NorthWestern Energy Group (NWE) Q4 2025 earnings call transcript

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining Northwestern Energy Group's financial results webcast for the full year ended December 31st, 2025. As Jordan said, my name is Travis Meyer. I'm the Director of Corporate Development and Investment Relations Officer for Northwestern. Joining us on the call today are Brian Byrd, President and Chief Executive Officer and Crystal Lail, Chief Financial Officer. They will walk you through our financial results and provide an overall update on progress this quarter. Northwestern's results have been released, and the release is available on our website at NorthwesternEnergy. com. We also released our 10k pre-market this morning. Please note that the company's press release, this presentation, comments by presenters and responses to your questions may contain forward-looking statements.

As such, I'll direct you to the disclosures contained in our SEC filings and the safe harbor provisions included on the second slide of this presentation. Also note that this presentation includes non-gap financial measures and information regarding the pending merger transaction. Please see the non-gap disclosures, definitions, and reconciliations in the merger related disclosures included in the appendix of the presentation materials. As webcast is being recorded, the archive replay will be available shortly after the event and remain active for one year. Please visit Finance Results section of our website to access the replay.

With that behind us, I'll hand the presentation over to Brian Byrd for his opening remarks.

Thanks, Travis. Speaking about 2025, first and foremost, we'll talk about how we've done in terms of executing on our strategic initiatives. First and foremost, for an all-stock merger of equals. We patiently waited and ultimately closed our acquisition of the Vista and Puget Colstrip interests as of 1,126. We recently submitted a 300 million, or 131 megawatt South Dakota Natural Gas Project to SPP's expedited resource adequacy study, and we are now including that project in our ongoing capital plan. And we acquired the Energy West and cut bank gas, natural gas distribution assets. On the legislative and regulatory front, we have very, very good outcomes in 2025. On the legislative front, Montana Senate Bill 301 was signed in the law providing greater competence for transmission investment in Montana.

In Montana, House Bill 490 signed into law which clarifies and limits wildfire-related risks, protecting our customers, communities, and investors. So again, a very good legislative outcome in 2025. On the regulatory front, speaking of wildfire, we also was part of that legislation. We need to get our wildfire plan approved, and we did get that approval from the Montana Commission in 2025. And also on the regulatory front, we did complete our data center growth opportunities. During the year, we signed our third letter of intent with Hanukkah to 500 plus megawatts data center. And we progressed with SABY from a letter of intent to a development agreement. So that's 2025. More recently, in talking about financial results, and Krista will get into that here shortly, but the financial results for the full year, we reported GAP diluted EPS of $2.94, and our non-GAP diluted EPS of $3.58.

We are increasing our quarterly dividend by 1.5% to 67 cents per share. We're initiating our 2026 earnings guidance range of $3.68 to $3.83. And we're updating our five-year capital plan to 3.21 billion, a 17% increase overall prior plan. Speaking of the merger with Black Hills, which we anticipated closing in the second half of 2026, we filed joint requests for merger approval in the state's Montana, Nebraska, and South Dakota, but we also filed with FERC. And he recently filed also our draft 2026 integrated resource plan here about a month ago. And from a Montana data center perspective, as of yesterday, we advanced our friends at Atlas Power from an LOI perspective to a development agreement. And I'll speak to all of these topics a bit more after Krista's presentation.

With that, Krista.

Thank you, Brian. In my comments today, I will cover our fourth quarter and your state results. I will also cover, as Brian mentioned, our outlook for 2026 and our updated capital and financing plan. After listening to Brian there, it's been a really, really busy 2025 with a lot of accomplishments. And our team has worked super hard to also deliver on a result for 2025, achieving 5.3% growth off of 2024 on a non-gapped basis. We delivered gap earnings of $2.94, which included impacts of merger related costs, the regulatory outcomes, right case in Montana, and a very warm fourth quarter. I'll describe those adjustments in a bit detail or further detail I hear on in later slide.

