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K Taylor

Thanks, Brian, and good morning everyone. We feel very good about the start of the year and our ability to deliver on our commitments with all of our key financial metrics through Q1 in line with or in some cases better than our plan. You can find more details on our results, including reconciliations for core earnings in the strategic and financial highlights document we posted to the IR website yesterday afternoon.
Looking at our first quarter results, core earnings of $0.67 a share is a 37% improvement from $0.49 a share in the first quarter of last year. Our solid results reflect strong top line revenue growth and financial discipline as a result of the capital investments we are deploying on behalf of our customers.
Our rates and investment strategy significantly impacted our Q1 results, mainly from updated base rates in Pennsylvania, together with the full year impact of new base rates in New Jersey and West Virginia, which went into effect during the middle to latter part of Q1 of last year.
Additionally, as I'll speak to you in a minute, we continue to see the benefits of our strong formula rate investment program, reflecting solid regulatory outcomes that not only contribute to meaningful customer-focused investments, but also provide for solid regulated returns for our investors. This winter weather impacts were on balance consistent with our normal expectations. By contrast, in 2024 temperatures were significantly milder than normal with heating degree days 15% below normal.
The return to a more typical winter in the first quarter of this year resulted in much stronger customer demand as compared to last year, with total customer demand increasing more than 4%, led by a 10% increase in the high margin residential sector. On operating expenses, O&M was in line with our plan and 3.5% lower than last year, largely due to our continuous improvement in cost saving initiatives across the company.
Turning to our segment results for the first quarter in our distribution business, core earnings increased $0.10 a year, reflecting new rates in Pennsylvania and stronger customer demand. As a reminder, in December, new base rates in Pennsylvania were approved for a net annual increase of $225 million beginning in January, which includes the recovery of deferred costs and additional maintenance expenses.
In our integrated segment, core earnings also increased $0.10 this year, resulting from approved base rates in New Jersey and West Virginia in Q1 of last year, strong rate-based growth of 19% in formula rate transmission programs, higher customer demand, and lower O&M.
In the stand-alone transmission business, core earnings were $0.14 a share compared to $0.18 a share in the first quarter of 2024. Rate base increased 10% year-over-year, resulting from our Energize365 investment program, but this was offset by the final quarter of dilution from the 30% interest sale of first energy transmission to Brookville, which closed in March of 2024.
Finally, in our corporate segment, results improved $0.02 a share compared to the first quarter of 2024 due to lower financing costs associated with lower holding company long-term debt of approximately $760 million and lower average revolver borrowings of $450 million. Overall, we feel very good about execution against our plan, which resulted in an improvement in our consolidated ROE of 40 basis points since Q4, up to 9.8% on a trailing twelve-month basis.
Looking at the full year, we are reaffirming our 2025 core earnings guidance of $2.40 to $2.60 a year and targeting the upper half of the range. Our2025 $5 billion investment plan is on track with capital deployment of over $1 billion in the first quarter. This is 15% above last year with the majority of the increase in formula rate programs.
Our investment program is funded with internally generated cash flow and utility debt issuances. As discussed on our Q4 call, we plan to issue approximately $3.6 billion of debt of which $2 billion is new money to fund our capital programs.
We completed the first of these transactions earlier this month, pricing $600 million of five year senior unsecured notes for Trans-Allegheny Interstate Line Company or TrAIL at a coupon of 5%, representing 100 basis points spread to the five year treasury rate. We continue to see strong investor demand for our debt offerings reflected the attractive. Profile of our fully regulated diversified business combined with our strong balance sheet.
And on financial discipline, as Brian mentioned, the team is very focused on driving more efficiencies and cost reductions compared to our $1.365 billion base O&M plan for 2025. These opportunities include lower back office spending through the use of existing and new technology, optimizing our maintenance costs through more targeted capital investments and through various supply chain initiatives.
We are building this type of continuous improvement thinking into our culture and into the expectations of leaders across the organization. All of our leaders are highly engaged in ensuring that our operating costs support and enable the long-term objectives of the company.
So to close out our prepared remarks, we're happy with the start to the year with solid execution against our regulated strategies, our investment plan, and with financial discipline. Our earnings and financial performance across our key metrics are where we expect them to be, or even better.
Our first quarter core EPS of $0.67 a share is aligned with our plan and significantly stronger than last year with over $1 billion in capital investments during the quarter, we're on track with our plan and 15% above Q1 last year.
Our base O&M of $340 million reflects strong financial discipline and is in line with our plan and improvement to the first quarter of last year, and first quarter cash flow of $637 million is better than our plan and significantly better than our results from Q1 2024. This is the type of performance that supports our value proposition, including the total shareholder return opportunity that we are focused on delivering for our shareholders.
Thank you for your time this morning. We are highly focused on delivering on our commitments to all of our stakeholders. Now let's open the call to your Q&A.

