With a combined revenue of $21 trillion and $2.1 trillion in profits, the 2026 Fortune 500 is the definitive list of America's largest companies.

Fortune 500

Almost $20 trillion in revenue—and a record-breaking $1.87 trillion in profits. Introducing the 2025 Fortune 500, the definitive list of the biggest companies in America.

Industries included in the sector are mining, oil and gas exploration and services, pipelines, refining, and utilities.

Fortune Sector Leaders: Energy

The Fortune 500, in its 70th year in 2024, ranks the biggest U.S. companies by revenue.

The Fortune 500, in its 69th year in 2023, ranks the biggest U.S. companies by revenue.

This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 68th running of the list.

This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 67th running of the list.

F500 2021-294-First Energy

The electric utility corporation's subsidiaries and affiliates are involved in the distribution, transmission, and generation of electricity.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 66th running of the list.

F500-2020-294-First-Energy

FirstEnergy owns 10 energy companies that generate and supply energy to customers across the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 65th running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 64th running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 63rd running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 62nd running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 61st running of the list. Wal-Mart claims the top spot again. See who made the list.

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FirstEnergy was formed in 1997 through the merger of Ohio Edison and Centerior Energy. Together with its subsidiaries, FirstEnergy is engaged in the transmission, distribution, and generation of electricity in the U.S., serving customers across Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, West Virginia, Maryland, and New York. It operates through three business segments: distribution, integrated, and stand-alone transmission.

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FirstEnergy (FE): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

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FirstEnergy

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Hello, and welcome to FirstEnergy Corp.'s fourth quarter 2025 earnings call. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It's now my pleasure to turn the call over to Karen Sagot, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Karen.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to FirstEnergy's year-end 2025 earnings review. Our earnings release, presentation slides, and related financial information are available on our website at firstenergycorp.com/ir. Today's discussion will include the use of non-GAAP financial measures and forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties. Factors discussed in our earnings news release, during today's conference call, and in our SEC filings could cause our actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements. The appendix of today's presentation includes supplemental information, along with the reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures. Please read our cautionary statement and discussion of non-GAAP financial measures on slides 2 and 3 of the presentation. Our Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, Brian Tierney, will lead our call today. He is joined by Jon Taylor, our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

Now it's my pleasure to turn the call over to Brian.

Thank you, Karen. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today and for your interest in FirstEnergy. 2025 was a transformative year for our company. We executed on our plan, achieved several important milestones, and positioned FirstEnergy for long-term success in one of the most dynamic periods in our industry's history. We delivered strong financial results across all of our key metrics. We advanced key regulatory strategies in Ohio, and we reinforced our foundation for sustainable financial growth, resulting in a positive ratings action at S&P. In addition, we are announcing a $36 billion, 5-year capital investment program focused on improving customer reliability and grid resiliency. This positions the company to deliver a core earnings per share, compounded annual growth rate near the top end of 6%-8% from 2026 to 2030.

We are also pursuing significant incremental investment opportunities over the planning horizon. These include new generation investments that will provide meaningful benefits to customers in West Virginia and additional regional transmission investments that are critical to maintaining grid stability. Today, we are reporting 2025 GAAP earnings of $1.77 per share, compared to $1.70 per share in 2024. Core earnings were $2.55 per share at the top end of our revised and increased guidance range for the year, and an increase of 7.6% compared to 2024. We deployed $5.6 billion in customer-focused capital investments in 2025, an increase of nearly 25% versus last year and approximately 12% higher than our original plan for the year.

Our distribution reliability metrics improved 10% across the system compared to 2024. Notably, this includes significant year-over-year improvement in our New Jersey and Pennsylvania service territories, where we have commission-approved investment programs. Finally, we declared quarterly dividends totaling $1.78 per share, a 5% increase from 2024. This growth is consistent with our plan of providing a solid dividend yield and an attractive total shareholder return. We are pleased with our performance in 2025, and we are committed to building on this success as we deliver on our long-term financial plan. Our $36 billion capital program represents a nearly 30% increase from our previous five-year plan. It requires only modest amounts of equity to fund growth, which Jon will talk about later.