Adjusting for those items, as I mentioned, we delivered $3.58. And that's the efforts after quite a few headwinds during the year to deliver upon our commitments to our shareholders.

Moving on to slide eight. On an adjusted basis for the fourth quarter, we delivered a $1.17. Our improved margin reflects new rates, a lot of regulatory execution involved in getting to those numbers, which were offset a bit by mild weather as I alluded to in this fourth quarter, very warm for us, and impacts of market prices in our Montana PCAM mechanism. That margin improvement was offset by a one-time charge in the Montana rate review. Higher operating costs and operating costs certainly include merger related costs as well, and then depreciation and interest expense increases as well.

Moving to slide nine to talk about some of the adjustments for the quarter, weather for the quarter was unfavorable by $0.03, but when you compare that to a very mild 2024, however, compared to normal, weather represented a $0.13 impact to us in Q4. The quarter was also impacted by $0.03 of merger costs. The one-time charge for the Montana rate review outcome related to the Yellowstone County Generating Station and the disliance of certain costs related to that was $0.38 and $0.03 related to the PCAM, reflecting the final order there, reflecting cessation of the sharing amount there, offset by a $0.12 tax benefit. You'll see that resulted in the $1.17 of adjusted earnings compared to $1.13 in the fourth quarter of 2024.

On a year-to-day basis, moving to slide 10, our performance is driven by, again, that improved margin driven by regulatory execution, offset by detriments of PCAM within that of $0.09 from a full year basis. On an O&M perspective, certainly higher given new maintenance at the Yellowstone County Generating Facility as a maintenance at our other electric generation, they now were spending, importantly, on wildfire mitigation and also insurance that is increased in labor and benefits. We also incurred higher depreciation expense of $0.27 and interest expense of $0.23.

One item I would highlight on this slide is that taxes in the current period include a $0.12 benefit, while 2024 included a $0.39 benefit, which is a good segue to the next slide 11 to hopefully give you clarity on quite a few things that moved within our earnings from a 2025 full-year basis. Weather, again, was unfavorable by five cents compared to normal weather. That was $0.18 of detriment for us as we think about our impact to results for 2025. It was a very mild back half of 2025. Most of you won't recall, but we actually started the year through first quarter with favorable weather. So that reversal was really significant for us and impacts also as we'll talk about later cash and the impact to financing plans.

In addition, merger related costs were $0.15 and the Montana Great Review just launched, I spoke to was $0.38, which notably we have thought reconsideration of that dismount, but we do not have a clear timeline as to when we might see any impact of that, but that would certainly be a 2026 item. If so, in addition, I spoke to tax benefits and quite a bit of noise within our tax number between last year and this year. There was $0.12 of discrete items benefit in 2025, and that compares to if you'll recall 2024, we had 28 cents in the prior period. All of that, if you'll follow the slide along, gets us just $3.58 of adjusted earnings for our 2025 number, which as I alluded to earlier, was 5.3% of an increase over 2024.

And my comment there is, given the significant headwinds, we've talked about the headwinds and our financials from our PKM mechanism, which again, I'll take a positive out of the Montana Great Review outcome, indicating that the sharing part of that will be suspended on an ongoing basis. That's important, but that was about nine cents of impact to us in 2025 total, which we've adjusted out the fourth quarter here. And then also property taxes being higher. We collected significant amount of property taxes through our rates. Those increase and we only recover a certain portion of that between the right cases. Those were pretty significant headwinds for us during the year, so we are pleased on top of the mild weather that I've talked about in the ongoing impact to our financials.

We are pleased that delivering $3.58 for 2025. Slide 12, looking forward from a guidance perspective, we are initiating earnings guidance in the range of $3.68, just $3.83 per share, which represents 5% growth at the midpoint off of our 2025 results and remains anchored to our 2024 phase. A significant part of that is moving to slide 13 and updating our capital plan. Brian mentioned the inclusion of the 131 megawatt generating facility in South Dakota, and also we've updated to include our incremental culture ownership. We're very proud of closing those transactions effective January 1, 2026 and being resource adequate to make sure that we can serve our customers.