Question and Answer Session

Operator

(Operator Instructions)
Michael Lonegan, Evercore ISI.

Michael Lonegan

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Just wondering how you would characterize the settlement discussions in Ohio, with the hearing starting May 5. Do you feel like you're close to reaching an agreement and what are the key areas that remain up for debate between the parties?

Brian Tierney

Yeah, thank you for the question, Michael. I characterized the settlement discussions as productive and constructive. We began them, we had a number of parties who were engaged, the key parties were engaged in the discussions. Those discussions will continue and they're focused on the type of things that you would anticipate, cap structure, ROE, and the like.
So nothing that's unusual or surprising, and I think the parties came to the table interested in discussing in settlement and hoping that we'd be able to get there. We're looking forward to the hearings beginning on May 5 and believe that will lead us to an expeditious outcome for the base rate case and look forward to continuing the settlement discussions through the pendency of the case.

Michael Lonegan

Great, thank you. And then you talked about a significant increase in large load studies since the last call, and you highlighted no slowdown. The prior disclosure based on the data center pipeline was, for $350 million of incremental CapEx through '29 and beyond '29, you had highlighted $300 million to $400 million of incremental spending opportunities. Just wondering, as we stand today, what would you say the upside is to these numbers?

Brian Tierney

Yeah, Michael, I'd say it's about the same. So in terms of people seeing in other areas, data centers and hyper scales and the like pulling back, we actually had the announcement from Meta of the Toledo, data center that they specifically That is associated with being ready for their AI complement. So people are not in our service territory pulling back from that, but continuing forward. And I just say there's no change to that long-term outlook for CapEx at this point.

Michael Lonegan

Great, thanks for taking my question.

Brian Tierney

Thank you, Michael.

Operator

Shahriar Pourreza, Guggenheim Securities.

Hey, good morning, everyone. It's actually Alex on for Shar.

Brian Tierney

Good morning, Alex.

Good morning. So I just want to touch on the Ohio legislation. So you mentioned, you expect the bill to be sent to the governor on the May, June time frame. Obviously a lot of positive momentum behind these bills, but do you see one bill being favored over another, or do you see the bills getting combined into one or more as more of a likely scenario and just sort of how should we be thinking about the overall process going forward? Thanks.

Brian Tierney

Yeah, I can't say at this point, Shar. I think they are both moving forward. They've both been voted out of their respective chambers, and how leadership decides to handle that going forward, we still don't have any particular insight into. I think the key provisions of both bills that are of importance to us. Things like the multi-year rate cases with forward-looking test years are things that are in both, and our focus now is on moving from the current framework that we have that has base rate cases and EPS to the new framework that has the multi-year base rate cases with forward-looking test years, and trying to make that transition as smoothly as possible.

Great, thanks. And just as a follow up, should the legislation pass as is and assuming you remain an ESP 4, if the cap isn't unfrozen, how should we think about the timing of your next base rate case? And can you just talk about the different levers you can pull on to offset the potential impact of not having the cap lifted in the near term? Thanks.

Brian Tierney

Thank you for that, Alex. So there are a couple of things that could play out there. One is, of course, we would go back and try and seek to get the cap lifted. If that doesn't happen, we have opportunities to shift CapEx around both within Ohio and the other jurisdictions until we can get in for a new base rate case.
And then I anticipate that we'd be going in for a new base rate case under the new framework as early as the first of 2026. And we'd expect rates to be in effect for that as early as 1127. So, a number of levers that we can pull between now and then, we're not giving up on the cap persisting in ESP4, but we have a number of levers to pull as we get our way into that new framework.

Great thanks. I'll leave it there. Thanks for taking my questions.

Brian Tierney

Thanks, Alex.

Operator

Nick Campanella, Barclays.

Nick Campanella

Hey, thanks for taking my questions. I just wanted to follow up quick, good to see you guys moving forward towards settlement. Is there just any chance that you could deal with ESP in that discussion, or is that going to be more up to commission interpretation you think since we're still waiting on the legislation to be finalized? I was just trying to see if there's a window where we can get more clarity on ESP sooner than later.

