other, we continued to focus on the fundamentals of our business, and I'm delighted to say that we turned resilience into results. We remained focused on providing essential service and keeping our employees safe throughout this COVID-19 pandemic. Early on, we adopted measures to minimize health risk and to lower expenses. We have instilled in our employees the importance of following the CDC guidelines. The remote work that's making our company safer would not have been possible without our recent technology investments. As the vaccine is administered more widely across our service areas, we will evaluate our remote work situation. I would add that we continue to be pleased with the efficiencies we've recognized across the organization. In the early days of the pandemic, we also accelerated our support for the communities we serve. In total, our companies and foundations donated more than $20 million toward the organizations across our service areas in 2020. The this included more than $2 million to direct COVID-19 relief efforts. It's our way of supporting the people and organizations that sustain our communities. Moving forward, I remain confident in our capability of keeping the lights on and the gas flowing safely to our communities. Now I'll turn the meeting back to Gale.

Thank you very much, Kevin. In summary, we're blessed with a strong and experienced management team as we navigate through a changing industry landscape. And now it's time for the question-and-answer portion of our meeting. Stockholders may submit their questions online by clicking on the message icon, and Peggy Kelsey has kindly agreed to read the questions for us. Peggy?

All right. Gale, here's your first question. What technology do you see changing the energy industry and driving a low-carbon future?

Well, that's a great question. I will be happy to give you my view on that. I'll also ask Kevin, who's been involved in a number of initiatives to give you his sense of what technologies might be emerging over the long-term as well. I think to basically summarize, in my view, there are 4 technologies, none of them are ready for mass production or mass availability today. But there are 4 technologies that could be very influential in driving to a low or no carbon future. The first is carbon capture. And in my view, that is probably the furthest ahead in terms of technology development today. There are literally dozens and dozens of carbon capture technologies and experiments going on all over the world. In fact, we were involved in one of those experiments a number of years ago. It used chilled ammonia to capture carbon from the burning of coal, and it worked. The question is the cost. I think carbon capture, again, because of the amount of research and the amount of demonstration going on around the world is probably in my mind the furthest ahead in terms of evolving technologies. Then you certainly got battery storage. We would need longer storage batteries than we can put in the field today. Modular nuclear is certainly a possibility. And for the longer term, hydrogen. I think those 4, Kevin, in my mind, would be the 4 to watch. Your thoughts?

Gale, that is certainly the case. And as you mentioned, we're actively engaged with the Electric Power Research Institute and the Gas Technology Institute on a specific initiative, low carbon resources. And what the focus of that initiative is, is look at the technology that you mentioned and finding ways to accelerate the development and the demonstration of those projects over time, which is going to certainly be needed as we look at, especially the latter years in meeting our low carbon targets.

And again, we would just reiterate with you that the targets we announced for 2030, we can meet, we have a road map, we know how to get there, and we can do that with existing technology. So what Kevin and I've just been describing to you are technologies that can be very helpful to us in that 2030 to 2050 time frame.

All right. Next, Gale, I'm going to share a comment of thanks from a long time shareholder. In the past 5 years, you have generously provided over $700,000 in support to ensure quality education and a safe environment for more than 2,500 students in seasoned schools. A large majority of our students come from economically disadvantaged households, most are children of color. I'd like to extend my deepest gratitude for the company's continued support.

Well, thank you very much for that comment. I will say this that our Board, our senior management across the company, we are all very much aligned and very much believing in the concept that our future and the future of the society and the future prosperity of this country is tied to quality education, no matter what ZIP code you grow up in. So we're very committed to helping improve education and educational opportunity in the areas we serve.

All right. Here's your next question. What happened to energy demand during the pandemic?

Yes. Fascinating question, actually. And let me just say, going into the pandemic, as we were sitting with you in this very place a year ago, we really had no idea as the country faced an unprecedented situation and a lockdown. We really had no idea what was going to happen to energy demand. The good news, and I think there's some very interesting statistics we'll share with you. The good news is that, in part, because of the resilience of the Wisconsin economy, electricity demand in our area where we serve power to millions of customers across Wisconsin, dropped only less than 1% during the period from March 24 when Governor Evers put out his stay at home order for the 12-month period ending March 24, 2021. So if you look at that 12-month period, electricity demand only dropped by less than 1%. And again, I think that's a testament to the resilience of the Wisconsin economy and to the fact that so many of our industrial customers provide essential products and services. So less than 1%. And now we're seeing, obviously, given the economic rebound, we're seeing growth again, and we are excited about the -- about all of the economic development opportunities that you've been seeing in the newspapers, ranging from Milwaukee Tool, to Foxconn, to Uline, we've got a great set of growth opportunities as the economy continues to grow in Wisconsin.