Those two things drive a 17% increase in our overall capital plan over what we've reflected before. You'll recall our dedication to having a self-funded capital plan and only issuing equity when it is accretive on an ongoing basis. I would tell you that the base capital plan that underlies the $3.2 billion you see here continues to be self-funded. With the incremental South Dakota generation investment reflected here, we do expect to need equity beyond 2026 to fund that investment, which we expect if you think about that to be on a 5050 debt to equity basis that we would manage that incremental capital. And that's consistent with our overall commitment to maintaining high credit quality in our ongoing plan.

Moving to slide 14 to talk about financing for 2026. Again, I just mentioned that the incremental self-coded generation investment, that would be beyond 2026. We expect to issue debt to refinance existing maturities and fund our existing capital plan. We closed out 2025 at a lower FFO to debt. That was driven by the things I mentioned earlier of the combination of lack of margins from very mild weather affecting our cash flows and also being significantly under collected as supply costs on the Montana side. Those two things really drove us closing out the year at a lower level than we would like to, but we remain committed to getting above and staying above our downside threshold. And with that, I will turn it back to Brian.

All right. Thanks, Chris. On 16, we speak to the merger with Black Hills and the benefits to really all stakeholders. Obviously, the strategic combination represents highly attractive value creation opportunity for both companies. On this slide, it really speaks to certainly going to share all the perspective, but also customers.

So let me start with shareholders. In an increases scale position and growth, I mean, think of moving two companies from a four to six percent EPS growth to five to seven percent, doubling of each company's rate base, totaling approximately $11 billion. Both companies having significant growth opportunities and ability to take advantage of this merger to truly capture those. And as it points out, a little bit lower on the slide as a larger company will be able to expand our investment opportunity. And I should also acknowledge it reduced risk as a larger company with risks like wildfire risk and other risks that we have in our business. We certainly can sustain those as a larger organization.

Also, strengthen the balance sheet and the credit metrics. You heard Crystal speak to that just a moment ago. Obviously, as a combined entity, we have the financial wherewithal to invest more in our businesses as a larger company and do that cost effectively for our customers. And lastly, enhance business diversity. Not one entity will have more than a third of terms of ownership in terms of representation by a jurisdiction. I think their largest would be approximately 31% for a particular jurisdiction, but also a very, very good mix of electric and gas. And what makes these two great companies both combo utilities even stronger than a combined entity.

And then the center of this page and this is really the center of all we do, certainly in American Western, we'll speak for our friends at Black Hills. We think about our customers and the substantial long-term value for our customers who bring in these two teams together who are very complimentary. We both provide excellent customer service to our customers and our great operators. And I will tell you the savings generated from putting these two companies together ultimately improve the customers and future rate review proceedings. And so obviously, in this time, when people are thinking about affordability, our two companies are thinking about that certainly as we contemplate this merger and it going forward basis. Moving forward, in terms of a timeline, I mentioned earlier that we filed joint applications for approval in three states, Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota.

We did that Q4 and we have hearings expected in the second quarter of 26 for those states. We also filed at FERC at Q4 of 25. We filed our S4 joint proxy statement on January 30th and we have Cheryl the votes both scheduled for April 2nd. Beyond that, we've also started our integration planning effort and we do expect and anticipated approvals and closing in the back half of 2026. Moving forward, kind of thinking about large load customers and obviously that leads you to discussions around data centers. On page 18, I mentioned the far right you see the Montana large load opportunities. First and foremost, say, I'm sure you've been reading about they've had some issues in terms of property, in terms of their project.

They have two sites certainly that they're considering and right now they continue to, they got a favorable vote here recently to move forward but they're still looking at the land concerns and they're dealing with those issues. They have land both in-bute and anaconda that we're considering. So we continue to work through them as they work through those challenges. We have a development agreement and we expect to get to an ESA here hopefully by the end of Q2-2026. Also, we announced here recently Atlas, Atlas Power. We've moved from an ally to a development agreement and they've been moving much, much quicker because good signs I think would think from an off-taker or a customer from their perspective.