Brian Tierney

Yeah, Nick, I don't think it would be in that base rate case settlement. As you know we have a current active open case for ESP 6, and so we would try and handle as much of the base rate case issues as we could in those settlement discussions.
And then I think there are, the three other ways for things to play out around the ESP. One is if there would be legislation that would direct the commission to have a smooth transition. Two, if not that, we still think that legislatively they would expect there to be a smooth transition between the current framework and the next one, and we think the commission would pick up on that and try and make that transition as smoothly as possible.
And then, as I discussed earlier in response to a question, if we're unsuccessful in those, I think there are opportunities for us to move CapEx around both within Ohio and in other jurisdictions and then get in as quickly as possible as we could for a new base rate case under the new framework.
So a lot of levers for us to pull, and we'll be pulling all of those as timely as we can and communicating the results of that to the investment community as quickly as possible. At the end result on all this, Nick, we're looking at investment between the end of our current base rate period of May 30 of last year and when we get new rates in effect.
So if we have to go to a new base rate case under the new framework, there would be very little for the commission to review in time and magnitude and at the very worst, there would be an incremental, 15 months or so on the regulatory lag that we would face. Potentially on a reduced amount given the actions we could take.

Nick Campanella

Hey, that's great. I -- sorry about my confusion there on the process. Thanks for the clarifications. Just as it relates to you -- you're kind of talking about a lot of different levers to offset what seems to be kind of a shifting environment with this ESP and you have -- you're at the high end of your '25 guidance now. You have this 6% to 8% long term EPS CAGR. So do you still kind of expect, regardless of the outcome, do you expect to be able to offset that be within the range, and be able to kind of grow linearly here in '26, or how should we kind of think about that with this overhang?

Brian Tierney

Yeah, so we do anticipate being able to offset that. And as we've talked about the growth, we're not -- haven't been talking about linear exactly year, year to year. We've been talking about a compound annual growth rate over the investment horizon in that 6% to 8% period, all the while within that 6% to 8%.
So we're confident about our ability to stay in that range and deliver those results regardless of the outcome around this the base rate case and how the levers that we could pull on the ESP.

Nick Campanella

Thank you, Brian.

Brian Tierney

Thank you.

Operator

Jeremy Tonet, JP Morgan.

Jeremy Tonet

Hi, good morning.

Brian Tierney

Good morning, Jeremy.

Jeremy Tonet

Maybe picking up on the last question if I couldn't appreciate the sensitive nature of it all, but is there any other color you could provide to frame, I guess, what you'd be looking to solve for if things kind of progress, legislation as it is right now versus the size of the levers that you have just trying to get a sense of how manageable, easy or not easy it is to kind of work around what these items could be.

Brian Tierney

Yeah, so remember we're just talking about the investment that we've made and are going to make since May 31, 2024. So it's a limited universe in a limited time frame. And so we have made assumptions about what would happen with ESP 6. We've now modified those, not anticipating that would go forward, assuming that we will be in ESP 4, and then we'll be modifying how we do this going forward. So it's a modest and manageable amount of dollars in a modest and manageable amount of time.

K Taylor

Yeah, Jeremy, I would say, I mean, we would be looking to move capital around. We have plenty of opportunities to do that. We have the Grid Mod 2 CapEx that we could accelerate into 2026. We have the PAL tip where we could, move some of the Ohio based capital into that CapEx program. We have opportunities in Maryland.
In West Virginia with transmission CapEx, so we have a lot of opportunities to redeploy capital if and when we need to do that. And if you go back and look at the history of what we've done over the last two years with our capital program, I mean we've moved, a couple $300 million of capital around in a given year, so that's not something that we're overly concerned about at this point in time.

Brian Tierney

As we're talking to legislative legislatures and policy makers in Ohio, we see there is a strong desire to move from the current framework to the new framework. We're not seeing a signal from them that they don't want investment in Ohio, and that lends itself to a smooth transition either through raising the caps in the ESP 4 or some other mechanism. So the signals we aren't getting is not don't invest in Ohio, it's we're changing how we're doing regulation in Ohio, and we've heard from everyone that we -- that they expect a smooth transition.

Jeremy Tonet

Got it. That's very helpful there. And then kind of shifting gears towards settlement talks going back there again, I appreciate the sensitive nature to it all, but just wondering if you can frame it all, I guess which parties are involved in the settlement conversations such as staff or just who's more receptive, who's less receptive in any color in general you can provide in the parties would be helpful.