This capital program was designed through a coordinated approach that aligns enterprise strategy with insights from our five business units. It addresses state-mandated policies and local needs, and it reflects our commitment to affordability while meeting customer expectations for reliable service. The updated plan includes $19 billion of total transmission investments across our standalone transmission and integrated segments, a 35% increase from our previous plan. Company-wide, we expect our updated investment plan to translate into 10% rate base growth over the planning period. Our strategy, focused on prioritizing investments for our customers and supported by constructive regulatory jurisdictions, positions us well to deliver a core earnings CAGR near the top end of 6%-8% through 2030. Turning to slide 7, we see opportunities for incremental investments that will further support our customers in the region.

This includes our planned generation investment in West Virginia. Last week, we filed our request for the 1.2 GW combined cycle natural gas generating facility, which will be located in Maidsville, West Virginia. We ran the build, own, transfer RFP and considered that option against our self-build engineering, procurement, and construction plan. From that analysis, we determined using an EPC approach is the most prudent and cost-effective solution for our West Virginia customers. We anticipate receiving approval in the second half of the year, and we expect the new facility to be operational in 2031. Once approved by the West Virginia Public Service Commission, we will include this $2.5 billion investment in our financial plan. This will increase our consolidated rate base CAGR from 10%-11%.... When we announced this investment last November, Governor Morrisey challenged us to do more.

I accept that challenge, and with approval of this project, we will seek to add additional generation in the state to support growing data center activity. Moving to slide 8, we also see incremental opportunities in our transmission business. Our transmission operations are among the largest in PJM and encompass critical interconnections with strategic high-voltage corridors and will require ongoing investment to support load growth. We began our transmission investment program in 2014. Over the last 12 years, we've deployed $17 billion to replace aging equipment and upgrade the health of the system. This work has addressed about one-third of our transmission lines and major substation assets. Substantial investment will be required, as approximately 70% of the lines and 30% of substation assets are expected to reach end of life over the next decade.

Additionally, we have an ongoing opportunity for growth associated with the regulatory required projects, such as investments awarded to FirstEnergy as part of the most recent PJM open window process. Since 2022, our standalone transmission and integrated segments have been awarded approximately $5 billion in competitive transmission projects. Our ideally situated transmission system and our transmission planning expertise position us to continue our success with the competitive open window process. We expect the upcoming 2026 open window solicitation will be similar in scope and scale to what we have seen in the past years. We expect the PJM board to vote and approve the next round of projects in the first quarter of 2027. At that time, we will update our investment plan to include any awards. Turning to slide 9.

As we make the necessary investments in a reliable and resilient grid that drives economic growth for our communities, we are actively addressing affordability. On average, we control just 32% of the total customer electric bill in our deregulated states. The generation component represents about 60% of the total bill. Across these states, our customer bills are approximately 20% below the in-state peer average and remain at or below 2.5% of our customers' share of wallet. In fact, with our capital plan, by the time we get to 2030, our bills are expected to remain below the current rates of our in-state peers. We're proud of the value we provide, and affordability is top of mind. We're committed to doing what we can to manage customer bill impacts.

This includes continued discipline and controllable costs, which is reflected in our baseline O&M savings of 15% or over $200 million since 2022. We're also working with state regulators and leaders to identify opportunities to mitigate bill increases. We are advocating for initiatives to ensure generation supply better aligns with customer demand, and we're reviewing all programs that can provide relief to customers. In Ohio, a recent legislative change reduces property tax assessments for our utilities by about $100 million in 2027, which will have a positive impact on customer bills in our upcoming three-year rate plan. As we make critical investments to provide reliable and resilient service, we are committed to ensuring our rates remain affordable. I am confident in our plan, our management team, and our ability to deliver on our commitments.

Our execution in 2025 was strong, and we are focused on continuing that momentum. Now, I'll turn the call over to Jon.

Thanks, Brian, and good morning, everyone. Today, I will review our financial accomplishments and results for 2025 and plan regulatory proceedings for 2026, but spend most of my time reviewing the expectations and key assumptions in our 5-year plan. As Brian mentioned, 2025 was a very important and successful year for FirstEnergy, where we delivered on key financial metrics, including core EPS, base O&M, capital investments, and cash from operations. You can review more details about our results, including reconciliations for core earnings and business segment drivers, in the strategic and financial highlights presentation that was posted to our IR website yesterday afternoon.