They're getting ready to move forward. That's good news for us with that development agreement. I would just tell you and the benefit of development agreements, these two entities now are putting skin in the game. They think of upwards of $500,000 of investment if you will for all the studies that are necessary that we need to complete this utility and so skin in the game if you will for those two entities as we move forward.

And I expect as I more at least one of those ESA to be completed for those two by the end of Q2-2026. Quantica also making great progress and hopefully we'll see a development agreement from them relatively soon. As I think about the two states that we provide electric business off to the left, one thing I would say about Montana, we ultimately hope to serve these large load customers on a state jurisdictional basis. And when we have an ESA with one of these parties, we'd like to make a filing with the NPSE along with a large load tariff that protects customers and we'd like to think we're gonna do that here in the first half of Q2-2026.

Regarding South Dakota, there is a significant indication of interest by data centers in the state. The benefit there is any new large load customers that require economic capacity. We have infrastructure riders that can help us with that generation cost recovery. And also the South Dakota PUC has an established process for large load customers with a deviated rate tariff. The last thing I'd say about South Dakota is we sit during this legislative session. We're waiting on sales tax reform in the state which is something that is very, very important to data centers before they move forward in South Dakota. So watch that in the coming weeks. The second slide I'd have on data center slide 19, the middle of that slide shows a lot of intent and development agreements.

Obviously moving from two letter of intent and then one development agreement to one letter of intent, two development agreements, Seoul's progress there. We'd like to move all of those over into the ESA category to the right here relatively soon in 2026. To the far left, I would also talk about data center requests and high level assessments. You may note that the Q count is actually down a little bit there. And I think what happens, there's a lot of developers here and they get to a certain point and if they can't move forward and fast enough, can't find an off-taker or a customer, that count can reduce, not necessarily surprise. I think from a high level assessment where there are some in there, we believe certainly can move into that middle category of letter and intent and development agreement.

So we're excited there. We do see some sales tax movement in South Dakota. I expect both of those Q counts to actually go up in 2026.

Moving forward on poll strip, happy to announce earlier that we've closed those two portions of poll strip in addition to our own 222 megawatts. We've added the Efista 222 that not only allowed us to achieve resource adequacy in Montana, but increased our ownership from 15 to 30 percent. But knowing that we have not as much control certainly as a 30 percent owner, matter if we didn't have control of the facility as a whole, the incremental Puget piece did two things for us. It moved us from 30 percent to 55 percent, giving us that ability to drive strategic direction for the overall facility, but also gave us the ability now to serve large load customers. And so both of those interest are closed and those plants, those interests are operating well for us.

And we're excited to have them complete. I'll tell you what, I sleep much sounder when cold weather does come to us in Montana and South Dakota. One thing I'd just say real quickly about Avista and Puget, I think you're well aware, we acquired both of those units for zero, which is a fantastic thing for our customers, certainly from the affordability and reliability standpoint. But we do need to cover our operating costs. And in Montana for the Avista portion, we filed a temporary P cam tariff waiver with the MPSC in August. And that would provide a near term cost recovery that expected to largely offset the 18, approximately 18 million of incremental annual operating costs.

That waiver, by the way, was temporarily granted in January 2026. So hopefully we'll learn more about that waiver in 26, hopefully get full recovery for the full year of those operating costs at some point in the future. From the Puget perspective, we signed a contract in October 2025 to sell that electricity through late 2027, think of when data centers could come on in the state. And that revenue, from that contract, it is expected to largely offset the approximately 30 million of incremental annual operating costs, resulting from the transfer. I think you're well, well aware, we filed with FERC for cost-based rates in October 2025. And we expect a approval from that filing in the first quarter of 2026.