Brian Tierney

Yes. So Jeremy, we really can't talk it with any specificity around that, but we'll say that all the parties were involved initially we felt that the discussion tone and tenor was productive and constructive and along that vein we're going to continue the dialogue. You'll remember during Grid Mod 2 discussions we did file a partial settlement that was ultimately approved, and we think that's an avenue that's open to us in this instance as well.

Jeremy Tonet

Got it. I'll leave it there. Thank you.

Brian Tierney

Thank you, Jeremy.

Operator

David Arcaro, Morgan Stanley.

David Arcaro

Hey, thanks so much good morning.

Brian Tierney

Good morning, David.

David Arcaro

I was wondering if you could give a perspective on New Jersey and the recent commission efforts to look at cost efficiencies and the affordability considerations there. What is your latest perspective on what strategy might be possible to address any affordability concerns in the state.

Brian Tierney

David, are you referring specifically to the PJM capacity auction?

David Arcaro

That seems to be the driving factor behind what looked like a specific effort from the New Jersey commission to look for cost efficiencies among the utilities, but yeah, I think stemming from the increase in the capacity auction pricing.

Brian Tierney

So look, I think, commissions as well as FirstEnergy are very concerned about the coming price increases associated with the capacity auction. It would be one thing if the capacity auction pricing that we're facing was bringing new capacity, new dispatchable capacity to the market, and the customers were actually getting some value out of that.
We don't see that as being the case. So, we think that commissions and the company are going to do everything that we can to try and mitigate that impact on our customers. The commission yesterday in New Jersey asked us to go back.
And take a look with our in-state peers about how we could postpone the impact of those capacity auction price increases for the next four months. For the first four months, we're going to do that and we're going to be as constructive and productive as we can in trying to make that happen. These price increases are real and they have real impact on our customers and we're so concerned about that.
Again, if it was addressing the problem, we could be supportive, but it's not bringing the capacity to the market. This is what I would say, David, is you always want to do good things, and to the degree you have good things to do more of those. If there are things that are harmful, stop doing the things that are harmful. We think a continuation of these extremely high priced capacity auctions that don't bring new capacity to the market are harmful, and that harmful impact should be either mitigated or stopped on a prospective basis.

David Arcaro

Absolutely, I appreciate that color. And maybe along those same lines, how has the conversation involved? We've also got Pennsylvania, looking at the same issues this week as well, in terms of the future of resource adequacy in the PJM market. How are you thinking about the potential solutions or how is that conversation evolved, whether it's contracted generation, utility owned generation, have any options bubble to the surface in terms of getting more likely or more support among the different stakeholders.

Brian Tierney

Look, I think something that faces a lot of opposition wherever you raise it. Is a specter of re-regulation, putting the genie back in the bottle. I don't think that's a winner anywhere, and I think there are ways that you can address the resource adequacy problem without having to do that.
Certain states have other models that we pointed to that work for adding new types of generation. New York has done that with NYSERDA and NYPA. You've seen Texas do that with their Generation loan program. You've seen California do it for certain types of generation that they've added. So I think there are a number of models out there that work. I think the only way these problems are going to be resolved is by the states taking action themselves to address the problems for their own states.
So I've recently spoken with Governor Shapiro in Pennsylvania and applaud his efforts to keep prices lower in the state of Pennsylvania. I see that Governor Murphy in New Jersey has also asked FERC to take action on this, and I think it's leadership by the governors in the states that are going to address this problem most directly, and I applaud those two governors' efforts.

David Arcaro

Okay, great. Very helpful. Thanks so mush

Brian Tierney

Thank you, David.

Operator

Carly Davenport, Goldman Sachs.

Carly Davenport

Hey, good morning. Thanks so much for taking the questions. Maybe to start, just as you think about the current macro environment and potential for an economic slowdown, is there anything that you're seeing or hearing from your industrial customers in particular that you think could pose potential risk or is worth watching around that 2% low growth forecast that's embedded in the plan?

Brian Tierney

It's a great question, Carly. I was just watching on CNBC earlier today, Beth Hammack from the Cleveland Fed talking about issues, these issues, and from a macro standpoint, she's saying, look the tariffs add a fair amount of uncertainty to what's going on in the economy, and that makes it difficult for people to make Incremental investments and know that those investments are going to be either supported by tariffs or undercut by tariffs.
So we're seeing that from a macro standpoint across our across our footprint, we're not seeing a huge impact yet. What we have seen is some steel manufacturers have been slowing some of their production related to automotive demand that has come down somewhat in the near term. And we're watching that would also remind you that industrial load is a much smaller portion of our margin than residential is, and we have generally demand type pricing on the industrial load.
So we don't anticipate significant impact from an income standpoint in the near term associated with the near term uncertainty that we're dealing with, but the quicker there's certainty from an investment cycle standpoint, I think the quicker we'll be able to see people be able to make those investment decisions and get on with investing in their business, whatever the answer is from a tariff standpoint.