All right. Next one is actually a series of 3 questions from a stockholder. I'll read all of them at the same time. First one, how much reliable baseload generation do you have, if you factor out wind and solar/batteries, which are intermittent in nature? Second part, given the power disaster in Texas this winter, where wind didn't work and even gas was in short supply, should we not be concentrating on reliable sources of power rather than systems that are weather dependent? And number three, lastly, how about bringing the Reddy Kilowatt character back on public facing stuff?

Oh, gosh. Okay. Reddy Kilowatt, well, that's a name from the past. I'll answer that part of it first. A number of us used to work for a brand X company in the southern part of the United States. And actually, in the basement of Alabama Power, Reddy Kilowatt was born, probably about 100 years ago. I will say this, he's retired, long retired and probably will stay retired, but served the industry extremely well for many, many years. In terms of -- and the question about reliability is key, a very good question. So let me approach it in 2 different directions. First of all, the question is absolutely correct, wind and solar are intermittent sources. However, when you can augment wind and solar with battery storage, you can make those intermittent sources less so. But we fully understand, when you think about the 3 words I mentioned in my prepared remarks, affordable, reliable, clean, none of those work independently; they've got to work together. And we take those responsibilities very, very seriously. So we are focused like a laser and always have been on reliability. The good news is that from about 2003 until 2012, much of the capital that we invested was in efficient baseload dispatchable power sources that were part of our power of the future plan, that we have today across our system, roughly 7,000 megawatts of capacity that we can dispatch regardless of whether the wind is blowing or the sun is shining. All of that, given that strong baseload capacity, given that strong backbone that we have in our system, that is allowing us now to add solar wind and battery storage to a degree as we move forward and to continue to commit to aggressive carbon reduction goals. So rest assured that we take reliability very seriously. And I might add that during that polar vortex, I mentioned earlier and in the Texas event that you just described with your question, our wind farms operated at 98% capacity. So we were -- and part of that is because we built reliability and the ability to withstand extremely cold temperatures into the construction of those wind farms. I hope that responds to your question.

All right. Gale, the next one is a long one, so take a breather here. The Carpenter Pension Funds hold a total of 103,580 shares of the company's stock. As long-term investors, we strongly believe that the company's executive compensation plan should be designed primarily to drive the successful execution of the Board's long-term strategic business plan. Today's public company executive compensation plans are largely formulaic, peer-related plans with simplistic annual Say on Pay voting reinforcing plan homogeneity. Would you or the Chair of the Compensation Committee speak to whether WEC Energy might be better served by an executive compensation plan tailored specifically to the company's particular circumstances and its unique long-term strategic business plan.

Well, I'll be happy to try to answer that question for you. And I think I would start out with the answer by saying we agree with your concept. We agree with your philosophy. In fact, if you look at the description of our pay plans that are written in the proxy material that you received, you will, I think, see very clearly that we have a bespoke targeted individualized plan that works for this company. We've not just applied some cookie-cutter principle, but we do have objectives, goals and essentially pay plans in total that really reflect the unique circumstances of this company. And frankly, again, we agree with your concept. And if you look back, we've had this approach for 2 decades or more. And if you think about the returns that we provided to shareholders compared to our peer group, I think you'll see that the targeted and individualized pay plan that we put in place is working very well for shareholders. Thank you for your question.

All right. Gale, the next question is your last question. Mr. Chairman, the topic of stakeholder capitalism as an alternative to shareholder capitalism has received considerable attention recently. As long-term pension fund investors, the Carpenter Funds appreciate the sentiments embodied in the stakeholder capitalism perspective, but feel that execution could be complicated. Could you discuss the Board's perspective on the concept of stakeholder capitalism and what principles the Board would use to balance the interests of various -- of varied stakeholders as it develops and implements the company's long-term business strategy?

Okay. I'd be happy to do that. Let me first say that the definitional difference between traditional capitalism and stakeholder capitalism for a company like ours, there is almost no difference. It's because of the philosophy of how we run this enterprise and how we are grounded in the responsibility of customer service and reliability. So if you think about our basic responsibilities, how we incentivize our management to deliver on our responsibilities, it really revolves around affordability, reliability and clean. And that covers not only shareholder responsibility, but covers employee responsibility and customer responsibility. I mean as you know, we've been focused for years, and we have a great track record of customer satisfaction. We focus like a laser beam on safety. We are very involved, as Kevin pointed out in his prepared remarks, in support for the community. So we have always believed in what years ago we used to call a balanced scorecard. And I believe for a company like ours, with a franchise that has a responsibility to deliver reliability and again, clean and an affordable price. Basically, normal capitalism and what someone like today would fashionably call stakeholder capitalism, for us, I believe it's one and the same.

And Gale, there are no more questions.

All right. Terrific. Well, thank you for your questions today. We appreciate it very much. This concludes our 2021 annual meeting. If you have any other additional questions or you'd like more information, please feel free to contact our Investor Relations line at (414) 221-2592. And ladies and gentlemen, please be assured that our management team will work hard in the year ahead to uphold your confidence. Thank you. Stay safe. Good afternoon, everyone.

You may now disconnect.