Lastly, the Northwestern Value Proposition slide, you might have noticed that two changes on the slide. The first crystal talk to is the 17% increase in investment over on the right-hand side up to the 3.21 billion. Second is noting the dividend yield at the top of the page. You might recall that used to say 4% to 5%. Our view today, we're going to say it approximately 4%. Keep that in mind as you think about our base plan on the left and our incremental opportunities there in the center. From the base plan, taking that dividend yield plus our 4% to 6% EPS growth, you're looking at an 8% to 10% total return. Just doing, and I'd argue, what utilities are typically doing from electric and gas distribution, transmission, supply investment.

This is a bread and butter utility investment. And so even with that, thinking about an 8% to 10% total return, and obviously we're able to capture any data center growth, any sort of regional transmission, any incremental generating capacity, that return can certainly go over 10%. And so with that, I'm going to, from a conclusion perspective, I think you've seen this conclusion slide for many years. I'm just going to turn it over from Q&A.

Yeah, Whitney, you're cutting out a little bit, but I'll take that question. We had said we will file a large load tariff, but I would note that that was tied to signing an ESA. So we want to go hand in hand to file a tariff with a specific contract. Part of that conversation, we have an existing GS2 tariff today. We think we could serve customers off of that tariff, but you want to strengthen that tariff and certainly get ahead of this argument that data centers aren't paying their fair share, et cetera. We expect to file that once we have assigned ESA so that we can walk through the specific mechanics with the Montana Commission or what that looks like and why indeed they pay their fair share and likely contribute broadly to the system benefits.

So once we have assigned ESA, we'll plan to file that large load tariff in sync with that. Yeah, I want to answer that as I said in the presentation, there's an expectation we would do that by the end of the second quarter. And the reason being, that's when I expect an ESA to occur. And I would say that the tariff is ready to go. We're waiting for many years.

I think you're talking from a public process perspective. I think in, you know, where data centers have gotten quite a bit of attention as you're well aware throughout the country. And I would argue in Montana, in the community of Butte, obviously most of the discussion could save you furthest along in the discussion there. And I think the Butte Silverbo allowed a lot of conversation in the community, ultimately voted nine to three and four to letting save you move forward. So I think I'd argue that the data centers are getting to be more vocal. Talking to the benefits, we utilities certainly have been supportive of that effort. And I think what we need to demonstrate, all of us need to demonstrate is from a terror perspective, and that's our plan is and allow the MPSC to approve a tariff that we would put a tariff in front of them that's going to protect customers.

And I think when customers understand that, they're going to feel much, much better about it. Obviously, they're reading what's happening in other parts of the country and how customers have been impacted by data centers, and it's easy to jump to conclusions. And so I think there's been a decent dialogue about this topic. Certainly, I and others have been out talking about it. But I'm not saying it's going to be easy either for data centers. But I think thus far, we're making good progress with Savee and Atlas and Quantica that I know is out there talking about this as well.

Yeah, I think you've seen. I'll take a bit of a mea culpa here myself. I think we thinking at ESA's, we at times were the hold up to getting these ESA's done and we're ready to go from our perspective. And unfortunately for Savee they ran into this land issue. And obviously they're working through that. So I think this is not just on the utilities to get these things done. In many cases, developers also need to find customers and before they're ready to sign ESA sometimes. They need to have that done. It's much easier for hyperscalers, of course, who don't need to find customers.

So I do think that Savee's working awfully hard to get to an ESA Atlas, obviously moving to a development agreement. The next step is to get to an ESA. So I've seen that's taken a bit longer nationally for this process and certainly it's impacted us a bit here. But I'm also very confident in terms of where we sit with these three providers today at these potential data centers. I feel very good about where we ultimately will get to.

Sure. The great thing about, and we've talked about this, what are the incremental opportunities that, you know, total return, the incremental opportunities to the right side. The incremental generation in South Dakota, we recover cash during construction. There's a phase and rate plan rider that allows us to recover. AVDC is great. It's secretive to earnings, but it isn't a credit of the cash. As we've talked about, how do you finance those things a long time? So the opportunity that presents itself with meeting the resource adequacy requirements and STP, owning that generation here and building that facility, that's the right kind of incremental CAPX that we look to layer into our plan. We're excited to do that.