Carly Davenport

Great, that's helpful. Thank you. And then maybe just a high level question on the earnings guidance, targeting the top half of the '25 range and you mentioned the sizes cash flow tracking above plan as well to start the year. Can you just talk a little bit about, what's driving that to give you confidence at this point in the year to sort of target the top end of the range?

K Taylor

Yeah. Carly, this is Jon. So I think, we, we've laid out our base O&M plan for the year. We are targeting, lower O&M performance relative to that target. We have teams in place and leadership in place that are driving towards a slightly lower number to give us flexibility around our operating costs. And so that's what the team is working on and that's what's going to give us the flexibility as we think about targeting the upper half of the range.

Carly Davenport

Great. Thanks so much for the color.

Brian Tierney

Thank you, Carly.

Operator

Bill Appicelli, UBS.

K Taylor

Hi, good morning.

Brian Tierney

Good morning, Bill.

Bill Appicelli

Just on West Virginia, can you just remind us what's in the plan, the base capital plan, and then what does the IRP represent, I guess there's a potential upside, and then how do you manage the affordability of some of the options that you may propose?

Brian Tierney

Yeah, so there's a lot in play right now in West Virginia, Bill. What is in the current plan is current investment in TND and investment for the current coal-fired power plants that we have, Fort Martin and Harrison. Just so people understand, and there was people misreported, not the investment community, but the general press misreported on my comments in the last call.
When we put in place the investments for ELG in those two plants, we had to put a terminal date on those plants when we made those investments and filings with the commission. For Fort Martin, that was 2035 and for Harrison that was 2040. Investments in keeping those plans running through that period is in the current CapEx plan.
What would be incremental to that would be the result of the IRP that we're putting together now and the parallel plans that we would put in place to add combined cycle generation for the state. That the range of what that could be in the scenarios is very wide. So my proposal would be to start with a combined cycle that would be about 1,000 megawatts. That would be a$1 billion-plus.
And then as you firm up plans for what would happen from an environmental standpoint, from a cost standpoint, from a rate standpoint, you could firm up the plans is what would happen with Fort Martin and Harrison. And you could add incremental plans that look like the first combined cycle that we added going forward.
And I could see us adding between one and four combined cycles of about 1,000 megawatts that would -- could ultimately replace Fort Martin and Harrison or be incremental to them and bring incremental economic development to the state of West Virginia. It would just add the flexibility that West Virginia would have in an uncertain environment and allow them to attract things like data centers, transformer manufacturers and the like, who are desirous to site in West Virginia.

Bill Appicelli

Okay. That's clear. Thank you. And then the shifting gears on the -- we're making some progress here on the co-location docket at FERC, we've had some changes within the commission this week, so I guess what do you expect in terms of timing, now that the reply comments have been filed from FERC and do you have any sense of what form that may take? Is it just going to be an order or there -- and when do you think we may actually have the clarity from the commission that parties both on the generation side and transition side can move forward.

Brian Tierney

There are so many different types of co-location, and when people talk about co-location, they think they're using co-location to mean one thing, and it really means many things to many different people. There's co-location where you take existing capacity out of the capital markets, and I think that would be a difficult thing to do. And then there's co-location where people add incremental capacity to the markets, like what you're seeing at Three Mile Island in Palisades, where they're bringing incremental capacity to the market and would like to locate data centers and other loads next to that. And I think the pathway forward for that second type of co-location is going to be much smoother than for the former.
And to your point, we're going to have to wait and see how the FERC will order on those things. But I think in net new incremental capacity with co-location is going to be an easier path than taking existing capacity out of the market.

Bill Appicelli

Okay. And but I mean, as far as the some timing around clarity from FERC, I mean, Commissioner Christie or Chairman Christie's been cleared to move quickly, but I mean, do you have any sense of is that in the coming months or is that this could spill into latter part of the year?

Brian Tierney

I would say the coming months. I know that FERC is having their technical conference on that in June. I look forward to speaking at that and sharing our views on that, but I think this will be a month-long process for it to play out, but I don't think it has to spill into next year.

Operator

Okay. All right, thank you.

Brian Tierney

Thanks, Bill.

Operator

Andrew Weisel, Scotia Bank.