Core earnings for the year came in at $2.55 per share, which is close to 8% above our 2024 results and 2% above our original guidance midpoint of $2.50 per share. This was largely driven by new base rates and formula rate investments, residential customer demand that was 3% above 2024 levels, and strong financial discipline in our operating expenses that allowed us to execute on significant additional maintenance work that was originally scheduled for future years. On a consolidated basis, our return on equity in 2025 was 9.8% on rate base of $27.8 billion, versus 9.4% on $25.6 billion in 2024.

Investments were $5.6 billion for the year, which are 25% above 2024 levels and 12% above plan. These include nearly 75% in formula rate investments, with 50% in FERC-regulated transmission investments, where total FEO and transmission rate base increased 11% year-over-year. Our financing plan included cash from operations of $3.7 billion, which was more than $800 million above 2024 levels, subsidiary debt issuances of $3.4 billion and a $2.5 billion convertible debt transaction in the second quarter. In November, we received constructive regulatory outcomes in Ohio, including in our 2024 base rate case, which paved the way for an upgrade from S&P to BBB flat at FE Corp on a senior unsecured basis.

2025 was a pivotal year for FirstEnergy in terms of delivering on our plan, and we remain focused on meeting our commitments to investors going forward. Turning to our regulatory strategy, we plan to file traditional base rate cases later this year in both Maryland and West Virginia. In West Virginia, we plan to file in the second quarter to reflect a $1 billion increase in rate base since 2022. Our current rates are based on a rate base of $3.2 billion, with an equity layer of 50% and an allowed ROE of 9.8%. In Maryland, we plan to file in the second half of the year to reflect investments we've made since 2022.

Our current rates include rate base of nearly $700 million, with an equity layer of 53% and an allowed return of 9.5%. In Ohio, we expect to file our three-year rate plan early in the second quarter. While we appreciate getting to a conclusion in our 2024 base rate case, we are looking forward to filing under the three-year rate plan with four test years to ensure timely recovery of critical investments we need to make on behalf of our customers. In all three of these cases, we anticipate requested rate increases at or below annual inflation as compared to the current residential bill, where on average, our monthly bills are approximately 20% below the in-state peer average. Lastly, in West Virginia, our proposed cost recovery for the generation investment consists of two phases.

First, during the construction phase, we're proposing a generation surcharge based on precedent in the state, designed to recover our total financing cost with a requested equity return at our current authorized return of 9.8%. Then, after the power plant is placed in service, we would look to transition the recovery from a surcharge to base rates at a future base rate case. As part of the financing plan for this investment, we filed an application with the U.S. Department of Energy, seeking a low-interest loan under the Energy Dominance Financing Program. We expect approval before the end of the year, which would save customers more than $200 million over the 30-year life of the loan versus traditional financing. Based on our forecast, once in service, this investment is expected to have minimal impact to customer bills.

Moving to our 5-year plan, our $36 billion capital investment plan is an increase of $8 billion or nearly 30% from our prior 5-year plan. As Brian discussed, this program results in expected rate based growth of 10% through 2030, led by transmission investments totaling $19 billion and customer-focused distribution investments to strengthen and modernize the grid. 100% of our capital plan is focused on improving customer reliability and resiliency of the system and only consists of awarded, approved, and contracted projects. We increased transmission investments by $5 billion or 35% from our previous 5-year plan. This includes transmission investments in both our standalone transmission and integrated segments. The plan also includes regional transmission projects from the 2025 and prior PJM open windows totaling $4 billion.

Total distribution investments in our distribution and integrated segments are increasing 25% or $3 billion from the prior plan. This largely reflects increases for reliability investments and core infrastructure upgrades, with the largest increase in Pennsylvania, where we are accelerating investments under the LTIP program and are recovered through the existing distribution system improvement surcharge. This investment plan includes targeted customer benefits, both on the transmission and distribution systems, and excludes the significant incremental investments we're planning in West Virginia and additional upside in transmission. Moving to core earnings, we are well positioned to deliver compounded annual earnings growth near the top end of our 6%-8% growth rate from 2026 to 2030. 

This sustainable long-term growth starts with our $36 billion capital investment plan, with 75% in formula rate programs and 10% rate base growth, targeting a consolidated ROE of 9.5%-10% through the planning period. Our load forecast includes active and contracted customers, resulting in 2% customer demand growth, which is largely driven by a 5% increase from industrials that typically are on a demand-based, not volume-based charge. As our data center pipeline becomes contracted, this will be incremental to this forecast, both from a customer demand and capital investment perspective. As we've demonstrated in the past, our plan includes financial discipline with our base O&M expenses, with modest increases of 1%-1.5% per year.

Operating expenses will continue to be a focus of the management team as we look to deploy technology, artificial intelligence, and continuous improvement initiatives to further help offset planned increases. Finally, our financing plan targets strong investment-grade credit metrics through cash from operations, long-term debt issuances, and modest levels of equity or equity-like securities that we have discussed previously. Our cash from operations funds 65% of our total investment plan and includes a modest impact from expected deductions from tax prepays on the corporate alternative minimum tax. Because of our tax position, including existing AMT deductions, the expected impact of tax prepays on cash flow is less than 2% and does not change our overall plan.

Our debt financing plan includes $16 billion in new long-term debt issuances, with FE Corp debt as a percentage of total debt at 20% versus 25% at the end of last year. Our equity needs are up to $2 billion, which includes our $100 million annual DRIP program, which has historically been in place. We will explore all options to fund our equity needs, including hybrid instruments, and anticipate any annual common equity issuances, including for the DRIP, to be approximately 1% of current market cap on average through the forecast period. In closing, we believe we have a compelling story and value proposition. Our plan is strong, focused on critical investments with significant incremental opportunities. We have a proven track record of executing on regulatory strategies that are focused on the customer and provide solid returns to our investors.

We have demonstrated our ability to be disciplined with our cost structure, not only to minimize regulatory lag, but to provide benefits to customers. We believe we provide a compelling, low-risk value proposition to investors with a total shareholder return opportunity of approximately 12% with upside potential. We are committed to meeting our commitments for our customers, our communities, and our investors and are excited about the future. Thank you for your time. Now let's open the call to Q&A.

Thank you. We'll now be conducting a question-and-answer session. We ask you to please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up, to allow as many as possible to ask questions. If you'd like to ask a question at this time, you may press star one on your telephone keypad, and a confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you'd like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. Thank you, and our first question comes from the line of Nick Campanella with Barclays. Please proceed with your questions. 

Hey, good morning. Thanks for all the updates.

Hey, morning. So, appreciate the disclosure, 6-8 at the high end now. You mentioned West Virginia could be another $1.2 billion incremental to the plan, and that would bring your RAB CAGR to 11%. Just what's the incremental financing that would be associated with that, given my understanding is there is kind of a proposal for cash CWIP, and would this kind of put you comfortably above the 6-8 range, you know, say by 2029, or how should we kind of think about that? Thanks. 

Yeah, Nick, this is Jon. I'll take the financing piece of that. You know, obviously, the cash recovery will help pretty significantly. I expect that to be 15% of the total investment. We'll target 50% of the total investment with the Department of Energy loan, with the rest likely being new equity to fund the investment. 

And then on the growth, Nick, as we get these incremental investment opportunities coming in, whether it's generation or transmission, we'll be updating what growth looks like as we put those in the plan.

Okay. Okay, so I'll take 15, 15% of that, that CapEx. Thank you for that. And then maybe just I guess there's just been a bigger focus on Pennsylvania from investors, given the various comments out of Governor Shapiro, and I know the distribution plan across the company is up. Pennsylvania, I think you're doing $6.7 billion. I also understand your rates are below average there, but just how is the increased CapEx impacting your earned returns in the state, just relative to that 10 that you show on the slides? And when do you think you're going to be going back in for a case there? Thanks.

Yeah. So Nick, it's not that long that we've come out of a rate case there, and, and the big part of that rate case was investment in the distribution system. And so the increases that we got were to fund that investment, and we're actively doing that. We have a very targeted long-term investment program there that's been approved as well. So the focus for us in Pennsylvania has been incremental investment in the distribution system to drive improvements and reliability, and that's what we're seeing in the plan. So, that's what our focus has been. We're going to go in when we need to again to reflect that increased rate base that we've been adding to since the last rate case.

But the focus in both Pennsylvania and New Jersey has always been: we want to see the investment coming from the company in those states to drive reliability, and that's what we're doing. And that does leave us in a position where we have to keep going in for rate cases, to update the rate base and, and our cost structure as well. But you know, in whether it's in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, all of our states, we're keenly focused on affordability, and that has us focusing on things like our own O&M and then other bills charges. We mentioned taxes in Ohio coming down that are flowing through the rates, but, you know, investment and affordability are the things that are top of mind for us in Pennsylvania and our other states.

Yeah, Nick, and I would just add on to roughly 45% of the investment that we're making in Pennsylvania is under the LTIP program, which is recovered through the DSIC surcharge. So that provides for, you know, interim recovery of our investments and really helps us kind of with base rate case planning and that type of thing.

The next question comes in the line of Shar Pourreza with Wells Fargo. Please proceed with your question.

Morning. Brian, I just want to make sure we, we have the numbers correct here. So, so the CapEx numbers were obviously healthy. The rate base growth is likely a little bit closer to 10.4%, right? Just as you're adding West Virginia, remind us, does that sort of get you to closer to 11.4%? Because I know we're getting quoted on 11%, but I think West Virginia is probably 100 basis points accretive to that. And then how do we sort of think about the delta between 11.4% when you add West Virginia in it and your EPS growth, where you're already at the higher end?

So I guess another way to ask it is: what is the amount of lag between rate based growth and the newly guided, let's just say, 11.4% rate

based growth when you add West Virginia in there?

Yeah. So Nick, as we're looking at this, you know, we're trying to give transparency and insight into what's in the plan today, and then what are the things that could be added to the plan and what those additions would look like. Your math is about right on the 10.4-11.4. And we've always said we'll update the CapEx plan, we'll update earnings as things like an incremental transmission comes in. But what we're not gonna do is put things in there that are speculative and not approved yet, and then have to take them out of the plan. So our idea is, here's what the plan is today, here's what the incremental could be, and if we need to change what the earnings growth rate is, as we add things to the plan, we'll do that at that time.

Got it. Okay, thanks for clarifying that, because I know, Brian, there's a lot of confusion out there with 10% versus 10.4%, and there's a big difference between 10% and 10.4%. And then just lastly on West Virginia, can you just expand on the incremental opportunities post the current project? So what's the potential timing there, the turbine supplies, where are the D.C. conversations, et cetera? Thanks. 

Yeah, thanks for that, Shar. So as we look at our states and we look at states that are wanting us to invest in regulated generation, West Virginia stands at the top of that. I mentioned the governor's challenge to us to do more. He has 50 gigawatts by 2050 goal that he is searching for. And if we get, you know, constructive regulatory approval here, we're going to be going back into West Virginia and looking at ways that we can add another 1,200 megawatts, hopefully dedicate that to data center load, talking with hyperscalers, with developers about doing that.

And the relationships that we're beginning now with suppliers like Siemens on the turbine side, in terms of what we're doing with the first EPC that we're going forward, we'll leverage those relationships, going forward for the incremental build. But when we look at our universe of opportunity to invest in generation, West Virginia has said to us, "We're open for business, want you to invest here." And as a regulated, fully integrated utility there, looking to drive economic development, we want to be a key part of that for our customers and the state of West Virginia.

Our next question comes from the line of David Arcaro with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your questions.

Wondering if you could touch on New Jersey and the backdrop there, kind of expectations, you know, for timing of your next rate case and just overall, your perspective, you know, following the executive orders and some of the changes we could see ahead in the regulatory backdrop?

Yeah, so obviously, affordability is front and center for Governor Sherrill. We've been working with her and her staff to look at ways that we can address affordability in the states. What are items on the bill that we can either reduce or eliminate? But again, when we were in our last rate case there, the real focus of that was the worst-performing circuits that we had, and the big point of that rate case was: Are we going to make the incremental investment to drive increased reliability in those circuits? We've been doing that since the last rate case, and we're seeing related improvement in reliability there, which is what New Jersey wanted from that case. So we're gonna continue with that activity. We're gonna work constructively with the governor and her staff, with the BPU and others to address affordability.

But ultimately, we'll have to go back in for another rate case to keep that investment coming. Our rates in New Jersey are significantly below our in-state peers, and even with the investment that we have planned there, we anticipate to still be below our in-state peers, but we have to improve reliability. We're singularly focused on that and affordability at the same time. So we're gonna work constructively with everyone to time a next rate case and try and maintain that affordability as well.

Got it. Okay, thanks. That's helpful. Could you touch on the outlook that's embedded in your plan for ROEs? I guess it looks like you're assuming, you know, basically flattish, kind of holding ROEs steady throughout the plan. I wanted to confirm that if you're around a 9.8 now and you're planning on just holding that essentially between 9.5-10 going forward. I guess, could you touch on kind of the key levers there or key moving pieces, as you're sketching out the outlook for earned ROEs?

Yeah, thank you for that, David. We're continuing to be in the target in that 9.5%-10% range. Our goal is to be as close to our authorized returns as possible, given the amount that we're investing. We're going to be going in regularly for rate cases, because of the magnitude and the investment that we're making to drive reliability. We're confident that we'll be able to stay in that 9.5%-10% range, with the flight of rate cases that we have and the investment that we're making today.

Our next question is from the line of Ryan Levine with Citi. Please just give us your questions.

Good morning. I was hoping you'd be able to give some color around the execution abilities of your $36 billion CapEx plan. Do you have sufficient internal engineering and project management capability to deliver on the step-up of CapEx, especially in transmission, given labor tightness? And how are you seeing in-house versus contractor labor relations to be able to deliver on this?

Yeah. So thank you for the question, Ryan. We're very confident in our ability to deliver against the plan, especially the transmission side of it, where we're having considerable growth. We've been investing in that side of the business significantly since 2014. We have the relationships with contractors, labor, suppliers to allow us to do that, and we're ramping up those relationships as our investment is ramping up. But project management, discipline, supplier relationships, all those things are key to us executing against our plan. And Mark Mroczynski and his team on the transmission side are laser-like focused on our ability to deliver, and things are going according to plan there. So, it's a heavy lift, no doubt, but we have the expertise and relationships to deliver.

So we're very confident in our ability to make it happen.

On that front, are there certain aspects that you're most constrained on? Are there any external, external markers that we could track the progress around the execution?

I don't think so. I mean, we're starting to see on the distribution side, we're starting to see the tightness in the supplier market is starting to ease. Suppliers are looking for people that they'll view as strategic partners, that they can look to be, you know, delivering significant volumes of demand to them going forward. And we're obviously gonna be one of those players. We've done things like made orders out in time, things that are no regrets on the transmission and distribution side. And then we have Chris Beam, who's working very hard on the generation side, fostering relationships with Siemens as our OEM on the key components of the generation that we have. So it's tight out there.

It's not as tight as it was during COVID, but we believe we have the relationships to get us through what we need to do to drive the growth that we have planned.

Okay, and then one last unrelated question: How are you assessing the potential impacts from the Maryland Lower Bills Act and the more similar affordability-driven legislation in that state?

Yeah. So, you know, we're seeing this across our system where people are very, very focused on affordability, and we are engaging all of our jurisdictions and legislatures in that discussion. We're well-positioned relative to our peers on that. We talked about on the call that, you know, our part of the bill in our deregulated states, it's only about 32% of the bill, with generation being about 60%. So there are some obvious places to focus on where the increases in the bill have come on, which is why we're supportive of extending the, the capacity auction caps. I think it would be beneficial to our customers to even lower those caps for existing generation, and we've been supportive of things like a second auction that would that would bring new generation to the fore, which is what's needed.

So, we've been focused on affordability, on our cost structure, and looking for ways to engage with all stakeholders to make sure that electricity is affordable to our customers going forward.

The next question is from the line of Steve Fleishman with Wolfe Research. Please just give your questions.

Hey, good morning. Thanks for the update.

So just to follow up on the West Virginia, maybe just a little more specifics on what do they actually need to approve in this order? Just that the plan is needed and the cost levels and I guess the CWIP rate making, are those the key items that need approval?

And then the exact timing, the exact timing to, like, any rough sense of when in the second half?

Yeah. So, yeah, what they're gonna approve is a certificate of need and public necessity. We're asking for the interim financing in the plan where we get AFUDC, CWIP. We've asked for so what that will be during the plan. And we've also proposed what our financing plan will be for the plan, both on an interim basis and a long-term basis, and so that's why we're moving forward with the DOE approval there. I think the commission has up to a year to act on this. We've heard that they are interested in acting much quicker than that to get the plant online even sooner, and so we do anticipate that it will be. Again, I can't be more specific than the second half... and we're expecting a procedural schedule on the filing within the next month.

So, they are, I'd say West Virginia is fast-tracking the investment because they know how important it is to the economic development in the state, and I think you're seeing that everywhere from the governor's interest in making sure that the investment's made, right down to the commission. I think they're gonna do things right. I think they're gonna make sure it's needed, and dot their i's and cross their t's, but I think they're gonna be moving with dispatch.

Okay, great. That's helpful. Then one other question just on the equity plans. Could any color on the $2 billion up to $2 billion, kind of, the timing of that? Yeah, any color on that?

Yeah, Steve, it's pretty much ratable over the 5-year period. You know, beginning in 2026, with about 1% of our total market cap. With, and that includes the DRIP program that, you know, has been in place historically. But I would plan on pretty ratable issuances over the 5-year planning period. And again, you know, that $2 billion includes potential equity-like securities, you know, so we'll look at hybrids to kinda, you know, reduce the common equity issuance need, and we'll look at that over this year.

Our next question comes from the line of Carly Davenport with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your questions.

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. Maybe-

Morning. Maybe just on the transmission CapEx piece of the plan, can you just talk a little bit about what portion of the near-term spend, so say 2026-2028, is tied to projects with right of way or siting and permitting that are in advanced stages versus still in earlier stages?

Yeah, so everything that we have that's in the plan, Carly, is either approved by a commission, doesn't need approval, or we have clear line of sight to permitting to getting it done. So if it's in the plan, there's very high confidence that all of the approvals necessary are either received or are in flight, and we anticipate getting them in the near term. So if there's a long putt on something, or we don't have line of sight to that being in service and the dates that we're talking about it, it's not in the plan. And we have a big enough portfolio of projects, so if something happens on one project in particular, we can advance another, and do the like, and have that flexibility over the planning period.

But we're extremely confident in what's in the near-term part of that plan, and if we are still awaiting approvals or the like, what we talk about with the PJM open windows, then it's not in the plan yet.

Great. Okay, that's clear. Thank you. And then just to follow up on, on the affordability questions. I know in the slides you had mentioned that you expect bills to remain below in-state peers throughout the planning period. Is there anything specific that you can provide on, a sort of % bill inflation target that you'd expect over the plan period?

Yeah, we anticipate it to be below inflation. So we anticipate that the share of wallet and the like will stay the same. But, you know, our affordability position is really one of our strengths, and it's something we're gonna focus on. People are always concerned about, "Oh, my bill's going up X%." We're focused on making that as small as possible and keeping a very modest share of our customers' wallet as we go forward, and that ranges significantly from places where we have, you know, wealthier customers to places where we have customers closer to or the mean average income.

But we're very sensitive to that affordability and doing everything we can on our cost structure side and on the bill components that we're working with the various commissions on to make sure that the impact to customers is as low as possible and certainly trying to keep that below inflation.

Got it. Okay, thank you so much for the color.

The next question is from the line of Jeremy Tonet with J.P. Morgan. Please proceed with your questions.

Just wanted to, sorry, clarify real quick on the CCGT financing. As far as the components there, there's 50% DOE loan, and then the remaining 50%, what are the components there?

Yeah, so, so you're right. The loan, we would target 50% of the total investment value. And then if we get the approval of cash recovery during the construction phase, that would fund about 15% of the overall investment, and then the rest, which would be about 35%, would be new equity needs that we would have to put into the plan.

Got it. Thank you for that. And then just want to pivot towards earned ROEs at this point. Just wondering, I guess, where you see the biggest gap versus allowed, I guess, you know, key focus going forward, which jurisdictions have, you know, the earned returns too low authorized?

FirstEnergy (FE) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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