That's certainly the kind of stuff that gives us confidence to maintain or even push upwards on our earnings range, while also financing that in terms that make sense. So that's where we've been pretty clear. That's the type of incremental CAPX we're looking for. That's the incremental to our base plan. So we'll fund that in 50-50 kind of approach. We'll recover cash during construction with the phase and rate plan. And then obviously, ultimately, see growth off of earnings out of that once it's in service.

Yeah, I think it's an example for how we want to make sure we're protecting customers. And I think we're the discussions we're having at data centers. They want to protect customers, too, the folks that we're certainly talking to. And so going hand-in-hand, with them, with an ESA and a tariff, that is the plan and that's the skin, the plan by the first half of 26.

And Nick, I would add on to that. Just every data center site specific, some of them, to your point, we are a long generation. What is the transition needs? What is maybe some of them are not much CapEx. All of that, we do have an existing tariff. I know we talked about that a year ago. We felt like we can serve customers under that. We do still today. As you know, the national narrative on data centers has changed a bit. And there's a lot of what I would call misinformation about what they can do to certainly help shoulder the cost of the grid and, in fact, subsidize some of your other customers. I think everywhere you're going to see commissions want to understand that better.

We got feedback from the Montana Commission and we certainly want to be transparent with them and bring that forth so that you have a positive construct under what you're doing that. So, while each one unique, bringing something forth that demonstrates the value that a data center can have, a large lot of facility can have on the grid and that they are indeed paying their fair share while we would be comfortable serving them under existing tariff. I think there's also a lot of value to making sure your regulators are understanding that and, of course, then the public sentiment around that maintain positive.

Yeah, one thing on that too, Crystal, you sparked the thought for me. I think this issue of protecting customers, I think there's been a confusion around why the Puget portion was put into a book regulated entity. You know, our intent here is actually protect customers. The need here, really for the Puget piece, we needed it to get control of the facility, but from an energy perspective, we certainly didn't need it until the 2027 timetable. So, instead of imposing 30 million of costs on our existing customers, we found a means to deal with that and protect customers while that's in a first regulated entity. And if our hope is, as I mentioned earlier, ultimately to move that into a state regulated entity, when we have large load customers, we can serve through that.

And so, that is ultimate we're trying to do. We'd love to have to see it everything on a state regulated basis, but we do want to serve large load customers in any way that is best to serve our customers today.

Sure. We said repeatedly that we size our base capital plan based off our cash flow availability and to hit our credit quality metrics. Obviously, I mentioned 2025, the key drivers there are falling below the 14% episode with lack of cash. And that comes from the very mild weather and the margins we would have expected to have and then also material under collection and the Montana supply tracker. I think that's around $80 million. So we expect that to come back in 2026. But we're always planning our capital plan to maintain a solid balance sheet and have credit quality. So your question of what happens with incremental capital? And again, as I alluded to the Aberdeen generating station, we recover cash during construction of that.

If you think about the ramp period of any data center and incremental capital that would be required there, you'd have a very similar funding mechanism that you see cash during construction. And that's the kind of stuff that's creative and we certainly would look to issue equity for that kind of a creative growth. So that's where we've had a dividing line all along is we will be very disciplined about our base capital plan. And that's the regulatory lag that's 18 to 24 months off of putting that in the ground to recovery for that kind of stuff. We need ongoing cash flows to support that for stuff that drives growth as anything large load would. That's the type of stuff we look to maintain equity issuances where that makes sense.

But again, nothing in 26, just to make sure I was clear, if you have 27 and beyond, nothing in 26.

I'll start with the commercial operation day. We're looking at it. First of all, we have a plant in construction now. I think you're, I think you're speaking to the 131 megawatts. That's right. A million dollar invest. We're already making an investment in 26 for turbines. Right.

We're buying turbines.

Yeah, I think obviously we'll do whatever we need to, in essence, to keep coal strip open as long as it's economic. And obviously, if we're forced to do something we think is not necessary, you know, we would probably invest in a gas plant if we're required to do something sooner rather than later. It has always been our hope here with this investment in coal strip. We can keep that plant open and operating through the appreciable life that we expected in the 2040 timetable. And again, hopefully that technology possibly nuclear, possibly long duration story, whatever storage, whatever that is to help us replace coal strip with something that's cleaner. But if we're forced to do something sooner, either investing in environmental controls, if you will, or ultimately building a gas plant, we will do that too.

We need to serve our customers with coal strip or its replacement. And so it's hard to answer that question today, Paul, until we see ultimately what's happening. But I have to say what we're expecting out of the administration certainly helpful for our long term plans for coal strip at this point in time.

I would also just clarify our five-year capital plan. We did rolling coal strip related capex, but that's maintenance capex, Paul is how I would refer to that. There's no material environmental capex in that number. So if something changes over time, certainly we talked about that at the time. We talked about the mass rolling previously and how that might impact coal strip, but we never had any numbers in our capital plan related to that.

Yeah, I think we've been expecting to hear something on this any day now. And I guess until we actually see what the rules say and a hold off and how to respond to that.

You know, Paul, we just grabbed these two pieces from Puget and Avista at 592. We're extremely happy with those. We'd like to certainly understand how the commission looks at it and ultimately how things are working out with data centers. We're extremely happy with being able to get to 55% ownership and I'll stop there.

Yeah, I think they would be in a tough spot. I'm guessing and I'm guessing all of them are looking for means to exit other than talent doesn't need to exit. But I'm sure they're talking to folks about Great.

Sure. I'll take that one. So first your question with regard to South Dakota and the timeline there. South Dakota has a six month statute which I would acknowledge is a bit of a quick shot clock on getting through all the process and procedure and making sure they're comfortable that we are working with staff on resetting a bit of an extension to that procedural schedule. I don't have any concerns there. They're asking the right questions and going through the right process. They just need a little bit more time and they would have been in front of both Nebraska and Montana. So we're working with them on resetting the procedural. I still think that they'll likely in the end be well ahead of Montana order even with a revised procedural schedule.

So no concern there. You've also seen it progressing in Montana and what I would say is a bit normal given the nature of the interveners there and who they are. So we've responded to the motions there. You also, the interveners have to come in and overall again exactly as we would expect the docket to progress. There's the comments as to maybe commitments that we could make what they'd like to see to better understand that we do certainly recognize that in each of the jurisdictions we serve not just the ones we're in. A big part of your local commitment is your utility and we want to make sure and work through that in the right way.

So I wouldn't say there's any concern in how those dockets are progressing. The concerns expressed are I think typical for each of those interveners and the intervener testimony I think paints a path towards the direction of the things they'd want to make sure are considered in an eventual outcome.

The IRP is out and we'll have a chance to see. I don't anticipate that there's any connection between the IRP and the merger process. Thank you.

Fliding Crystal pointed out earlier on the call, it was a really good 25. I mean, issues in terms of the rate review and outcome there, but I remember the, I think we need to think about the revenue requirement associated with that that certainly continues to help us invest as those things we need to to continue to provide good service to our customers. But if you think about our ability to certainly announce the merger and all the work we're doing with our friends at Black Hills to get that from the goal line, to think about our ability now to have pulse to be resource adequate in Montana and certainly in this age when people are certainly very, very concerned about reliability and affordability, to feel much, much better about that in terms of how we serve our customers.

And also thinking about longer term, how can we continue to make investments we have, but also turn the appropriate returns we have for our shareholders. And I think 2025 set us up very, very good for that on a going forward basis. And with that, just want to thank all of you for your support of the company and your interest in what we're doing here at Northwestern. And we certainly want to thank everyone at Northwestern for all the hard work in 2025 as well.

So with that, I want to say thanks.