Andrew Weisel

Hey, thanks. Good morning, everybody.
First question on Ohio.

Brian Tierney

Good morning, Andrew.

Andrew Weisel

Hi, I know you can't get too specific on settlement talks, but my question is just on timing. I know hearings begin on May 5, and I know it'd be great to get a settlement done before that if possible. That's only 10, 11 days from now. My question is that the legislation is expected to be sent to the governor in the May, June time frame. Does one need to happen prior to the other? Does one depend on the other? And could a settlement happen before the legislation becomes official?

Brian Tierney

So that's a good question, Andrew. I don't think those two things are going to be related timing wise. I think the new legislation will go forward on its own timeline and the base rate case will go forward on its own timeline. I think the fact that the new legislation contemplates a base rate case and those are the issues that we're going to be handling in the hearing, in the adjudicated case, if it goes that way and settlement, if it goes that way, I think would be fairly easy for those things to move forward on parallel paths, and the timing of one doesn't have to impact the other.

Andrew Weisel

Okay, great. My next question is industrial sales trends. You talked a little bit about this earlier, but I noticed in the quarter, the industrial group was down 3%. And really, if I look back over the past several quarters, it's been a downward trend. Anything you can talk to either looking backward or I'd also be interested in anything you've been seeing over the past few weeks since Liberation Day. Obviously it's been a little chaotic in general over the past few weeks, but any kind of trends you could point to overall would be very helpful. Thanks. (multiple speaker)

K Taylor

Yeah, the last two quarters have been impacted by the slowdown in the steel sector, as Brian mentioned earlier. We started to see that in the third quarter of last year and so we're continuing to see that that's kind of tied to the automotive sector. I mean, if you adjusted the year over year comp for leap year, that extra day that '24 had in it, industrial is down about 1.6%, and that's primarily all steel.
All the data centers that we had in our plan for 2025 are still on track, maybe a little bit delayed in terms of construction, and so some of that might push out a little bit, but they're still on track. They're still coming online, and so we anticipate some of the growth that we had anticipated in that industrial class to be more towards the back end of 2025.

Andrew Weisel

Okay, thanks. Good reminder on the leap day. Easy to forget that one. If I could just squeeze one clarifying thing, in the PJM transmission stuff for Valley Link and the $300 million -- I guess there's $800 million altogether for your company. Just remind me, was that already included in the CapEx plan or is that incremental?

Brian Tierney

Yeah. So a couple of things there, Andrew. The component that's associated with Valley Link is not in the CapEx plan because that's an investment that will be handled on the equity method. The $300 million is included in the CapEx plan.

Andrew Weisel

Okay. I guess I should have said is that included in your financial plan?

Brian Tierney

Yes.

Andrew Weisel

Okay. Terrific. Thank you.

Brian Tierney

Thank you, Andrew.

Operator

Anthony Crowdell, Mizuho Securities.

Anthony Crowdell

Hey, good morning team. I wanted just two quick ones. I wanted a follow up from Carly's question earlier. I think it was more towards the drivers that get you to the high end, this year. Is that something I could bake in post '25 and maybe carry that through my forecast model?

K Taylor

Well, yeah, I mean, listen, we're driving towards more efficient O&M. We're trying to build in some flexibility into the plan. We have a team of people working at that. And if that were -- if we're successful in executing that, which I think we will be, we'll continue that momentum into 2026 and beyond. So that's kind of our target in terms of what we are aiming for in terms of a company and I feel really good about what I've seen so far and the momentum that we have for this year.

Brian Tierney

Anthony, some of the tailwinds that we've seen from this year associated with making investments, getting that converted into base rates through rate proceedings, as well as the O&M discipline that we've had, create the tailwind for 2025 and we anticipate being able to create those tailwinds in years beyond this one.

Anthony Crowdell

Great. And then, just specific to Ohio, I believe in the current rate case that staff was against maybe an extension of the settlement window. I guess one is that accurate and does that mean, can I interpret that as staff is more biased towards a litigated decision or that's an incorrect read of situation?

Brian Tierney

Yeah, I'd read it as, the staff wants to move the case forward expeditiously. Remember, this is a case that we filed over a year ago now. That's not true. In May of 2024, I guess. So a long time ago, and if the staff would like to move expeditiously on this and the commission would, we're fully supportive of that.

Anthony Crowdell

Great, thanks for taking my questions.

Brian Tierney

Thank you, Anthony.

Operator

Thank you. We have reached the end of our question and answer session. And ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's teleconference webcast. You may disconnect your lines at this time and have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation.